Hidden culture: Using the British National Corpus with language learners to investigate collocational behaviour, wordplay and culture-specific references

Variations upon conventional patterns and canonical forms are fundamental to linguistic creativity. Newspaper headlines, by nature eye-catching and particularly rich in word play generally, abound with examples of such variations. They are not, however, always easily identified, especially by non-native speakers of a language, and conventional linguistic resources may only be of limited help in disclosing the 'original' form. Results obtained from classroom investigations suggest that a monolingual corpus such as the British National Corpus can be of invaluable assistance in this respect, often (though by no means always) providing a backdrop of conventional language events against which unconventional usage can be discerned more clearly. Hidden linguistic and cultural patterns are disclosed and exposed, crucially improving our understanding and appreciation of texts.