Abstract

School curriculum and pedagogy change over time and are affected by changes in technology. One little used technology in foreign language classrooms is the electronic language corpus. In corpus-based linguistics, language corpora are often used as tools to analyze and observe various language features, including discourse, pragmatics, and syntax. However, language corpora can also act as a tool to assist language teachers by providing greater exposure to features of the language. Using language corpora is especially helpful in exposing learners to so-called authentic language used in a target language culture. Moreover, students can gradually enhance their language proficiency by using a well-developed corpus. In the foreign language-teaching world, most corpora studies focus on using English corpora in ESL settings, and there are only a few studies focused on using foreign language corpora in other foreign language teaching settings. The light use of corpora in other foreign language settings may be partly related to the lack of user-friendly foreign language corpora, or a lack of understanding of how to manipulate different foreign language corpora effectively. This study seeks to demonstrate how language corpora can be used in advanced Chinese classrooms, and how Chinese corpora can help students to enhance their language proficiency. This study's results show that corpus use in advanced Chinese classrooms can help advanced Chinese learners to improve their understanding of grammar taught in class.

Degree

College and Department

Humanities; Center for Language Studies

Rights

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