THE USES OF

COMPUTERIZED
LANGUAGE
CORPORA: A REPLY
TO RONALD
CARTER
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Introduction
• Actual language use is less a matter of combining abstract grammar
rules with individual lexical items, and more a matter of collocation.
• Grammar and lexical are inseparable in both pedagogy and
linguistics. As stated by Ronald Carter in his 1998 article, "the
grammatical constructions we find in actual conversations are not
always accountable for in traditional grammars."
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Uses and Abuses of Corpora

Corpus as fact Corpus as record

 They contain information about
production but not about reception.
They say nothing about how many
people have read or heard a text or
pronounciation, or how many times.
✖ Corpora are records of language
behavior.
✖ They are just one kind of fact.

 They are not ‘facts’ but matters of

varying perception.
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Description and Prescription

Corpora are accurate record of language. The question then

arises as two whose language behavior is accurately recorded.
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Pedagogical Issues
Computer as teacher

computerized teaching using multimedia, for

example we want to learn about vocabulary,. In
such programs, students can listen to dialogues
or watch video clips. Then, They can click on
pictures to call up the names of the objects they
see. They can speak into the microphone and
immediately hear a recording of what they have
said. The program can keep a record of their
progress, ,
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Means and ends

corpora do not necessarily provide a goal for

language learners. Yet even if they did, it
would not follow that the best route to this goal
is to present real language use, and to try to
persuade them to emulate it straight allay.
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Conclusion
✖ The voice of moderation urging a limited application which
by virtue of its very reasonableness does not amount to
anything very radical

✖ The stronger view : evangelical, authoritarian, antl

dismissive of tradition, assuming that a little of the lates
linguistics theory is all that is needed to change the course at
language teaching.
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Thanks!