Continuing Learner Corpus Research

For over thirty years, Learner Corpus Research (LCR) has increasingly contributed to applied linguistics, notably to Second Language Acquisition, Language Teaching and Learning, Language Testing and Assessment, as well as to other neighbouring fields. The advances in LCR have been marked by the Learner Corpus Association's biennial conferences, the sixth of which was held at the Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies, University of Padua in 2022. The fourteen chapters in this volume originate from a selection of papers presented at this conference and revolve around the following
thematic areas: corpus compilation and annotation; text cohesion in learner interlanguage; lexical and grammatical complexity in written and spoken learner language; classroom discourse and the pragmatics of student email writing. They not only address the challenges posed by recent advances in LCR, but they also highlight the opportunities afforded by learner corpora representing various L2s (i.e., Chinese, English, German, Italian, and Swedish) and by the use of cuttingedge investigative methods (e.g., CAF research, structural equation modelling). The present studies can be considered representative of the innovative approaches and methodological rigour which characterise LCR, and pave the way for further exploration and application of the results in the field.