Understanding Development and Proficiency in Writing: Quantitative Corpus Linguistic Approaches

Quantitative corpus research on written language development has expanded rapidly in recent years, assisted by the ever-increasing power and accessibility of software capable of reliably analysing huge collections of learner writing. For this work to reach its full potential, it is important that researchers have a strong understanding of its methodological foundations and of the existing empirical evidence base on which it can build. This book provides the most comprehensive discussion to date of research in this area. Covering both first and second language learning contexts, it sets out a coherent theoretical framework and systematically reviews studies published over the last seventy years in order to establish what such research has taught us about written language development, what it hasn't taught us, and what we should do next. Timely and original, this is an essential reference work for academic researchers and students of first and second language writing.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction; 2. Theoretical and Methodological Foundations; 3. Development in Syntax; 4. Development in Vocabulary; 5. Development in Formulaic Language; 6. Development in Cohesion; 7. Conclusions; References; Index.

About the Author :
Phil Durrant is Associate Professor in Language Education at the University of Exeter. He has been a language teacher and researcher for over twenty years, working at schools and universities in both the UK and Turkey. He has published widely on corpus linguistics, vocabulary learning and academic writing. Mark Brenchley is Senior Research Manager at Cambridge Assessment, with a particular focus on writing, grammar, automarking, and corpus-based methodologies. With Phil Durrant, he co-built the Growth-in-Grammar corpus, a unique database of L1 student writing. He has published on linguistics in various media, including co-writing the Times Educational Supplement's Grammar Bites column. Lee McCallum is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Exeter and has extensive teaching experience from Europe and the Far and Middle East. She is co-editor of The Assessment of L2 Written English across the MENA Region (2020).

Review :
'The book is an essential contribution to Corpus Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, and Theoretical Linguistics, as it presents a bird's eye view of the convoluted topic of writing development for both researchers and practitioners … It then zooms in on each particular developmental unit by breaking down the construct in a systematic and organized way, which is one of the most remarkable features of the book … The book is a worthwhile read and an invaluable resource for all interested in writing development and corpus linguistics.' Hatice Altun, Linguist