Dr Paul Thompson PhD
I have been at the University of Birmingham since September 2009, and I am the Deputy Director of the Centre for Corpus Research, as well as being Deputy Director of the College of Arts and Law Graduate School. I am a corpus linguist with particular interest in specialised discourses, and I have a background in English Language Teaching (ELT) and English for Academic Purposes (EAP).
The project blog page for my ESRC funded project 'Investigating Interdisciplinary Research Discourse' (2013-2015) is: http://idrd-bham.info/idrd/
- PhD in Applied Linguistics, Reading
- MA in TEFL, Reading
- PGCE, York
- BA in English & Related Literature, York
I took up the post of Director of the Centre for Corpus Research at Birmingham in September 2009, after working for thirteen years as a lecturer in EAP/Applied Linguistics at the University of Reading. I had taught in Kenya (one year) and Japan (fourteen years) before moving to Reading in 1996 to do doctoral research.
I convene the MA module, 'Corpus Assisted Language Learning'.
Paul Thompson is interested in supervising postgraduate research students in the areas of:
corpus linguistics
applications of corpus-based approaches to language description, particularly in education
applications of IT in language teaching
Find out more - our PhD English Language and Applied Linguistics page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.
With Susan Hunston, I was Principal Investigator on an ESRC project (ES/K007300/1) on 'Investigating interdisciplinary research discourse: the case of Global Environmental Change', August 2013 to November 2015.
With Alison Sealey and Mike Scott, I worked on an ESRC project (R000223900), 'An investigation into corpus-based learning about language in the primary school', June 2002 to May 2004.
With Hilary Nesi, a lecture and seminar recording project, the British Academic Spoken English (BASE) corpus, funded by a Resource Enhancement grant from the Arts and Humanities Board (RE/AN6806/APN13545), April 2002 to March 2005.
With Hilary Nesi, Sheena Gardner and Paul Wickens, an ESRC funded project, "An investigation of genres of assessed writing in British Higher Education" (RES-000-23-0800), December 2004 to November 2007. The major output of this project was the British Academic Written English (BAWE) corpus.
My research interests are in academic and other specialised discourses, in the linguistic aspects of human-computer interaction, in uses of educational technologies in language learning, and in the exploitation of corpus resources and methodologies in learning about language.
External roles
- Co-editor and founder of Applied Corpus Linguistics journal (2020-)
- Co-Editor of the Journal of English for Academic Purposes (2009-2018)
- Member, ESRC Peer Review College
- Applied Linguistics Pathway Co-ordinator for Midlands Graduate School (MGS)
University roles
- Deputy Director, College of Arts and Law Graduate School with responsibility for distance learning and student progression
Recent publications
Book
Thompson, P & Hunston, S 2019, Interdisciplinary research discourse: Corpus investigations into environment journals. Routledge Applied Corpus Linguistics, 1 edn, Routledge, London. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003009344
Article
Thompson, P & Nasseri, M 2021, 'Lexical density and diversity in dissertation abstracts: revisiting English L1 vs. L2 text differences', Assessing Writing, vol. 47, 100511. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asw.2020.100511
Thompson, P & Alzeer, SNM 2019, 'A survey of issues, practices and views related to corpus-based word lists for English Language Teaching and Learning', International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, vol. 8, no. 6, pp. 43-53. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.8n.6p.43
Murakami, A, Thompson, P, Hunston, S & Vajn, D 2017, ''What is this corpus about?': Using topic modelling to explore a specialised corpus', Corpora, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 243-277. https://doi.org/10.3366/cor.2017.0118
Thompson, P, Hunston, S, Murakami, A & Vajn, D 2017, 'Multi-dimensional analysis, text constellations, and interdisciplinary discourse', International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 153–186. https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.22.2.01tho
Chapter
Thompson, P 2022, Building a specialised audiovisual corpus. in A O'Keeffe & M McCarthy (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics. Second edn, Routledge Handbooks in Applied Linguistics, Routledge, London, pp. 75-88. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367076399-7
Thompson, P 2016, Genre approaches to theses and dissertations. in K Hyland & P Shaw (eds), The Routledge Handbook of English for Academic Purposes. First edn, Routledge, pp. 379-391. <https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bham/reader.action?docID=4387845&ppg=402>
Thompson, P 2015, Changing the bases for academic word lists. in P Thompson & G Diani (eds), English for Academic Purposes: Approaches and Implications. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, pp. 317-342.
Thompson, P 2014, Exploring Hoey's notion of text colligation in a corpus of student writing. in A Alcaraz-Sintes & S Valera-Hernandez (eds), Diachrony and Synchrony in English Corpus Linguistics. Linguistic Insights, vol. 181, Peter Lang, Bern, pp. 347-371.
Diaz-Negrillo, A & Thompson, P 2013, Learner corpora: looking towards the future. in A Diaz-Negrillo, N Ballier & P Thompson (eds), Automatic Treatment and Analysis of Learner Corpus Data. Studies in Corpus Linguistics, no. 59, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp. 9-30. https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.59
Thompson, P 2012, Achieving a Voice of Authority in PhD Theses. in K Hyland & C Sancho Guinda (eds), Stance and Voice in Written Academic Genres. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. <http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=510478>
Thompson, P, Hyland, K & Diani, G 2009, Literature reviews in applied PhD theses: evidence and problems. in Academic Evaluation: Review Genres in University Settings.
Thompson, P 2009, Shared disciplinary norms and individual traits in the writing of British undergraduates. in M Gotti (ed.), Commonality and Individuality in Academic Discourse. Peter Lang, Bern.
Abstract
Glaas, S, Costello, B & Thompson, P 2021, 'Facilitating a partnership learning community: a novel analytical protocol for understanding free-text feedback comments from students', AdvanceHE Assessment and Feedback Symposium 2021, 4/11/21 - 5/11/21.
Review article
Benitez-Castro, M-A & Thompson, P 2015, 'Shell-nounhood in academic discourse: a critical state-of-the-art review', International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 378-404. https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.20.3.05ben
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