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Spoken English, Written English: Corpus evidence and its implications for language teaching.

7 November 2008

3:00-6:00pm

Treffpunkt Klett München

Schwanthalerstr. 10

80336 München

 

PLEASE NOTE:

Unfortunately, the workshop registration has already more than reached capacity. If you registered after October 27, you will be placed on a waiting list and notified if there are cancellations. We regret this inconvenience and ask for your understanding. Rod Zook / Activities MELTA

 

Sponsored by Ernst Klett Sprachen

Spoken English, Written English: Corpus evidence and its implications for language teaching.

Ron Carter

This talk/workshop explores recent research into the differences and distinctions between spoken and written language. The different ways in which we process and use spoken and written language mean that spoken language has certain marked grammatical constructions and it is argued that the more we know about these spoken features the more likely it is that we can help speakers and writers with different levels of formality in English. The study of spoken language also raises fundamental questions, however, about how standard English is defined, about the notion of choice in language and about classroom materials development for the teaching of English. Examples will be drawn from the one-billion-word Cambridge International Corpus of English. The talk will also assess how the English language is changing. Among the topics discussed under this heading will be: the relationship between language change and social patterns; the importance of small words; creativity and social functions in everyday spoken English.

Ronald Carter is Professor of Modern English Language at the University of Nottingham. He has written and edited more than 50 books and has published over 100 academic papers in the fields of literary-linguistics, language and education, applied linguistics and the teaching of English. He has taught, lectured and given consultancies to government agencies and ministries in the field of language education in over thirty countries world-wide. In the UK he has worked closely with UK government agencies on English in the National Curriculum and the Adult ESOL Core Curriculum and is currently part-seconded to the DfES (UK Ministry of Education) as linguistic advisor on Basic Skills, Literacy and ESOL. Recent books include: The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (ed with David Nunan) (CUP, 2001) Language and Creativity: The Art of Common Talk  (Routledge, 2004) Most recently, Cambridge Grammar of English: A Comprehensive Guide to Spoken and Written Grammar and Usage (with Michael McCarthy) was published in 2006 and From Corpus to Classroom (with Anne O’Keeffe ands Mike McCarthy) in 2007. The Cambridge Grammar book won the British Council English Language Innovation Award for 2007. Professor Carter is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a fellow of the British Academy for Social Sciences and is currently chair of the British Association for Applied Linguistics.

Register directly with the Klett website here.

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