Formulaic sequences in native and non-native argumentative writing in German

Whereas there is substantial scholarship on formulaic language in L1 and L2 English, there is less research on formulaicity in other languages. The aim of this paper is to contribute to learner corpus research into formulaic language in native and non-native German. To this effect, a corpus of argumentative essays written by advanced British students of German (WHiG) was compared with a corpus of argumentative essays written by German native speakers (Falko-L1). A corpus-driven analysis reveals a larger number of 3-grams in WHiG than in Falko-L1, which suggests that British advanced learners of German are more likely to use formulaic language in argumentative writing than their native-speaker counterparts. Secondly, by classifying the formulaic sequences according to their functions, this study finds that native speakers of German prefer discourse-structuring devices to stance expressions, whilst British advanced learners display the opposite preferences. Thirdly, the results show that learners of German make greater use of macro-discourse-structuring devices and cautious language, whereas native speakers favour micro-discourse structuring devices and tend to use more direct language. This study increases our understanding of formulaic language typical of British advanced learners of German and reveals how diverging cultural paradigms can shape written native speaker and learner output

“This sixth sense or something” : The use of formulaic vague expressions by Finnish EFL students

Vakiintuneen käsityksen mukaan merkittävä osuus englannin kielestä perustuu valmiiksi tuotettuihin fraaseihin, joiden avulla kielenkäyttäjät voivat edistää ilmaisunsa sujuvuutta sekä ymmärrettävyyttä. Aiemman tutkimustiedon perusteella kaavamaisesta kielestä (engl. formulaic language) hyötyvät paitsi englannin kieltä äidinkielenään puhuvat myös kielenoppijat. Aihetta käsittelevä kirjallisuus on kuitenkin antanut viitteitä siitä, että englannin kielelle ominaisen kaavamaisen ja idiomaattisen ilmaisutavan oppiminen on yksi haasteellisimmista osa-alueista kyseistä kieltä vieraana kielenä puhuville oppijoille. Pro gradu -tutkielmani aiheena on kaavamainen kielenkäyttö suomalaisten lukioikäisten englannin kielen oppijoiden tuottamassa puheessa. Keskityn tutkielmassani yhteen aiemmin määriteltyyn kaavamaisen kielenkäytön luokkaan: epätarkkoihin ilmauksiin (engl. vague expressions). Tutkielmani aineistona on kaksi oppijakorpusta, FUSE- sekä Hy-Talk -korpukset, jotka koostuvat suomalaisten lukiolaisten suullista englannin kielen taitoa testaavien kokeiden tallenteista. Tutkielmani sisältää sekä määrällisiä että laadullisia piirteitä. Selvitän ensinnäkin korpusohjelmiston avulla, missä määrin kokelaat käyttävät tarkastelun kohteena olevia ilmauksia vertaamalla tuloksia myös aiempaan tutkimukseen. Tutkielmani laadullisessa osuudessa selvitän epätarkkoja ilmauksia ja niiden tekstiympäristöjä tutkimalla, millaisia käyttötarkoituksia varten kokelaat hyödyntävät kyseisiä fraaseja sekä missä määrin havaitut tarkoitukset ovat linjassa aiemman tutkimustiedon kanssa. Lisäksi tutkin, ovatko kokelaiden Hy-Talk -kokeesta saamat kokonaisarvosanat yhteydessä epätarkkojen ilmauksien tiuhempaan ja monipuolisempaan käyttöön. Aineiston perusteella suomalaiset kielenoppijat hyödyntävät puheessaan epätarkkoja ilmauksia laajasti ja monipuolisesti jopa englantia äidinkielenään puhuviin verrattuna. Laadullisessa tarkastelussa ilmeni, että kokelaat käyttivät tarkasteltuja ilmauksia pitkälti samoja käyttötarkoituksia varten kuin natiivit, mikä osaltaan antaa viitteitä tällaisten fraasien näkyvästä roolista suomalaisten englannin kielen oppijoiden puheessa. Epätarkkojen ilmauksien määrän ei havaittu muodostavan tilastollisesti merkittävää vastaavuussuhdetta suullisen kielitaidon kokeessa saatuun korkeampaan kokonaisarvosanaan. Kokelaiden käyttämien epätarkkojen ilmauksien monipuolisen käytön puolestaan havaittiin olevan tilastollisesti yhteydessä korkeampaan kokonaisarvosanaan

Syntactic REAP.PT: Exercises on Clitic Pronouning

The emerging interdisciplinary field of Intelligent Computer Assisted Language Learning (ICALL) aims to integrate the knowledge from computational linguistics into computer-assisted language learning (CALL). REAP.PT is a project emerging from this new field, aiming to teach Portuguese in an innovative and appealing way, and adapted to each student. In this paper, we present a new improvement of the REAP.PT system, consisting in developing new, automatically generated, syntactic exercises. These exercises deal with the complex phenomenon of pronominalization, that is, the substitution of a syntactic constituent with an adequate pronominal form. Though the transformation may seem simple, it involves complex lexical, syntactical and semantic constraints. The issues on pronominalization in Portuguese make it a particularly difficult aspect of language learning for non-native speakers. On the other hand, even native speakers can often be uncertain about the correct clitic positioning, due to the complexity and interaction of competing factors governing this phenomenon. A new architecture for automatic syntactic exercise generation is proposed. It proved invaluable in easing the development of this complex exercise, and is expected to make a relevant step forward in the development of future syntactic exercises, with the potential of becoming a syntactic exercise generation framework. A pioneer feedback system with detailed and automatically generated explanations for each answer is also presented, improving the learning experience, as stated in user comments. The expert evaluation and crowd-sourced testing positive results demonstrated the validity of the present approach

Horizons of mystery and of wisdom in God: essay of rhetorical biblical analysis on Jb 28

The focus of this study is to present the composition of Job 28, according to the procedures of Rhetorical Biblical Analysis as a concrete way to approach the biblical text using methodological reading and an attentive listening. Some recent attempts of classical rhetoric constitute a first step, but the results are not always very convincing, mainly in what respects the relation between the text and its interpretation. A brief looking to the results of the study of the composition of Job 28 will permit not only to emphasize the philological richness of the poem as to re-launch a greater understanding of this text (the context of) the Book of Job, and to reveal the pertinence of its thought in the singular field of Biblical Wisdom Literature, which is always woven of poetry and enigma.Proponho apresentar um estudo sobre a composição de Jb 28, segundo o procedimento da Análise Retórica Bíblica, exemplificando uma aproximação do texto bíblico através de uma leitura metodológica e de uma escuta atenta. Alguns estudos recentes de retórica clássica constituem um primeiro passo neste sentido, porém os seus resultados não são muito convincentes, nomeadamente no que diz respeito à relação entre o texto e a sua interpretação. Uma breve análise dos resultados do estudo da composição de Jb 28 permitirá não só sublinhar a riqueza filológica do poema, como relançar uma compreensão maior deste texto no (contexto do) Livro de Job e revelar a pertinência do seu pensamento no campo singular da Literatura sapiencial Bíblica, tecida sempre de poesia e enigma

A Psycholinguistic Model for the Marking of Discourse Relations

Discourse relations can either be explicitly marked by discourse connectives (DCs), such as therefore and but, or implicitly conveyed in natural language utterances. How speakers choose between the two options is a question that is not well understood. In this study, we propose a psycholinguistic model that predicts whether or not speakers will produce an explicit marker given the discourse relation they wish to express. Our model is based on two information-theoretic frameworks: (1) the Rational Speech Acts model, which models the pragmatic interaction between language production and interpretation by Bayesian inference, and (2) the Uniform Information Density theory, which advocates that speakers adjust linguistic redundancy to maintain a uniform rate of information transmission. Specifically, our model quantifies the utility of using or omitting a DC based on the expected surprisal of comprehension, cost of production, and availability of other signals in the rest of the utterance. Experiments based on the Penn Discourse Treebank show that our approach outperforms the state-of-the-art performance at predicting the presence of DCs (Patterson and Kehler, 2013), in addition to giving an explanatory account of the speaker’s choice

A case study of Tracie Morris\u27s Project Princess

In this study, I explore the intertextuality in spoken word poetry using Tracie Morris’s spoken word poem Project Princess (1998) as a case study. My hypothesis is that the intertextuality in spoken word poetry is derived from its genealogical contributions. Using narrative inquiry, I investigate Project Princess as page poetry and oral performance text anchored in the genealogy of spoken word poetry. The following research questions guided this study: How does intertextuality function in Tracie Morris’s spoken word poem Project Princess? What role does the genealogy of spoken word poetry play in understanding the intertextuality in Tracie Morris’s spoken word poem Project Princess? In what ways does the intertextuality in spoken word poetry play at the intersections of race, gender, and class in Tracie Morris’s spoken word poem Project Princess? What are the pedagogical implications for studying the intertextuality in spoken word poetry derived from its genealogical contributions in twenty-first century classrooms using Tracie Morris’s spoken word poem Project Princess as an example? The conceptual framework consisted of intertextuality theory, public pedagogy, and performance studies, to explore the ways in which sites of resistance emerge from the poet’s narrative of lived experiences and social realities. Data was collected from page poetry, spoken word poetry, video, an audio interview of Tracie Morris, essays written by or about Tracie Morris, and Tracie Morris’s website. I used narrative analysis to interpret the data using four interpretative models: structural analysis, thematic analysis, dialogic/performance analysis, and visual analysis. The findings revealed that intertextuality in Tracie Morris’s spoken word poem Project Princess emerged as non-chronological storytelling, language and accepted meanings, signification (signifying), and created counter-narratives that opened discursive spaces as sites of resistance. The implications for education based on this study suggest that intertextuality in spoken word poetry in twenty-first century classrooms may be used to uncover hidden transcripts contained in Project Princess or other spoken word poems; identify themes across Morris’s narrative or other spoken word poems and their connection to the genealogy of spoken word poetry; create safe-spaces for dialogical exchanges and social interactions; and facilitate meaningful dialogues and social interactions among participants

Building linguistic corpora from Wikipedia articles and discussions

Wikipedia is a valuable resource, useful as a lingustic corpus or a dataset for many kinds of research. We built corpora from Wikipedia articles and talk pages in the I5 format, a TEI customisation used in the German Reference Corpus (Deutsches Referenzkorpus - DeReKo). Our approach is a two-stage conversion combining parsing using the Sweble parser, and transformation using XSLT stylesheets. The conversion approach is able to successfully generate rich and valid corpora regardless of languages. We also introduce a method to segment user contributions in talk pages into postings