Marcadores discursivos y corpus de lengua

This chapter focuses on the potential of language corpora as a didactic tool for the teaching and learning of discourse markers. Corpora enable learners to observe language in authentic contexts of use and this makes them a useful resource to understand its functions and nuances. The chapter is divided into two parts: in the first one the features of corpora and their possible exploitation in teaching Spanish as a foreign/second language are discussed; in the second part, in the methodological framework of Data-Driven-Learning, some activities are presented in order to show how corpora can be used to enable students to comprehend the polyfunctionality of discourse markers and their pragmatic value.