Ute Römer

Corpus Research Applications in Second Language Teaching

Over the past few decades, corpora have not only revolutionized linguistic research but have also had an impact on second language learning and teaching. In the field of applied linguistics, more and more researchers and practitioners treasure what corpus linguistics has to offer to language pedagogy. Still, corpora and corpus tools have yet to be widely implemented in pedagogical contexts. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of pedagogical corpus applications and to review recent publications in the area of corpus linguistics and language teaching. It covers indirect corpus applications, such as in syllabus or materials design, as well as direct applications of corpora in the second language classroom. The article aims to illustrate how both general and specialized language corpora can be used in these applications and discusses directions for future research in applied corpus linguistics.

Pedagogical Applications of Corpora: Some Reflections on the Current Scope and a Wish List for Future Developments

Despite the progress that has been made in the field of corpus linguistics and language teaching, the practice of ELT has so far been largely unaffected by the advances of corpus research, and corpora and concordances are hardly used in the German EFL classroom. This article aims to take stock of developments in this area and formulates tasks for the future of pedagogical corpus applications. After a brief overview of relevant corpus resources and a discussion of their availability, I will give an introduction to some direct and indirect approaches to using corpora in English language learning and teaching. The paper will then explore some current limitations of pedagogical corpus work and close with comments on a few desiderata in research and practice.

Linking learner corpus and experimental data in studying second language learners' knowledge of verb-argument constructions*

Abstract This paper combines data from learner corpora and psycholinguistic experiments in an attempt to find out what advanced learners of English (first language backgrounds German and Spanish) know about a range of common verbargument constructions (VACs), such as the ‘V about n’ construction (e.g. she thinks about chocolate a lot). Learners’ dominant verb-VAC associations are examined based on evidence retrieved from the German and Spanish subcomponents of ICLE and LINDSEI and collected in lexical production tasks in which participants complete VAC frames (e.g. ‘he ___ about the...’) with verbs that may fill the blank (e.g. talked, thought, wondered). The paper compares findings from the different data sets and highlights the value of linking corpus and experimental evidence in studying linguistic phenomena

Verb-argument constructions in advanced L2 English learner production: Insights from corpora and verbal fluency tasks

Abstract This paper draws on data from learner and native-speaker corpora as well as psycholinguistic data to gain insights into second language speaker knowledge of English verb-argument constructions (VACs). For each of 34 VACs, L1 German and L1 Spanish advanced English learners’ and English native speakers’ dominant verb–VAC associations are examined based on data retrieved from the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE), the Louvain International Database of Spoken English Interlanguage (LINDSEI), their respective Native Speaker (NS) reference corpora, and data collected in verbal fluency tasks in which participants complete VAC frames, such as, ‘she _______ with the…’ with verbs that come to mind. We compare findings from the different data sets and consider the strengths and limitations of each in relation to questions in usage-based second language acquisition and Construction Grammar.

Language assessment and the inseparability of lexis and grammar: Focus on the construct of speaking:

This paper aims to connect recent corpus research on phraseology with current language testing practice. It discusses how corpora and corpus-analytic techniques can illuminate central aspects of speech and help in conceptualizing the notion of lexicogrammar in second language speaking assessment. The description of speech and some of its core features is based on the 1.8-million-word Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE) and on the 10-million-word spoken component of the British National Corpus (BNC). Analyses of word frequency and keyword lists are followed by an automatic extraction of different types of phraseological items that are particularly common in speech and serve important communicative functions. These corpus explorations provide evidence for the strong interconnectedness of lexical items and grammatical structures in natural language. Based on the assumption that the existence of lexicogrammatical patterns is of relevance for constructs of speaking tests, the paper then reviews rubrics of popular high-stakes speaking tests and critically discusses how far these rubrics capture the central aspects of spoken language identified in the corpus analyses as well as the centrality of phraseology in language. It closes with recommendations for speaking assessment in the light of this characterization of real-world spoken lexicogrammar.

Connor, U., & Upton, T. A. (2004). Discourse in the professions: Perspectives from corpus linguistics

DISCOURSE IN THE PROFESSIONS: PERSPECTIVES FROM CORPUS LINGUISTICS. Ulla Connor and Thomas A. Upton (Eds.) . Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2004. Pp. vi + 334.

The Acquisition of Tense–Aspect: Converging Evidence From Corpora and Telicity Ratings

119.00 cloth. Whereas general corpora have been used successfully by linguists and language practitioners for more than 40 years now, corpora that capture the language of particular discourse communities are only recently becoming the focus of attention. The chapters in the present collection, edited by Connor and Upton, respond to the growing research interest in academic and professional discourses and illustrate the profitable use of specialized corpora in linguistics and in the learning and teaching of English for academic purposes (EAP) and English for specific purposes (ESP).