Semi-specialized corpora of written French as a resource in language teaching and learning

Abstract

This study is based on data provided by a corpus 1,144,668 words of contemporary written standard French of a semi-specialized nature, consisting of journalistic texts relating to the introduction of the Euro. The aim is to investigate the potential of a corpus such as this as a resource for language teachers and learners in an area such as French for business, where competence in the expression of quantitative may be required. Through an analysis of the verbs and prepositions used in conjunction with the percentage symbol, the aim is twofold: firstly to show how the information obtained from the corpus can complement the contribution of the grammar and the coursebook, providing a resource with a variety of examples of actual use; and secondly to raise the question of how information such as this can be made available to teachers and learners in an environment which fosters inductive learning and learner autonomy.