Qualitative and mixed methodology for online language teaching research

This paper provides an overview of CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning), its history and current developments. It presents a rationale for moving CALL research forward, and outlines a particular approach to researching online language teaching and learning: the use of qualitative methodology. It is in this historical context that a case for more qualitative and integrative research designs is made. Examples of qualitative and mixed method studies are taken from the context of language teaching at the Open University in the United Kingdom, the largest institution of its kind in Europe, with a remit of teaching all subjects at university level to adults, regardless of their prior qualifications. With the help of these examples the scope and promise of qualitative approaches are discussed

Un costrutto assoluto italiano e i suoi equivalenti serbi

Questo contributo tratta di costrutti assoluti del tipo \uabUn ragazzo, gli occhi sorridenti e maliziosi, si offr\uec di farci da guida\ubb. Tali costrutti, caratteristici soprattutto di testi letterari, nelle grammatiche italiane tradizionali non vengono analizzati in modo approfondito; di regola sono descritti come complementi di qualit\ue0 espressi con una costruzione assoluta, tralasciando il fatto che possono svolgere anche la funzione di complementi di modo e unione. Partendo da due studi pi\uf9 elaborati (CERNECCA 1962, 1971), in questo articolo viene offerta un\u2019analisi sintattica e semantica dei sostantivi che costituiscono il centro di questo costrutto e dei loro determinatori obbligatori. Viene inoltre sottolineato un fatto non riportato da altri autori, ovvero che il determinatore obbligatorio pu\uf2 essere formato non solo da aggettivi, avverbi, locuzioni avverbiali e participi, ma anche da proposizioni relative esplicite. Infine, paragonando i costrutti italiani con i loro equivalenti serbi, il genitivo qualificativo e lo strumentale qualificativo con la preposizione s(a) \u2018con\u2019, i quali nella linguistica serba sono analizzati come esponenti di due tipi di attributo \u2013 attributo nominale incongruente e attributo temporaneo \u2013 si arriva alla conclusione che un\u2019analisi completa di questi costrutti deve tenere conto sia di fattori semantici, prominenti negli studi sull\u2019italiano, che di quelli sintattici, dominanti nelle analisi di serbo

Comparing the nonstandard language of Slovene, Croatian and Serbian tweets

In this paper we carry out a cross-lingual comparison of nonstandard features in the language of social media for Slovene, Croatian and Serbian. The goal of the analysis is twofold: (1) we try to establish the extent to which the observed phenomena are universal rather than language-specific, and (2) we propose an approach for automatic scoring of (non)standardness levels of user-generated content, which can be used as a separate annotation layer in corpora. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the results show that the majority of the language used on Twitter is fairly standard, especially in Slovene and Croatian. The prevalent characteristic of nonstandard Slovene tweets is nonstandard orthography, while nonstandard lexis is more typical of Serbian tweets, possibly due to a younger user profile

'Pragmatics and discourse analysis' [Review]

Review of work in 201

Subtle grammatical problems in translated texts: How can language acquisition research inform translator education?

This paper attempts to relate translation studies and the theory of language acquisition, two research areas that have traditionally developed separately, by looking at recent findings on some grammatical properties of translated texts on the one hand, and the results of acquisitional studies dealing with those same properties on the other. In addition to reviewing research on the long known phenomenon of pronoun overuse, it focuses on a less explored problem, namely the overuse of possessive adjectives, reporting preliminary data from English to Serbian translations. Based on a comparison with the results obtained in acquisitional studies of possessives, it is argued that the different cases of patterning between translation and language acquisition, in particular second language acquisition and first language attrition, point to a similarity in the linguistic systems of translators and language acquirers, or attriters, and speak in favour of closer collaboration between the fields. In particular, we suggest that such collaboration could be of benefit to future translators, whom the knowledge of language acquisition theory could help become more aware of the domains of grammar that are particularly problematic

Valence-changing operations in the second language: Comparing English and Serbian learners of Italian

This paper deals with the acquisition of Italian verbal reflexives by native speakers of English and Serbian. The focus is on clitic-marked reflexive forms, which are treated as unaccusative, and which for this reason cannot appear in constructions with derived subjects. In addition, direct clitic reflexives cannot take a syntactic object, as the object position is semantically occupied. Results are reported from an empirical study aimed at exploring how these two requirements are acquired by second language learners whose native languages differ in (not) having reflexive clitics. The data indicates that the English learners initially have more problems than the Serbian ones, but that both L1 groups have correct intuitions at the advanced proficiency level, presumably in virtue of the guidance of Universal Grammar

On the productivity of reflexive and reciprocal se in Serbian

This paper deals with the productivity of the Serbian reflexive and reciprocal clitic se \u2018x-self/each other\u2019 and with how it relates to the alternative reflexive and reciprocal markers used by Serbian, the reflexive pronoun sebe and the reciprocal pronoun jedan drugog. The theoretical background assumed in the paper presupposes that se-type markers are crosslinguistically employed with verbs frequently used in reflexive/reciprocal form, while the sebe-type is normally employed with verbs rarely used as reflexive/reciprocal. The main question thus is whether in Serbian the division of labor between these two types of markers is grammaticalized, limiting se to a closed class of frequently reflexivized/reciprocated verbs (similarly to the case of the English unmarked forms), or not grammaticalized, allowing se with other verbs too. Since both views are represented in the theoretical literature, the issue was addressed in an extensive empirical study, involving an examination of a written corpus of Serbian and a Picture Judgment Task administered to a group of native speakers. The results obtained by both methods indicate that se does tend to occur prevalently with verbs often used as reflexive/reciprocal, but this tendency appears to be a matter of preference rather than a choice imposed by a grammaticalized pattern

L\u2019influenza della morfologia di L1 nell\u2019acquisizione di forme riflessive in italiano L2

Uno dei principali obiettivi della ricerca sull\u2019acquisizione di una seconda lingua sta nell\u2019identificare l\u2019influsso che la prima lingua (L1) degli apprendenti esercita sullo sviluppo della loro competenza in una seconda lingua (L2). Recenti studi sull\u2019acquisizione dei processi morfosintattici che modificano la valenza del verbo hanno dimostrato che il livello di grammatica pi\uf9 influenzato dal transfer da L1 \ue8 quello di morfologia; vale a dire, se in L1 una modifica nel numero degli argomenti richiesti dal verbo va segnalata tramite un particolare elemento morfologico, in uno stadio iniziale gli apprendenti tenderanno a segnalarla morfologicamente anche in L2, se invece una tale modifica non \ue8 marcata in L1, per gli apprendenti non lo sar\ue0 neanche in L2. Si pone per\uf2 la domanda se il transfer morfologico \ue8 sempre cos\uec diretto oppure viene condizionato anche da altri fattori. Questo studio esamina il ruolo svolto dalla morfologia di L1 nell\u2019acquisizione di forme riflessive in italiano L2 da parte di apprendenti di madrelingua inglese e serba. I giudizi grammaticali degli apprendenti dimostrano che per le forme riflessive il transfer morfologico non \ue8 semplicemente un risultato della (non) marcatezza di una data forma in L1, ma dipende anche dal tipo di argomento verbale che viene eliminato (obbligatorio o facoltativo), come pure dalle propriet\ue0 generali di L1, in questo caso dalla presenza/assenza di mezzi morfologici che marchino le forme verbali

Problemi klasifikacije povratnih oblika u italijanskom jeziku i njihove pedago\u161ke implikacije

L\u2019articolo tratta di alcuni problemi riguardanti la classificazione delle forme riflessive deboli in italiano. In particolare, le categorie adottate dalle grammatiche tradizionali, sia quelle descrittive che quelle pedagogiche, vengono paragonate alle analisi e alle terminologie proposte nelle opere teoriche. Vengono identificati i punti problematici delle categorie tradizionali che, nella maggior parte dei casi, sono basate su criteri formali, semantici e sintattici imprecisi. Si considerano poi le implicazioni didattiche di tali categorie per l\u2019insegnamento di italiano L2 e si mettono in evidenza i possibili vantaggi di classificazioni fondate sugli attuali approcci teorici. Infine, viene sottolineata la necessit\ue0 di stabilire un rapporto pi\uf9 stretto fra la letteratura teorica da un lato e quella pedagogica dall\u2019altro

Leksi\u10dka i gramati\u10dka recipro\u10dnost u srpskom jeziku

This paper looks at the Serbian language and the differences its lexical reciprocals - reciprocal verbs that constitute independent lexical entries with inherent reciprocal meaning - and grammatical reciprocals - those derived from transitive counterparts, which only gain reciprocal meaning through the use of a reciprocal marker (the clitic "se" or the pronominal "jedan drugog" 'each other'). The main syntactic criteria taken into account when drawing the line between the two types are the possibility of using a reciprocal verb with the discontinuous phrase ("sa" 'with' + NPins), which identifies lexical reciprocals, and the possibility of replacing "se" with the anaphoric expression "jedan drugog" in the accusative case, which is a sign of grammatically derived reciprocals. An overview is given of eight lexical and three grammatical reciprocal subgroups. Each subgroup is illustrated using examples drawn from the Corpus of Contemporary Serbian Language