Corpora and language education.docx

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Corporaandlanguageeducation

Corporaandlanguageeducation

RichardXiao,TonyMcEnery

LancasterUniversity

（2005manuscript）

Abstract:

Corpuslinguisticsasamethodologyoflinguisticsresearchhasgainedsuchprominenceovertimethatcorporahavebeenusedextensivelyinnearlyallbranchesoflinguistics.Thisarticleexplores,throughaseriesofstudiesundertakensofar,thepotentialusesofcorpusdatainoneoftheseareasClanguageeducation.Wewilldiscussawiderangeofissuesrelatedtousingcorporainlanguagepedagogy,includingsyllabusdesign,materialsdevelopment,data-drivenlearner（DLL）,teachinglanguageforspecificpurposes,languagetesting,teachertrainingaswellaslearnercorpusandinterlanguageanalysis.

Keywords:

corpora,languagepedagogy,data-drivenlearning,learnercorpus,interlanguageanalysis

1.Introduction

Thecorpus-basedapproachtolinguisticsandlanguageeducationhasgainedprominenceoverthepastfourdecades,particularlysincethemid-1980s.Thisisbecausecorpusanalysiscanbeilluminating‘invirtuallyallbranchesoflinguisticsorlanguagelearning’（Leech1997:

9;cf.alsoBiberetal1998:

11）.Oneofthestrengthsofcorpusdataliesinitsempiricalnature,whichpoolstogethertheintuitionsofagreatnumberofspeakersandmakeslinguisticanalysismoreobjective（McEneryandWilson2001:

103）.Nowadays,corporahavehadsuchastronginfluenceonrecentreferencepublishing（atleastforEnglish,e.g.Sinclairetal1990;Francisetal1996,1998;Biberetal1999）that‘evenpeoplewhohaveneverheardofacorpusareusingtheproductofcorpus-basedinvestigation’（Hunston2002:

96）.Hunstonsummarizesthechangesbroughtaboutbycorporatodictionariesandotherreferencebooksintermsoffive‘emphases’:

anemphasisonfrequency,anemphasisoncollocationandphraseology,anemphasisonvariation,anemphasisonlexisingrammarandanemphasisonauthenticity（ibid）.Inadditiontoreferencepublishing,corporahavebeenusedextensivelyinnearlyallbranchesoflinguisticsincluding,forexample,lexicographicandlexicalstudies,grammaticalstudies,languagevariationstudies,contrastiveandtranslationstudies,diachronicstudies,semantics,pragmatics,stylistics,sociolinguistics,discourseanalysis,forensiclinguistics,andlanguagepedagogy.Corporahavewonwidespreadpopularityovertimeinspiteofthefactthattheystilloccasionallyattracthostilecriticism,forexample,fromscholarssuchasWiddowson（1990,2000）.Inthisarticle,wewillnotbeconcernedwiththedebateovertheuseofcorpusdatainlinguisticanalysisandlanguageeducation.Inourview,suchadebateisoveranon-issue.ReadersinterestedintheprosandconsofusingcorpusdatashouldrefertoSinclair（1991）,Widdowson（1991,2000）,deBeaugrande（2001）andStubbs（2001）.1Norwillwediscusstheuseofcorporainawiderangeoflanguagestudies.ReaderscanrefertoHunston（2002）andMcEneryetal（2005）forafurtherdiscussionofusingcorporainappliedlinguistics.Thisarticlefocusesonlyonusingcorporainlanguageeducation.2

Theearly1990ssawanincreasinginterestinapplyingthefindingsofcorpus-basedresearchtolanguagepedagogy.Theupsurgeofinterestisevidencedbythesixwell-receivedbiennialinternationalconferencesonTeachingandLanguageCorpora（TaLC）.3Thisisalsoapparentwhenonelooksatthepublishedliterature.Inadditiontoalargenumberofjournalarticles,atleastninesingle-authoredoreditedvolumeshaverecentlybeenproducedonthetopicofteachingandlanguagecorpora:

Wichmannetal（1997）,KettemannandMarko（2000）,BurnardandMcEnery（2000）,Aston（2001）,Hunston（2002）,Grangeretal（2002）,Tan（2002）,Astonetal（2004）andSinclair（2004）.Theseworkscoverawiderangeofissuesrelatedtousingcorporainlanguagepedagogy,e.g.corpus-basedlanguagedescription,corpusanalysisinclassroom,andlearnercorpora（cf.Keck2004）.

Intheremainderofthisarticle,wewillexploretheuseofcorporainanumberofareasinlanguagepedagogy,includingsyllabusdesign,materialsdevelopment,usingcorporainclassroom,domain-specificlanguageandprofessionalcommunication,languagetesting,teachertraining,aswellaslearnercorpusresearch.

2.Corporaandlanguagepedagogy:

aconvergence

IntheopeningchapterofTeachingandLanguageCorpora（Wichmannetal1997）,Leechobservedthataconvergencebetweenteachingandlanguagecorporawasapparent.Thatconvergencehasthreefocuses,asnotedbyLeech（1997）:

thedirectuseofcorporainteaching（teachingabout,teachingtoexploit,andexploitingtoteach）,theindirectuseofcorporainteaching（referencepublishing,materialsdevelopment,andlanguagetesting）,andfurtherteaching-orientedcorpusdevelopment（LSPcorpora,L1developmentalcorporaandL2learnercorpora）.Thesethreefocusesofconvergenceareworthyofnote.

Ofthesefocuses,‘teachingabout’meansteachingcorpuslinguisticsasanacademicsubjectlikeothersub-disciplinesoflinguisticssuchassociolinguisticsordiscourseanalysis.Corpuslinguisticshasnowfounditswayintothecurriculaforlinguisticandlanguagerelateddegreeprogramsatbothpostgraduateandundergraduatelevels.‘Teachingtoexploit’meansprovidingstudentswith‘hands-on’know-how,asemphasizedinMcEneryetal（2005）,sothattheycanexploitcorporafortheirownpurposes.Oncethestudenthasacquiredthenecessaryknowledgeandtechniquesofcorpus-basedlanguagestudy,learningactivitymaybecomestudentcentred.If‘teachingabout’isviewedasbeingassociatedtypicallywithstudentsoflinguisticsandlanguages,‘teachingtoexploit’relatestostudentsofallsubjectswhichinvolvelanguagestudyandlearning.‘Exploitingtoteach’meansusingacorpus-basedapproachtoteachinglanguageandlinguisticscourses,whichwouldotherwisebetaughtusingnon-corpus-basedmethods.Asfortheindirectuseofcorporainlanguageteaching,wehavealreadynotedatthebeginningofthisarticlethatcorporahaverevolutionizedreferencepublishinginamannersuchthatpeoplewhohaveneverheardofacorpusareusingtheproductsofcorpusresearch.Aswewillseelaterinthefollowingsections,corporaalsohavealottoofferintermsofsyllabusdesign,materialsdevelopment,classroomconcordancingandlanguagetesting,etc.Finally,teaching-orientedcorporaareparticularlyusefulinteachinglanguagesforspecificpurposes（LSPcorpora）andinresearchonL1（developmentalcorpora）andL2（learnercorpora）languageacquisition,whichwillbediscussedinsection8.

3.Syllabusdesignandmaterialsdevelopment

Whilecorporahavebeenusedextensivelytoprovidemoreaccuratedescriptionsoflanguageuse,anumberofscholarshavealsousedcorpusdatadirectlytolookcriticallyatexistingTEFL（TeachingEnglishasaForeignLanguage）syllabusesandteachingmaterials.Mindt（1996）,forexample,findsthattheuseofgrammaticalstructuresintextbooksforteachingEnglishdiffersconsiderablyfromtheuseofthesestructuresinL1English.HeobservesthatonecommonfailureofEnglishtextbooksisthattheyteach‘akindofschoolEnglishwhichdoesnotseemtoexistoutsidetheforeignlanguageclassroom’（Mindt1996:

232）.Assuch,learnersoftenfinditdifficulttocommunicatesuccessfullywithnativespeakers.Asimpleyetimportantroleofcorporainlanguageeducationistoprovidemorerealisticexamplesoflanguageusage.Inaddition,however,corporamayprovidedata,especiallyfrequencydata,whichmayfurtheralterwhatistaught.Forexample,onthebasisofacomparisonofthefrequenciesofmodalverbs,futuretimeexpressionsandconditionalclausesincorporaandtheirgradingintextbooksusedwidelyinGermany,Mindt（ibid）concludesthatoneproblemwithnon-corpus-basedsyllabusesisthattheorderinwhichthoseitemsaretaughtinsyllabuses‘veryoftendoesnotcorrespondtowhatonemightreasonablyexpectfromcorpusdataofspokenandwrittenEnglish’,arguingthatteachingsyllabusesshouldbebasedonempiricalevidenceratherthantraditionandintuitionwithfrequencyofusageasaguidetopriorityforteaching（Mindt1996:

245-246）.

Hunston（2002:

189）echoesMindtsuggestingthat‘theexperienceofusingcorporashouldleadtoratherdifferentviewsofsyllabusdesign.’Thetypeofsyllabusshediscussesextensivelyisa‘lexicalsyllabus’,originallyproposedbySinclairandRenouf（1988）andoutlinedfullybyWillis（1990）.AccordingtoSinclairandRenouf（1988:

148）,alexicalsyllabuswouldfocuson‘（a）thecommonestwordformsinalanguage;（b）thecentralpatternsofusage;（c）thecombinationswhichtheyusuallyform.’Whilethetermmayoccasionallybemisinterpretedtoindicateasyllabusconsistingsolelyofvocabularyitems,alexicalsyllabusactuallycovers‘allaspectsoflanguage,differingfromaconventionalsyllabusonlyinthatthecentralconceptoforganizationislexis’（Hunston2002:

189）.Sinclair（2000:

191）wouldsaythatthegrammarcoveredinalexicalsyllabusis‘lexicalgrammar’,not‘lexico-grammar’,whichattemptsto‘buildagrammarandlexisonanequalbasis.’Indeed,asMurison-Bowie（1996:

185）observes,‘inusingcorporainateachingcontext,itisfrequentlydifficulttodistinguishwhatisalexicalinvestigationandwhatisasyntacticone.Oneleadstotheother,andthiscanbeusedtoadvantageinateaching/learningcontext.’Sinclairandhiscolleagues’proposalforalexicalsyllabusisechoedbyLewis（1993,1997a,1997b,2000）whoprovidesstrongsupportforthelexicalapproachtolanguageteaching.

Afocusofthelexicalapproachtolanguagepedagogyisteachingcollocationsandtherelatedconceptofprefabricatedunits.The