The Role of Corpus Linguistics in the Ethnography of a Closed Community analyses the interactions of immigrants within an Irish reception centre for asylum seekers to highlight the instinctive resourcefulness of people who are faced with the challenge of communicating when there is no common language or culture. Based on three years of ethnographical observation and using an illuminating and innovative blending of applied methodologies, chiefly corpus linguistics, ethnography and conversation analysis, this book: Draws upon a corpus of 98,000 words; Examines the use of English in the interactions of residents with one another and those with English speaking staff of the centre; Challenges constructs such as speech community, communicative competence and interlanguage. This book is essential reading for academics and upper-level undergraduates or graduates working in the areas of Corpus Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, and those interested in research methodologies. It will also prove to be of significant interest to people interested in migration studies and to providers of English language education to immigrants.

The Role of Corpus Linguistics in the Ethnography of a Closed Community analyses the interactions of immigrants within an Irish reception centre for asylum seekers to highlight the instinctive resourcefulness of people who are faced with the challenge of communicating when there is no common language or culture. Based on three years of ethnographical observation and using an illuminating and innovative blending of applied methodologies, chiefly corpus linguistics, ethnography and conversation analysis, this book: Draws upon a corpus of 98,000 words; Examines the use of English in the interactions of residents with one another and those with English speaking staff of the centre; Challenges constructs such as speech community, communicative competence and interlanguage. This book is essential reading for academics and upper-level undergraduates or graduates working in the areas of Corpus Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, and those interested in research methodologies. It will also prove to be of significant interest to people interested in migration studies and to providers of English language education to immigrants.

The aim of this edited volume is to demystify corpus linguistics for use in English language teaching (ELT). It advocates the inclusion of corpus linguistics in the classroom as part of an approach to ELT in which students engage with naturally occurring language. The first chapter provides a basic but essential introduction to corpus linguistics, including sections on corpora and corpus methods, and this is followed by a review of the use of corpus linguistics in ELT. Chapters on the traditional ELT strands of skills, vocabulary and grammar as well as chapters on pluricentric approaches (on language and culture, World Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca) flow naturally from the second chapter, which reports on a survey of the attitudes of trainee teacher to the use of corpus linguistics in the ELT classroom. The final two chapters show how the work of corpus linguists can benefit classroom teacher preparation, materials development and textbook writing. This book will be of interest not only to academics in fields such as English Language Teaching, Applied Linguistics and Corpus Linguistics, but also to educators of teacher-trainees and teacher-trainees themselves, as well as teachers who are looking for new interactive approaches to ELT.