Hartwell, Laura MicheleORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8601-4176 and Kraif, OlivierORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8935-7342 (2022) Parallel corpora in English language teaching. In: The Routledge handbook of corpora and English language teaching and learning Routledge. Series “Routledge Handbooks in Applied Linguistics” Abingdon ; New York pp. 478-494. ISBN 9781003002901

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Abstract

This chapter reviews research on the use of parallel corpora to support English language teaching and learning to speakers of other languages. A parallel corpus is a corpus that contains a collection of original texts translated into one or more other languages in an aligned fashion so that corresponding segments, usually sentences or paragraphs, are visually matched. Drawing upon the technical advances produced in high-stake multilingual settings such as the European Parliament, multilingual corpora have contributed notably to human and machine translation. As highlighted in a review of the literature, these corpora are now available in a broad range of genres and languages, surpassing even differences of alphabets or characters. We discuss how this availability of tools and languages define factors of core issues. We focus on language teaching and learning, including three case studies illustrating the interest of parallel corpora: multilingual resources, false cognates, and complex phenomena. One caveat related to the use of parallel corpora is the possible over-normalisation or simplification found in translated texts. This chapter concludes with some reflections on technological advances, notably stemming from artificial intelligence, which will continue to influence the possibilities of parallel corpora for language teaching.