perezparedes, Author at Pérez-Paredes

How learners are using corpora in EMI contexts

This talk was part of Cambridge University Press ELS Insights on Demand.

You can download my presentation slides here.

Here´s a list of the references I used in this presentation:

Biber, D. (2019). Text-linguistic approaches to register variation. Register Studies, 1(1), 42-75.

Biber, D., & Conrad, S. (2009). Register, genre, and style. Cambridge University Press.

Brian, A. (2020). A case study of corpus-informed ESP language learning materials for EMI psychology students at the University of Padova.

Curry, N. & Pérez-Paredes, P. (2021). Understanding Lecturers’ Practices and Processes: A Qualitative Investigation of English-Medium Education in a Spanish Multilingual University, published in Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms, editedby Carrió-Pastor, M.L., & Bellés Fortuño, B. Palgrave MacMillan.

Dafouz, E., & Smit, U. (2016). Towards a dynamic conceptual framework for English-mediumeducation in multilingual university settings. Applied Linguistics, 37(3), 397-415.

Dafouz, E., & Smit, U. (2020). ROAD-MAPPING English medium education in the internationaliseduniversity. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Dushku, S. & Thompson, P. (2020). CAMPUS TALK. Edinburgh University Press.

Jablonkai, R. R. (2019). Corpus linguistic methods in EMI research: A missed opportunity?In Research methods in EMI. Routledge.

Kırkgöz, Y., & Dikilitaş, K. (2018). Recent developments in ESP/EAP/EMI contexts. In Key issues in English for specific purposes in higher education (pp. 1-10). Springer, Cham.

Kunioshi, N., Noguchi, J., Tojo, K., & Hayashi, H. (2016). Supporting English-medium pedagogythrough an online corpus of science and engineering lectures. European Journal of EngineeringEducation, 41(3), 293-303.

O’keeffe, A., McCarthy, M., & Carter, R. (2007). From corpus to classroom: Language use and language teaching. Cambridge University Press.

Street, B. (2004). Academic literacies and the’new orders’: implications for research and practice in student writing in higher education. Learning & Teaching in the Social Sciences, 1(1).

Timmis, I. (2015). Corpus linguistics for ELT: Research and practice. Routledge.

Using slack to help you run an academic research project

Running an international research project where many researchers from different institutions are involved may seem like a daunting task. COVID-19 has not made things any easier lately.

While many of us have relied in the past on emails to run our projects, there are more efficient ways to keep everybody in the loop, and, at the same time, organize efficiently project-related information.

In previous projects, I’ve set up bespoke versions of Moodle running on our own server. Why Moodle? Well, it was easy to translate the “course” oriented Moodle interface into a Work Package-driven structure. This way, project members could seemingly find relevant information under work packages or topics.

This has been a great option for some 15 years now, although I must admit that not every university or organization will be happy with you running things like Moodle or WordPress in their servers on grounds of security vulnerability. Moodle takes these issues very seriously and maintains a dedicated page on how to protect your data. However, the widespread use of mobile devices somehow made Moodle less and less attractive.

Since 2017 I have used Slack to collaborate with other colleagues, first in technology-related projects and then pretty much everywhere, including my own area, Arts and the Humanities. According to Slack, this app encrypts data at rest and data in transit for both free and pay customers. Slack complies with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Slack can make your project management easier in, at least, 5 areas. The following is based on my own experience.

1. Creating topic-driven conversations

Research projects are typically divided into Work Packages or deliverables. Every WP or deliverable can be converted into a channel. Thus, channels can be seen as a holder where conversations and information sharing takes place. Creating channels is easy and intuitive.

Project members can use predefined channels (for example, work packages) or create new channels as they deem it useful.

Channels are displayed on the menu on the left. Their use is intuitive. If the channel is in bold, you have new stuff to check out. If it’s not, you’re on top of the messages posted there. Every message is posted on a #channel but, this is interesting, you can tag it with other channel hostages, people, ideas, etc. This way you increase the context of your message.

2. Find anything, anytime, the easy way

Searching for stuff in SLACK is easy and surprisingly useful. Search results are contextualized and provide information about people, channels, messages and files.

The results will give you lots of context to interpret your search term. This may seem irrelevant if you’re searching for a given document or message that you just checked out a few days ago, but it is incredibly useful in a long project comprising 2, 3 or 4 years of work and different work packages and colleagues.

3. Notifications

SLACK gives total control over how you want to be notified. You can choose to get notified 24/7 or just to receive notifications weekdays between, say, 9 to 5. You decide.

4. Sharing files (and pretty much anything)

Sharing files is easy and SLACK offers integration with services such as Google Drive or Dropbox.

5. Channels again: a great way to organize information and categories

Messages and threads can be tagged under channels using a hashtag. Different channels can include different group members (i.e. not everyone may be involved in every single work package or deliverable), and private channels can be set up so that, for example, only PIs access those.

SLACK can be downloaded as a desktop app, a mobile app or can be used as a web server.

There are infinite ways of using language

Epistemological relativity, for an ELT professional, means that one accepts
that there are infinite ways of using language and that differences do not
automatically call for judgmental evaluation. (Leung, 2005: p. 138)

Leung, C. (2005). Convivial communication: Recontextualizing communicative competence. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 15(2), 119-144.

Check other quotations here.

VI online summer school: Writing science in English

06/09/2021 – 10/09/2021

You can join this course here. Inscripciones: URL

Extending corpus linguistics methods to education research

University of Exeter

Language & Education Network Research Seminar, 22 February 2021.

Abstract

Corpora have been widely used in applied linguistics research and, to a lesser extent, in other fields such as political science or sociology. However, corpus research methods are rarely taught in education faculties. I will discuss different approaches to using CL methods in education research and examine the underlying assumptions that may justify distinguishing between corpus linguistics (CL) as a methodology and as a set of methods. This talk seeks to contribute to the advancement of the debate about how CL can position itself within the wide spectrum of current educational research methods.

References

Bednarek, M., Pinto, M. V., & Werner, V. (2021). Corpus approaches to telecinematic language. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 26(1), 1-9.

Cameron, D. & Panović, I. (2014). Corpus-based discourse analysis. In Working with written discourse (pp. 81-96). Sage.

Cohen, L., Manion, L. & Morrison, K. (2018) Research methods in education. Routledge.

Creswell, J. W. & Creswell, J. D. (2017). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Sage.

Durrant, P., Brenchley, M., & McCallum, L. (2021). Understanding development and proficiency in writing: quantitative corpus linguistic approaches. Cambridge University Press.

Fest, J. (2015). Corpora in the Social Sciences-How corpus-based appraches can support qualitative interview analyses. LFE. Revista de Lenguas para Fines Específicos, 21,2, 48-69.

Gianfreda, S. (2019). Using a mixed-method approach to examine party positioning on immigration and the european union in parliamentary proceedings.In SAGE Research Methods Cases.

Leech, G. (2000). Grammars of spoken English: New outcomes of corpus‐oriented research. Language learning, 50(4), 675-724.

Leavy, P. (2017). Research design: Quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, arts-based, and community-based participatory research approaches. The Guildford Press.

Pérez-Paredes, P. (2020). Corpus Linguistics for Education: A Guide for Research. Routledge.

Seale, C. & Charteris-Black, J. (2010). Keyword analysis: a new tool for qualitative research. In The SAGE handbook of qualitative methods in health research (pp. 536-556). Sage.

Sealey, A., & Thompson, P. (2004). ‘What do you call the dull words?’Primary school children using corpus-based approaches to learn about language. English in Education, 38(1), 80-91.

Wright, D. (2017). Using word n-grams to identify authors and idiolects: A corpus approach to a forensic linguistic problem. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 22(2), 212-241.

Vessey, R. (2013). Challenges in cross-linguistic corpus-assisted discourse studies. Corpora, 8(1), 1-26.

Vessey, R. (2017). Representations of language education in Canadian newspapers. Canadian Modern Language Review, 73(2), 158-182.