Cartagena Military Submarine Corpus (CMSC)

This research investigates the use of Data-driven learning (DDL) tasks in the teaching and learning of acronyms in a specialised corpus. Our target population is professional military staff (n=16). The researchers collected and analysed the Salvage and Rescue of Submarines Corpus (SAR) where the patterning of acronyms, neglected in English for Specific Purposes (ESP), plays a substantial role. Using a mixed-methods methodology, this research looked at the students' interaction with DDL, as well as at the subsequent interviews with the students. Deductive and inductive paper-based DDL tasks with concordance lines of acronyms were used with two groups of students of different rank. Both groups found the tasks challenging and showed mixed reactions towards concordance lines. While there has been a much-needed emphasis on tools and corpus methods training in DDL, we suggest that conversations with adult, professional students about the nature of instructed language learning and language patterning are absolutely essential to promote a more active learner role in DDL approaches.

Register analysis and ESP pedagogy: noun-phrase modification in a corpus of English for Military Navy submariners. Abstract Research in Maritime English (ME) has paid no attention to the range of texts and language which Navy submariners are exposed during their training and professional careers. This research looked at Noun Phrase modification patterns in a longitudinal corpus of Submarine English (SE) professional texts in the Cartagena Military Submarine Corpus (CMSC). Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses, we found that SE is characterised by heavy nominal premodification, low adjective premodification, low prepositional phrase postmodification and by the predominant use of appositive nouns in postmodifying slots. These distinctive features of SE call for a register-sensitive pedagogy that unpack these characteristics and present them in context. We argue that the contribution of corpus-linguistics is essential to explore registers which, for different reasons, have not been addressed or described linguistically in the past. Similarly, we maintain that the examination and teaching of NPs is essential to understand current trends in professional writing and communication.