The Use of Spoken and Written Corpora in the Teaching of Language and Linguistics

Abstract

The Paper investigates the Contribution that can be made by the use of corpus materials. Some spoken and written corpora are described briefly, and the IBM/University of Lancaster Spoken English Corpus is described in some detail. Following a discussion of the basic tools required for corpus work, the effect of the corpus is assessed for research and teaching. The major point here is that the distinction is blurred, since students are able to find things out for themselves at an early stage. The conclusion turns to the future for corpus-based work.