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Corpus Research Methods for Language Teaching and Learning

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The Palgrave Handbook of Applied Linguistics Research Methodology

Abstract

Over the last few decades, the use of corpus data has infiltrated many areas of applied linguistics. One area where the methods and principles of corpus linguistics have had a significant practical impact is language learning and teaching. This chapter offers a critical overview of how corpus-based descriptions of language use have been used to inform reference publishing (most particularly grammars and learner dictionaries), language teaching syllabus design and the content of teaching materials (e.g., textbooks). The chapter focuses more particularly on how corpus-derived frequency information and (genre-based) lexicogrammatical descriptions can be used to help with decisions about what to teach and how to teach it. It also explores the role of learner corpora for these pedagogical purposes. The chapter closes with a discussion of two major challenges for corpus research for language learning and teaching, that is, the need for more pedagogical mediation of corpus findings and the choice of the reference corpus, and one controversial issue in the field, that is, the pedagogical usefulness of authentic corpus examples vs. made-up examples.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Work on frequency lists has also spread to other languages, as seen in the “Routledge Frequency Dictionaries” series which now offers corpus-based core vocabulary (alphabetical, frequency, and thematically organized) lists for learners of 14 languages including Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

  2. 2.

    Thus, if a word occurs with relatively high frequency in the corpus but is only found in a limited number of corpus parts of the same length, the ARF will be low.

  3. 3.

    For example, the Academic Keyword List has been used to inform the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary of Academic English and is presented as a major asset of the five-level academic English course Skillful published by Macmillan Education. Similarly, the Academic Collocation List appears in an appendix of the Longman Collocations Dictionary and Thesaurus.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universite catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Magali Paquot

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  1. Magali Paquot
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Correspondence to Magali Paquot .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Sydney School of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Aek Phakiti

  2. Department of Linguistics, Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Peter De Costa

  3. Applied Linguistics, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA

    Luke Plonsky

  4. School of Education, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Sue Starfield

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Paquot, M. (2018). Corpus Research Methods for Language Teaching and Learning. In: Phakiti, A., De Costa, P., Plonsky, L., Starfield, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Applied Linguistics Research Methodology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59900-1_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59900-1_17

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-59899-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-59900-1

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