Automatic Identification of False Friends in Parallel Corpora: Statistical and Semantic Approach

False friends are pairs of words in two languages that are perceived as similar but have different meanings. We present an improved algorithm for acquiring false friends from sentence-level aligned parallel corpus based on statistical observations of words occurrences and co-occurrences in the parallel sentences. The results are compared with an entirely semantic measure for cross-lingual similarity between words based on using the Web as a corpus through analyzing the words’ local contexts extracted from the text snippets returned by searching in Google. The statistical and semantic measures are further combined into an improved algorithm for identification of false friends that achieves almost twice better results than previously known algorithms. The evaluation is performed for identifying cognates between Bulgarian and Russian but the proposed methods could be adopted for other language pairs for which parallel corpora and bilingual glossaries are available

Investigating the effects of using concordance data on vocabulary acquisition in an Egyptian English for academic purposes setting

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of using concordance data in the classroom on vocabulary acquisition in the English Language Institute (ELI) at the American University in Cairo (AUC). Specifically, the effects on overall lexical knowledge and ability to distinguish between synonyms were explored in addition to students\u27 attitudes towards the use of concordance data. This study employed an exploratory and quantitative approach and used a convenience sample of six intact Egyptian EFL university classes. Three classes with a total of 26 participants were randomly assigned to the experimental group and the remaining three classes with a total of 24 participants were assigned to the control group. The researcher administered a pretest, a vocabulary lesson, and a posttest to each group. The experimental group also completed a questionnaire on their feelings towards the use of concordance lines. The results of the quantitative data indicated that both the experimental and the control group made statistically significant gains from pretest to posttest. However, neither group made higher gains than the other, thus suggesting that there was no difference between the two groups in overall lexical knowledge or ability to distinguish between synonyms. Meanwhile, the qualitative data revealed a positive attitude of behalf of the participants towards the use of concordance lines in their classrooms