Corpus linguistics: What is it and how can it help with English language teaching and learning?

Corpus linguistics: What is it and how can it help with English language teaching and learning?

Dr Niall Curry, Manchester Metropolitan University

Corpus linguistics is a branch of linguistic research that involves the study of principled collections of spoken and written language texts, known as corpora. This area of research can help us to understand how language is used in a variety of contexts. Unsurprisingly, corpus linguistics plays a critical role in contemporary English language education and learner dictionaries, coursebooks, grammars, and language learning technologies across the world make use of corpora in myriad ways. Overall, the use of corpora in language education, indirectly, and the language classroom, directly, is continuing to grow. However, much of this work occurs in the background and, as such, we often gain very little insight into what corpus linguists do and how corpora can be used to produce learning experiences that are based on authentic, representative, and naturally occurring language.

To shed a little light on the subject, in this talk, I will discuss the role of corpus linguistics in language education, outline the opportunities it affords language teaching and learning, and signal the challenges we face when using corpora for English language teaching. In doing so, I will also discuss some useful tools that you can use to work with corpora yourself and some guidelines to help you get started with corpus linguistics.

Bio

Dr Niall Curry is Senior Lecturer in TESOL and Applied Linguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University, specialising in corpus and applied linguistics, contrastive linguistics, discourse analysis, and TESOL. He has published a monograph, book chapters, and articles in field leading journals. He is PI and Co-I on a number of funded projects and he is Managing Editor of the Journal of Academic Writing, Section Editor of the Elsevier Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics, and a Géras International Correspondent. He regularly writes blogs for teachers and practitioners, aiming to bridge research and practice through the production of activities and lesson plans on a variety of topics. You can find a collection of his blogs and materials here: https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/author/niall-curry/