Learner corpus research in New Zealand

Abstract

Corpus linguistics has firmly established itself as a major area of research within linguistics. Arguably, one of the most practical applications of corpora and corpus linguistics has been in the area of second language (L2) acquisition research. Emerging from the integration of the fields of corpus linguistics and second language acquisition, learner corpus research has greatly enhanced our understanding of how language learners acquire and use their L2 ( Granger, 2002 ). Since its inception in the 1980s ( Granger et al., 2015 ), learner corpus research has increasingly attracted scholarly attention from around the world. This paper highlights the state of learner corpus research in New Zealand, focussing, in particular, on lexical and syntactic aspects of learner language. In doing so, it reviews the learner corpus studies carried out to date by New Zealand-based researchers, describing the results and implications of such research in the context of L2 education, and discussing the current status and future prospects of learner corpus research in New Zealand.