The main objective of the present study is to explore the suitability of a corpus of fictional scripted television language (FSTVL) for teaching spoken English grammar to EFL (English as a foreign language) learners.Linguists have increasingly advocated the use of spoken corpora for language learning and teaching in order to remedy the lack of spoken models in the EFL classroom (e.g. Mauranen 2004; Zorzi 2001). However, corpora which are built with purely linguistic rather than educational aims in mind are often not suitable for classroom use. Researchers such as Braun (2005, 2007) have thus recommended the use of "pedagogically relevant corpora", i.e. corpora which are specifically tailored to the practical needs and interests of teachers and students.Against this background, the present study tries to assess whether the dialogues of fictional television series could be a useful alternative to naturally occurring language in a pedagogical corpus. The main focus here is on the question of how authentic, i.e. how similar to naturally occurring conversation (NOC) fictional scripted television language (FSTVL) is and whether its degree of spokenness is sufficient to consider FSTVL appropriate input for EFL learners. However, the study also considers further aspects regarding the linguistic appropriateness and the usability of a FSTVL corpus in EFL settings in order to ascertain whether such a corpus can indeed be a suitable tool for teaching and learning.The assessment of the suitability of a FSTVL corpus for teaching and learning spoken English is carried out in five phases. After a purely theoretical assessment of FSTVL, including a systematic survey of previous studies in this largely unexplored field, and thedevelopment of a framework for capturing the differences between FSTVL and NOC, follows the compilation of a new FSTVL corpus called "CATS": A Corpus of American Television Series. This corpus is analyzed quantitatively regarding its similarity to NOC, i.e. its linguistic authenticity by means of a set of indicators of spoken style. The results of this analysis are taken as a starting point for an evaluation of CATS´s linguistic appropriateness from a more language-pedagogical perspective, including an additional quantitative and qualitative analysis of a number of pedagogically relevant language features. Finally, by means of a small feasibility study carried out at a German high school, the present research project explores some concrete ways in which a corpus of FSTVL could be applied in classroom scenarios for teaching spoken English.Among the main conclusions of this study are the following:1. Manifold factors influence the shape of FSTVL and thus the degree of spokenness. These factors can be captured by a taxonomy which distinguishes three main categories: A) general conditions, B) factors specific to the individual series and C) factors specific to the individual linguistic variables under investigation. These factors are intricately intertwined, influence each other, and may sometimes even pull in opposite directions.2. FSTVL is not generally "less spoken-like" or "more written-like". It is true that e.g. certain performance phenomena are less frequent in FSTVL, but the majority of spoken language features analyzed in the present study, which previous corpus-based studies had identified as especially typical of NOC, are equally frequent or even more frequent in the scripted dialogues. FSTVL is certainly "unreal" in terms of the genuineness and spontaneity of the communicative situation, but in many ways it can be quite "realistic" when it comes to the frequency of the linguistic features associated with spokenness (regardless of the variable reasons for their presence).3. Corpora such as CATS can provide appropriate linguistic input and have great potential as additional tools in English language teaching. They can thus be considered "pedagogically relevant". Striking advantages over regular linguistic corpora are e.g. the more easily accessible spoken data, access to corresponding audiovisual material, much contextual information, more relevant and coherent contents, manageable transcripts (even for non-linguists), and the type of language, which in the case of CATS is similar enough to natural language but at the same time more "digestible" for language learners.
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