LINGUIST List 11.1909

Mon Sep 11 2000

Disc: New: Kirk: Corpora Galore

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Ronald Sheen, Re: 11.1905, Review: Kirk: Corpora Galore

Message 1: Re: 11.1905, Review: Kirk: Corpora Galore

John M. Kirk, ed. (2000): Corpora Galore: Analyses and Techniques in
Describing English (Language and Computers: Studies in Practical
Linguistics No 30). Amsterdam: Rodopi.

In the review of the above volume, Joybrato Mukherjee writes:

"A second example of leaving loose threads is David C. Minugh's
paper. He is perfectly correct in observing that "students, particularly
EFL students, are both encouraged to learn idioms [...] and
simultaneously discouraged from using them" (p. 57). However, he does not
provide the reader with a clear-cut conclusion as to this problem on the
basis of the numerous - and no doubt valuable - quantitative corpus
analyses."

What is intriguing, from my point of view, in the above is:
"...simultaneously discouraged from using them"

I'd appreciate it if either the author of the article or of the review
could elaborate on the empirical data used to support this conclusion. It
puzzles me as to why there would be such discouragement, what type of
evidence was advanced to support the conclusion and how it was gathered.

Ron Sheen U of Quebec in Trois Rivieres, Canada.