Corpus Linguistics in Language

Teaching
CASEY KECK

Corpus linguistics is an area of applied linguistics that uses computer technology to

analyze large collections of spoken and written texts, or corpora, which have been carefully
designed to represent specific domains of language use, such as informal conversation or
academic writing. Since the early 1990s, researchers have become increasingly interested
in applying the findings of corpus-based studies to second and foreign language education,
and some (e.g., Conrad, 2000) have argued that corpus linguistics could revolutionize
language teaching by fundamentally changing the way we approach materials design and
curriculum development.

What Relevance Does Corpus Linguistics

Have for Language Teaching?

Prior to the development of electronically stored corpora, it was not feasible to identify
patterns of language use in, for example, American English conversation, as analyzing
millions of words by hand was impossible to accomplish in a timely manner. Now, how-
ever, computer programs allow for automatic language analysis, and corpus-based findings
have emerged which both enrich and challenge previous notions about language use.
Specifically, the past few decades have seen an explosion in information available regard-
ing (a) the frequency with which particular words or linguistic features occur in a language;
(b) the ways in which lexis and grammar work together to create meaning; and (c) the
ways in which situational factors, such as the mode and purpose of communication, impact
the choices we make as writers and speakers of a language.
Corpus linguistics has made a wealth of frequency information available to language
teachers, and this information can play an important role in helping teachers to decide
what is more or less important in a language classroom, depending on what is known
to be more or less typical in actual language use (Biber & Reppen, 2002). For example,
teachers who would like to know which phrasal verbs are used most frequently in English
can consult corpus-based frequency lists (e.g., Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad & Finegan,
1999; Gardner & Davies, 2007). Teachers preparing university students for the demands
of academic study in English-speaking universities can now find lists of the most frequently
used academic words across disciplines (Coxhead, 2000), as well as lists of important
multiword phrases used in university spoken and written discourse (e.g., Biber, Conrad,
& Cortes, 2004).
Corpus linguistics research has also shown that lexis and grammar work together to
create meaning, and this has fundamentally changed our understanding of what it means
to “know” a word. While dictionaries and language teaching materials previously focused
on providing word definitions, these resources are increasingly drawing upon corpus
analysis tools to provide additional information about collocation, the tendency of words
to co-occur with other words, and phraseology, the tendency of words to occur in particular
grammatical patterns (Hunston, 2002). It has become clear that a word cannot be defined

The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, Edited by Carol A. Chapelle.

© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal0256
2 corpus linguistics in language teaching

in isolation, but rather, meaning is expressed through a combination of a word with other
words and syntactic patterns. Corpus analysis tools, such as concordancing programs,
allow teachers and students to view several examples of a key word in context and to
study how this context impacts word meaning. These tools are particularly well suited for
investigating the multiple senses of a single word, the subtle differences in the use of
seemingly synonymous words, and the positive and negative connotations of particular
phraseologies (Sinclair, 2005; Tsui, 2005).
Finally, corpus linguistics has shown teachers the importance of register and the ways
in which language use varies according to the communicative demands of a given situ-
ation. Registers can be defined quite broadly (e.g., writing, as a general register, could be
compared with speaking), or can be quite specialized (e.g., one could study the register
of New York Times editorials). As Conrad (2000) notes, it no longer makes sense to offer
students “monolithic” descriptions of the language they are studying: The choices we make
regarding our use of particular words, phrases, and grammatical structures is largely
determined by the context of communication. For example, the real-time pressures of
conversation can help to explain its frequent use of contractions and pronouns, while the
characteristics of writing (e.g., time for planning, the need to provide context for the reader)
help to explain its frequent use of complex noun phrases (Biber et al., 1999). Because many
language students experience a variety of registers in the target language (talking with
friends, attending university classes, giving presentations at work), it is important for
teachers to understand how language use varies across these contexts and to highlight
important register differences in their classroom teaching.

Corpus Linguistics in the Classroom:

Options for Language Teachers

Teachers who are interested in applying corpus linguistics in their own classrooms have
a number of options available to them. Teachers who are just beginning to learn about
corpus linguistics themselves, or who do not feel they have enough time or resources to
devote to corpus activities, can nevertheless draw upon a variety of corpus-based resources
when planning lessons and designing materials, including corpus-based dictionaries, gram-
mars, and language textbooks (McCarthy, 2008). Teachers can also take a more critical
approach to evaluating existing language teaching materials, keeping in mind issues that
corpus linguists have emphasized as important: frequency (e.g., when selecting target
vocabulary); collocation and phraseology (e.g., teaching not only word meaning, but also
important collocates and syntactic patterns); and register variation (e.g., highlighting key
differences in the use of a particular feature in speaking and writing).
A number of online tools also make it possible for language teachers to analyze collec-
tions of texts they plan to use in their classroom, to assess the difficulty of these texts, and
to investigate how vocabulary words are recycled across an entire instructional unit (Cobb,
2007). Teachers can also consult a variety of online corpora when preparing lessons
and materials. For example, the Corpus of Contemporary American English, or COCA
(www.americancorpus.org), allows teachers to search not only for key words, but also for
synonyms, important collocates, and grammatical patterns. The Michigan Corpus of
Academic Spoken English, or MICASE (http://micase.elicorpora.info), allows users to
generate concordance lines and to download entire transcripts of speech events, such as
class lectures, student presentations, and study group sessions.
In addition to consulting corpora themselves, teachers also have the option of intro-
ducing corpora to their students. Flowerdew (2009) notes that students could benefit from
explicit instruction on how to consult a wide range of corpus-based resources when inves-
tigating their own language-related questions. Teachers can also engage students in what
 corpus linguistics in language teaching 3

Johns (2000) refers to as data-driven learning, or the analysis of concordance lines that have
been selected, arranged, and possibly edited by the teacher to draw learners’ attention to
patterns of language use. Building on Johns’s ideas, a number of researchers (e.g., Aston,
2001; Bernardini, 2001) have advocated a discovery learning approach, where students, not
teachers, take primary responsibility for searching and analyzing corpus data. These
researchers argue that discovery learning, unlike teacher-directed activities, empowers
learners to challenge textbook explanations and native-speaker intuitions and to make
discoveries about language use that, without the use of corpora, would not have been
possible.
The use of corpus data in the classroom is not uncontroversial, however, as others have
expressed skepticism concerning the relevance of corpora for language teaching. In some
cases, corpus data, when divorced from its original context, may serve to confuse students,
rather than help them to learn about the language (Widdowson, 2002). The use of both
learner corpora (see, e.g., Granger, 2002; Seidlhofer, 2000) and small, specialized corpora
(see, e.g., Gavioli, 2001; Lee & Swales, 2006; Romer, 2010) may help teachers to design
language analysis activities that engage students in explorations of texts that are more
immediately relevant to their own lives.

Conclusions

Corpus linguistics has fundamentally changed our understanding of language use, and
this, in turn, has led to changes in how we approach language education. Over the next
few decades, it is likely that corpus-based findings will continue to inform the develop-
ment of language teaching materials. The use of corpora in the classroom is also likely to
increase, as teachers and students are given greater access to online corpora and text
analysis tools. The major question to be explored is no longer “What relevance does corpus
linguistics have for language teaching?” but rather “How can teachers and students most
effectively make use of the corpus-based resources available to them?” Continued exploration
of the use of corpora in a wide range of classroom contexts will no doubt help to refine
our understanding of the variety of ways in which corpus linguistics might be applied to
language pedagogy.

SEE ALSO: Biber, Douglas; Corpora in the Language-Teaching Classroom; Corpora in the
Teaching of Language for Specific Purposes; Corpus Analysis for a Lexical Syllabus; Corpus
Analysis of Spoken English for Academic Purposes; Corpus Analysis of Written English
for Academic Purposes; Corpus Linguistics: Overview; Language for Specific Purposes
Learner Corpora; Learner Corpora; Pattern Grammar; Pragmatics in Learner Corpora;
Sinclair, John; Teaching Grammar and Corpora

References

Aston, G. (2001). Learning with corpora: An overview. In G. Aston (Ed.), Learning with corpora
(pp. 7–45). Houston, TX: Athelstan.
Bernardini, S. (2001). “Spoilt for choice”: A learner explores general language corpora. In
G. Aston (Ed.), Learning with corpora (pp. 220–49). Houston, TX: Athelstan.
Biber, D., Conrad, C., & Cortes, V. (2004). If you look at: Lexical bundles in university teaching
and textbooks. Applied Linguistics, 25, 371–405.
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken
and written English. London, England: Longman.
Biber, D., & Reppen, R. (2002). What does frequency have to do with grammar teaching? Studies
in Second Language Acquisition, 24, 199–208.
4 corpus linguistics in language teaching

Cobb, T. (2007). Computing the vocabulary demands of L2 reading. Language Learning and
Technology, 11, 38–64.
Conrad, S. (2000). Will corpus linguistics revolutionize grammar teaching in the 21st century?
TESOL Quarterly, 34, 548–60.
Coxhead, A. (2000). A new academic word list. TESOL Quarterly, 34, 213–38.
Flowerdew, L. (2009). Applying corpus linguistics to pedagogy: A critical evaluation. International
Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 14, 393–417.
Gardner, D., & Davies, M. (2007). Pointing out frequent phrasal verbs: A corpus-based analysis.
TESOL Quarterly, 41, 339–59.
Gavioli, L. (2001). The learner as researcher: Introducing corpus concordancing in the classroom.
In G. Aston (Ed.), Learning with corpora (pp. 108–37). Houston, TX: Athelstan.
Granger, S. (2002). A bird’s-eye view of learner corpus research. In S. Granger, J. Hung, &
S. Petch-Tyson (Eds.), Computer learner corpora, second language acquisition and foreign language
teaching (pp. 3–33). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
Hunston, S. (2002). Corpora in applied linguistics. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press.
Johns, T. (2000). Data-driven learning: The perpetual challenge. In B. Kettemann & G. Marko
(Eds.), Teaching and learning by doing corpus analysis: Proceedings of the Fourth International
Conference on Teaching and Language Corpora (pp. 107–18). New York, NY: Rodopi.
Lee, D., & Swales J. M. (2006). A corpus-based EAP course for NNS doctoral students: Moving
from available specialized corpora to self compiled corpora. English for Specific Purposes, 25,
56–75.
McCarthy, M. (2008). Accessing and interpreting corpus information in the language education
context. Language Teaching, 41, 563–74.
Romer, U. (2010). Using general and specialized corpora in English language teaching: Past,
present and future. In M. C. Campoy-Cubillo, M. Lluisa Gea-Valor, & B. Belles-Fortuno
(Eds.), Corpus-based approaches to English language teaching (pp. 18–35). London, England:
Continuum.
Seidlhofer, B. (2000). Operationalizing intertextuality: Using learner corpora for learning. In
L. Burnard & T. McEnery (Eds.), Rethinking language pedagogy from a corpus perspective
(pp. 207–24). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Sinclair, J. (2005). Reading concordances. London, England: Longman.
Tsui, A. (2005). ESL teachers’ questions and corpus evidence. International Journal of Corpus
Linguistics, 10, 335–56.
Widdowson, H. G. (2002). Language teaching: Defining the subject. In H. Trappes-Lomax &
G. Ferguson (Eds.), Language in language teacher education (pp. 67–81). Philadelphia, PA:
John Benjamins.

Suggested Readings

Aijmer, K. (Ed.). (2009). Corpora and language teaching. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
Aston, G., Silvia, B., Stewart, D., & Bernardini, S. (Eds.). (2004). Corpora and language learners.
Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
Bennett, G. (2010). Using corpora in the language learning classroom: Corpus linguistics for teachers.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
O’Keeffe, A., McCarthy, M., & Carter, R. (Eds.). (2007). From corpus to classroom: Language use
and language teaching. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Reppen, R. (2010). Using corpora in the language classroom. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press.
Sinclair, J. M. (Ed.). (2004). How to use corpora in language teaching. Philadelphia, PA: John
Benjamins.