Concordance Lines

Concordance lines are displays of multiple instances of a word or phrase extracted from a corpus, each shown within its surrounding context. The standard format is KWIC (Key Word in Context), where the target item is centred and aligned vertically so that patterns in its left and right co-text become visually apparent. Concordancing is a foundational technique in corpus linguistics and the primary tool of Data-Driven Learning (DDL) in language education.

Origins and Key Figures

Concordancing has roots in biblical scholarship (medieval concordances of scripture), but its application to language teaching was pioneered by Tim Johns at the University of Birmingham. Johns coined the term Data-Driven Learning (DDL) in 1991 to describe an approach where learners act as "language detectives," exploring authentic corpus data to discover patterns inductively rather than receiving rules deductively.

Johns's insight was that the concordance line puts the learner in direct contact with attested language use -- real examples from real texts -- removing the teacher as an intermediary in the discovery of patterns. This aligns with inductive, discovery-based learning principles.

KWIC Format

A typical KWIC concordance display looks like this:

...the report  made  a strong case for reform...
...evidence    made  it clear that the policy...
...the company made  significant progress in...
...researchers made  no attempt to replicate...

The vertical alignment of the keyword reveals patterns in co-occurring words (collocates), grammatical structures, semantic preferences, and phraseological tendencies that would be invisible in running text.

How Concordances Inform Teaching and Learning

• Collocation discovery -- Concordances reveal which words habitually co-occur. Learners see that we say make a decision not do a decision, supported by dozens of examples rather than a single dictionary entry.
• Grammar patterns -- Concordances show how grammatical structures behave in context: which prepositions follow a verb, which complementation patterns a noun takes, whether a word is count or uncount in practice.
• Meaning disambiguation -- Multiple concordance lines show the range of meanings a word carries and how context determines which meaning is active.
• Register and genre awareness -- Comparing concordances from different corpora (academic vs spoken vs news) reveals how the same word behaves differently across registers.
• Error correction -- Teachers can extract concordance lines showing correct usage of forms that learners commonly get wrong.

Classroom Application

1. Select a target word, phrase, or structure.
2. Extract 10-15 concordance lines from a corpus (COCA, BNC, SkELL, or a specialised corpus).
3. Present the lines in KWIC format with the target item highlighted.
4. Learners examine the lines: What words appear before/after? What patterns do you notice?
5. Learners formulate hypotheses about meaning, grammar, or collocation.
6. Verify findings with a dictionary, grammar reference, or additional concordance searches.

Useful tools: SkELL (free, designed for learners), COCA (large, multi-register), AntConc (offline concordancer), Sketch Engine (comprehensive, subscription-based).

Considerations

Concordance work requires learner training. The KWIC format can be disorienting at first -- learners need guidance on how to read fragmented lines and what to look for. Starting with high-frequency, concrete words before moving to abstract or polysemous items builds confidence. DDL works best as a complement to other approaches, not a replacement.

Related Concepts

Concordance lines are the practical engine of The Lexical Approach, which argues that language is built from chunks and collocations rather than individual words plus grammar rules. They connect to Collocation as the primary pattern concordances reveal, to Consciousness-Raising Tasks as an inductive grammar technique, and to Word Formation through the morphological patterns visible in corpus data.