Lingua et Linguistica
Vol. 1.1, 2007
ISBN 978-1-84753-625-9

Teaching and Language Corpora: The Debate

Melinda Tan
University of Central Lancashire, UK

Abstract

The first signs of interest from the language teaching community about corpus work were displayed when firm evidence from corpora demonstrated that intuition was not the most reliable way to understand the nature and structure of language. Data from corpora, rather than from introspection, demonstrated the centrality of lexis and phrasal meaning in communication, hence suggesting that more attention be given to them in teaching than had traditionally been the case. While linguists and teacher-practitioners have extolled the valuable contribution of corpora to teaching and learning, many in the linguistic and teaching community have also viewed this contribution with much reservation and concern. This article seeks to discuss the main controversial issues surrounding the use of corpora in language teaching and learning. These issues centre on the following aspects: corpora as open-ended supply of data, language prescription, the corpus-driven approach, lexical frequency, target norms, and diverse teaching and learning traditions.

pp.119-129

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