Publisher's Synopsis
The corpus-based approach to linguistics and language education has gained prominence over the past four decades, particularly since the mid-1980s. This is because corpus analysis can be illuminating "in virtually all branches of linguistics or language learning". Over the past two decades, corpora (i. e. large systematic collections of written and/or spoken language stored on a computer and used in linguistic analysis) and corpus evidence have not only been used in linguistic research but also in the teaching and learning of languages probably a use that "the compilers [of corpora] may not have foreseen". There is now a wide range of fully corpus-based reference works (such as dictionaries and grammars) available to learners and teachers, and a number of dedicated researchers and teachers have made concrete suggestions on how concordances and corpus-derived exercises could be used in the language teaching classroom, thus significantly. The use of corpora in language teaching and learning has been more indirect than direct. This is perhaps because the direct use of corpora in language pedagogy is restricted by a number of factors including, for example, the level and experience of learners, time constraints, curricular requirements, knowledge and skills required of teachers for corpus analysis and pedagogical mediation, and the access to resources, such as computers, and appropriate software tools and corpora, or a combination of these. This monograph, Corpora and Language Teaching, explores how corpora have impacted on language pedagogy indirectly. While corpora have been used extensively to provide more accurate descriptions of language use, a number of scholars have also used corpus data directly to look critically at existing teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) syllabuses and teaching materials. In addition, however, corpora may provide data, especially frequency data, which may further alter what is taught. Corpora are useful in this respect, not only because collocations can only reliably be measured quantitatively, but also because the key word in context (KWIC) view of corpus data exposes learners to a great deal of authentic data in a structured way. The corpus-based approach to linguistics and language education has gained prominence over the past four decades, particularly since the mid-1980s. This is because corpus analysis can be illuminating "in virtually all branches of linguistics or language learning". Over the past two decades, corpora (i. e. large systematic collections of written and/or spoken language stored on a computer and used in linguistic analysis) and corpus evidence have not only been used in linguistic research but also in the teaching and learning of languages probably a use that "the compilers [of corpora] may not have foreseen". There is now a wide range of fully corpus-based reference works (such as dictionaries and grammars) available to learners and teachers, and a number of dedicated researchers and teachers have made concrete suggestions on how concordances and corpus-derived exercises could be used in the language teaching classroom, thus significantly. The use of corpora in language teaching and learning has been more indirect than direct. This is perhaps because the direct use of corpora in language pedagogy is restricted by a number of factors including, for example, the level and experience of learners, time constraints, curricular requirements, knowledge and skills required of teachers for corpus analysis and pedagogical mediation, and the access to resources, such as computers, and appropriate software tools and corpora, or a combination of these. This monograph, Corpora and Language Teaching, explores how corpora have impacted on language pedagogy indirectly. While corpora have been used extensively to provide more accurate descriptions of language use, a number of scholars have also used corpus data directly to look critically at existing teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) syllabuses and teaching materials. In addition, however, corpora may provide data, especially frequency data, which may further alter what is taught. Corpora are useful in this respect, not only because collocations can only reliably be measured quantitatively, but also because the key word in context (KWIC) view of corpus data exposes learners to a great deal of authentic data in a structured way. The corpus-based approach to linguistics and language education has gained prominence over the past four decades, particularly since the mid-1980s. This is because corpus analysis can be illuminating "in virtually all branches of linguistics or language learning". Over the past two decades, corpora (i. e. large systematic collections of written and/or spoken language stored on a computer and used in linguistic analysis) and corpus evidence have not only been used in linguistic research but also in the teaching and learning of languages probably a use that "the compilers [of corpora] may not have foreseen". There is now a wide range of fully corpus-based reference works (such as dictionaries and grammars) available to learners and teachers, and a number of dedicated researchers and teachers have made concrete suggestions on how concordances and corpus-derived exercises could be used in the language teaching classroom, thus significantly. The use of corpora in language teaching and learning has been more indirect than direct. This is perhaps because the direct use of corpora in language pedagogy is restricted by a number of factors including, for example, the level and experience of learners, time constraints, curricular requirements, knowledge and skills required of teachers for corpus analysis and pedagogical mediation, and the access to resources, such as computers, and appropriate software tools and corpora, or a combination of these. This monograph, Corpora and Language Teaching, explores how corpora have impacted on language pedagogy indirectly. While corpora have been used extensively to provide more accurate descriptions of language use, a number of scholars have also used corpus data directly to look critically at existing teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) syllabuses and teaching materials. In addition, however, corpora may provide data, especially frequency data, which may further alter what is taught. Corpora are useful in this respect, not only because collocations can only reliably be measured quantitatively, but also because the key word in context (KWIC) view of corpus data exposes learners to a great deal of authentic data in a structured way. The corpus-based approach to linguistics and language education has gained prominence over the past four decades, particularly since the mid-1980s. This is because corpus analysis can be illuminating "in virtually all branches of linguistics or language learning". Over the past two decades, corpora (i. e. large systematic collections of written and/or spoken language stored on a computer and used in linguistic analysis) and corpus evidence have not only been used in linguistic research but also in the teaching and learning of languages probably a use that "the compilers [of corpora] may not have foreseen". There is now a wide range of fully corpus-based reference works (such as dictionaries and grammars) available to learners and teachers, and a number of dedicated researchers and teachers have made concrete suggestions on how concordances and corpus-derived exercises could be used in the language teaching classroom, thus significantly. The use of corpora in language teaching and learning has been more indirect than direct. This is perhaps because the direct use of corpora in language pedagogy is restricted by a number of factors including, for example, the level and experience of learners, time constraints, curricular requirements, knowledge and skills required of teachers for corpus analysis and pedagogical mediation, and the access to resources, such as computers, and appropriate software tools and corpora, or a combination of these. This monograph, Corpora and Language Teaching, explores how corpora have impacted on language pedagogy indirectly. While corpora have been used extensively to provide more accurate descriptions of language use, a number of scholars have also used corpus data directly to look critically at existing teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) syllabuses and teaching materials. In addition, however, corpora may provide data, especially frequency data, which may further alter what is taught. Corpora are useful in this respect, not only because collocations can only reliably be measured quantitatively, but also because the key word in context (KWIC) view of corpus data exposes learners to a great deal of authentic data in a structured way.
