Diachronic learner corpus research: Examining learner language through the lens of time

This paper argues for a diachronic approach to the study of learner language and provides a first exploration of the evolution of English as a foreign language over the last twenty-five years, relying on a corpus resource specifically designed for the short-term diachronic analysis of learner English. The paper describes some of the challenges involved in creating such a resource and shows how these challenges have been responded to. It then investigates a number of linguistic features, some of them taken from short-term diachronic research on native English, and highlights certain changes, underlining that these may be the consequence of natural linguistic evolution, but also of other factors characterizing the acquisition of a foreign language