Features of W/R visibility are used "to express personal feelings and attitudes and to interact w... more Features of W/R visibility are used "to express personal feelings and attitudes and to interact with readers" (Petch-Tyson, 1998: 108) and include first and second person reference, speaker's mental processes, monitoring of information flow, emphatic particles, evaluative modifiers, imperatives and questions. Learner corpus-based studies have shown that learner writing, whatever the learners' mother tongue tongues, exhibits many features of writer/reader (W/R) visibility. For example, Granger & Rayson (1998) have shown that French-speaking learners overuse first and second person pronouns. Virtanen (1998) has reported on EFL learners' overuse of direct questions. EFL learners' heavy reliance on I think to express their personal opinion is reported by Granger (1998) for French,
Third International BAAHE Conference, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, 2006
Mastering academic writing is not an easy task for learners, especially when the language they ha... more Mastering academic writing is not an easy task for learners, especially when the language they have to use is not their mother tongue. Not only do they have to acquire a specialised vocabulary, but they also have to find an appropriate voice, one that will be accepted by the academic community as a whole. It has been suggested in the literature that one of the problems non-native speakers experience in this latter respect is their lack of register awareness (see eg Altenberg 1998, Granger & Rayson 1998). This issue will be ...
The main objective of this article is to demonstrate with the help of computer learner corpus dat... more The main objective of this article is to demonstrate 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 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 human raters’ overall judgement of writing quality, two measures of phraseological complexity explain 25% of the variance in the dataset. 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 education.
Please be patient while the object screen loads. Changez de vue : Choisir un site UCL FUNDP FUSL... more Please be patient while the object screen loads. Changez de vue : Choisir un site UCL FUNDP FUSL FUCaM. ...
This article reports on the first results of a large-scale research programme that aims to define... more This article reports on the first results of a large-scale research programme that aims to define and circumscribe the construct of phraseological complexity and to theoretically and empirically demonstrate its relevance for second language theory. Within this broad agenda, the study has two main objectives. First, it investigates to what extent measures of phraseological complexity can be used to describe L2 performance at different proficiency levels. Second, it compares measures of phraseological complexity with traditional measures of syntactic and lexical complexity. Variety and sophistication are postulated to be the first two dimensions of phraseological complexity, which is approached via relational co-occurrences, i.e. co-occurring words that appear in a specific structural or syntactic relation (e.g. adjective + noun, adverbial modifier + verb, verb + direct object). Phraseological diversity is operationalized as root type-token ratio computed for each syntactic relation. Two methods are tested to approach phraseological sophistication. First, sophisticated word combinations are defined as academic collocations that appear in the Academic Collocation List (Ackermann & Chen, 2013). Second, it is approximated with the average pointwise mutual information score as this measures has been shown to bring out word combinations made up of closely associated medium to low-frequency (i.e. advanced or sophisticated) words. The study reveals that unlike traditional measures of syntactic and lexical complexity, measures of phraseological sophistication can be used to describe L2 performance at the B2, C1 and C2 levels of the CEFR, thus suggesting that essential aspects of language development from upper-intermediate to very advanced proficiency level may be situated in the phraseological dimension.
This study aims to provide the first empirical assessment of quantitative research methods and st... more This study aims to provide the first empirical assessment of quantitative research methods and study quality in learner corpus research. We systematically review quantitative primary studies referenced in the Learner Corpus Bibliography (LCB), a representative bibliography of learner corpus research maintained by the Learner Corpus Association which contained 1,276 references when the project started. Each primary study in the LCB was coded for over 50 categories representing six dimensions: (a) publication type (i.e. conference paper, book chapter, journal article), (b) research focus (e.g. lexis, grammar), (c) methodological features (e.g. keyword analysis, error analysis, use of reference corpus), (d) statistical analyses (e.g. X², t-test, regression analysis), and (e) reporting practices (e.g. reliability coefficients, means). Results point to several systematic strengths as well as many flaws, such as the absence of research questions, incomplete and inconsistent reporting practices (e.g. means without standard deviations), and lack of statistical literacy (i.e. LCR studies generally overrely on tests of statistical significance, do not report effect sizes, rarely check or report whether statistical assumptions have been met, rarely use multivariate analyses). Improvements over time are however clearly noted and there are signs that, like other related disciplines, learner corpus research is slowing undergoing a methodological reform.
A Taste for Corpora: In Honour of Sylviane Granger, Aug 15, 2011
This volume is a tribute to Professor Sylviane Granger, and a special gift for her 60th birthday.... more This volume is a tribute to Professor Sylviane Granger, and a special gift for her 60th birthday. The eleven chapters it is made up of tackle corpora from a wide range of perspectives, thus reflecting Sylviane's insatiable taste for corpora and her many interests. They were written by distinguished scholars whose work is appreciated by Sylviane, but who are also (long-standing) friends of hers. The different contributions aim to shed light on the numerous linguistic and pedagogical uses to which corpora can be put. They present ...
This volume is a tribute to Professor Sylviane Granger, and a special gift for her 60th birthday.... more This volume is a tribute to Professor Sylviane Granger, and a special gift for her 60th birthday. The eleven chapters it is made up of tackle corpora from a wide range of perspectives, thus reflecting Sylviane's insatiable taste for corpora and her many interests. They were written by distinguished scholars whose work is appreciated by Sylviane, but who are also (long-standing) friends of hers. The different contributions aim to shed light on the numerous linguistic and pedagogical uses to which corpora can be put. They present ...
Corpus-Based Approaches to English Language Teaching
The monolingual learners' dictionary as a productive tool: the contribution of learner corpora [D... more The monolingual learners' dictionary as a productive tool: the contribution of learner corpora [DRAFT]
Formulaic language is at the heart of corpus linguistic research and learner corpus research (LCR... more Formulaic language is at the heart of corpus linguistic research and learner corpus research (LCR) is no exception. As multi-word units of all kinds (collocations, phrasal verbs, speech formulae, etc.) are notoriously difficult for learners and corpus linguistic techniques are an extremely powerful way of exploring them, they were an obvious area for investigation by researchers from the very early days of LCR. In the first part of this chapter, the focus is on the types of learner corpus data investigated and the most popular method used to analyze them. The second section describes the types of word sequences analyzed in learner corpora and the methodologies used to extract them. In the rest of the chapter, we summarize some of the main findings of LCR studies of the learner phrasicon, distinguishing between cooccurrence and recurrence. Particular emphasis is also placed on the relationship between learners' use of formulaic sequences and transfer from the learner's L1. The chapter concludes with some proposals for future research in the field.
This volume is a tribute to Professor Sylviane Granger, and a special gift for her 60th birthday.... more This volume is a tribute to Professor Sylviane Granger, and a special gift for her 60th birthday. The eleven chapters it is made up of tackle corpora from a wide range of perspectives, thus reflecting Sylviane's insatiable taste for corpora and her many interests. They were written by distinguished scholars whose work is appreciated by Sylviane, but who are also (long-standing) friends of hers. The different contributions aim to shed light on the numerous linguistic and pedagogical uses to which corpora can be put. They present ...
Features of W/R visibility are used "to express personal feelings and attitudes and to interact w... more Features of W/R visibility are used "to express personal feelings and attitudes and to interact with readers" (Petch-Tyson, 1998: 108) and include first and second person reference, speaker's mental processes, monitoring of information flow, emphatic particles, evaluative modifiers, imperatives and questions. Learner corpus-based studies have shown that learner writing, whatever the learners' mother tongue tongues, exhibits many features of writer/reader (W/R) visibility. For example, Granger & Rayson (1998) have shown that French-speaking learners overuse first and second person pronouns. Virtanen (1998) has reported on EFL learners' overuse of direct questions. EFL learners' heavy reliance on I think to express their personal opinion is reported by Granger (1998) for French,
Third International BAAHE Conference, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, 2006
Mastering academic writing is not an easy task for learners, especially when the language they ha... more Mastering academic writing is not an easy task for learners, especially when the language they have to use is not their mother tongue. Not only do they have to acquire a specialised vocabulary, but they also have to find an appropriate voice, one that will be accepted by the academic community as a whole. It has been suggested in the literature that one of the problems non-native speakers experience in this latter respect is their lack of register awareness (see eg Altenberg 1998, Granger & Rayson 1998). This issue will be ...
The main objective of this article is to demonstrate with the help of computer learner corpus dat... more The main objective of this article is to demonstrate 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 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 human raters’ overall judgement of writing quality, two measures of phraseological complexity explain 25% of the variance in the dataset. 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 education.
Please be patient while the object screen loads. Changez de vue : Choisir un site UCL FUNDP FUSL... more Please be patient while the object screen loads. Changez de vue : Choisir un site UCL FUNDP FUSL FUCaM. ...
This article reports on the first results of a large-scale research programme that aims to define... more This article reports on the first results of a large-scale research programme that aims to define and circumscribe the construct of phraseological complexity and to theoretically and empirically demonstrate its relevance for second language theory. Within this broad agenda, the study has two main objectives. First, it investigates to what extent measures of phraseological complexity can be used to describe L2 performance at different proficiency levels. Second, it compares measures of phraseological complexity with traditional measures of syntactic and lexical complexity. Variety and sophistication are postulated to be the first two dimensions of phraseological complexity, which is approached via relational co-occurrences, i.e. co-occurring words that appear in a specific structural or syntactic relation (e.g. adjective + noun, adverbial modifier + verb, verb + direct object). Phraseological diversity is operationalized as root type-token ratio computed for each syntactic relation. Two methods are tested to approach phraseological sophistication. First, sophisticated word combinations are defined as academic collocations that appear in the Academic Collocation List (Ackermann & Chen, 2013). Second, it is approximated with the average pointwise mutual information score as this measures has been shown to bring out word combinations made up of closely associated medium to low-frequency (i.e. advanced or sophisticated) words. The study reveals that unlike traditional measures of syntactic and lexical complexity, measures of phraseological sophistication can be used to describe L2 performance at the B2, C1 and C2 levels of the CEFR, thus suggesting that essential aspects of language development from upper-intermediate to very advanced proficiency level may be situated in the phraseological dimension.
This study aims to provide the first empirical assessment of quantitative research methods and st... more This study aims to provide the first empirical assessment of quantitative research methods and study quality in learner corpus research. We systematically review quantitative primary studies referenced in the Learner Corpus Bibliography (LCB), a representative bibliography of learner corpus research maintained by the Learner Corpus Association which contained 1,276 references when the project started. Each primary study in the LCB was coded for over 50 categories representing six dimensions: (a) publication type (i.e. conference paper, book chapter, journal article), (b) research focus (e.g. lexis, grammar), (c) methodological features (e.g. keyword analysis, error analysis, use of reference corpus), (d) statistical analyses (e.g. X², t-test, regression analysis), and (e) reporting practices (e.g. reliability coefficients, means). Results point to several systematic strengths as well as many flaws, such as the absence of research questions, incomplete and inconsistent reporting practices (e.g. means without standard deviations), and lack of statistical literacy (i.e. LCR studies generally overrely on tests of statistical significance, do not report effect sizes, rarely check or report whether statistical assumptions have been met, rarely use multivariate analyses). Improvements over time are however clearly noted and there are signs that, like other related disciplines, learner corpus research is slowing undergoing a methodological reform.
A Taste for Corpora: In Honour of Sylviane Granger, Aug 15, 2011
This volume is a tribute to Professor Sylviane Granger, and a special gift for her 60th birthday.... more This volume is a tribute to Professor Sylviane Granger, and a special gift for her 60th birthday. The eleven chapters it is made up of tackle corpora from a wide range of perspectives, thus reflecting Sylviane's insatiable taste for corpora and her many interests. They were written by distinguished scholars whose work is appreciated by Sylviane, but who are also (long-standing) friends of hers. The different contributions aim to shed light on the numerous linguistic and pedagogical uses to which corpora can be put. They present ...
This volume is a tribute to Professor Sylviane Granger, and a special gift for her 60th birthday.... more This volume is a tribute to Professor Sylviane Granger, and a special gift for her 60th birthday. The eleven chapters it is made up of tackle corpora from a wide range of perspectives, thus reflecting Sylviane's insatiable taste for corpora and her many interests. They were written by distinguished scholars whose work is appreciated by Sylviane, but who are also (long-standing) friends of hers. The different contributions aim to shed light on the numerous linguistic and pedagogical uses to which corpora can be put. They present ...
Corpus-Based Approaches to English Language Teaching
The monolingual learners' dictionary as a productive tool: the contribution of learner corpora [D... more The monolingual learners' dictionary as a productive tool: the contribution of learner corpora [DRAFT]
Formulaic language is at the heart of corpus linguistic research and learner corpus research (LCR... more Formulaic language is at the heart of corpus linguistic research and learner corpus research (LCR) is no exception. As multi-word units of all kinds (collocations, phrasal verbs, speech formulae, etc.) are notoriously difficult for learners and corpus linguistic techniques are an extremely powerful way of exploring them, they were an obvious area for investigation by researchers from the very early days of LCR. In the first part of this chapter, the focus is on the types of learner corpus data investigated and the most popular method used to analyze them. The second section describes the types of word sequences analyzed in learner corpora and the methodologies used to extract them. In the rest of the chapter, we summarize some of the main findings of LCR studies of the learner phrasicon, distinguishing between cooccurrence and recurrence. Particular emphasis is also placed on the relationship between learners' use of formulaic sequences and transfer from the learner's L1. The chapter concludes with some proposals for future research in the field.
This volume is a tribute to Professor Sylviane Granger, and a special gift for her 60th birthday.... more This volume is a tribute to Professor Sylviane Granger, and a special gift for her 60th birthday. The eleven chapters it is made up of tackle corpora from a wide range of perspectives, thus reflecting Sylviane's insatiable taste for corpora and her many interests. They were written by distinguished scholars whose work is appreciated by Sylviane, but who are also (long-standing) friends of hers. The different contributions aim to shed light on the numerous linguistic and pedagogical uses to which corpora can be put. They present ...
State-of-the-art chapters on theory, dictionary-writing systems, corpus use, innovative diction... more State-of-the-art chapters on theory, dictionary-writing systems, corpus use, innovative dictionary projects
Covers the subject from all perspectives including the user's
Written by the leading figures in the field
Accessibly written with minimum use of jargon
This book brings together leading professional and academic lexicographers to report on current developments in the deployment of electronic means in the planning, writing, and dissemination of dictionaries. Every major aspect of electronic lexicography is covered by the book including dictionary types (general and specialized dictionaries, monolingual and multilingual dictionaries, collocation dictionaries, sign dictionaries, collaborative dictionaries) in a range of formats (CD-ROM, web-based, handheld), dictionary-writing systems, integration of corpora, The book also addresses the implications of electronic dictionary-making for lexicographic theory and illustrates how the new developments are integrated into innovative dictionary projects like Wiktionary. The perspective of the user is considered throughout the book, including how electronic dictionaries take account of user needs and whether and how users take advantages of the new features afforded by the electronic medium. This state-of-the-art account of developments in one of the most vibrant areas of reference publishing and language research will appeal to everyone concerned with current lexicography.
Readership: Professionals in and researchers and advanced students of lexicography, translation, and corpus linguistics
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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 education.
Phraseological diversity is operationalized as root type-token ratio computed for each syntactic relation. Two methods are tested to approach phraseological sophistication. First, sophisticated word combinations are defined as academic collocations that appear in the Academic Collocation List (Ackermann & Chen, 2013). Second, it is approximated with the average pointwise mutual information score as this measures has been shown to bring out word combinations made up of closely associated medium to low-frequency (i.e. advanced or sophisticated) words.
The study reveals that unlike traditional measures of syntactic and lexical complexity, measures of phraseological sophistication can be used to describe L2 performance at the B2, C1 and C2 levels of the CEFR, thus suggesting that essential aspects of language development from upper-intermediate to very advanced proficiency level may be situated in the phraseological dimension.
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 education.
Phraseological diversity is operationalized as root type-token ratio computed for each syntactic relation. Two methods are tested to approach phraseological sophistication. First, sophisticated word combinations are defined as academic collocations that appear in the Academic Collocation List (Ackermann & Chen, 2013). Second, it is approximated with the average pointwise mutual information score as this measures has been shown to bring out word combinations made up of closely associated medium to low-frequency (i.e. advanced or sophisticated) words.
The study reveals that unlike traditional measures of syntactic and lexical complexity, measures of phraseological sophistication can be used to describe L2 performance at the B2, C1 and C2 levels of the CEFR, thus suggesting that essential aspects of language development from upper-intermediate to very advanced proficiency level may be situated in the phraseological dimension.
Covers the subject from all perspectives including the user's
Written by the leading figures in the field
Accessibly written with minimum use of jargon
This book brings together leading professional and academic lexicographers to report on current developments in the deployment of electronic means in the planning, writing, and dissemination of dictionaries. Every major aspect of electronic lexicography is covered by the book including dictionary types (general and specialized dictionaries, monolingual and multilingual dictionaries, collocation dictionaries, sign dictionaries, collaborative dictionaries) in a range of formats (CD-ROM, web-based, handheld), dictionary-writing systems, integration of corpora, The book also addresses the implications of electronic dictionary-making for lexicographic theory and illustrates how the new developments are integrated into innovative dictionary projects like Wiktionary. The perspective of the user is considered throughout the book, including how electronic dictionaries take account of user needs and whether and how users take advantages of the new features afforded by the electronic medium. This state-of-the-art account of developments in one of the most vibrant areas of reference publishing and language research will appeal to everyone concerned with current lexicography.
Readership: Professionals in and researchers and advanced students of lexicography, translation, and corpus linguistics