Letters to the editor: Results of corpus analysis

Abstract

In this paper, which is part of a wider study on corpus nexus genre approach to teaching writing to advanced EAL learners, we aim to show how corpora can provide teachers and learners with information about dominant lexical and grammatical characteristics of civic genres. We report on findings from one part of the project, a corpus of 50 letters to the editor of the New Zealand Listener gathered over a six month period. The application of two corpus software programmes, WordSmith Tools-5 and ConcGram, allows us to offer some fresh insights into familiar language features. Creating a corpus of L2 tertiary students’ civic texts at the next stage in the project and identifying gaps between learner civic writing language and the findings on the native corpus characteristics will prompt the types of interventions to recommend in the teaching of civic writing.