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Gena Bennett is an Online Adjunct Professor in TESOL and Applied Linguistics in Kailua, Hawaii, and the Outgoing Chair of TESOL's Second Language Writing Interest Section. Her research interests include corpus linguistics, second language writing, and their intersections.

The value of corpus linguistics as a discipline has expanded rapidly in the field of English language teaching in the past two decades. One of the most significant contributions corpus research has made for classroom use is register description. Corpus-cited reference grammars such as the Cambridge Grammar of English (Carter & McCarthy, 2006) and the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, & Finegan, 1999) provide empirical descriptions of grammatical features which characterize registers (e.g. fiction, news, academic writing, conversation), allowing us to see how language is employed differently, depending on context. Using register descriptions to inform instruction can help students make correct language choices. For example, some ESL "ear" learners may use casual spoken language in formal written work (Hinkel, 2002, 2003) while some EFL "eye" learners may use too formal language when speaking, causing awkwardness in social situations; while students in both contexts may be "grammatically" correct, their language may be marked due to their language choices. Thus, students need to notice and analyze differences amongst registers to heighten their awareness of language choice.

Data-driven learning, where students study concordance lines to observe patterns of language use, is one method instructors may employ to enable students to notice register differences. For example, students can study concordance lines for the subordinators since and as in both conversation and academic writing to inductively learn that although both words are used to refer to time in conversation, they are both used to signal reason in academic writing. Corpora which focus on complimentary registers, such as the BAWE¹ and BASE², MICUSP³ and MICASE⁴, and different registers searchable via the COCA⁵ are ideal resources for such activities.

Corpus-based descriptions of academic writing have even revealed that though there does exist a set of features which characterize academic writing as a whole, these shared features are realized differently within different disciplines, courses, and even assignments. Corpora comprising academic writing from different disciplines, such as the NAFWIC⁶, MICUSP, or the Viking Corpus⁷, can highlight how different disciplines utilize features of general academic writing in different ways. For example, papers in the humanities and social sciences use personal pronouns considerably more frequently than hard sciences and engineering papers (Hyland, 2002).

Describing language across registers is not necessarily a prescription of features for learners to use; rather, it is a presentation of data so that learners can make their own informed choices, a significant aspect of language learning.

References

Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E., (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. New York, NY: Pearson Education.

Carter, R. & McCarthy, M. (2006). Cambridge grammar of English: A comprehensive guide to spoken and written English grammar and usage. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Hinkel, E. (2002). Second language writers' text. Mawah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Hinkel, E. (2003). Simplicity without elegance: Features of sentences in L1 and L2 academic texts. TESOL Quarterly (37)2, p. 275-301.

Hyland, K. (2002). Options of Identity in Academic Writing. ELT Journal, 56(4), p. 351-358.