Open AccessA Corpus-based Study of Lexis in L2 English Textbooks
Author(s) -
Cathrine Norberg,
Marie Nordlund
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of language teaching and research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2053-0684
pISSN - 1798-4769
DOI - 10.17507/jltr.0903.03
Subject(s) - lexis , vocabulary , linguistics , variation (astronomy) , selection (genetic algorithm) , corpus linguistics , perspective (graphical) , computer science , word list , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , class (philosophy) , philosophy , physics , astrophysics
Despite the fact that textbooks are central in foreign language learning, only limited research has explored to what extent L2 textbooks support language learning and whether the content in them is relevant from a vocabulary perspective. This study investigates the vocabulary in seven English textbooks used in Swedish primary schools. A corpus has been constructed based on the words in the textbooks. By means of a concordancing software tool, the material has been analyzed by comparing the vocabulary between the books and to words on the New General Service List and in the VP-Kids corpus. The analysis shows that many words in the textbooks occur only occasionally in common everyday language use. It also demonstrates that there is great variation in the number and selection of words across the books indicating that there does not seem to be a common thought behind word selection in textbooks used in Swedish schools.