Learner Corpus Analysis and the Development of L2 Pragmatic Competence in Networked Inter-cultural Language Study: The Case of German Modal Particles

This article reports on a corpus-based, developmental pedagogical intervention for the teaching of German modal particles (MPs) in which learners examined their own emerging MP use as well as that of their native-speaking keypals in the context of electronically mediated, project-based collaboration. Individual learner development was traced micro-genetically over a period of nine weeks using Telekorp, a bilingual learner corpus with a built-in control corpus. The current study contributes to the teaching of second language (L2) pragmatics with respect to the authenticity of the interactions, the corpus-enabled nature of the intervention, the developmental scope of the data, and the potential for ‘hyper-noticing’ in Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education.