F. Meunier, S. De Cock, G. Gilquin, and M. Paquot (eds.): A Taste for Corpora. In Honour of Sylviane Granger.

Abstract

The purpose of this volume is twofold. First of all, it is a valuable tribute to the work of Sylviane Granger, one of the pioneers in computer corpus linguistics with a specific focus on the compilation and analysis of language learner corpora. Secondly, it offers an informed account to both experienced corpus linguists and readers who are new to the discipline of the multiple uses to which corpus linguistics can be put. Corpus linguistics is, as Bengt Altenberg puts it in the synthesizing preface, a methodology rather than a theory of language (learning). Through it, new approaches to the study of (second or foreign) language (learning) and new ways of matching theory and empirical data are made possible. Such new possibilities can only but stimulate a healthy taste for corpora. The volume consists of 11 contributions, accompanied by the editors’ guided tour (Chapter 1). Being a Festschrift for Sylviane Granger, the contributions and introductory chapter pay special tribute to her career, as is worthy of one of the pioneers in the once very new discipline of corpus linguistics. Furthermore, Granger is also a specialist in contrastive linguistics, a lexicographer, and a teacher of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), being the first to engage in the compilation of learner corpora such as the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE, Granger et al. 2009). An impressive list of her publications can be found in the addendum to the volume.