ReCALL Journal Special Issue: Call for Papers

Researching uses of corpora for language teaching and learning

Submission deadline: 30 November 2012
Publication date: May 2014

Guest editors:

Pascual Pérez-Paredes
English Department
Universidad de Murcia
Campus de la Merced
30071 Murcia
SPAIN
pascualf@um.es

Alex Boulton
CRAPEL — ATILF / CNRS, Nancy-Université
BP 3397
54015 Nancy cedex
FRANCE
alex.boulton@univ-nancy2.fr

Corpus linguistics has revolutionised many fields of language study, and represents the epitome of empirical research in language description. Corpora can even be used as a learning tool or reference resource by learners and teachers, as well as other native and non-native language users, in what has come to be known as ‘data-driven learning’ (DDL). However, it is frequently claimed that there is a dearth of empirical research in the field of DDL — especially outside the restricted environment of higher education. Such research is essential to afford further insight into both the possibilities and limitations of using language corpora in a variety of contexts, whether in mainstream practice among ‘ordinary’ teachers and learners, or for more innovative or specialised uses.

Proposals are invited for qualitative and quantitative empirical studies investigating various aspects of corpus use in language teaching and learning, from individual case studies to large-scale quantitative statistical studies, from short-term acquisition to long-term outcomes and changes in learner behaviour.

We are especially interested in new populations of potential corpus users, such as:

younger learners in primary and secondary education;

adult learners in continuing education and language schools;

trainee teachers and practising teachers (pre-service or in-service);

academic users in fields from translation to literature, civilisation and other disciplines;

non-academic users in professional contexts.

Innovative practice in terms of corpus use for new environments and new activities is also welcomed: in class, in computer rooms, on line, and in blended or distance programmes; in directed instruction as well as in more autonomous conditions; using paper-based materials, hands-on consultation, or integrating corpora into other software; showing innovative uses of corpora beyond traditional concordancing; based on new types of corpora, from the Internet to disposable corpora to multimodal corpora; involving learners at other levels of corpus use, e.g. in building their own corpora; using learner corpora to feed back into teaching and learning practices; etc.

This special issue of ReCALL marks over two decades of data-driven learning since the publication of the seminal Classroom Concordancing (Johns & King 1991), and is dedicated to the ground-breaking but ever practical work of the late Tim Johns.

Papers, to a maximum of 8000 words, should be submitted electronically to June Thompson,
d.j.thompson@hull.ac.uk

no later than 30 November 2012.

Please use the published ReCALL guidelines awhen preparing your paper.

ReCALL is the journal of EUROCALL, an international journal published by Cambridge University Press and listed in the major abstracting and indexing services.