Do-it-yourself corpora for LSP: Demystifying the process and illustrating the practice

Abstract

This paper argues for an approach to LSP in which teachers and students compile their own do-it-yourself corpora using specialised texts in their area of study and teaching. I show that it is relatively easy to build a rough and ready corpus of this type and illustrate how it can be used both indirectly in the construction of  materials forGerman reading course and directly by EAP students taking a course  on editing doctoral theses. It is suggested that both LSP teachers and students can benefit from such a corpus due its specificity and relevance to their needs. For teachers, a DIY corpus provides a means of familiarising themselves with the  discourse of a specialised area and a source of authentic examples for materials production, while students particularly value the corpusa lexico-grammatical reference resource.