Corpus frequency and second language learners' knowledge of collocations: A meta-analysis

Tests of second language learners’ knowledge of collocation have lacked a principled strategy for item selection, making claims about learners’ knowledge beyond the particular collocations tested difficult to evaluate. Corpus frequency may offer a good basis for item selection, if a reliable relationship can be demonstrated between frequency and learner knowledge. However, such a relationship is difficult to establish satisfactorily, given the small number of items and narrow range of test-takers involved in any individual study. In this study, a meta-analysis is used to determine the correlation between learner knowledge and frequency data across nineteen previously-reported tests. Frequency is shown to correlate moderately with knowledge, but the strength of this correlation varies widely across corpora. Strength of association measures (such as mutual information) do not to correlate with learner knowledge. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for collocation testing and models of collocation learning

Formulaicity in an agglutinating language: the case of Turkish

publication-status: Acceptedtypes: ArticleThis published version of the article replaces the accepted version which is available in ORE at: http://hdl.handle.net/10871/9615This study examines the extent to which complex inflectional patterns found in Turkish, a language with a rich agglutinating morphology, can be described as formulaic. It is found that many prototypically formulaic phenomena previously attested at the multi-word level in English – frequent co-occurrence of specific elements, fixed ‘bundles’ of elements, and associations between lexis and grammar – also play an important role at the morphological level in Turkish. It is argued that current psycholinguistic models of agglutinative morphology need to be complexified to incorporate such patterns. Conclusions are also drawn for the practice of Turkish as a Foreign Language teaching and for the methodology of Turkish corpus linguistics

Are high-frequency collocations psychologically real? Investigating the thesis of collocational priming.

publication-status: PublishedWords which frequently co-occur in language (‘collocations’) are often thought to be independently stored in speakers’ minds. This idea is tested here through experiments investigating the extent to which corpus-identified collocations exhibit mental ‘priming’ in a group of native speakers. Collocational priming is found to exist. However, in an experiment which aimed to exclude higher-order mental processes, and focus instead on the ‘automatic’ processes which are thought to best reflect the organisation of the mental lexicon, priming is restricted to collocations which are also psychological associates. While the former finding suggests that collocations found in a large corpus are likely to have psychological reality, the latter suggests that we may need to elaborate our models of how they are represented

Discipline and Level Specificity in University Students' Written Vocabulary

publication-status: Publishedtypes: ArticleThis article examines the extent to which different groups of university students have shared vocabulary needs. Previous research in this area is limited in that it: (i) has focused on items from Coxhead's Academic Word List (2000), which is skewed towards certain disciplines, and focuses only on reading needs; (ii) has not investigated variation across levels of study; and (iii) creates a possibly false dichotomy between generic and discipline-specific vocabulary. The intermediate position—that broad groups of students may have similar vocabulary needs—is not considered. This article aims to further our understanding of variation in academic vocabulary by: (i) analysing the extent to which student writing across disciplines and levels of study draws on generic or specialized vocabulary, and (ii) identifying clusters of student groups with shared vocabulary needs. It finds substantial variation between disciplines, which is only slightly lessened when related disciplines are grouped together. Most disciplines are relatively internally homogeneous, and so good candidates for teaching units, though the vocabulary of masters students often diverges considerably from that of undergraduates

Using PTE Academic to predict achievement and measure proficiency gains in an intensive EAP foundation programme

This study evaluates how well the Pearson Test of English – Academic (PTE-A) predicts students’ performance in a pre-university EAP programme, how much progress students make on the EAP programme in terms of PTE-A scores, and what individual differences influence their performance. PTE-A is shown to be a relatively good predictor of student performance, with overall correlations of rs = .58 between pre-programme PTE-A scores and performance in end-of-programme assessments. This predictive relationship was shown to be relatively constant across a wide range of student variables. Over the ten-week programme, students improved their PTE-A scores by between 2.5 (for speaking) and 5.5 (for reading) points. This is in line with findings from previous studies which have measured gains in terms of IELTS bands. Important variables influencing gain scores were the age at which students had started learning English (late starters improved the most), the amount of extra-curricular reading done during the programme and attitudes towards the PTE-A test

High frequency collocations and second language learning

This thesis explores the implications of high frequency collocation for adult second language learners. It addresses three main questions. First, it asks to what extent high frequency of occurrence in a corpus indicates that collocations are independently represented in the minds of native speakers. A word association study indicates that high frequency of occurrence is a fairly reliable predictor of mental representation, though this methodology does not allow us to determine the precise strength of the relationship. A series of lexical decision studies also show a relationship between frequency and representation, but effects are limited to those collocations which are sufficiently salient to also register as associates. This suggests that psycholinguistic 'priming' models may not be the best way of understanding collocation. Second, the thesis examines the idea that adult second language learners usually fail to retain the collocations to which they are exposed. This is tested through a lab-based training study and a learner-corpus study. Results suggest that adult learners are capable of learning collocations from input, but that 1) the relatively low levels of input to which most learners are exposed mean that they nevertheless tend not to attain native-like profiles of collocation use, and 2) input which provides repeated exposure to collocations can dramatically improve learning. Third, the thesis asks whether a useful pedagogical listing of frequent 'academic collocations' can be compiled. Results suggest that an academic collocation list is viable, but that important caveats need to be made concerning the nature of the collocations included and the range of disciplines for which such a listing will be useful. Moreover, listings of two-word collocations should be seen only as a starting point for more comprehensive phraseological listings. Suggestions will be made for ways in which we might go beyond such two-word listings

Evaluation of US Federal Guidelines (Primary Response Incident Scene Management [PRISM]) for Mass Decontamination of Casualties During the Initial Operational Response to a Chemical Incident

Study objective The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical and operational effectiveness of US federal government guidance (Primary Response Incident Scene Management [PRISM]) for the initial response phase to chemical incidents. Methods The study was performed as a large-scale exercise (Operation DOWNPOUR). Volunteers were dosed with a chemical warfare agent simulant to quantify the efficacy of different iterations of dry, ladder pipe system, or technical decontamination. Results The most effective process was a triple combination of dry, ladder pipe system, and technical decontamination, which attained an average decontamination efficiency of approximately 100% on exposed hair and skin sites. Both wet decontamination processes (ladder pipe system and technical decontamination, alone or in combination with dry decontamination) were also effective (decontamination efficiency >96%). In compliant individuals, dry decontamination was effective (decontamination efficiency approximately 99%), but noncompliance (tentatively attributed to suboptimal communication) resulted in significantly reduced efficacy (decontamination efficiency approximately 70%). At-risk volunteers (because of chronic illness, disability, or language barrier) were 3 to 8 times slower than ambulatory casualties in undergoing dry and ladder pipe system decontamination, a consequence of which may be a reduction in the overall rate at which casualties can be processed. Conclusion The PRISM incident response protocols are fit for purpose for ambulatory casualties. However, a more effective communication strategy is required for first responders (particularly when guiding dry decontamination). There is a clear need to develop more appropriate decontamination procedures for at-risk casualties.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Fabrication of complex model oxide catalysts: Mo oxide supported on Fe3O4(111)

Industrial catalysts for the oxidation of methanol to formaldehyde consist of iron molybdate [Fe2(MoO4)3]. Using a variety of techniques we have previously shown that the surface of these catalysts is segregated in MoO3, and in order to understand the relationship between surface structure and reactivity for these systems we have begun a surface science study of this system using model, single crystal oxides. Model catalysts of molybdenum oxide nanoparticles and films on an Fe3O4 (111) single crystal were fabricated by the hot-filament metal oxide deposition technique (HFMOD), where molybdenum oxides were produced using a molybdenum filament heated in an oxygen atmosphere. Low energy electron diffraction (LEED), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) have been used to investigate molybdenum oxide nanoparticles and films deposited on Fe3O4 (111). The molybdenum oxide film forms in the highest oxidation state, 6+, and is remarkably stable to thermal treatment, remaining on the surface to at least 973 K. However, above ~ 573 K cation mixing begins to occur, forming an iron molybdate structure, but the process is strongly Mo coverage dependent

A function-first approach to identifying formulaic language in academic writing

publication-status: Publishedtypes: ArticleThere is currently much interest in creating pedagogically-oriented descriptions of formulaic language. Research in this area has typically taken what we call a ‘form-first’ approach, in which formulas are identified as the most frequent recur- rent forms in a relevant corpus. While this research continues to yield valuable results, the present paper argues that much can also be gained by taking a ‘function-first’ approach, in which a corpus is first annotated for communicative functions and formulas are then identified as the recurrent patterns associated with each function. We demonstrate this approach through a comparative analysis of introductions to student essays and research articles. Focusing on one particularly com- mon communicative function, the analysis demonstrates that (1) this function is more common in student essays than in articles; (2) both the choice to use the function and the choice of linguistic forms that realize the function vary across sub- ject areas in research articles, but not in student essays; (3) research articles tend to be more formulaic in expressing the function than student essays; and (4) some parts of the forms used are highly formulaic, while others are more open. The key formulas are described and suggestions made regarding their pedagogical presentation