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

EAP vocabulary in native and learner writing : from extraction to analysis : a phraseology-oriented approach

This thesis deals with the phraseology of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) vocabulary in learner writing. The seven chapters of the thesis are organised as follows: Chapter One aims to characterize English for Academic Purposes. It gives a general account of its distinctive linguistic features before focusing on vocabulary needs in academic settings. A distinction is made between receptive and productive vocabulary and the term academic vocabulary' is defined in the light of its particular nature and role in academic discourse. It then offers a review of corpus-based studies of vocabulary in professional academic discourse, learner writing and native student writing. Chapter Two deals with the fuzzy boundaries of the phraseological spectrum. It successively addresses the questions of the categorization of phrasemes and their defining criteria before presenting the typology and definitions adopted in this thesis. It then sheds light on the dual nature of the term "collocation" and argues that "to continue to thrive", the phraseological approach and the distributional approach to collocation will need to agree on a common terminology. Finally, it focuses on the relationship between discourse and phraseology as phrasemes with specific rhetorical functions have been reported to be typical of academic discourse. Chapter Three reviews major findings about the influence of the first language on single words and phrasemes in the foreign language. It then focuses on some methodological flaws of transfer studies which cast doubt on the validity of several of the findings discussed in the first part of the chapter. Chapter Four is devoted to a detailed description of the corpora, methods and software programs used in this thesis. We make use of corpora of professional academic prose, learner writing and native student writing and compare them within the framework of the Integrated Contrastive Model. We adopt a quantitative approach to phraseology and describe the extraction procedure used after discussing a number of parameters that can influence the results of a co-occurrence analysis. Chapter Five is dedicated to the selection of words that are typical of academic texts and which will provide a basis for the comparison of native speaker and EFL learner academic writing. It proposes a new methodology based on the criteria of keyness, range and evenness of distribution. Chapter Six aims to test our working hypothesis that upper-intermediate to advanced EFL learners, irrespective of their mother tongue backgrounds, share a number of linguistic features that characterize their academic writing. It focuses on words and phrasemes that expert writers and EFL learners use to serve typical organizational or rhetorical functions. The function of exemplification is presented in detail so as to serve as an illustration of the type of data and results obtained when examining the whole range of lexical strategies available to EFL learners, as opposed to expert writers, when they want to establish cohesive links in their essays. Other functions were similarly described but the numerous analyses conducted are not presented in detail in this thesis as they would become tedious for the reader. Instead, the focus is placed on the general interlanguage features that emerge from these analyses, which fall into five categories: aspects of overuse and underuse, register-awareness, phraseological patterns, semantic misuse and sentence position. Important pedagogical implications related to teaching practices and the role of corpora in materials design are then examined. Chapter Seven is largely methodological in nature. It first seeks to demonstrate how learner corpus data can be used to select interlanguage features worthy of investigation in transfer studies. It then tries to implement Jarvis's (2000) unified framework to investigate L1 influence on the basis of corpus data and investigates their potential to uncover new types of evidence of transfer. It proposes to employ statistical techniques based on comparisons of means - ANOVA tests and the Dunnett post-hoc test - to operationalize the first two effects of L1 influence described in the framework. The major advantages and limitations of the approach are highlighted. The thesis ends with a general conclusion, which briefly summarizes the major findings and offers several avenues for future research.Doctorat en philosophie et lettres (linguistique) (LING 3) -- UCL, 200

Lexicography and phraseology

Corpus linguistics has contributed to lexicography in a number of ways (cf. Hanks, 2009). However, it is probably in the lexicographical treatment of phraseology that corpus linguistics has had the most revolutionizing effect. Evidence of word use in corpora has shown to an unprecedented extent that words are not isolates but rather combine with each other in preferred syntagmatic patterns (e.g. Biber and Conrad, 1999; Hanks, forthcoming). Corpus query systems are now highly sophisticated and incorporate cutting-edge tools and statistics to extract word combinations (Kilgarriff and Kosem, forthcoming). The impact of corpora in the area of phraseology, however, differs significantly across dictionaries both in terms of coverage and access. Collocations have been the subject of particular attention, most particularly in monolingual learners’ dictionaries (MLDs). By contrast, a whole range of recurrent phrases with essential discourse or pragmatic function still need to find their place in dictionaries. As regards access, techniques range from highlighting a restricted number of word sequences in examples to providing lists of salient word combinations in collocation boxes. The aim of the chapter is to provide a critical overview of current developments in corpus-based lexicography and, more particularly, in the lexicographical treatment of phraseology. The chapter starts with a brief overview of the many contributions of corpus linguistics to lexicography before zooming in on phraseology. First, corpus linguistic tools and methods that lexicographers can use to identify phraseological units are described. Second, results from studies that have compared the phraseology of words as evidenced in corpora and as found in dictionaries (e.g. Moon 2008; Walker 2009) are used to assess the impact of corpora on the lexicographical treatment of phraseology in native-speaker dictionaries, learners’ dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries and specialised dictionaries. Current limitations of corpus-based lexicography are exposed (mostly related to corpus design), and a case is made for the use of a wider range of specialised corpora (e.g. genre or domain-specific) in dictionary making. The second section illustrates how specialised corpora can inform the lexicographical treatment of phraseology. It reports on a study that makes use of the notions of ‘precision’ and ‘recall’ (Salton, 1989) to investigate the usefulness of phraseological information in electronic MLDs for academic writing, a genre that is of particular importance for non-native students and researchers in academic settings (Paquot, 2011). Using the Sketch Engine, I conducted a co-occurrence analysis of several verbs in the 90-million word Corpus of Academic Journal Articles (Kosem, 2010). The results were compared with the collocations listed for these verbs in five MLDs (CALD, CCAD, LDOCE, MEDAL and OALD) to assess the coverage of academic collocations. Findings indicate that, although they certainly represent the best attempts at incorporating corpus-based descriptions of language, electronic MLDs could do much better. A number of word combinations that have essential discourse functions in academic writing are missing from the ‘Big Five’. In addition, their undifferentiated treatment of phraseology could lead non-native writers to believe that all collocations and phrases are good for all purposes (e.g. writing a research article or an informal letter). The chapter ends with suggestions for further and better integration of corpus-data (and corpus-query tools) to improve the coverage of and access to phraseology in dictionaries