What Have the Corpus Linguists Done for Us?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 12:21 am

Hugh Deller has asserted "that much of what corpus linguists tell us can actually be retrieved simply by examining our own intuitions about language, and he seemed to be saying that if something cannot be retrieved from intuition it is probably not worth teaching anyway.·

From; What Have the Corpus Linguists Done for Us? By Dave Willis.

Do you agree with Dellar?

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:00 am

They've haven't done as much for us as the Romans did

, but at least we don't have to bend the knee to Chomsky quite so much anymore, so that's one thing right away that we should be thankful for.

Deller by way of the paraphrase makes a good point ('(I)f something cannot be retrieved from intuition it is probably not worth teaching anyway'), but without the extra attention to detail that CL allows, we could well find ourselves back at square one again, being expected to teach truly worthless phrases that 100% do not chime with nor find any place in our intuition.

Anuradha Chepur · Post by **Anuradha Chepur** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:23 am

How about 'Google linguistics'? (linguistics based on google hits)
Sounds similar to corpus linguistics.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:31 am

So, AC, you would question the utility of Google, that "rough and ready" corpus, if not CL in general? Why?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:38 am

They've haven't done as much for us as the Romans did

Christianity in a marketable form?

being expected to teach truly worthless phrases that 100% do not chime with nor find any place in our intuition.

Is the native-speaking teacher's intuition to be trusted then?

Anuradha Chepur · Post by **Anuradha Chepur** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:39 am

No, actually I question the utility of CL.
CL, I think, is/will be reduced to google search.
Anyone who searches is a linguist.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:41 am

metal56 wrote:Is the native-speaking teacher's intuition to be trusted then?

If they're absolutely opposed to even looking at a concordance line or two, I'd say definitely...not!

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:42 am

Anuradha Chepur wrote: How about 'Google linguistics'? (linguistics based on google hits)
Sounds similar to corpus linguistics.

Google linguistics would be under the banner of corpus linguistics. Googling is only one way of electronically investigating English usage. Google only allows one to investigate a certain number of the hits is retrieves and there's a lot of questionable English out there in Googleland.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:26 am

Anuradha Chepur wrote:No, actually I question the utility of CL.
CL, I think, is/will be reduced to google search.
Anyone who searches is a linguist.

I once said here on Dave's that CL is like being given a flashy toy without the batteries - what makes it run, tick? The thing you have to remember however is that it is not the duty of an ESL teacher to account for much more than the facts that they need to (sift, inspect, sequence, recycle etc in order to) teach; nor will students (passably intelligent ones at least) need to keep pinching themselves every five minutes to ask, 'How in the world am I understanding and learning this mysterious thing called (the English) language?!'.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 8:17 am

If Dellar really said that native speaker intuitions are enough, I have to disagree. For example, remember the thread about further/farther? I always thought there was no difference until I checked the CCCS.

Intuitions are fine for confirming something is correct, less so for saying something is incorrect. Often all a NS can say is "I don't use it/haven't come across it myself".

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 8:21 am

'How in the world am I understanding and learning this mysterious thing called (the English) language?!'.

Hopefully, such students are using the language appropriately. And would they be the same students who say "Well, I thought I was understanding and learning it, but then I realised I'd been given lots of bum steers by my native-speaking teachers who were mostly using their intuition"?

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 8:32 am

Bum steers, eh. I'm inventing a whole new meaning for the term in my fevered imagination.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 8:34 am

Actually that idea/lightbulb emoticon kind of looks like a bum eh (poking through a split in too-tight yet highly fashionable yellow trousers).

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 8:36 am

Anuradha Chepur wrote:Anyone who searches is a linguist.

And what's wrong with genuinely searching?

Anuradha Chepur · Post by **Anuradha Chepur** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 8:37 am

there's a lot of questionable English out there in Googleland.

And so there is o will be in any other corpus.
Which is why the performance based CL is questionable.