Language, Learners and Levels

Learner Corpus Research (LCR) is a vibrant discipline, which combines methodological rigour in the analysis of authentic learner data with a focus on practical pedagogical application. Following earlier successful conferences in Louvain and Bergen, the third LCR conference, hosted by Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, illustrated how LCR has matured. The field is advancing in its integration of experimental studies and learner corpus analysis, combining the benefits of controlled experimentation and the analysis of authentic language data. Increasingly, LCR research builds on current Second Language Acquisition theory and uses the study of corpus data to contribute to it. This volume reflects the range and scope of the field and the almost kaleidoscopic nature of the work carried out under the LCR umbrella, representing a multitude of research interests, including written and spoken EFL production, language assessment and translation studies. The field's maturity is also illustrated by methodological developments such as attention for individual variation, inclusion of L1 data and use of longitudinal corpora. The papers in this volume do not only chart learners’ development, they also illustrate the development within the field itself. While the field is branching out, it also remains true to its origins in applied linguistics in that it helps to define perceptions of proficiency, substantiate language level descriptors and inform teaching methodology.