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Part of
Broadening the Spectrum of Corpus Linguistics: New approaches to variability and change
Edited by Susanne Flach and Martin Hilpert
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 105] 2022
► pp. 92–131

“I’m putting some salt in my sandwich”.

The use of the progressive in EFL textbook conversation

| Osnabrück University

Previous studies have claimed that the progressive is frequently over- and misrepresented in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks (e.g. Römer 2005). This paper compares the representation of progressives in the dialogues of nine series of secondary school EFL textbooks (43 volumes) to the Spoken BNC2014. The frequencies, morphosyntactic and functional aspects of progressive constructions, such as contraction, negation, framing and time reference, are investigated. Collostructional analysis is used to explore the lexical associations of the progressive. A number of idiosyncratic uses of the progressive in textbook conversation are highlighted and pedagogical implications discussed. In particular, key conversational discourse-structuring phrasemes in the progressive are found to be critically underrepresented.

Keywords: textbook language, coursebooks, progressive aspect, textbook corpus, English as a Foreign Language (EFL), instructed second language acquisition, Spoken BNC2014, collostructional analysis, distinctive collexeme analysis, materials design
Article outline
  • 1.Background and aims
    • 1.1Introduction
    • 1.2The progressive in EFL textbooks
      • 1.2.1Aims and research questions
  • 2.Methodology
    • 2.1Corpus data
    • 2.2Data extraction and annotation
    • 2.3Calculating the frequency of progressives
    • 2.4Comparing frequencies
    • 2.5Collostructional analysis
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Frequency of progressives
    • 3.2Morphosyntactic features
      • 3.2.1Tense, aspect and modality
      • 3.2.2Contractions
      • 3.2.3Negation
      • 3.2.4Questions
      • 3.2.5Voice
    • 3.3Functions of the progressive
      • 3.3.1Time reference
      • 3.3.2(Non-)Continuousness
      • 3.3.3Repeated actions and states
      • 3.3.4Additional functions of the progressives
    • 3.4Lexis
  • 4.Discussion and limitations
  • 5.Implications and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 10 November 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.105.04lef
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