Modulación del reflejo de sobresalto en humanos

With increasing use of English, the interest in incorporating authentic language into English textbooks has been growing in Korean EFL contexts, and the 2006 reform policy encourages the use of real language in classroom settings. Textbook vocabulary has already been heavily influenced by corpus data. However, the results of this study

show that textbooks are seldom supplemented by corpus information especially with respect to hypothetical would-clauses. Although alternative conditionals occupy a significant portion of naturally occurring language, the textbook writers seemed not to have taken this statistics into account and instead presented most of the would-clauses in co-text forms with if-conditions. Also, no-overt conditionals that carry epistemic meaning tend to be overlooked in the textbooks despite its considerable use in authentic language; consequently, the functions that are associated with particular contextual uses were also neglected (e.g. hedging markers of epistemic would are often used in lectures and research articles).

One may ask why the aforementioned features matter in EFL education. Some scholars such as Prodromou (1996) and Cook (1998) have raised doubts as to whether language use in native speaker communities should be a model for learners of English as an international language. They specifically targeted “culture-loaded language” (Cook, p. 60) to question whether EFL learners really need to learn such language. This issue reminds me of Korean EFL textbooks’ total lack of presentation of the double hedging and also of Chen (2010)’s study, which related Chinese learners’ rare use of hedging markers to their L1 cultural values. Hedging markers, though commonly and widely used by native English speakers, are English culture-specific to Chinese or Korean EFL learners. However, language in general is culture-loaded and language community- specific; learning a language is acquiring not only linguistic competence but also its use in the cultural and social context that is reflected by the language. For EFL learners, a corpus can provide information about the wide usage of such culturally embedded

language (hedging markers). There seems to be no reason for the learners not to learn that kind of language.

In addition, as Carter (1998) noted, non-native speakers also have a real need to interact in the target language.11 For a long time, English education in Korea has largely been a way of differentiating academic performance levels of high school students in standardized exams. However, as a consequence of the increased use of English, many graduating students are increasingly required to utilize their knowledge of English in real life contexts where understanding correct nuances of the language and delivering

expressions in appropriate ways may be important. This is applicable to many possible situations, such as when trying to understand a complex and subtle concept during lectures in English, reacting to a deal worded in intricate and subtle language during a business negotiation with native English speakers, reading between the lines in written texts, or writing research articles. While the target language features in this study, modal verbs (would) are widely used for “expressing attitudes and evaluate and comment” (Carter, p. 50), it would be difficult for non-native speakers to use these features with correct nuance in oral and written communication. In that respect, Frazier’s corpus-based study shows how would constructions are used in real communicative contexts (e.g.

would is often used during college lectures as hedging markers and for describing

imaginary concepts - see footnote in p. 11). Also, the ways in which no-overt

conditionals are utilized in written texts have already been illustrated in the discussion section. These examples may allow non-native speakers to realize the gap between native

11_{In an EFL context like Korea, English communication between Korean and English}

English settings and EFL language materials in using certain language features (would), and suggest how to use the language features in particular settings.

Cook (1998) argues that frequency of real language data does not always indicate the value of language. While frequency should not be the only determinant, it would be the role of textbook writers, especially textbook writers in EFL contexts, when designing textbooks with consideration of frequency information, to discern what is applicable for the learners for proper use of English. The Korean senior high school English textbooks maintain the pursuit of both interpersonal communicative skills and cognitive academic language proficiency. As mentioned, would constructions are widely used in both communicative and academic settings as hypothetical and hedging markers. The appropriate uses of modal verbs (e.g. would), therefore, may be critical for students in attaining both communicative and cognitive competence of English language.

The information from corpus findings indicates to textbook writers that approaches to language based on personal intuition or the author’s perception of conventional use may not always be equivalent to real-life patterns. In this regard, this study suggests that the curriculum writers should consider using real language data to determine what grammar patterns to teach and to what extent these patterns will be covered.