Over the last ten or so years, great interest has been shown in the application of corpus linguistics to language teaching (Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Melia eds. 1997, 2000; Wichmann, Fligelstone, McEnery, Knowles eds. 1997; Partington 1998; Burnard, McEnery eds. 2000; Aston 2001; Ghadessy, Henry, Roseberry eds. 2001; Kettemann, Marko eds. 2002; Tan ed. 2002; Aston, Bernardini, Stewart eds. 2004; Sinclair ed. 2004; Gavioli 2005; Aijmer ed. 2009). The major contribution of corpus linguistics has been in the field of English for Academic Purposes (EAP). The possibility to gather and analyze large quantities of data has made it possible to study the characteristics of different discourse domains and to investigate phenomena of variation. Thanks to the integration of corpus-based approaches with discourse analytical methods, EAP studies have been able to alternate between large-scale descriptions and investigations of more specific aspects (e.g. the language of abstracts in economic research articles). The joint contribution of corpus-based studies and discourse analytical methods can be seen as one of the reasons for the current burgeoning of EAP studies, with important repercussions on “task-based” didactic approaches. A significant development in this respect is the recent change of focus from EAP teaching to EAP learning. The increased familiarity of students with electronic tools for analysis can contribute to the development of their language awareness and can favour learner autonomy. In particular, the available studies on the use of corpora by students (with the aim of elaborating, testing and discussing hypotheses) represent one of the major developments in the field of EAP research. This chapter discusses the relevance of corpus work for learners of English as a foreign language. I describe the work of a group of Italian undergraduate students performing corpus analysis for the development of EAP writing skills. The examples of learners’ work discussed in the chapter provide a pretty clear idea about how students interact with concordance material from EAP text corpora to grasp meanings and issues related to the EAP world of knowledge and how they manipulate it to produce novel texts.
Text and corpus work, EAP writing and language learners / Diani, Giuliana. - STAMPA. - (2012), pp. 45-66.
Text and corpus work, EAP writing and language learners
DIANI, Giuliana
2012
Abstract
Over the last ten or so years, great interest has been shown in the application of corpus linguistics to language teaching (Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Melia eds. 1997, 2000; Wichmann, Fligelstone, McEnery, Knowles eds. 1997; Partington 1998; Burnard, McEnery eds. 2000; Aston 2001; Ghadessy, Henry, Roseberry eds. 2001; Kettemann, Marko eds. 2002; Tan ed. 2002; Aston, Bernardini, Stewart eds. 2004; Sinclair ed. 2004; Gavioli 2005; Aijmer ed. 2009). The major contribution of corpus linguistics has been in the field of English for Academic Purposes (EAP). The possibility to gather and analyze large quantities of data has made it possible to study the characteristics of different discourse domains and to investigate phenomena of variation. Thanks to the integration of corpus-based approaches with discourse analytical methods, EAP studies have been able to alternate between large-scale descriptions and investigations of more specific aspects (e.g. the language of abstracts in economic research articles). The joint contribution of corpus-based studies and discourse analytical methods can be seen as one of the reasons for the current burgeoning of EAP studies, with important repercussions on “task-based” didactic approaches. A significant development in this respect is the recent change of focus from EAP teaching to EAP learning. The increased familiarity of students with electronic tools for analysis can contribute to the development of their language awareness and can favour learner autonomy. In particular, the available studies on the use of corpora by students (with the aim of elaborating, testing and discussing hypotheses) represent one of the major developments in the field of EAP research. This chapter discusses the relevance of corpus work for learners of English as a foreign language. I describe the work of a group of Italian undergraduate students performing corpus analysis for the development of EAP writing skills. The examples of learners’ work discussed in the chapter provide a pretty clear idea about how students interact with concordance material from EAP text corpora to grasp meanings and issues related to the EAP world of knowledge and how they manipulate it to produce novel texts.
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