Abstract
This study aims to provide further empirical evidence for the usefulness of electronic corpora as tools to raise linguistic awareness in a multilingual context. It is shown how a collection of texts by learners of English as a further language along with the British National Corpus, the German web corpus deWaC and the Italian web corpus itWaC can provide opportunities for reflection both for teachers and learners. In particular, the focus of analysis chosen in this study is the use of adjectives in students’ summaries and comments on different books freely chosen by them. The samples selected to support the claims made in this study are from the texts of South Tyrolean native speakers of German who all speak Italian as well and are at an intermediate level of English. While the introductory section presents some perspectives on the use of corpora, linguistic awareness and multilingualism in language learning, section 2 provides examples of how the BNC could be used to promote learners’ self-correction and enhance in this way their independence. Section 3 shows how learners’ autonomy could be fostered by encouraging the use of the BNC as a means to improve and expand one’s vocabulary. The approach adopted in this section is compatible with a widely-accepted concept of language learning as a process of (re)construction and extension from what is familiar to what is new (see also Seidlhofer 2002). The importance of carrying out searches prompted by simple curiosity is stressed, as these might lead to unexpected, useful as well as amusing findings. Throughout the sections comparisons with German and Italian are made by using the above-mentioned deWaC and itWaC.