Dr. Fiona Farr
Currently On leave for 2011-12
Responsibilities
- Lecturer in English Language Teaching (ELT)
Academic background
- MA in TEFL, 1996, University of Limerick
- PhD, 2005, University of Limerick. Title: Reflecting on reflections: a corpus-based analysis of spoken post teaching practice interactions in an English language teaching academic environment.
Research interests
- Corpus linguistics and its applications
- Language variety, discourse, and pragmatics
- Irish English
- Language teacher education: teaching practice feedback
- Spoken language
Teaching interests
- Language in context
- English phonetics and phonology
- ESL in the Irish education system
- Discourse theories and applications
- Corpus linguistics in language awareness and teacher education
Selected publications
Books
Farr, F. (2011) The Discourse of Teaching Practice Feedback. An investigation of spoken and written modes., New York: Routledge.
Edited Collections
Farr, F. and O’Keeffe, A., guest editors. (2011) ‘Applying Corpus Linguistics’, International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 16(3).
Farr, F. and O’Keeffe, A., guest editors. (2004) ‘Corpora, Varieties and the Language Classroom’, Teanga, 21.
Journal Articles
Chambers, A., Atkinson, D. and Farr, F. (2012) ‘Research in Progress: Centre for Applied Language Studies, University of Limerick, Ireland’, Language Teaching, 45(1), 135-139.
Chambers, A., Farr, F. and O’Riordan, S. (2011) ‘Language teachers with corpora in mind: from starting steps to walking tall’, Language Learning, 39(1), 85-104.
Farr, F. and Murphy, B. (2009) ‘Religious references in contemporary Irish-English: ‘for the love of God almighty….I’m a holy terror for turf’’, Intercultural Pragmatics, 6(4), 535-560.
Farr, F. (2008) ‘Evaluating the use of corpus-based instruction in a language teacher education context: perspectives from the users’, Language Awareness, 17(1), 25-43.
Farr, F., Murphy, B. and O’Keeffe, A. (2004) ‘The Limerick Corpus of Irish English: design, description and application’, Teanga, 21, 5-29.
Farr, F. (2004) ‘Plateaux in Pronunciation: the case of French learners of English as a foreign language’, Teanga, 20, 53-60.
Farr, F. (2003). ‘Engaged Listenership in Spoken Academic Discourse: the case of student-tutor meetings’, Journal of English for Academic Purposes 2(1): 67-85.
O’Keeffe, A. and F. Farr (2003). ‘Using Language Corpora in Language Teacher Education: pedagogic, linguistic and cultural insights’, TESOL Quarterly 37(3): 389-418.
Chapters in Edited Books
Baumgart, J. and Farr, F. (2011) ‘Polish teenagers’ integration into Irish secondary schools: language, culture, and support systems’ in Egger, S. and McDonagh, J., eds., Polish-Irish Encounters in the Old and New Europe, Berlin: Peter Lang, 179-196.
Farr, F. (2010) ‘How can corpora be used in teacher education?’ in O’Keeffe, A. and McCarthy, M., eds., Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics, London and New York: Routledge, 620-632.
Farr, F., Chambers, A. and O’Riordan, S. (2010) ‘Corpora for materials’ development in language teacher education: underlying principles and useful data’ in Mishan, F. and Chambers, A., eds., Perspectives on Language Learning Materials Development, Peter Lang, 33-62.
Farr, F. (2007) ‘Engaged listenership in spoken academic discourse: the case of student-tutor meetings.’ in Teubert, W. and Krishnamurthy, R., eds., Corpus Linguistics: Critical Concepts in Linguistics., London: Routledge, 67-85.
Farr, F. (2007) ‘Spoken language as an aid to reflective practice in language teacher education: using a specialised corpus to establish a generic fingerprint. ‘ in Campoy, M.-C. and Luzón, M.-J., eds., Spoken Corpora in Applied Linguistics., Bern: Peter Lang, 235-258.
Farr, F. (2006) ‘Modality in context: spoken language, variety and the classroom’ in Gallagher, A. and Laoire, M. Ó., eds., Language Education in Ireland: Current Practice and Future Needs, Dublin: IRAAL, 165-184.
Farr, F. (2005) ‘Reflecting on reflections: the spoken word as a professional development tool in language teacher education.’ in Hughes, R., ed. Spoken English, Applied Linguistics and TESOL: Challenges for Theory and Practice, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 182-215.
Farr, F. (2005) ‘Relational strategies in the discourse of professional performance review in an Irish academic environment: the case of language teacher education’ in Schneider, K. and Barron, A., eds., Variational Pragmatics: The Case of English in Ireland, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 203-234.
Farr, F. and O’Keeffe, A. (2002) ‘Would as a hedging device in an Irish context: an intra-varietal comparison of institutionalised spoken interaction’ in Reppen, R., Fitzmaurice, S. and Biber, D., eds., Using Corpora to Explore Linguistic Variation, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 25-48.
PhD students
Baumgart, J. ‘Language accommodation and the integration of English language learners in the Irish secondary school context’ (current).
Bearpark, S. ‘An examination of the relationship between the interpersonal and the goal directional: a study of spoken language within a business environment’ (current – joint supervision with Prof. Angela Chambers).
Farrell, A. ‘’Yeah, Like, Whatever’: A corpus based study of the lexico-grammatical features of the speech of Irish teenagers’ (current).
Maher, P. ‘The semi-technical features of academic legal writing for masters of laws programmes – A longitudinal study’ (current – joint supervision with Prof. Michael McCarthy).
Murphy, B. (2007). ”The hand of Time’: a corpus-based lexico-grammatical analysis of the influence of age, as a sociolinguistic variable, on all-female talk’ (graduated – joint supervision with Prof. Michael McCarthy).
O’Riordan, S. ‘A corpus-based approach to the study of classroom discourse in French : Discourse analysis and pedagogic applications’ (current – joint supervision with Prof. Angela Chambers).
Riordan, E. ‘Virtual learning environments (VLEs) in language teacher education (LTE) for critical reflection within a community of practising student teachers’ (current – joint supervision with Dr Liam Murray).
Other research information
Corpora
Farr, F. and A. O’Keeffe (eds) (2004). The Limerick Corpus of Irish English. A one-million-word corpus of spoken Irish English.
Editorial Roles
Editor (with J. Cutting). Edinburgh Textbooks in TESOL. EUP.
Editorial Board Member. Classroom Discourse Journal. Routledge.
Recent Funded Projects
Backbone (UL PI) BACKBONE is a corpus-enhanced language learning and teaching project, funded by the EU Lifelong Learning Programme, 2009-2010, with partners from several countries. (PI: Kurt Kohn, University of Tübingen).