ERIC Number: EJ880608
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010-May
Pages: 22
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-6001
EISSN: N/A
Discourse Particles in Corpus Data and Textbooks: The Case of "Well"
Lam, Phoenix W. Y.
Applied Linguistics, v31 n2 p260-281 May 2010
Discourse particles are ubiquitous in spoken discourse. Yet despite their pervasiveness very few studies attempt to look at their use in the pedagogical setting. Drawing on data from an intercultural corpus of speech and a textbook database, the present study compares the use of discourse particles by expert users of English in Hong Kong with their descriptions and presentations in textbooks designed for learners of English in the "same" community. Specifically, it investigates the similarities and differences in the use of the discourse particle "well" between the two datasets in terms of its frequency of occurrence, its positional preference and its discourse function. Results from the analysis show that there are vast differences as regards how the particle "well" is used in real-world examples and how its use is described and presented in teaching materials. This raises the question to what extent foreign language learners who have minimal exposure to naturally-occurring spoken interactions in English could effectively master the use of discourse particles if they solely rely on these textbooks.
Descriptors: Textbooks, Discourse Analysis, Foreign Countries, Computational Linguistics, Oral Language, Form Classes (Languages), Databases, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning, Instructional Materials, Teaching Methods
Oxford University Press. Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, UK. Tel: +44-1865-353907; Fax: +44-1865-353485; e-mail: jnls.cust.serv@oxfordjournals.org; Web site: http://applij.oxfordjournals.org/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Hong Kong
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A