2014, Volume 8https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/433832024-03-29T09:15:17Z2024-03-29T09:15:17ZApples, volume 8, issue 3, 2014https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/450242023-05-10T05:43:09Z2015-01-08T04:50:05ZApples, volume 8, issue 3, 2014
Jantunen, Jarmo Harri; Brunni, Sisko; Spoelman, Marianne
2015-01-08T04:50:05ZThe Use of Partitive Plural Predicatives by Learners of Finnish from Related and Non-related L1 Backgrounds: The same side of a slightly different coinSpoelman, Mariannehttps://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/450222018-05-17T03:35:30Z2015-01-07T14:29:17ZThe Use of Partitive Plural Predicatives by Learners of Finnish from Related and Non-related L1 Backgrounds: The same side of a slightly different coin
Spoelman, Marianne
The use of the partitive case, a typical case characterizing Finnic languages, remains a constant struggle for learners of Finnish as a foreign language. This paper reports on a study on the (under)use of partitive plural predicatives in the writings of Estonian, German and Dutch learners of Finnish as a foreign language. The overall aim of the study reported on in this paper was to identify and address similarities and differences between the use of partitive plural predicatives by learners of Finnish as a foreign language from related and non-related L1 backgrounds (Estonian vs. German/Dutch). Research materials (Estonian learner corpus 82,749 words; German learner corpus 60,490 words; Dutch learner corpus 47,753 words) were selected from the International Corpus of Learner Finnish and aligned to the CEFR proficiency scales. As will be discussed, all learner corpora were particularly at the lower proficiency levels characterized by frequent replacement of partitive plural predicatives by nominative predicatives. However, partitive plural predicatives were in the Estonian learner corpus generally substituted by nominative plural predicatives and in the remaining learner corpora mainly by nominative singular (i.e. uninflected) predicatives, suggesting reliance on L1 morphosyntax versus simplification. It will nevertheless be argued that these seemingly different phenomena also have much in common.
2015-01-07T14:29:17ZFrequency Change Patterns across Proficiency Levels in Japanese EFL Learner SpeechAbe, Marikohttps://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/450212018-05-17T03:35:38Z2015-01-07T14:25:49ZFrequency Change Patterns across Proficiency Levels in Japanese EFL Learner Speech
Abe, Mariko
This study investigated the overall patterns of variation across seven oral proficiency levels of 1,263 Japanese EFL learners and native English speakers. The methodological approach combined a learner corpus, language processing techniques, and multivariate statistical analyses to identify patterns of language use. The largest spoken learner corpus in Japan, the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology Japanese Learner English (NICT JLE) Corpus was used for the analysis. This corpus consists of transcribed interviews with 1,281 learners and contains over one million running words of spoken English. The transcriptions were compared with data gathered from 20 native English speakers who performed identical speaking tasks. In the present study, 58 linguistic features (e.g., grammatical features) were used from the original list of 67 linguistic features in Biber’s (1988) study. The following research questions were addressed. First, what linguistic features do and do not vary among Japanese EFL learners at different oral proficiency levels and native English speakers? Second, is computer-aided analysis of multiple linguistic features useful for determining which ones characterize particular oral proficiency groups? This study found interesting rising, flat, and falling frequency patterns in how several linguistic features are used in different oral proficiency levels. Some linguistic features (e.g., phrasal coordination and nouns) were frequently used by the learners at a low level. The frequencies of some others (e.g., contraction, pronoun it, and emphatics) increased as oral proficiency increased. The study identified a set of linguistic features that differentiate among second language oral proficiency groups as well as between non-native and native speakers of English.
2015-01-07T14:25:49ZInterrogative Clauses across CEFR Levels in Finnish and Swedish as an L2Toropainen, OutiLahtinen, Sinikkahttps://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/450202018-05-17T03:35:36Z2015-01-07T14:22:33ZInterrogative Clauses across CEFR Levels in Finnish and Swedish as an L2
Toropainen, Outi; Lahtinen, Sinikka
The present study investigates the frequency of three types of interrogative clauses in 329 semi-formal email messages written by language learners of Finnish and of Swedish spoken in Finland. All the written messages were assessed according to the Common European Framework of Reference by trained language professionals. The study is part of a larger research project, Topling, conducted at the University of Jyväskylä. For the purpose of the study, the interrogative clauses were divided into three categories: yes/no questions, wh-questions and subordinate interrogative clauses. We examined the frequencies according to the levels of language proficiency. The findings show that, in both languages, the proportion of wh-questions decreased with increasing proficiency, while the proportion of subordinate clauses increased. This finding indicates that the interrogative clauses used at higher proficiency levels are more complex. Furthermore, the interrogative clauses were transformed into more polite requests concerning willingness and ability through the use of subordination as well as through the use of modal verbs (in Swedish) and the conditional mode (in Finnish).
2015-01-07T14:22:33ZUsing Automatic Morphological Tools to Process Data from a Learner Corpus of HungarianDurst, PéterSzabó, Martina KatalinVincze, VeronicaZsibrita, Jánoshttps://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/450192018-05-17T03:35:34Z2015-01-07T14:18:09ZUsing Automatic Morphological Tools to Process Data from a Learner Corpus of Hungarian
Durst, Péter; Szabó, Martina Katalin; Vincze, Veronica; Zsibrita, János
The aim of this article is to show how automatic morphological tools originally used to analyze native speaker data can be applied to process data from a learner corpus of Hungarian. We collected written data from 35 students majoring in Hungarian studies at the University of Zagreb, Croatia. The data were analyzed by magyarlanc, a sentence splitter, morphological analyzer, POS-tagger and dependency parser, which found 667 unknown word forms. We investigated the recommendations made by the Hungarian spellchecker hunspell for these unknown words and the correct forms were manually chosen. It was found that if the first suggestion made by hunspell was automatically accepted, an accuracy score of 82% could be attained. We also introduce our automatic error tagger, which makes use of our annotation scheme developed on the basis of the special characteristics of Hungarian morphology and learner language, and which is able to reliably locate and label morphological errors.
2015-01-07T14:18:09ZThe Corpus of Advanced Learner Finnish (LAS2): Database and toolkit to study academic learner FinnishIvaska, Ilmarihttps://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/450182018-05-17T03:35:28Z2015-01-07T14:12:23ZThe Corpus of Advanced Learner Finnish (LAS2): Database and toolkit to study academic learner Finnish
Ivaska, Ilmari
This paper introduces the Corpus of Advanced Learner Finnish (LAS2), one of the existing corpora of learner Finnish. The corpus was started at the University of Turku in 2007, and the initial motivation for its collection was to make it possible to deal with novel linguistic challenges posed by academic immigration and to contribute to corpus linguistics, Finnish linguistics and the study of second language acquisition. This paper describes the typological standpoint of the LAS2, its position with respect to other corpora of learner Finnish, the compilation criteria, the annotation applied and the workflow implemented. The corpus consists of three subcorpora of written academic texts of non-native speakers of Finnish. The subcorpora are 1) texts for examination purposes, 2) texts for publishing and graduating purposes, and 3) texts for studying and learning purposes. The informants either study or work in Finnish within academia in Finland. When available, the data has been collected longitudinally. A reference corpus for each subcorpus written by native speakers has also been compiled. Three query tools designed within the framework of the LAS2 are also introduced. These tools enable queries based on any combinations of the linguistic annotation. They can also be used to analyse the typical inner or cotextual variation of any user-specified linguistic node or to create frequency lists of multiword units defined at any level of the annotation. The queries can be limited to a user-specified subset of the data.
2015-01-07T14:12:23ZEstablishing a Standardised Procedure for Building Learner CorporaGlaznieks, AivarsNicolas, LionelStemle, EgonAbel, AndreaLyding, Verenahttps://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/450172018-05-17T03:35:32Z2015-01-07T14:08:03ZEstablishing a Standardised Procedure for Building Learner Corpora
Glaznieks, Aivars; Nicolas, Lionel; Stemle, Egon; Abel, Andrea; Lyding, Verena
Decisions at the outset of preparing a learner corpus are of crucial importance for how the corpus can be built and how it can be analysed later on. This paper presents a generic workflow to build learner corpora while taking into account the needs of the users. The workflow results from an extensive collaboration between linguists that annotate and use the corpus and computer linguists that are responsible for providing technical support. The paper addresses the linguists’ research needs as well as the availability and usability of language technology tools necessary to meet them. We demonstrate and illustrate the relevance of the workflow using results and examples from our L1 learner corpus of German (“KoKo”).
2015-01-07T14:08:03ZMiddle School Students’ Perceptions Towards Linguistic Diversity in the ClassroomMoran, Meghanhttps://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/440742018-05-17T03:35:23Z2014-08-22T05:43:07ZMiddle School Students’ Perceptions Towards Linguistic Diversity in the Classroom
Moran, Meghan
In 2010, a heated political controversy centered on the Arizona Department of Education's desire to prohibit "heavily accented or ungrammatical teachers” from teaching English Language Learners (Blum & Johnson 2012; Jordan 2010). However, although an administrative practice such as this would greatly affect students’, their attitudes towards linguistic diversity in the classroom have been largely neglected. By surveying 94 middle school students in a public school district in the southwestern United States, this study sought to understand students’ attitudes regarding teachers’ and classmates’ accents and the factors that may influence them, such as their language background and the presence and quality of previous exposure to accents. Results show that students overwhelmingly have neutral to positive attitudes regarding accentedness, despite differences in ethnicity or home language. These results should be one component considered when contemplating the implementation of administrative practices such as that proposed in Arizona in 2010.
2014-08-22T05:43:07ZPupils Doing Language Policy: Micro-interactional insights from the English as a foreign language classroomAmir, AliaMusk, Nigelhttps://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/440732018-05-17T03:35:19Z2014-08-22T05:33:41ZPupils Doing Language Policy: Micro-interactional insights from the English as a foreign language classroom
Amir, Alia; Musk, Nigel
In this paper, we examine instances of the methods pupils deploy to do language policy in an English as a foreign language classroom in Sweden, where there is a locally practised English-only rule. Although we exemplify some more tacit methods of constructing a monolingual classroom (Slotte-Lüttge 2007), we focus primarily on instances where pupils police other pupils and on occasion even the teacher, when they are perceived not to be upholding the rule. This blatantly explicit method of pupils doing language policy, which we term language policing, generally serves to (re-) establish and maintain English as the medium of interaction and instruction. The data for this study consists of video-recordings of 18 EFL lessons in an International Swedish school and was collected in grade 8 and 9 classes (15-16 year olds) between the years 2007-2010.
In order to reveal the interactional orientations of the participants in situ (Seedhouse, 1998:101), conversation analysis has been used to identify and analyse naturally occurring cases of pupils doing language policy. By discussing the analyses with reference to different policing trajectories, how participants employ a range of initiator techniques, and the nature and distribution of their policing methods, for example, we elucidate the empirical basis for our subcategories of pupil-initiated policing. We also relate language policing practices to the maintenance of a monolingual classroom and conclude that establishing and maintaining the English-only rule “sufficient[ly] for all practical purposes” is a routine matter (cf. Zimmerman 1971: 227), since little language policing is needed to maintain it. In cases where the language rule is breached, both pupils and teacher play an active role in (re-)establishing the monolingual classroom.
2014-08-22T05:33:41ZThe Effect of Automated Adaptive Corrective Feedback: L2 English questionsLeontjev, Dmitrihttps://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/438862023-05-02T10:36:35Z2014-07-03T06:11:16ZThe Effect of Automated Adaptive Corrective Feedback: L2 English questions
Leontjev, Dmitri
The research on the amount and the types of corrective feedback beneficial for learning a second or foreign language has produced inconsistent results. Interestingly, studying corrective feedback from the perspective of a sociocultural theory of learning has the potential to resolve these differences although so far, these studies have been largely qualitative. The present study attempts to contribute to the existing research on corrective feedback from this perspective by comparing the effects of two types of automated corrective feedback on learning: adaptive feedback (i.e., feedback incrementally adapting to learners’ abilities by becoming more explicit and detailed) and knowledge of response feedback. The participants were learners of English randomly assigned to two groups, receiving either adaptive feedback (experimental group) or knowledge of response feedback (control group). The aim was to establish whether adaptive corrective feedback had a positive effect on learning, the target being L2 (second or foreign language) English questions. The findings indicate a significantly higher positive effect of the adaptive corrective feedback. Furthermore, the experimental group considered the feedback to be significantly more useful for learning than the control group although there was not a clear difference between the two groups’ perceived usefulness of the feedback for getting the answers right during the intervention. It is argued that adaptive corrective feedback can raise learners’ awareness of their mistakes, and it is suggested that it can facilitate individualised approach to learners. Further research is suggested.
2014-07-03T06:11:16Z