Applying corpus linguistics to pedagogy: A critical evaluation

Author: Flowerdew, Lynne

Source: International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, Volume 14, Number 3, 2009 , pp. 393-417(25)

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

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Abstract:

This article reviews and discusses four somewhat contentious issues in the application of corpus linguistics to pedagogy, ESP in particular. Corpus linguistic techniques have been criticized on the grounds that they encourage a more bottom-up rather than top-down processing of text in which concordance lines are examined atomistically. One criticism levelled against corpus data is that a corpus presents language out of its original context. For this reason, some corpus linguists have underscored the importance of 'pedagogic mediation' to contextualize the data for the students' own writing environment. Concerns relating to the inductive approach associated with corpus-based pedagogy have also been raised as this approach may not always be the most appropriate one. A final consideration relates to the issue of whether a corpus is always the most appropriate resource to use among the wealth of other resources available.

Keywords: TOP-DOWN; DECONTEXTUALISATION; PEDAGOGIC PROCESSING; INDUCTIVE; DATA-DRIVEN LEARNING

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1075/ijcl.14.3.05flo

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