Exploring recurrent word combinations in a business English learner corpus: A parallel corpus analysis and its curricular implications

Word combination is one of the most difficult aspects in second language learning, but has been largely neglected by researchers and practitioners. Given this state of affairs, this corpus-based action research has identified the most recurrent word combinations and their Spanish translations in a business English course (INCO 3006).; The participants were 33 young-adult native Spanish speakers enrolled in business English 3006 (INCO 3006) at the University of Puerto Rico at Bayamon. These students were intermediate learners of English who have already completed the basic English courses 3101-3104 or have obtained a score of 4 or 5 in the advanced placement exam offered by the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB).; The analysis was based on two corpora compiled by the researcher: an English learner corpus (E3006) and an unaligned parallel corpus (ES3006). The software package WordSmith Tools 4.0 was used to extract frequency words, three-word clusters and concordances. Phrases and vocabulary items of interest to the researcher were also identified using the concordancing feature in WordSmith Tools 4.0.; The ultimate goal of the study was to compile a parallel learner business English corpus of letters and e-mails to be used for pedagogical purposes more in tune with local learners and conditions. Also, a pragmatic contrastive lexical (PCL) approach was developed by the researcher to incorporate data-learning techniques to teaching and learning business English.; Many second language acquisition (SLA) specialists and English language teaching (ELT) practitioners are beginning to recognize the theoretical and practical value offered by computer learner corpora. This researcher hopes that the present study will pique the interest of would-be learner corpus builders as well as language teachers interested in computer learner corpus research and its pedagogical applications.