School of Education

Professor Philip Durrant

Professor Philip Durrant

Professor of Applied Linguistics and Education

 P.L.Durrant@exeter.ac.uk

 4974

 +44 (0) 1392 724974

 Baring Court BC119

 

Baring Court, University of Exeter St Luke's Campus, Heavitree Road, Exeter, EX1 2LU, UK

Research

Research projects

MULTIWRITE – Interactions between first, second and third languages

(Co-investigator. 2021-2025. Funded by Research Council of Norway: NOK15,913,000)

This project is investigating students' writing development, feedback from the teachers and teacher collaboration across language subjects. See here for details.

Growth in Grammar: A Multi-Dimensional Analysis of Student Writing between 5 and 16

(Principal Investigator. 2015-2018. Funded by ESRC: £317,843)

The project focused on how school students’ use of grammar develops through the course of their academic careers, from age five to sixteen. See here for details, and here for publications arising from the project.

Using PTE Academic to predict achievement and measure proficiency gains in an intensive EAP foundation programme

(Principal Investigator. 2014-2015. Funded by Pearson: £5,438)

Many institutions provide intensive programmes in English for Academic Purposes for applicants whose English language proficiency is deemed not to be sufficient for direct entry to English-medium higher education. It is essential that these institutions (and the higher education institutions which they serve) are able to make informed judgements about the extent to which particular applicants are likely to benefit from particular programmes and the length and type of programme they are likely to need to attend before commencing their degrees. 

In most cases, such judgements are made on the basis of widely-available academically-oriented proficiency tests, such as PTE-A. It is therefore important to determine: 1) whether and how such tests are able to predict applicants’ degree of achievement on an intensive EAP course; 2) the extent to which applicants can be expected to reach the levels of proficiency higher educational institutions require for entry to degree programmes by engaging in a particular EAP course; and 3) how and why the answers to 1) and 2) vary across applicants. This project aimed to answer these three questions.

It traced EAP students' score gains on PTE-A over the period of a 10-week programme, determined how well pre-course PTE-A scores predicted their performance on the EAP course (as measured by in-house assessments), and how learner and contextual factors influenced these things.

Research networks

Centre for Research in Language and Literacy

Language and Education Network

Research grants

  • 2015 Economic and Social Research Council
    Growth in Grammar: A multi-dimensional analysis of student writing between 5 and 16
  • 2014 Pearson Education
    Using the Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE-A) to predict achievement and measure proficiency gains in an intensive EAP foundation programme.

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Publications

Books

Durrant P, Siyanova-Chanturia A, Kremmel B, Sonbul S (2022). Research Methods in Vocabulary Studies., John Benjamins Publishing Company.
McCallum L, Durrant P (2022). Shaping Writing Grades., Cambridge University Press (CUP).
Durrant P, Brenchley M, McCallum L (2021). Understanding Development and Proficiency in Writing., Cambridge University Press (CUP).
Durrant P, Brenchley M, McCallum L (2021). Understanding Development and Proficiency in Writing Quantitative Corpus Linguistic Approaches. Abstract.

Journal articles

Durrant P, Durrant A (In Press). Appropriateness as an aspect of lexical richness: what do quantitative measures tell us about children's writing?. Assessing Writing Abstract.
Cangir H, Durrant P (In Press). Cross-linguistic Collocational Networks in the L1 Turkish - L2 English Mental Lexicon. Lingua
Durrant P, Brenchley M (In Press). Development of noun phrase complexity across genres in children's writing. Applied Linguistics Abstract.
Durrant P (In Press). Studying children’s writing development with a corpus. Applied Corpus Linguistics
Durrant P, Brenchley M, Clarkson R (In Press). Syntactic development across genres in children's writing: the case of adverbial clauses. Journal of Writing Research
Durrant P, Moxley J, McCallum L (In Press). Vocabulary sophistication in first-year composition assignments. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Li Q, Yan J, Durrant P (2023). Corpus linguistics for writing development: a guide for research. JOURNAL OF ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES, 66  Author URL.
Durrant P (2023). Review of Deignan, Candarli, & Oxley (2023). The linguistic challenge of the transition to secondary school: a corpus study of academic language. Applied Corpus Linguistics, 3(2), 100049-100049.
Durrant P (2019). Vocabulary and English for Specific Purposes Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives. TESOL QUARTERLY, 53(1), 279-280.  Author URL.
Durrant P, Brenchley M (2018). Development of vocabulary sophistication across genres in English children's writing. Reading and Writing, 32, 1927-1953. Abstract.
Lu C, Durrant P (2017). A corpus-based lexical analysis of Chinese medicine research articles. asian journal of applied linguistics, 4, 3-15.
Cangır H, Büyükkantarcıoğlu N, Durrant P (2017). Investigating Collocational Priming in Turkish. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 13, 465-486.
McLaughlin J, Durrant P (2017). Student Learning Approaches in the UAE: the case for the achieving domain. Higher Education Research and Development Abstract.
Durrant P (2016). To what extent is the Academic Vocabulary List relevant to university student writing?. English for Specific Purposes, 43(3), 49-61. Abstract.
Durrant P (2015). Lexical Bundles and Disciplinary Variation in University Students’ Writing: Mapping the Territories. Applied Linguistics, 38(2), 165-193. Abstract.
Durrant P (2014). Corpus frequency and second language learners' knowledge of collocations: a meta-analysis. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 19(4), 443-477. Abstract.
Durrant P (2014). Discipline and Level Specificity in University Students' Written Vocabulary. Applied Linguistics, 3(35), 328-356. Abstract.
Durrant P (2013). Formulaicity in an agglutinating language: the case of Turkish. Corpus linguistics and linguistic theory, 9(1), 1-38. Abstract.
Durrant P, Mathews-Aydinli J (2011). A function-first approach to identifying formulaic language in academic writing. Journal of English for Specific Purposes, 30(1), 58-72. Abstract.
Durrant P, Schmitt N (2010). Adult learners′ retention of collocations from exposure. Second Language Research, 26(2), 163-188. Abstract.
Durrant P (2010). Alison Wray, ″Formulaic language: Pushing the Boundaries“. Applied Linguistics, 31(1), 163-166.
Durrant P, Doherty A (2010). Are high-frequency collocations psychologically real? Investigating the thesis of collocational priming. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 6(2), 125-155. Abstract.
Durrant P (2010). Formulaic Language: Pushing the Boundaries. APPLIED LINGUISTICS, 31(1), 163-166.  Author URL.
Durrant P (2009). Investigating the viability of a collocation list for students of English for Academic Purposes. Journal of English for Specific Purposes, 28(3), 157-179. Abstract.
Durrant P, Schmitt N (2009). To what extent do native and non-native writers make use of collocations?. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 47(2), 157-177. Abstract.
Durrant P (2007). Collocations in a learner corpus. FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE, 14(2), 251-261.  Author URL.
Durrant P (2007). Nadja Nesselhauf. Collocations in a learner corpus. Functions of Language, 14(2), 251-261.

Chapters

Durrant P (2022). Formulaic language research in practice. In  (Ed) Corpus Linguistics for Writing Development, Routledge, 157-180.
Durrant P (2022). Grammar research in practice. In  (Ed) Corpus Linguistics for Writing Development, Routledge, 113-135.
Durrant P (2022). Learner corpus analysis in practice. In  (Ed) Corpus Linguistics for Writing Development, Routledge, 15-32.
Durrant P (2022). Studying writing development with a corpus. In  (Ed) Corpus Linguistics for Writing Development, Routledge, 3-14.
Durrant P (2022). Understanding formulaic language in learner writing. In  (Ed) Corpus Linguistics for Writing Development, Routledge, 139-156.
Durrant P (2022). Understanding grammar in learner writing. In  (Ed) Corpus Linguistics for Writing Development, Routledge, 95-112.
Durrant P (2022). Understanding vocabulary in learner writing. In  (Ed) Corpus Linguistics for Writing Development, Routledge, 35-58.
Durrant P (2022). Vocabulary research in practice. In  (Ed) Corpus Linguistics for Writing Development, Routledge, 59-91.
Gries ST, Durrant P (2019). Analyzing co-occurrence data. In Gries ST, Paquot M (Eds.) A practical handbook of corpus linguistics, New York: Springer. Abstract.
Durrant P (2019). Formulaic language in English for Academic Purposes. In Siyanova-Chanturia A, Pellicer-Sanchez A (Eds.) Understanding Formulaic Language: a Second Language Acquisition Perspective, Abingdon: Routledge.
Ardavani S, Durrant P (2015). How have political and socio-economic issues impacted on the motivation of Iranian university students to learn English?. In  (Ed) English language teaching i the Islamic Republic of Iran: Innovations, trends and challenges, London: British Council, 35-45. Abstract.
Durrant P, Siyanova-Chanturia A (2015). Learner Corpora and Psycholinguistic Research. In Granger S, Gilquin G, Meunier F (Eds.) The Cambridge Handbook of Learner Corpus Research, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Abstract.
Jones M, Durrant P (2010). What can a corpus tell us about vocabulary teaching materials?. In McCarthy M (Ed) The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics, London: Routledge, 387-400.

Reports

Durrant P, Walker C, Michel R (2015). Using PTE Academic to predict achievement and measure proficiency gains in an intensive EAP foundation programme. Abstract.

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Teaching

MEd TESOL: Language Awareness; Teaching and Researching English for Academic Purposes

EdD TESOL: TESOL Classrooms and Pedagogy

Modules

2024/25


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Office Hours:

Wednesdays 1600-1700

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