Heuristic theory in corpus compilation

Building the Asian Corpus of English (ACE, 2014) involved complex interactions between researchers, participants, transcription conventions, software and hardware. The gathering and transcribing of naturally occurring conversations of English among Asian multilinguals was undertaken by a team of more than twenty researchers in nine locations across Asia. Modelled on the Vienna Oxford Corpus of English (VOICE), ACE faced unique challenges due to linguistic, cultural and geographical differences. These problems were solved through procedures and tools known as heuristics which were built on prior experience and also trial and error. The process of developing and categorising these skills are presented with experiences shared by ACE researchers and the author along with examples from the corpus. Copyright © 2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH.