Learner Corpus Research and Second Language Acquisition: an attempt at bridging the gap

Learner corpora are traditionally defined as ‘systematic collections of authentic, continuous and contextualized language use (spoken or written) by L2 learners stored in electronic format’ (Callies & Paquot 2015). With this characterization, it appears very clearly that learner corpus researchers have always been interested in exploring the output of the more open-ended types of contextualized production tasks assigned to L2 learners (e.g. Granger 2008; Tracy-Ventura & Myles 2015). The term ‘learners’ here refers to Foreign and/or Second Language learners rather than to learners acquiring their native language (L1)

Animacy effects in the English genitive alternation:comparing native speakers and EFL learner judgments with corpus data

Recent years have seen a heightened interest in the interface between language use and cognition in language learners. In this study, we investigate this interface further by conducting a rating task experiment on the intuitions of 25 native speakers and 101 low–intermediate to advanced learners of English as a Foreign Language regarding the acceptability of the genitive variants (the beauty of nature/nature’s beauty) in different contexts. These ratings were then compared against existing corpus-based statistical models that predict which variant is most likely in spoken language use with two mixed-effects linear regression models. The first model focused on the animacy of the possessor in particular, which has been found to have a different effect on native speakers and EFL learners in language use, whereas the second model tested how the ratings relate to the predictions as a whole. Results show that there is a larger discrepancy between language use and intuitions of low-proficiency learners compared to native speakers, which is partially because animate, collective, and inanimate possessors affect the intuitions and the language use of learners differently

Exemplification in learner writing: a cross-linguistic perspective

The aim of the case study reported in this chapter is to examine the potential influence of the mother tongue on learners’ production of both correct and incorrect multi-word units that are typically used to fulfil an important rhetorical function, namely exemplification, in academic writing. The phraseological patterns of five exemplifying lexical items are analyzed in five sub-corpora of the International Corpus of Learner English. These patterns are extracted from Paquot’s (2007) productively-oriented academic word list and include the two fixed conjuncts for example and for instance, the noun example and the verbs illustrate and exemplify. The analysis aims to distinguish between aspects of phraseological use characteristic of learners from one mother tongue background (and therefore probably L1-dependent) from phraseological patterns shared by most learner populations (and hence more likely to be developmental or teaching-induced). Results suggest that there are two different types of transfer of L1 multi-word units : the first type applies to word-like units and the second to less salient multi-word units. The study also indicates that transfer of form often seems to go together with transfer of frequency and register

Theoretical foundations and construct validity in L2 complexity research: Zooming in on phraseological complexity

Measures of complexity have been repeatedly criticized for their lack of theoretical foundation and construct validity (e.g. Biber et al., 2011; Norris and Ortega, 2009; Pallotti, 2015). Prominent scholars in the field have also advocated for an expanded view of complexity, emphasizing its multifaceted and multidimensional nature that cannot be fully explored through a singular dimension. Instead, it necessitates operationalization through a battery of measures tapping into its different facets (e.g. Bulté and Housen, 2012; Ortega, 2012). Within this framework, Paquot (2019) argued that a successful renewal of the domain would also require a better appreciation of the phraseological dimension of language use in L2 complexity research. There remain, however, a number of unresolved issues with the way phraseological complexity has been operationalized since Paquot (2019). In this talk, I will argue more specifically that there is a need to revisit the dimension of phraseological sophistication and how it has been used to describe L2 proficiency/development. I will share findings from a study that re-analyses the VESPA learner corpus used in Paquot (2019), employing different operationalizations of phraseological sophistication, each representing a different conceptualization of the dimension. To conclude, I will outline what I regard as the most pressing avenues for future research into phraseological complexity and its construct validity

Phraseological competence: a useful toolbox to delimitate CEFR levels in higher education? Insights from a study of EFL learners’ use of statistical collocations

The main objective of this article is to demonstrate Q1 with the help of computer learner corpus data the practical relevance of the phraseological dimension of language for writing assessment in higher education. Phraseological competence is now widely recognized as an important 10 part of fluent and idiomatic language use, but its development has not received the attention it deserves in the CEFR. The study investigates the development of linguistic correlates of syntactic, lexical, and phraseological complexity in learner texts at B2, C1, and C2 and shows that while no measure of syntactic or lexical complexity seems to have an impact on 15 human raters’ overall judgement of writing quality, two measures of phraseological complexity explain 25% of the variance in the data set. Results suggest that incorporating phraseological competence into the scoring rubrics of university entrance language tests would help language test developers add construct validity to language assessment in higher educa- 20 tion. More generally, this study also shows the crucial role that Language for Specific Purposes learner corpora could play in language assessment

VESPA

The aim of the VESPA learner corpus project is to build a large collection of disciplinary writing by L2 English university students across registers, disciplines and degrees of writer expertise. In its first release, VESPA consists of 941 texts written by university students (mainly with Dutch, French, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish L1) in linguistic, literature, and business communication courses. The majority of the texts are reports and research papers but the corpus also contains critiques/evaluations, proposals and response papers

Towards a productively-oriented academic word list

Most studies of vocabulary in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) (Nation 2001:187-216) have emphasized the importance of a 'sub-technical' or 'academic' vocabulary alongside core words and technical terms in academic discourse. A variety of word lists have been compiled to meet the specific vocabulary needs of students in higher education settings. The 'Academic Word List' (AWL) (Coxhead 1998) is the most widely used today in language teaching, testing and materials development. It consists of 570 word families that are not in the first 2,000 most frequently occurring words of English as described in the 'General Service List of English Words' (GSL) (West 1953) but which have wide range and reasonable frequency of occurrence in a 3,500,000 word corpus of academic texts. Taken together, words of the GSL and the AWL and domain-specific items should approach the critical 95% coverage threshold needed for reasonable reading comprehension (Nation 2001:197). While the AWL is certainly a good supplement to the GSL for receptive purposes, it is however questionable whether all words in the list should be the focus of productive activities in EAP classes. Learners' needs for academic writing are clearly not the same as for academic reading. In this presentation, we will demonstrate how EAP would gain significantly from the design of a productively oriented academic wordlist and we will address important methodological issues for the development of such a list. We will first discuss the notions of frequency, keyness and range and question the widely used criterion of non-appearance in the GSL for the selection of EAP vocabulary. We will then show that a productively oriented academic word list should also be developed on the basis of a careful analysis of learners' needs: it should give the necessary lexical means for learners to do the things that academic writers do, e.g. stating a topic, hypothesizing, contrasting, exemplifying, explaining, evaluating, etc. In addition, recent corpus-based studies of recurrent word combinations (Biber 2004), lexical phrases (Oakey 2002) and abstract nouns (Flowerdew 2003) in native academic writing have pointed to the existence of an EAP-specific phraseology. It is therefore particularly important that a productively oriented academic word list should introduce new words together with information on how to use them, especially their collocational and colligational environment. One of the most innovative EAP textbooks to date, 'Exploring Academic English' (Thurstun & Candlin 1997), uses concordance lines to introduce new words in context and to familiarise learners with the phraseology of these words. However, the value of such pedagogical tools for non-native speakers of English would be greatly increased if findings from learner corpus data were also used to select which words and word sequences to teach (Flowerdew 1998; Granger 2004). By way of illustration, we will analyse the lexical means used by English speakers and non-native learners of English to give examples and show how learner corpora can provide useful information on learners' difficulties in terms of underuse, overuse and misuse of target words or multi-word sequences and use of learner idiosyncratic sequences (De Cock 2003)