Textual Patterns: Key words and corpus analysis in language education(22 Studies in Corpus Linguistics)

Textual Patterns introduces corpus resources, tools and analytic frameworks of central relevance to language teachers and teacher educators. Specifically it shows how key word analysis, combined with the systematic study of vocabulary and genre, can form the basis for a corpus informed approach to language teaching. The first part of the book gives the reader a strong grounding in the way in which language teachers can use corpus analysis tools (wordlists, concordances, key words) to describe language patterns in general and text patterns in particular. The second section presents a series of case studies which show how a key word / corpus informed approach to language education can work in practice. The case studies include: General language education (i.e. students in national education systems and those following international examination programmes), foreign languages for academic purposes, literature in language education, business and professional communication, and cultural studies in language education.

Table of Contents:
1. Preface; 2. 1. Texts in anguage study and language education; 3. 2. Word-lists: Approaching texts; 4. 3. Concordances: The immediate context; 5. 4. Key words of individual texts: Aboutness and style; 6. 5. Key words and genres; 7. 6. General English language teaching: Grammar and lexis in spoken and written texts; 8. 7. Business and professional communication: Managing relationships in professional writing; 9. 8. English for academic purposes: Building an account of expert and apprentice performances in literary criticism; 10. 9. What counts in current journalism: Keywords in newspaper reporting; 11. 10. Counting things in texts you can't count on: A study of Samuel Beckett's Texts for Nothing, 1; 12. References; 13. Index

Review :
The book provides a wealth of ideas for using the study of words and word-based patterns to help us to analyse and teach texts. Subtitling Norms for Television is a comprehensive and carefully researched academic study that will soon occupy the bookshelves of translation studies scholars, researchers in AVT and AVT practitioners alike. It takes the time to introduce and contextualise subtitling within AVT, but then moves on into the very specialized area of subtitling norms and extralinguistic cultural references (ECR’s), by the way of descriptive translation studies, drawing on a vast corpus of original material and a sound theoretical framework. Indeed, the book places subtitling, and AVT more generally, squarely within descriptive translation studies, demonstrating the relevance of its concepts and methodology for AVT, but also the relevance of technology-driven AVT for Translation Studies. In addition, Jan Pedersen’s meticulous analysis of subtitling strategies and the parameters that influence them is prime teaching material, and of great interest to practitioners in search of translation solutions. Finally, and equally importantly, the book raises new questions and is written in an engaging and accessible style that I truly hope will inspire many. This is an interesting book which gives the reader the necessary theoretical and methodological background on corpus and Key Words (KW) analysis, as well as illustrating the potential of these research methods in pedagogical settings in a practical way through a number of case studies. It gives a nuanced account, pointing out advantages as well as complexities, and limitations of the types of analysis it deals with. It also makes a strong case for combining quantitative corpus analysis (for example making KW lists) with qualitative analysis (e.g. analyzing concordances for certain KWs) in a balanced way. As a language teacher I found the book inspiring, and it will be interesting to see further applications of this type of research in the area of language teaching in the future. The keyword is a powerful tool for assessing and understanding texts; this book gives a clear and detailed description of its possibilities, mainly through a series of convincing applications to a wide range of texts. Language learners and teachers should find full practical support here for their own investigations, provided by two pioneers of the harnessing of computer corpora to language learning. This book is a delight to read. It is not only an exceptionally clear and cogent account of the procedures of corpus analysis in general, but a convincing demonstration of how revealing these procedures can be when applied to particular texts, literary and non-literary, by focusing attention on features of potential significance for interpretation. Anybody working with texts should make it a priority to read this one.