Conceptualizing Corpus-Based Genre Pedagogy as Usage-Inspired Second Language Instruction

Abstract Corpus-based genre pedagogy (CBGP), the instructional integration of discourse-based rhetorical analysis and corpus-based linguistic analysis of diverse genres, has gained attention from English for Academic Purposes (EAP) researchers and practitioners aiming to cultivate the academic writing skills of second language (L2) learners. This has led to a need for the continuous conceptualization of CBGP (Lu, Xiaofei, J. Casal Elliott, and Yingying Liu. 2021. “Towards the Synergy of Genre- and Corpus-Based Approaches to Academic Writing Research and Pedagogy.” International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching 11 (1): 59–71). Additionally, usage-based approaches to L2 acquisition (U-SLA), a collection of cognitive and potentially sociocognitive theoretical approaches to language and language acquisition (Ellis, Nick C., Ute Römer, and Matthew Brook O’Donnell. 2016. Usage-Based Approaches to Language Acquisition and Processing: Cognitive and Corpus Investigations. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell; Wulff, Stepanie, and Nick C. Ellis. 2018. “Usage-Based Approaches to Second Language Acquisition.” In Bilingual Cognition and Language: The State of the Science across its Subfields, edited by D. Miller, F. Bayram, J. Rothman, and L. Serratrice, 37–56. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company), have called for more pedagogically oriented research informed by usage-based principles (e.g., Tyler, Andrea E., Hae In Park, Mariko Uno, and Lourdes Ortega, eds. 2018. Usage-inspired L2 Instruction: Researched Pedagogy. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company). Responding to such calls, we argue for conceptualizing CBGP as usage-inspired instruction given its intersections with key U-SLA instructional tenets. We first systematically review empirical studies on CBGP. Then, we introduce relevant U-SLA instructional tenets and interpret the CBGP studies to illuminate the extent to which CBGP resonates with different aspects of the U-SLA tenets. Eventually, we argue that CBGP can potentially unify the “social” and the “cognitive” in U-SLA’s accounts of L2 teaching and learning, making it a feasible way to materialize usage-inspired L2 instruction in actual classroom practice. Finally, we discuss future research and practical directions.