Papers by María-Belen Diez-Bedmar
Advances in educational technologies and instructional design book series, Aug 24, 2023
Research in Corpus Linguistics, 2025
Research on noun phrase use in EFL writing has mainly focused on linguistic complexity and accura... more Research on noun phrase use in EFL writing has mainly focused on linguistic complexity and accuracy, lexical richness, and phraseological competence. However, the relationship between noun lexical diversity of nouns and the syntactic complexity of the noun phrases in which these nouns appear remains underexplored. To address this gap, this paper examines the lexical diversity of head nouns in noun phrases within a sample of emails written by L1 Spanish EFL learners at B1 and C1 proficiency levels, taken from the FineDesc Learner Corpus. The analysis considers both the lexical diversity of nouns and the syntactic complexity of the noun phrases they head. The findings reveal: a) a narrower range of nouns at the B1 level compared to the C1 level; b) a low percentage of nouns from both levels, based on the English Vocabulary Profile; and c) differences in NP complexity between the two proficiency levels (B1 and C1), depending on whether the head nouns are concrete or abstract. The paper underscores the importance of combining different complexity measures-namely, lexical diversity and NP complexity analyses-to gain a more comprehensive understanding of learners' use of noun phrases.
Studies in Learner Corpus Linguistics
Revista De Educacion, 2012
Monografico con el titulo: 'Nuevas perspectivas en la seccion de idiomas de la Prueba de Acce... more Monografico con el titulo: 'Nuevas perspectivas en la seccion de idiomas de la Prueba de Acceso a la Universidad'. Resumen basado en el de la publicacion
Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 2019
In this paper, we explore the affordances of two different research methods that may be instrumen... more In this paper, we explore the affordances of two different research methods that may be instrumental in analysing learner language complexity: standard corpus linguistics methodology and automatic syntactic complexity analysers. Our results suggest that POS keyword analysis and automatic syntactic analysis are both effective for the identification of linguistic features at different levels of development in instructed SLA. In particular, countable nouns, prepositional phrases, verbs and general adverbs are criterial features that define the transition from lower to higher secondary school language learning in the Spanish component of the ICCI corpus. We suggest that the analysis of complexity in noun phrases is of great interest for researchers and teachers in terms of identifying development milestones in language acquisition.
Learner Corpus Research Meets Second Language Acquisition, 2020
Porta Linguarum Revista Interuniversitaria de Didáctica de las Lenguas Extranjeras, 2011
This paper reports on the possibility to detect learning disorders when conducting Computer-aided... more This paper reports on the possibility to detect learning disorders when conducting Computer-aided Error Analysis (CEA). The study of a longitudinal learner corpus compiled at the Universidad de Jaén (Spain) and error-tagged with the Université Louvain Error Editor (Hutchinson, 1996; Dagneaux, Denness, Granger and Meunier, 1996) reveals that the disorder of written expression, i.e. dysorthographia, may be detected in the students' production in the foreign language. Failure in recognising symptoms of this disorder may lead to incorrect interpretations of the CEAs, as the errors found in a learner corpus may be misleadingly attributed to the student's language acquisition process rather than to his or her learning disorders.
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 2020
The research reported in this article examines Noun Phrase (NP) syntactic complexity in the writi... more The research reported in this article examines Noun Phrase (NP) syntactic complexity in the writing of Spanish EFL secondary school learners in Grades 7, 8, 11 and 12 in the International Corpus of Crosslinguistic Interlanguage. Two methods were combined: a manual parsing of NPs and an automatic analysis of NP indices using the Tool for the Automatic Analysis of Syntactic Sophistication and Complexity (TAASSC). Our results revealed that it is in premodifying slots that syntactic complexity in NPs develops. We argue that two measures, (i) nouns and modifiers (a syntactic complexity index) and (ii) determiner + multiple premodification + head (a NP type obtained as a result of a corpus-driven analysis), can be used as indices of syntactic complexity in young Spanish EFL learner language development. Besides offering a learner-language-driven taxonomy of NP syntactic complexity, the paper underscores the strength of using combined methods in SLA research.
Onomázein Revista de lingüística filología y traducción, 2018
Corpus-based Approaches to Spoken L2 Production, 2019
Our research examines the use of three stance adverbs of certainty (actually, really and obviousl... more Our research examines the use of three stance adverbs of certainty (actually, really and obviously) across B1, B2 and C1 levels in the Trinity Lancaster Corpus (TLC). Particularly, we examined the occurrence of these adverbs in the subset of Spanish L1 speakers from Mexico and Spain. Really, actually and obviously were found to display a distinctive frequency of use across different proficiency levels and the different speaking tasks analysed. Dialogic tasks favoured a more frequent use of really and actually, while obviously was hardly used. Qualitative analyses of the pragmatic functions of really and actually revealed that there is an increase in the use of meanings to express hedging in really and factualness in actually across the proficiency levels. Our research confirms the finding in Gablasova et al. (2017) that the type of speaking task conditions speakers’ repertoire of linguistic devices, although we argue that this conditioning operates on different levels.
International Journal of English Studies, 2011
In this paper an updated overview of the main errors that Spanish students make when writing the ... more In this paper an updated overview of the main errors that Spanish students make when writing the English exam in the University Entrance Examination is provided. To do so, a Computer-aided Error Analysis (CEA) (Dagneaux, Denness & Granger, 1998) was conducted on a representative sample of the students who took the exam in June 2008 in Jaén, and wrote a composition on the same topic. The use of the most widely-used error taxonomy, the Error Tagging Manual version 1.1. (Dagneaux, Denness, Granger & Meunier, 1996), and the analysis of the results by means of descriptive statistics foster the possibility to replicate this study and move forward in the description of the students’ written command in the foreign language at this stage. The comparison of the findings obtained in this study and those from previous (C)EAs on the English exam reveals that some common tendencies may be shown.
Language, Culture and Curriculum, 2018
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) began to have an influence on lan... more The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) began to have an influence on language teaching some 20 years ago. However, in spite of the title referring to learning, teaching and assessment of languages, the CEFR has had a far more pronounced impact on language testing than on any other aspect of language learning/teaching. In contrast, this article focuses on the impact of the CEFR on teachers by analysing the beliefs about and perceptions of the CEFR held by a group of Spanish teachers about to take a Masters course module on the CEFR. A 35-item questionnaire was administered to these in-service teachers online to analyse their familiarity with the CEFR, their perceptions of the impact of the CEFR and their knowledge of the contents of the CEFR. The analysis shows that teachers' degree of familiarity with the CEFR as a whole was superficial. They reported a high degree of familiarity with levels of competences, but limited knowledge of changes that the CEFR proposes, despite the fact that they perceived the general impact of the CEFR on syllabi, curricula and methods to be substantial. There are clear implications for teacher education to ensure more thorough understanding of the CEFR.
Revista Canaria De Estudios Ingleses, 2011
The importance of the University Entrance Examination in the students' academic future has fo... more The importance of the University Entrance Examination in the students' academic future has fostered research on the characteristics of the exams which compose it. Among them, the English exam has been analysed concerning crucial issues such as its validity and reliability, the students' written production in the foreign language, and the type of improvements which may be implemented in the exam. The results obtained in the studies conducted so far on the English exam are overviewed in this paper, so that they may be considered in forthcoming studies or when implementing changes to the exam.
Mehrsprachigkeit in Europa / Multilingualism in Europe, 2014
Linking up contrastive and learner corpus research, 2008
... Consequently, we could predict the problems that the learners of English were prone to have o... more ... Consequently, we could predict the problems that the learners of English were prone to have on the basis of the differences in the way of expressing genericity, specificity and definiteness in their L1 and their foreign ... Type 1 generic Type 2 definite Type 3 specific indefinite ...
Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 2015
This pilot study uses a combination of frequency measures and an accuracymeasure to explore artic... more This pilot study uses a combination of frequency measures and an accuracymeasure to explore article use in the writing of Spanish learners of English asa foreign language (EFL). Following Bickerton’s (1981) and Huebner’s (1983)publications, the uses of the definite, indefinite and zero articles are analysedand (error-)tagged in a learner corpus containing texts at the A2, B1 and B2levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).Three criterial features, more concretely positive linguistic features, are observedin the learner corpus at CEFR B2 level: the higher mean of correct uses of thezero article in non-referential contexts, their effective use and selection, andtheir accurate use. The chapter also analyses the patterns in the accuracy of useorder at the three CEFR levels and provides examples of article errors.
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 2014
Developmental and Crosslinguistic Perspectives in Learner Corpus Research, 2012
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Papers by María-Belen Diez-Bedmar