2. WHAT IS ‘CONCORDANCER’?
a piece of software, either installed on a computer or
accessed through a website, which can be used to
search, access and analyse language from a corpus
useful in exploring the relationships between words
and give us very accurate information about the way
language is authentically used
allows us to enter a word or phrase and search for
multiple examples of how that word or phrase is used
in everyday speech or writing
3. SCOPES OF THE FIELD
Lexicography and dictionary making
Stylistics
Literary research
Pure linguistics research
English Language Teaching(ELT)
4. CONCORDANCE IN ELT
Having access to a corpora of authentic
language can help us to check or reconfirm our
assumptions about the way that language is
used
can check the uses and collocations of words
we are teaching are the most frequent, up to
date and correct
5. CONT…
can find authentic examples to demonstrate
and reinforce the language we are teaching
can use them to create our own worksheets
based on authentic materials
7. TYPES OF CORPUS
Books
Periodicals
Unpublished written discourse
Scripted and unscripted spoken discourse
Etc.
* the more text in a corpus, the more likely it is to
give an accurate representation of the language
and an adequate number of examples of a given
keyword
8. LIST OF CONCORDANCERS
Open Source Shakespeare:
http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/concordance/
Text-Based Concordances:
http://www.lextutor.ca/concordancers/text_concord/
Multi concordance:
http://www.lextutor.ca/concordancers/multi/
Web Concordancer (English):
http://vlc.polyu.edu.hk/concordance/WWWConcappE.htm
English Web Corpus Family:
http://199.19.225.121/searchwc.html
9. CONT…
The Corpus of Contemporary American
English:
http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/
Corpus of Historical American English:
http://corpus.byu.edu/coha/
Cintil Corpus Internacional Do Portuguese:
http://cintil.ul.pt/
10. ESL STUDENT ATTITUDES TOWARD
CORPUS USE IN L2 WRITING
HYUNSOOK YOON
ALAN HIRVELA
School of Teaching and Learning,
Ohio State University
11. PURPOSE
Tostudy the attitudes and perceptions of
Taiwanese EFL students towards web-based
concordancer regarding the usefulness of it.
12. CORPUS USED/METHODOLOGY
1) The participants were from two classes of different
levels: 22 ESL students (8 intermediate level, 14
advanced level)
2) Both classes used Collins COBUILD Corpus, a large
database consisting of millions of entries derived
mainly from written sources.
4) After the teacher introduced the corpus, the
students were asked to explore it in regard to the
words that they are having problem with in their
writing, and they were asked to send the (search)
results to the teacher via email.
5) A set of questionnaire was distributed on the 18th
week to each of the participants and an interview
session was conducted to further explore
participants’ view on concordancer.“
13. FINDINGS
Positive response from the students regarding the
use of corpus activity in second language learning
particularly in enhancing vocabulary and writing
skills
Two explanations offered by the author for this:
1) The teacher is using different emphases for
different classes (he [teacher] integrated more
corpus-related class activities into the
intermediate class, e.g: letting students have
hands-on practice, whereas the advanced class
used the corpus rather independently on their
own, with less class time devoted to corpus work)
2) Proficiency level may have had an influence on
student evaluations as well as on their uses of the
corpus.
14. REFERENCES
Flowerdew, J. (n.d). Concordancing in Language Learning. Retrieved from:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.127.3263&rep=rep1&t
ype=pdf
Nick Peachey. (2005). Concordancer in ELT. Retrieved from:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/concordancers-elt
Yin Lin Cheung. (2004).Teacher training for effective writing instruction: Recent trends
and future directions. Retrieved from:
http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1060374307000471/1-s2.0-S1060374307000471-
main.pdf?_tid=433e2eec6f40dff20f134af18cbd6d40&acdnat=1335231119_62614e
1d4ac2888f6317bb7acddbcc04
Hyunsook Yoon. Alan Hirvela. (2004). ESL Students attitudes towards corpus use in L2
writing. Retrieved from:
http://englishteachersplace.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/09/YoonHirvela_2004.pdf
