Taking corpus variability into account in keyword analysis

Most studies that make use of keyword analysis rely on the log-likelihood or the chi-square to extract words that are particularly characteristic of a corpus (e.g. Scott & Tribble 2006). These measures are computed on the basis of absolute frequencies and cannot account for the fact that "corpora are inherently variable internally" (Gries 2007). To overcome this limitation, measures of dispersion are sometimes used in combination with keyness values (e.g. Rayson 2003; Oakes & Farrow 2007). Some scholars have also suggested using other statistical measures (e.g. t-test, Wilcoxon's rank-sum test) but these techniques have not gained corpus linguists' favour (yet?). One possible explanation for this lack of enthusiasm is that their statistical added value has rarely been discussed in terms of 'linguistic' added value. To the authors' knowledge, there is not a single study comparing keywords extracted by means of different measures. In our presentation, we will report on a follow-up study to Paquot (2007), which made use of the log-likelihood and measures of range and dispersion to extract academic words and design a productively-oriented academic word list. We make use of the log-likelihood, the t-test and the Wilcoxon's rank-sum test in turn to compare the academic and the fiction sub-corpora of the 'British National Corpus' and extract words that are typical of academic discourse. We compare the three lists of academic keywords on a number of criteria (e.g. number of keywords extracted by each measure, percentage of keywords that are shared in the three lists, frequency and distribution of academic keywords in the two corpora) and explore the specificities of the three statistical measures. We also assess the advantages and disadvantages of these measures for the design of an academic wordlist

Irradiation effects detected by Mossbauer spectroscopy in iron complexes

The nature and the extent of the Co-60 gamma radiolysis of several iron coordination compounds have been analysed by Mossbauer absorption spectroscopy. The comparison of the radiolytic yields with the after effects observed by Mossbauer emission spectroscopy in similar Co-57-doped compounds, supports the self-radiolysis model

Periphrastic causative constructions in EFL and ESL: The role of acquisition context

English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) differ in their context of acquisition – mainly instructional in the case of EFL (classroom setting) and mainly naturalistic in the case of ESL (everyday interactions). Given a usage-based perspective on language acquisition, which views linguistic competence as the result of one’s “accumulated experience with language across the totality of usage events in [one’s] life” (Tomasello 2001: 62), we may expect this difference to have an effect on learners’ knowledge of English. In particular, it can be hypothesized that the higher degree of exposure to (authentic) language in the ESL context will lead to a better and more idiomatic knowledge of the language than is the case in the EFL context. This hypothesis was tested by means of a corpus-based analysis of periphrastic causative constructions, which have been studied in EFL (e.g. Gilquin 2012) and ESL (e.g. Ziegeler & Lee 2009) but whose behaviour in the two contexts has never been compared. Using data from the International Corpus of Learner English for EFL and from the International Corpus of English for ESL, as well as a corpus of native English as a reference, I examined the frequency and well-formedness of periphrastic causative constructions in EFL and ESL, but also their idiomaticity through a collostructional analysis (Stefanowitsch & Gries 2003) of the lexemes occurring in the non-finite verb slot. The results show that, from a formal point of view, ESL students do not necessarily use periphrastic causative constructions more accurately than the EFL students, but the non-standard constructions they use tend to follow some general tendencies of the English language. Thus, the construction [X MAKE Y Vto-inf], which is frequently found in ESL, corresponds to the general pattern of non-finite complementation, in which to-infinitive clauses are more common than bare infinitive clauses (see Biber et al. 1999: 699). By contrast, the EFL data display more varied, and apparently random, non-standard constructions, which often go against the general preferences of the English language, e.g. the use of an ing-form rather than a to-infinitive with the verb cause, while ing-clauses are generally less common than to-infinitive clauses in English (see Biber et al. 1999: 754). Although they do not exactly confirm the initial hypothesis, these results still support a usage-based view of language acquisition, in which ESL students, thanks to the larger (and richer) amount of input they receive, can better approximate construction schemas found in the English language. From a phraseological point of view, preliminary results suggest that periphrastic causative constructions are more idiomatic in ESL than in EFL, which might indicate that phraseology benefits more from exposure to authentic language than formal aspects. Finally, it appears that EFL and ESL also share some features, such as the use of a redundant be verb with make (e.g. Our illusions and creative imagination make us be different). These similarities underline that both EFL and ESL are non-native varieties, which are likely to involve common cognitive principles of language acquisition like redundancy or explicitation

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

While learner language change has been examined in pseudo-longitudinal and longitudinal studies, through the analysis of developmental patterns, the possibility for learner language to display diachronic evolution has hardly been considered in learner corpus research. As pointed out by Laitinen (2016: 176), “research on learner English has focused on interlanguage phenomena and proficiency in acquisition and not on time and diachronic processes”. Yet, since language has been shown to evolve through time (see, e.g., Kytö 2011), including short periods of time (cf. Leech et al. 2009), it seems worthwhile to investigate the potential impact of time on learner language. In this presentation, use will be made of a new resource, namely ICLE-FR+25, which has been specifically designed to allow for the diachronic analysis of learner English. Built on the model of ICLE-FR, the French component of the International Corpus of Learner English (Granger et al. 2009), ICLE-FR+25 includes data produced by learners with a profile very similar to that of the learners who contributed to ICLE-FR, but collected some 25 years after ICLE-FR. The comparison of ICLE-FR and ICLE-FR+25 thus makes it possible to carry out a (short-term) diachronic learner corpus analysis, and find out whether learner language can be said to be affected by changes characterizing the evolution of native English. Preliminary results suggest that the phenomenon of Americanization, for example, which results in a growing influence of American English on British English (Leech et al. 2009: 252ff.), might also lead to a stronger presence of American words in more recent learner English (the word movie, for instance, is the preferred option in ICLE-FR+25, whereas in ICLE-FR the word film is predominant). Adopting both a corpus-based approach (taking some of the findings from Leech et al. 2009 as a starting point) and a corpus-driven approach (relying on automatic methods of comparison), the present study will seek to bring to light some of the differences between ICLE-FR and ICLE-FR+25, and see how these could result from diachronic evolution. As such, this study will represent a first step towards showing the relevance of the temporal dimension for learner language, and thus establishing the field of ‘diachronic learner corpus research’

Toward(s) an Americanization of non-native Englishes? ESL and EFL compared

In their comparison of British and American English, Leech et al. (2009: 253-254) noted that “the evidence is cumulatively persuasive in indicating American ‘leadership’ being one of the major moving forces on BrE [British English]”. Since then, the linguistic influence of American English has been claimed to extend to other varieties of English, leading to a more widespread phenomenon of Americanization. Thus, Mair (2013) takes American English to be the hub of his “World System of Englishes”, that is, the variety that is relevant to all other varieties of English and is “a potential factor in their development” (ibid. 261). However, his claim mainly relies on “anecdotal evidence” (ibid. 263) and his model, while including English as an institutionalized second language (ESL) varieties, does not take English as a foreign language (EFL) into account. In this presentation, I will investigate the possible influence of American English on ESL and EFL varieties, and compare it with the influence of British English. My hypothesis is that, ESL varieties being acquired and used in an essentially naturalistic environment, they will be subject to the forces of globalisation which according to Mair (2013) are associated with the dominance of American English. On the other hand, EFL varieties, whose typical context of acquisition and use is that of the classroom, are expected to be more subject to the forces of education, which tend to be more conservative and more oriented towards British English models (cf. Schneider 2007: 172, Trudgill & Hannah 2017: 5). The study uses data from two large corpora, namely the Global Web-Based English Corpus (GloWbE) for ESL and the EF-Cambridge Open Language Database (EFCAMDAT) for EFL, representing a total of 645 million words and 32 million words, respectively. On the basis of a list of twenty pairs of words or phrases taken from Algeo (2006) and shown to be distinctive of American English vs British English (e.g. movie/film, toward/towards, take a shower/have a shower), it assesses the influence of American English on ESL and EFL varieties. It appears that, contrary to expectations, both ESL and EFL are on average more strongly influenced by American English than by British English. EFL even turns out to display a higher Americanness rate than ESL (58% in ESL, 63% in EFL), which contradicts the initial hypothesis. However, while the American influence on ESL is relatively stable across the different pairs of items, EFL is characterised by a large degree of variation, with an Americanness rate ranging between 6.19% (for have gotten/have got) and 98.44% (for give it a try/give it a go). In an attempt to explain these results, different factors are considered, including the changes in society that have blurred the distinction between ESL and EFL, the functional domains that are more likely to be affected by Americanization (like those of entertainment or technology) and the linguistic features that may favour the use of certain items (e.g. semantic transparency, morphological simplicity or similarity to the speakers’ L1)