Acknowledgments ix
Key to abbreviations and acronyms xi
A note for the reader xi
CHAPTER 1
Introduction 1
1.1 Why this book? 1
1.2 Corpora and "models" of language
3
1.3 Why ESP settings? 5
1.4 The corpora in this book 6
1.4.1 Small corpora and specialized
corpora 6
1.4.2 Description of the corpora used
here.
1.5 A word about concordances and concordancing tools 11
1.6 Which learners? 12
1.7 How the book is organized 13
CHAPTER 2
Corpus linguistics and language teaching and learning: A background 17
2.1 Language corpora in language pedagogy: The 90s debate 17
2.1.1
Critical viewpoints 17
2.1.2 The contribution of corpus
analysis to language pedagogy 20
2.2 Corpus analysis as a tool for language teachers 22
2.2.1 Corpus analysis and syllabus
design 23
2.2.2 Supporting teachers
explanations 25
2.3 Corpus analysis as a tool for language learners 27
2.3.1 The Data-Drivrn Learning
approach 27
2.3.2 Question一:Should the teacher guide the
learners? 29
2.3.3 Question 2: Learners or
researchers? 30
2.3.4 Question 3:Is the result worth
the effort? 32
2.4 Conclusion 33
CHAPTER 3
Theoretical premises for teachers and learners
35
3.0 Introduction 35
3.t Learners looking at concordance data: What do they see? 36
3.2 Language as idiom vs. language as a logical system 41
3.3 The contribution of corpus work to a "new" idea
of language compositionality 42
3.3.1 The open-choice principle and
the idiom principle 43
3.3.2 The search for units of
meaning 44
3.3.3 "Unusuali丫and creativity 47
3.4 Learners, "idioms" and corpus work 49
3.5 Conclusion 50
CHAPTER 4
Corpus work, ESP and language learners
53
4.0 Introduction: From small to specialized corpora 53
4.t ESP and specialised corpora: A happy marriage 55
4.1.1 ESP, quantitative data and
corpus analysis:
A natural development 55
4.1.2 ESP and corpus work 56
4.2 Specialised language and specialized teaching purposes 60
4.3 The continuum between specialized and general corpora 63
4.3.1 Register variation across
genres句
4.3.2 Identifying specificity 65
4.4 Specialized language corpora and language learning 67
4.5 Conclusion 69
CHAPTER 5
Guiding the learners to work with corpora and corpus data 71
5.0 Introduction 71
5.1 Type of material: Samples vs. examples
72
5.1.1 Task I: Looking at the
concordance lines as samples 74
5.2 "What to look for" in a concordance: Recurrence and typicality 76
5.2.1 Task 2: Focusing the students''
attention
on recurrent patterns 79
5.3 Correlating output data and corpus texts
81
5.3.1 Task 3: Corpus data and corpus
content 82
5.3.2 Follow-up of Task 3: Leading
students to create corpora 84
5.4 Conclusion 85
CHAPTER 6
Learners exploring corpora to observe and produce texts:
Spies in action 87
6.o Introduction 87
6.1 Corpora and ESP learners: "Spies"
88
6.2 Using a small corpus of specialized texts to discover
technical concepts go
6.2.1 A medical word: The case of the
acronym "RIBA" 91
6.2.2 A word from economics: The case
of"bid" 94
6.2.3 Conclusion 98
6.3 From a single corpus to more corpora:
Comparing data 99
6.3.1 How specialized is a specialized
word?
The case of the word
"disorder.100
6.3.2 Exploring corpora in different
languages:
Contrasting English and Italian
data 104
6.4 Interacting with "the authorities":
Completing or contrasting
explanations from reference
materials and the teacher 109
6.4.1 The case of the progressive
tense in medical
research articles 110
6.5 Exploring corpora to produce texts
113
6.5.1 Translating a medical abstract
114
6.5.2 Writing out apolitical speech
118
6.6 Conclusion: From spies to "double-agents"? 123
CHAPTER 7
Concluding remarks 127
7.1 Three answers? 127
7.1.1 If learners are to behave as
data analysts, what should be
the role of the teacher? 127
7.1.2 Learners or researchers? 129
7.1.3 Is the effort a worthwhile
one? 131
7.a Corpus work and pedagogy: Old or new questions? 133
7.3 Future developments 134
7.3.1 Tools and teaching materials
135
7.3.2 Corpus-based dictionaries and
learners 136
7.3.3
Corpus work and teachin州learning skills 137
7.3.4 Serendipity 138
7.3.5 Understanding "deviance139
7.3.6 Recurrence, deviance and
language awareness 141
7.4 A concluding wish 142
APPENDIX 1 145
APPENDIX 2 147
APPENDIX 3 153
APPENDIX 4 157
APPENDIX 5 159
References 165
Index 175