Small Corpus Studies and ELT

Recent developments in this field of small corpus studies, largely brought about by the personal computer, have yielded remarkable insights into the nature and use of real language. This book presents work by a number of leading researchers in the field and covers a series of topics directly related to language teaching and language research. The ultimate aim of this book is to encourage the exploitation of small corpora by the ELT profession to make language learning more effective. In addition to descriptions of the basic corpus analysis tools, chapters in the collection cover syllabus and materials design, comparisons of different genres, descriptions of local and functional grammars, compilation and use of learner corpora, and making cross-linguistic comparisons. The message of this collection is that language use is purposeful and culture specific and that small corpus analysis is an effective method of linguistic investigation.
Preface by: John Sinclair;

Niladri Sekhar Dash, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, in Language 80(2), 2004:
The volume highlights the relevance of small corpora in both language learning and teaching. In addition to the description of basic corpus analysis tools, it covers various issues (compilation and use of learner corpus, comparison of genres, cross-linguistic comparison, teaching-materials design, description of local and functional grammars) important for language education and research.