The use of corpora has expanded linguistic research possibilities, revolutionized theoretical concepts of language by applying empirical methods, and changed the face of applied linguistics. Although corpora are a tremendous asset to lexicography, translation studies, cultural studies and even to forensics, an awareness of their benefits has not fully arrived in the field of language teaching, yet. While insights from corpora linguistics have led to the development of a new and improved generation of dictionaries, most teaching materials for teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) have been largely unaffected in this respect, and are regrettably still based on old conventions and on the intuition of course book designers.
This unfortunate fact is the starting point for the term paper at hand, which investi-gates the high frequency nouns day, money and way in two corpora in order to compare their authentic use by native speakers to their illustration in German teaching materials. Its focus is set on phraseology and frequency to find out if these nouns are adequately represented, or if an amendment of teaching materials is necessary.
The spoken part of the British National Corpus (BNC spoken) serves as the basis of this analysis, due to the fact that German language teaching policy favours a communicative approach aiming at the development of communicative competence and fluency in spoken English. The BNC findings are juxtaposed to the results of an analysis of the German English as a Foreign Language Textbook Corpus (GEFL TC), a corpus comprising two school book series. Additionally, the nouns´ introduction and presentation in the German English G 2000 textbook series are explored. Finally, as one approach to investigate the teaching materials for advanced learners, the respective entries are checked in three dictionaries aiming at this target group, namely the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, the Macmillan Dictionary for Advanced Learners and the Oxford Advanced Learners´ Dictionary of Current English.
The paper will first provide the theoretical background for the analysis, and will explain its concept and methods. Subsequently, it will focus on the analysis´ results and will propose improvements to textbook design. Last but not least, it presents Data Driven Learning (DDL) as corpus-based complement of course books and devises six exercises, based on the corpora findings of the BNC spoken, to exemplify it.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Main Part
2.1. Phraseology, Frequency and Typicality as Issues of Corpus Linguistics
2.1.1. Phraseology
2.1.2. Frequency and Typicality
2.2. Phraseology, Frequency and Typicality in Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching
2.3. Status Quo of Phraseology and Frequency in Contemporary Teaching Materials
2.4. Concept of Analysis at Hand
2.5. Day, Money and Way in the BNC Spoken and in the GEFL TC
2.5.1. Day
2.5.2. Money
2.5.3. Way
2.5.4. Summary of the Findings
2.6. Day, Money and Way in the English G 2000 Series
2.6.1. Day
2.6.2. Money
2.6.3. Way
2.6.4. Summary of the Findings
2.7. Day, Money and Way in Advanced Learners´ Dictionaries
2.8. Conclusion
2.9. DDL-Exercises
2.9.1. The Benefits of DDL-Exercises for TEFL
2.9.2. Direct and Indirect Approach
2.9.3. Exercises Concerning Day, Money, Way
2.9.3.1. Day
2.9.3.2. Money
2.9.3.3. Way
3. Conclusion
Research Goal and Thematic Focus
The primary research objective is to investigate the high-frequency nouns "day," "money," and "way" to evaluate whether their authentic use by native speakers—as documented in the British National Corpus (BNC)—is accurately represented in German Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) materials, specifically the "English G 2000" series and the German English as a Foreign Language Textbook Corpus (GEFL TC).
- Analysis of phraseological patterns and frequency distribution in corpus data.
- Evaluation of textbook sequencing and vocabulary introduction strategies.
- Comparison of textbook content with corpus-derived linguistic evidence.
- Integration of Data Driven Learning (DDL) as a complementary pedagogical approach.
- Assessment of dictionary entries for advanced learners regarding corpus-based accuracy.
Excerpt from the Book
2.5.1. Day
One striking observation about the noun day is that it frequently occurs as part of compounds. Both BNC spoken concordances show a compound quantity of 18%, but differ in the rate of compounds that refer to holidays or special days like Christmas Day, New Years´ Day holiday, Boxing Day, Nottinghamshire Day or Medieval´s Day. On average, 3% of the lines contain such a compound. The GEFL TC features less compounds involving day (9.22%), but simultaneously contains more compounds referring to holidays (4.26%), like Christmas Day, St. Patrick Day, Guy Fawkes´ Day or Independence Day. Therefore, the tendency of day to be part of compounds is under-, while its character as part of holidays is overrepresented in relation to the BNC spoken.
Day off can be found in both BNC samples among the “ordinary” compounds, averaging at 2%, but without any equivalent in the GEFL TC. The BNC spoken furthermore offers a variety of nouns sporadically collocating with day, like day centre (1%), day and night (1%), day to day basis / issue (0.5% each), or day by day (0.5%), which do not exist in the GEFL TC .
With respect to prepositions as collocates of day, several discrepancies between both corpora can be attested, as well as some rough accordances. On + day is the most frequent pattern in the GEFL TC (9.22%) and it also encompasses the more complex patterns on + possessive pronoun + first day (4.26%) and on + possessive pronoun + last day (1.42%). These combinations cannot be found in the BNC spoken, which only contains the pattern on + day in 1% of the cases, always as the phrase on the day.
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction: Outlines the significance of corpora in linguistics and highlights the gap between corpus evidence and current German EFL textbook design.
2. Main Part: Provides theoretical foundations on phraseology, frequency, and typicality, followed by a comparative corpus analysis of the nouns "day," "money," and "way," an evaluation of their textbook representation, and a section on DDL exercises.
3. Conclusion: Summarizes the key findings, confirming that current textbooks significantly deviate from authentic language use and emphasizing the need for corpus-informed pedagogical materials.
Keywords
Corpus Linguistics, Phraseology, Frequency, Typicality, TEFL, English G 2000, BNC Spoken, Textbook Analysis, Data Driven Learning, Collocation, Language Teaching, Semantic Prosody, Pattern Grammar, Pedagogical Grammar, Lexicography
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the core subject of this paper?
The paper examines how three high-frequency nouns—"day," "money," and "way"—are used by native speakers versus how they are presented in German English as a Foreign Language textbooks.
What are the primary fields of research?
The study centers on corpus linguistics and its application to foreign language teaching, specifically focusing on phraseology, frequency, and textbook design.
What is the main research question?
The paper seeks to determine if high-frequency nouns are adequately represented in German textbooks or if an amendment of these materials, based on corpus evidence, is necessary.
Which scientific methodology is applied?
The research uses a corpus-based comparative approach, juxtaposing concordance data from the BNC Spoken corpus with the GEFL Textbook Corpus.
What is covered in the main part of the paper?
The main part includes the theoretical framework, the comparative analysis of the nouns in different corpora, an assessment of their presentation in the "English G 2000" series and advanced learners' dictionaries, and the introduction of DDL-based exercises.
What keywords characterize the study?
The study is characterized by terms such as Corpus Linguistics, Phraseology, TEFL, Data Driven Learning, and Collocation.
How do the findings for the noun "way" differ in the GEFL TC compared to the BNC?
The analysis reveals significant discrepancies, specifically an overrepresentation of certain prepositional patterns and a neglect of the most frequent meanings of "way" in the textbook corpus.
Why are dictionaries for advanced learners considered "outstanding" in this context?
Unlike standard school textbooks, these dictionaries rely heavily on large-scale corpus data and explicitly illustrate common phraseological patterns, fulfilling the demands of corpus-oriented learning.
How can DDL exercises help compensate for textbook inadequacies?
DDL exercises allow students to act as "language detectives," using authentic concordance lines to discover usage patterns for themselves, thereby fostering communicative competence and bridging the gap between artificial textbook examples and real-life English.
- Quote paper
- Dipl.Jurist Marco Sievers (Author), 2006, Day, money, way - A corpus-based investigation of the phraseology of three high frequency nouns and its implications for the design of TEFL materials, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/82004
