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CORPUS-BASED APPROACH TO ESP PEDAGOGY IN TERTIARY EDUCATION

Conference Paper · November 2019

DOI: 10.21125/iceri.2019.0456

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 CORPUS-BASED APPROACH TO ESP PEDAGOGY IN TERTIARY
EDUCATION
M. Rudneva1, N. Valeeva1, R. Faizi2, A. Guslyakova1, Y. Nigmatzyanova1
1
Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) (RUSSIAN FEDERATION)
2
ENSIAS Mohammed V University in Rabat (MOROCCO)

Abstract
The paper explores various applications of authentic corpus language data in professional language
classroom at university level. The research investigates opportunities provided by the freely available
online corpus EcoLexicon, which is a visual thesaurus with a specific focus on the domain of
Environment and is meant to facilitate environmental texts comprehension and generation. The
authors consider possible limitations as well as potential of EcoLexicon for the professional language
training of environmental sciences students. Traditionally professional language learners are exposed
to extensive reading tasks interspersed with L2 webinars and lectures. However beneficial these
activities are for the development of passive skills, such as listening and reading comprehension, none
of them directly contribute to active production skills such as writing, speaking and L1/L2 translation.
One of the key elements of successful professional speech production is accuracy, thus it is of specific
importance to address potential pitfalls by designing teaching activities which involve translation and
expose students to multiple examples of lexical items in context. This paper demonstrates
pedagogical implications of EcoLexicon corpus in ESP curriculum of Environmental studies students
and discusses rationale behind introducing corpus tools to non-linguistic students.
Keywords: English for specific purposes (ESP), online corpus, translation.

1 INTRODUCTION
The use of authentic language in ESP classroom is invaluable, as it increases exposure of learners to
various grammatical and lexical items in specialized context. Application of specialized corpora seems
an efficient way to perform the task of disambiguation. Corpus-based tools can address inquiries not
covered in traditionally used mono- and bilingual dictionaries. They facilitate better understanding of
inherent semantics, allow to depart from generic surface understanding of professional texts and delve
deep into structures and meanings, enhancing overall linguistic competence of learners and
instructors alike. Comprehension of a specialized text requires profound understanding of lexical and
grammatical elements within terminological framework of a specific discipline, facilitating accurate use
of a language unit within given ESP context. This can be achieved by understanding syntagmatic
associations, i.e. prosodies and collocations, as well as lexical bundles [1], [2], [3]. Having said that,
one of key aspects of ESP pedagogies is giving the learners tools to master contextualization patterns
and genre-specific features of the professional target language, which, in its turn, would ensure
acceptability and appropriateness of their linguistic choices. Specialized monolingual and bilingual
dictionaries as well as automatic translation tools do not always provide sufficient information on
specific lexical and grammatical features, i.e. nuances in synonymic words, and in this case
specialized corpora have proven to be especially useful [4]. Corpus-based approach to teaching ESP
fosters linguistic competence by providing abundant information on actual lexicogrammatical patterns,
frequency-based understanding of typical word choices, connotations and nuances of meanings as
well as appropriate collocations [5], [6], [7], [8]. Therefore, application of corpus-based data in material
development and classroom activities can foster better understanding of target texts in L2. Inability to
contextualize professional terminology, introduction of target vocabulary as extensive bilingual lists,
seems beneficial in the immediate perspective, but proved lacking in the long run [8]. Exposure to
naturally used concordances helps learners to go beyond vocabulary and induce grammatical patterns
[9] as words belonging to specific fields can demonstrate specific ‘collocationality’, which is not
registered in dictionaries [10]. Collocations can also foster understanding of nuances within synonymic
groups of words, increasing overall language awareness [11], [12]. According to past research,
learners entirely rely on the output of computer-assisted translation, which in a few instances leads to
ambiguity on lexical and grammatical levels [13], whereas corpus tools can foster disambiguation [14],
[15]. Frequency and collocation lists can serve as a source for creating teaching materials. On the
learners side the process of disambiguation of near-synonymic words results in inferring information

Proceedings of ICERI2019 Conference ISBN: 978-84-09-14755-7

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11th-13th November 2019, Seville, Spain
from professional linguistic contexts, which fosters better understanding, increases engagement and
motivation through self-discovery. Despite numerous benefits, corpus-based tools can present certain
challenges as well. The incomplete sentences containing key words in the concordance output might
be challenging for the students [16]. Besides, the large number of concordances can be perceived as
overwhelming by non-linguistic students who are not accustomed to inductive learning procedures.
These deficiencies, however, may be remedied by careful design of teaching materials and
assignments. Therefore, the aim of this research is to demonstrate how corpus-based pedagogy can
be used in ESP classroom with the non-linguistic students who possess no prior knowledge or
experience of discovery-based inductive L2 learning strategies.

2 METHODOLOGY
The objective of this research is investigation of corpus-based pedagogies for the ESP classroom, the
paper discusses application of a freely available EcoLexicon corpus in specific language classes at
Environmental studies faculty of RUDN University, Russia. During the spring semester 2018-2019
three groups of students aged 18-20, 39 participants in total, were offered to use EcoLexicon online
tool as a lexicographic reference source in cases when bilingual and monolingual dictionaries failed to
provide clear understanding of meaning or usage differences between near-synonymic words.
EcoLexicon is a corpus of contemporary environmental texts, the size is 23 mln words and it is an
extensive terminological knowledge base on the environment [17]. It is available for access and query
in the corpus query system Sketch Engine [18]. At the beginning of spring semester, the participants
were introduced to Sketch Engine query system and instructed on basic features of EcoLexicon.
During the semester the learners were asked to address ambiguous terminological issues. Very often
the ambiguity refers to key terminological concepts, let us consider the case of the Russian word
загрязнение. The most widely used bilingual dictionary multitran.com provides two English terms, i.e.
pollution and contamination in the lexical domain of environmental studies:
загрязнение сущ.
окруж. pollution
The indirect or direct alteration of the biological, thermal, physical, or radioactive properties of any
medium in such a way as to create a hazard or potential hazard to human health or to the health,
safety or welfare of any living species (Прямое или косвенное изменение биологических,
термических, физических, радиоактивных свойств любой среды, в результате которого
создается прямая или потенциальная угроза здоровью человека, здоровью, безопасности или
благополучию других видов)
эк. contamination (окружающей среды)
So, the question arises, to what extend these words are synonyms and what their lexical and
functional differences are.
The first strategy of the learner would be to query computer-assisted translation tool, i.e. Google
Translate. However, the results of the query, as presented in Figure 1, do not contribute to better
understanding of the functional and meaning differences between these near-synonyms.

Figure 1.

Apparently, two separate English terms are translated by one same term into Russian. The
monolingual dictionary (LDOCE) does not make differentiation less vague. This issue, however, can

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be resolved by quiring a specialized corpus of environmental texts which contains factual information
on linguistic behavior of these terms. According to the results of the search contamination is used
almost 4 times less than pollution (47.94 per million vs 198.83 per million). Nevertheless, there are
several overlaps in their functional behavior. As demonstrated in Table 1, both pollution and
contamination can be modified by water and groundwater. It is of interest that groundwater more
frequently collocates with contamination than pollution.

Table 1. Modifiers of pollution/contamination

Modifier Pollution (per mln) Contamination (per mln)

water 7,42 6,35
groundwater 7,91 10,15

The query indicated that modifier air is linked through a high frequency number of occurrences with
air, but no statistically significant link has been established for air contamination collocation.
Contamination is more preferable when speaking of probability, i.e. suspected, possible, potential
contamination, whereas pollution collocated with time/space modifiers, i.e. short-term, long-range
pollution. The search returned high frequency collocations with the term pollution when speaking
about big-scale location, i.e. transboundary, atmospheric, urban, ocean, ozone, marine, indoor
pollution. However, when speaking about precise location on a landscape, contamination is more
frequent, i.e. sewage, ground, aquifer contamination. There is collocation differentiation depending on
the modifying agent, as demonstrated in Table 2.

Table 2. Agents of pollution/contamination

Pollution Contamination
Oil, acid, noise, photochemical, thermal Arsenic, fecal, metal, nitrate, radioactive,
leachate, chemical, methane, lead, pesticide,
bacterial

This information is invaluable for understanding syntagmatic behavior of professional terminology and
its accurate and efficient application.

3 CONCLUSIONS
Understanding professional terminology in L2 might present a significant challenge to foreign
language students. General dictionaries and computer-assisted translation tools do not contribute to
disambiguation of specific contexts. Whereas traditional approaches demonstrate limitations, corpus-
based techniques can be of major assistance. Integration of corpus-assisted learning in ESP
classroom helps improve linguistic knowledge of instructors and learners alike. Investigation of
cooccurrences in context as well as information on their frequencies fosters increasing professional
language awareness. The process of guided discovery contributed to overall student motivation and
engagement, apart from that, it very well demonstrates unreliability of automatic translation tools.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper was financially supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian
Federation on the program to improve the competitiveness of Peoples' Friendship University of Russia
(RUDN University) among the world's leading research and education centres in the 2016-2020.

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