ABSTRACT
Corpus studies have much to offer English for academic purposes (EAP). In this chapter, we focus firstly on how corpora have helped us understand differences between speaking and writing in EAP, as well as differences between written text types. Vocabulary studies have also been a major focus of corpus-based research, including work on single words and multiword units, initially with academic written texts and more recently with spoken academic texts. The next section focuses on the influence of corpora on EAP materials, for example, the development of websites which draw on corpus-based research in EAP, analyses of materials such as textbooks and corpus-informed writing aids. The chapter then looks at how teachers can use corpora to do their own needs analysis in EAP using quantitative and qualitative approaches. The final section focuses on how learners might use corpora in EAP, which can provide learners with a close match at high levels of specificity to their learning needs and promote a data-driven approach to studying language in EAP.
