Lexical bundle use and crosslinguistic influence in academic texts

Lingua ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 242 ◽  
pp. 102859 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatih Güngör ◽  
Hacer Hande Uysal
Keyword(s):  
Academic Texts ◽  
Crosslinguistic Influence ◽  
Lexical Bundle

Korean lexical bundles in conversation and academic texts

Corpora ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
YouJin Kim
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
The Past ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Recurrent Sequences ◽  
Lexical Bundle ◽  
Large Corpus

Over the past few decades, there has been growing interest in phraseology and the extent to which natural language use consists of prefabricated linguistic chunks ( Biber et al., 2004 ; Ellis, 1996 ; Howarth, 1998 ; Moon, 1997 ; and Wray, 2002 ). One approach to this issue has involved the analytical construct of ‘lexical bundles’, which are defined simply as the most common recurrent sequences of words in a register. This study explores the use of multi-word sequences in Korean based on Biber et al.'s (1999) frequency-driven approach to the identification of lexical bundles. Building on previous lexical bundle studies in English and Spanish ( Biber et al., 2004 ; Cortes, 2004 ; and Tracy-Ventura et al., 2007 ), the study examines lexical bundles in a large corpus of Korean texts consisting of academic prose and conversation. The analysis focusses on three major characteristics: the overall distribution of bundles, their typical structures, and their typical functions in discourse. More lexical bundles were identified in academic prose than in conversation. The findings support the notion that lexical bundles should be regarded as a basic linguistic construct with important functions for the construction of discourse for different languages.

Stress management: Corpus-based insights into vernacular interpretations of stress

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-93
Author(s):  
Laurel Smith Stvan
Keyword(s):  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
American English ◽  
Physical Symptom ◽  
The Body ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
The Past ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
Semantic Shift

Examination of the term stress in naturally occurring vernacular prose provides evidence of three separate senses being conflated. A corpus analysis of 818 instances of stress from non-academic texts in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and the Corpus of American Discourses on Health (CADOH) shows a negative prosody for stress, which is portrayed variously as a source outside the body, a physical symptom within the body and an emotional state. The data show that contemporary speakers intermingle the three senses, making more difficult a discussion between doctors and patients of ways to ‘reduce stress’, when stress might be interpreted as a stressor, a symptom, or state of anxiety. This conflation of senses reinforces the impression that stress is pervasive and increasing. In addition, a semantic shift is also refining a new sense for stress, as post-traumatic stress develops as a specific subtype of emotional stress whose use has increased in circulation in the past 20 years.

INITIAL STEP OF SPECIALIZED CORPORA BUILDING: CLEANING PROCEDURES

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera Yakubson ◽  
Victor Zakharov
Keyword(s):  
Text Processing ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Initial Step ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Linguistic Annotation ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Cleaning Procedures ◽  
Unique Source ◽  
Future Work

This paper deals with the specialized corpora building, specifically academic language corpus in the biotechnology field. Being a part of larger research devoted to creation and usage of specialized parallel corpus, this piece aims to analyze the initial step of corpus building. Our main research question was what procedures we need to implement to the texts before using them to develop the corpus. Analysis of previous research showed the significant quantity of papers devoted to corpora creation, including academic specialized corpora. Different sides of the process were analyzed in these researches, including the types of texts used, the principles of crawling, the recommended length of texts etc. As to the text processing for the needs of corpora creation, only the linguistic annotation issues were examined earlier. At the same time, the preliminary cleaning of texts before their usage in corpora may have significant influence on the corpus quality and its utility for the linguistic research. In this paper, we considered three small corpora derived from the same set of academic texts in the biotechnology field: “raw” corpus without any preliminary cleaning and two corpora with different level of cleaning. Using different Sketch Engine tools, we analyzed these corpora from the position of their future users, predominantly as sources for academic wordlists and specialized multi-word units. The conducted research showed very little difference between two cleaned corpora, meaning that only basic cleaning procedures such as removal of reference lists are can be useful in corpora design. At the same time, we found a significant difference between raw and cleaned corpora and argue that this difference can affect the quality of wordlists and multi-word terms extraction, therefore these cleaning procedures are meaningful. The main limitation of the study is that all texts were taken from the unique source, so the conclusions could be affected by this specific journal’s peculiarities. Therefore, the future work should be the verification of results on different text collections

scholarly journals How (not) to cross a boundary: Crosslinguistic influence in simultaneous bilingual children's event construal

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Helen Engemann
Keyword(s):  
Production Process ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Boundary Crossing ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Activation Patterns ◽  
Motion Event ◽  
Co Activation ◽  
Crosslinguistic Influence ◽  
Event Construal ◽  
Two Age Groups

Abstract Simultaneous bilingual children sometimes display crosslinguistic influence (CLI), widely attested in the domain of morphosyntax. It remains less clear whether CLI affects bilinguals’ event construal, what motivates its occurrence and directionality, and how developmentally persistent it is. The present study tested predictions generated by the structural overlap hypothesis and the co-activation account in the motion event domain. 96 English–French bilingual children of two age groups and 96 age-matched monolingual English and French controls were asked to describe animated videos displaying voluntary motion events. Semantic encoding in main verbs showed bidirectional CLI. Unidirectional CLI affected French path encoding in the verbal periphery and was predicted by the presence of boundary-crossing, despite the absence of structural overlap. Furthermore, CLI increased developmentally in the French data. It is argued that these findings reflect highly dynamic co-activation patterns sensitive to the requirements of the task and to language-specific challenges in the online production process.

Exploring lexical bundles in low proficiency level L2 learners’ English writing: an ETS corpus study

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mo Li ◽  
Xiaotian Zhang ◽  
Barry Lee Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Language Competence ◽  
Important Indicator ◽  
Language Background ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Lexical Bundle

Abstract The use of formulaic language in written discourse is an important indicator of language competence. Nonetheless, the features of lexical bundles used by lower proficiency English as a Foreign Language learners have received little attention. The present study addressed this gap by employing a corpus-based method to investigate the quantity, function, and quality of four-word lexical bundles produced by low proficiency L2 English writers with 11 different L1 backgrounds in response to a timed English writing assessment. The investigation was specifically anchored on the data extracted from 1,330 essays using Wordsmith 7.0. Results of the investigation showed (1) an over dependence on writing topic related bundles; (2) an Indo-European L1 language background positively influencing lexical bundle production; (3) an overuse of stance expressions and discourse organizers at the expense of referential expression usage; (4) L1 Japanese, Korean, and Telugu writers producing more accurate lexical bundles and L1 German writers producing fewer accurate lexical bundles; and (5) the frequent use of lexical bundles not leading to highly accurate and appropriate use of lexical bundles. The implications of these results were discussed in connection with foreign language education.

Commitment in L3 relationships: Sacred vows or polyamory?

2021 ◽  
pp. 026765832098804
Author(s):  
David Stringer
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Acquisition Process ◽  
Third Language ◽  
L3 Acquisition ◽  
Acquisition Device ◽  
Crosslinguistic Influence ◽  
The Mind ◽  
N Acquisition ◽  
Full Copy

Westergaard (2019) presents an updated account of the Linguistic Proximity Model and the micro-cue approach to the parser as an acquisition device. The property-by-property view of transfer inherent in this approach contrasts with other influential models that assume that third language (L3) acquisition involves the creation of a full copy of only one previously existing language in the mind. In this commentary, I review Westergaard’s proposal that first language (L1), second language (L2), and L3 acquisition proceed on the basis of incremental, conservative learning and her view of the parser as the engine of the acquisition process. I then provide several arguments in support of her position that crosslinguistic influence in L n acquisition may flow from any previously acquired language.

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