Abstract
This study was designed to investigate whether contemporary corpus-informed grammar textbooks written for English language learners and teachers presented the progressive use of stative verbs and if yes, which stative verbs were presented to occur with the progressive aspect and for which functions they took this aspect. A corpus of six electronic copies of corpus-informed textbooks was compiled and analyzed via AntConc. 3.2.4 text analysis program to identify types and functions of stative verbs and calculate their occurrences. Overall, textbooks differed in their treatment of the progressive use of stative verbs and inclusion of the variety and numbers of types and functions. One remarkable finding was that the stative verbs taking the progressive aspect in all textbooks were found to be associated with emotions (i.e. love) whereas those not allowing progressive use were related to cognition (i.e. know). Another remarkable finding was that the textbooks which presented the highest numbers of stative verb types provided the most diverse functions whereas the textbooks which included the least numbers of stative verbs provided one or no function. Findings are hoped to raise awareness among textbook writers in making use of both the communicative messages motivated by the progressive use of stative verbs and the frequency and saliency information based on the corpus of present-day English to help learners grasp the changes in the language use.
Highlights
Textbooks written for English language learners have been considered as a prominent source of input and practice and play a pivotal mediating role between the target language and the learner as they provide opportunity for learners to contact with the language (Richards, 2001; Razmjoo, 2007).Considering the role of textbooks in language learning process, it is of utmost importance for textbook writers to provide learners with the language instances as used by native speakers of English and information about the grammatical features of the language
This study was designed to investigate whether contemporary corpus-informed grammar textbooks written for English language learners and teachers presented the progressive use of stative verbs and if yes, which stative verbs were presented to occur with the progressive aspect and for which functions they took this aspect
Each stative verb found in each textbook was provided and the functions which stative verbs served in progressive use were explained and illustrated based on the instances obtained from the textbooks
Summary
Considering the role of textbooks in language learning process, it is of utmost importance for textbook writers to provide learners with the language instances as used by native speakers of English and information about the grammatical features of the language. As language is dynamic and changing, textbook writers should introduce the changes in language and provide learners with the input frequently used in native English language (Hutchinson & Torres, 1994). Some researchers conclude that there are mismatches between present-day English language and the language presented in textbooks designed for English language learning (Römer, 2004; Khojasteh & Reinders, 2013). Textbooks neglect salient features of present-day language frequently used by English native speakers (Khojasteh & Reinders, 2013)
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