15.1259, Sum: Corpus Ling/Student Textbooks

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-15-1259. Mon Apr 19 2004. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 15.1259, Sum: Corpus Ling/Student Textbooks

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1)
Date:  Fri, 16 Apr 2004 01:50:39 -0400 (EDT)
From:  Stacia  Levy <CallMeSal at msn.com>
Subject:  corpus studies, elementary and high school texts

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Fri, 16 Apr 2004 01:50:39 -0400 (EDT)
From:  Stacia  Levy <CallMeSal at msn.com>
Subject:  corpus studies, elementary and high school texts

Greetings. About a month ago I posted to the list (Linguist 15.786)
about my current research interest, corpus research of the academic
language of K-12 textbooks. The problem as I see it is often K-12
teachers are told to teach ''academic language'' without any specifics
on what that actually is.  Ute Romer of University of Hanover kindly
responded by sending a couple of articles on corpus resarch being done
in Germany, comparing the language used in a small corpus of German
EFL texts and with the British National Corpus. Items studied were
''if clauses'' and present participle forms: their contexts, uses, and
forms. Discrepancies were found between ''school'' English and
authentic English. (A memorable example of an if-clause from an EFL
textbook: ''If you eat your hat, you'll be ill.'') Methods for
compiling a small corpus and pedagogical implications for improving
teaching materials were covered. Thank you, Ute.

Subject-Language: English; Code: ENG

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