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UCREL (the University Research Centre for Computer Corpus Research on Language) has been pioneering advances in corpus linguistics for over 40 years, providing users with corpora (collections of written or spoken material) and the software to exploit them. Drawing together 8 researchers from the Department of Linguistics and English Language and 1 from the School of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University, it has enabled the UK English Language Teaching (ELT) industry to produce innovative materials which have helped the profitability and competitiveness of that industry, and assisted other, principally commercial, users to innovate in product design and development.
Worldwide impact on language learners and others has been generated by the development at Lancaster of a ground-breaking natural language processing tool (CLAWS4), and an associated unique collection of natural language data (the British National Corpus, or BNC). Some highlights selected from the primary impacts are as follows:
The pathways to impact have been primarily via consultancy and via licencing of software IP. The impact itself is largely on the language learners—i.e. users of products such as the above. There is a secondary economic impact on a UK SME which has licenced our software.
Biak (West Papua, Indonesia) is an endangered language with no previously established orthography. Dalrymple and Mofu's ESRC-supported project created the first on-line database of digital audio and video Biak texts with linguistically analysed transcriptions and translations (one of the first ever for an endangered language), making these materials available for future generations and aiding the sustainability of the language. Biak school-children can now use educational materials, including dictionaries, based on project resources. The project also trained local researchers in best practice in language documentation, enabling others to replicate these methods and empowering local communities to save their own endangered languages.
This case study describes a unique collaboration between Professor Clive Upton and researchers at the University of Leeds, the BBC and the British Library (BL), examining language variation. As a result of a programme assembling and researching the largest recorded archive of dialects and speech patterns assembled in the UK, two major interlinked forms of impact were generated:
i. Informing public understanding of dialect and English language use, thereby validating diverse regional and national identities.
ii. Contributing to the professional practice and goals of the BBC and the BL through policy enhancement, training, and developing broadcast and exhibition content.
The EPP Project identifies criterial features for second language acquisition. It has engaged stakeholders in the teaching and testing of language learners. This is facilitated by the EPP network and website. The project has enabled Cambridge Assessment to define the English language constructs underlying Cambridge examinations at different proficiency levels more explicitly. The work has improved the tests themselves, but also allowed Cambridge Assessment to better communicate the qualities of their tests for accreditation and recognition. Stakeholders are more actively engaged through provision of resources for teachers, testers, ministries of education etc., on the website, and in seminars. The project has led to further research with an international language school, which has led to teachers and parents of the school pupils being more aware of the needs for successful second language acquisition.
The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL) is quoted and used in both schools and colleges across the world and read by people without any direct academic connection to the subject: widening access to, interest in, and understanding of Sumerian literature. Sumerian literature is widely known as one of the oldest literatures in the world, inspiring countless studies of world literature and history of religion. The ETCSL has made the bulk of canonical Sumerian literature (c. 400 compositions) available in prose translations and the original Sumerian to both specialists and informal learners for more than a decade.
University of Huddersfield research into corpus stylistics has led to the development of Language Unlocked, a consultancy service that uses linguistic methodologies and interpretative procedures to help public, private, third-sector and non-governmental organisations. Language Unlocked has informed clients' strategic decision-making, communicated their organisational strategies and assisted them in realising long-term goals. Beneficiaries have included Britain's unions, which have reassessed their communications policies; the Green Party, which has revised its policies, manifestos and communications; and a major chemical company, which increased its visibility as a result of carefully worded advertising.
Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (GPC) is a historical dictionary similar to the Oxford English Dictionary, and is the acknowledged authority on the spelling, derivation and meaning of Welsh words. Apart from its scholarly uses, it is used in all areas of the Welsh public sphere, providing the lexical information necessary to produce terminology for bilingual documentation in fields such as government, education, health, law and business. GPC has always had a network of voluntary readers and informants, and uses both old and new media to seek examples of contemporary usage and to promote public interest in the language. A concise version of the dictionary has been freely available online since 2003, and a full version will be launched in 2014.
The research findings have led directly to a decision by Cambridge English Language Assessment to change the assessment criteria in their examinations to include assessment of metaphor use. The availability of the research report on the Cambridge website widens the impact of the findings to English Language Teaching and Assessment more broadly, changing attitudes to the assessment of metaphor use at the crucial university-entry level in particular.
The findings have also led to change in the advice given by the British Council for those involved in communication with people from different linguistic backgrounds. The advice is available on their website, which receives several million hits per year (see below for details and exact numbers of hits). This advice has been amended to include information on metaphor. The website has been used by teachers to improve language teaching materials and enhance the way that students are helped to engage in academic courses in English.
Cambridge English Language Assessment is a sector leader and delivers assessment to just under 4 million students per year, including the 1.5 million candidates who take the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) for entry to English-speaking universities. Cambridge examinations are recognised by 13,000 institutions in 130 countries. The British Council is a global leader in English Language teaching and is a respected provider of impartial advice. The adoption by these agencies of these research findings can be expected in turn to lead to a greater focus on metaphor in language classrooms around the world.
This impact is on educational policy and practice in relation to the international teaching of German as a foreign language and is based on research into differences in linguistic variation between England and Germany. The differences lie in: perception of non-standard varieties in the two countries; the status of the standard language in each; and different attitudes towards it. The research stimulated debate, in Germany and abroad, about the variety of German appropriate for use in classroom instruction, and resulted in acceptance that teaching only the register of formal writing is not adequate to the needs of contemporary communication. New teaching manuals have been produced and curricula revised, placing greater emphasis on everyday speech.