The role of text type and strategy use in L2 lexical inferencing

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-252
Author(s):  
Ming-yueh Shen
Keyword(s):  
Strategy Use ◽  
Text Structure ◽  
Expository Texts ◽  
First Year ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Lexical Inferencing ◽  
Text Types ◽  
Quantitative Analyses

Abstract This study aimed to determine as to whether or not the text type and strategy usage affect the EFL learners’ lexical inferencing performance. The participants were comprised of 87 first-year English majors at a technical university. Data were collected from (1) a lexical inferencing test with excerpts of narrative and expository texts, for which both multiple-choice and definition tasks were designed, respectively, and then (2) the responses from the learners’ self-reported strategy usage. The quantitative analyses demonstrated that the text types significantly affected the EFL learners’ lexical inferencing performance, in which the EFL learners performed better for the narrative excerpt than for the expository texts. However, significant coefficients between the strategy use and the lexical inferencing performance were not found in this study. The results further implied that the text structure and the lexical inferencing strategies should be explicitly taught to the EFL learners.

The Gramulator

2012 ◽  
pp. 312-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip M. McCarthy ◽  
Shinobu Watanabe ◽  
Travis A. Lamkin
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Expository Texts ◽  
Analysis Tool ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Lexical Diversity ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
Text Types

Natural language processing tools, such as Coh-Metrix (see Chapter 11, this volume) and LIWC (see Chapter 12, this volume), have been tremendously successful in offering insight into quantifiable differences between text types. Such quantitative assessments have certainly been highly informative in terms of evaluating theoretical linguistic and psychological categories that distinguish text types (e.g., referential overlap, lexical diversity, positive emotion words, and so forth). Although these identifications are extremely important in revealing ability deficiencies, knowledge gaps, comprehension failures, and underlying psychological phenomena, such assessments can be difficult to interpret because they do not explicitly inform readers and researchers as to which specific linguistic features are driving the text type identification (i.e., the words and word clusters of the text). For example, a tool such as Coh-Metrix informs us that expository texts are more cohesive than narrative texts in terms of sentential referential overlap (McNamara, Louwerse, & Graesser, in press; McCarthy, 2010), but it does not tell us which words (or word clusters) are driving that cohesion. That is, we do not learn which actual words tend to be indicative of the text type differences. These actual words may tend to cluster around certain psychological, cultural, or generic differences, and, as a result, researchers and materials designers who might wish to create or modify text, so as to better meet the needs of readers, are left somewhat in the dark as to which specific language to use. What is needed is a textual analysis tool that offers qualitative output (in addition to quantitative output) that researchers and materials designers might use as a guide to the lexical characteristics of the texts under analysis. The Gramulator is such a tool.

The Concept of Text Type and Its Relevance to Translator Training1

Target ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel García Izquierdo
Keyword(s):  
Mother Tongue ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Year ◽  
Classroom Activity ◽  
Correct Interpretation ◽  
Paper Briefly ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Text Types ◽  
The One

Abstract The aim of this paper is to show the relevance that a correct interpretation of text types in the mother tongue has for the correct development of the translating activity by translator trainees. This paper briefly analyzes the results of a classroom activity in which students were asked to identify the text-type ascription of two texts. They were first-year students in the Translation and Interpreting program at the Jaume I University in Castellón (Spain). The results confirm, on the one hand, existing differences in the comprehension and interpretation of text types and, on the other hand, that the confusion that exists in practice between the concepts of text type and genre (Hatim and Mason 1990) may also be observed in the case of these students.

scholarly journals Pronominal anaphoric strategies in the West Saxon dialect of Old English

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 381-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARCELLE COLE
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
The West ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Demonstrative Pronoun ◽  
Text Types ◽  
Additional Support ◽  
Selection Of

Building on previous studies that have discussed pronominal referencing in Old English (Traugott 1992; van Gelderen 2013; van Kemenade & Los 2017), the present study analyses the pronominal anaphoric strategies of the West Saxon dialect of Old English based on a quantitative and qualitative study of personal and demonstrative pronoun usage across a selection of late (postc. AD 900) Old English prose text types. The historical data discussed in the present study provide important additional support for modern cognitive and psycholinguistic theory. In line with the cognitive/psycholinguistic literature on the distribution of pronouns in Modern German (Bosch & Umbach 2007), the information-structural properties of referents rather than the grammatical role of the pronoun's antecedent most accurately explain the personal pronoun vs demonstrative pronoun contrast in the West Saxon dialect of Old English. The findings also highlight how issues pertaining to style, such as the author–writer relationship, text type, subject matter and the conventionalism propagated by text tradition, influence anaphoric strategies in Old English.

scholarly journals Speech Intelligibility of Korean EFL Learners : Role of Proficiency, Text Type and Text Length

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 347-362
Author(s):  
Injae Lim ◽  
◽  
Jeong-Im Han ◽  
Taehwan Choi ◽  
Joo-Kyeong Lee
Keyword(s):  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Text Length ◽  
Korean Efl Learners

The Gramulator

2014 ◽  
pp. 1673-1694
Author(s):  
Philip M. McCarthy ◽  
Shinobu Watanabe ◽  
Travis A. Lamkin
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Expository Texts ◽  
Analysis Tool ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Lexical Diversity ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
Text Types ◽  
Insight Into

Natural language processing tools, such as Coh-Metrix and LIWC, have been tremendously successful in offering insight into quantifiable differences between text types. Such quantitative assessments have certainly been highly informative in terms of evaluating theoretical linguistic and psychological categories that distinguish text types (e.g., referential overlap, lexical diversity, positive emotion words, and so forth). Although these identifications are extremely important in revealing ability deficiencies, knowledge gaps, comprehension failures, and underlying psychological phenomena, such assessments can be difficult to interpret because they do not explicitly inform readers and researchers as to which specific linguistic features are driving the text type identification (i.e., the words and word clusters of the text). For example, a tool such as Coh-Metrix informs us that expository texts are more cohesive than narrative texts in terms of sentential referential overlap (McNamara, Louwerse, & Graesser, in press; McCarthy, 2010), but it does not tell us which words (or word clusters) are driving that cohesion. That is, we do not learn which actual words tend to be indicative of the text type differences. These actual words may tend to cluster around certain psychological, cultural, or generic differences, and, as a result, researchers and materials designers who might wish to create or modify text, so as to better meet the needs of readers, are left somewhat in the dark as to which specific language to use. What is needed is a textual analysis tool that offers qualitative output (in addition to quantitative output) that researchers and materials designers might use as a guide to the lexical characteristics of the texts under analysis. The Gramulator is such a tool.

scholarly journals Historical genre studies and the history of language: The place and role of text types in German and Russian historical linguistic research

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 569-589
Author(s):  
Vladimir I. Karpov ◽  
◽  
Tatiana V. Toporova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistic ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
Text Linguistics ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Language History ◽  
Text Types ◽  
Text Genre ◽  
History Of

The article presents a critical analysis of both domestic and foreign works on text linguistics where researchers try to reveal a minimum classification unit. More specifically, the article focuses on the term “Textsorte”. While it is widely employed in German linguistics, its content is not clearly defined in the works of Russian and foreign scholars. Here, it is shown how the term is approached in different fields of research — in information aesthetics, semiotics, text theory, and historical linguistics. The article is aimed at assessing the potential certain text types, recorded in various periods of the life of language, have for an extended description of language history. The authors analyze texts of oral folklore, and namely charms. Therefore, works on the history and typology of folklore genres are taken into account and thoroughly reviewed. These are mainly linguistic genre studies and scrutinizing them provides an opportunity to touch upon problems pertinent to the research of text genres, to consider the discussion around “text genre” and “text type” in foreign and domestic linguistics, to define the place and role of given text types in historical linguistic and cultural studies, and to reveal both trends in researching folklore texts and the relationship of folklore with text linguistics. The authors come to the conclusion that a comprehensive description of a given text type allows one to formulate general principles of diachronically oriented research and make a significant contribution to the development of historical linguistics.

scholarly journals THE ROLE OF MOTIVATION, STRATEGY USE AND SECOND LANGUAGE APTITUDE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF LISTENING SKILLS BY ADULT CHINESE LEARNERS

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peng Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Strong Predictor ◽  
Strategy Use ◽  
First Year ◽  
Bilingual Students ◽  
Listening Skills ◽  
Listening Tests ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
Motivation Strategy

This research has investigated the associations among strategy use, language learning aptitude and motivation and their impact on predicting the development of listening skills of Spanish-Catalan bilingual beginner learners studying Chinese. The participants were 13 Spanish-Catalan bilingual students majoring in International Business and Tourism in a school in Barcelona, taking Chinese as an optional language course for their first year of study. All of them were raised in Catalonia speaking Catalan and Spanish, except for one student originally from Morocco. In addition, all of them had an intermediate level of English (CEFR: B1-B2). The experiment consisted of a motivation questionnaire, Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL), LLAMA_D, a pre-test and three post-tests (i.e. listening tests) in each month during the 3 month research period. The collected data was analysed through the Spearman correlation coefficient and the results of the effects on Chinese listening gains display that motivation was found to be a strong predictor of the development of Chinese listening gains. Strategy use has a significant positive effect, but the very strong correlation was only found in the first stages, the effect decreased later on. Instead, language learning aptitude had a non-significant effect as measured by LLAMA_D. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0740/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

scholarly journals Lexical Bundles in Argumentative and Narrative Writings by Chinese EFL Learners

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Yanfeng Yang
Keyword(s):  
Building Blocks ◽  
The Other ◽  
Functional Categories ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Text Types ◽  
Functional Patterns ◽  
Referential Expressions ◽  
Selection Of

Previous studies have shown that lexical bundles are important building blocks of discourse and a significant component of fluent linguistic production. However, little research was found to investigate lexical bundles in narrative writings, a basic text type on which the other text types (discourses) build upon. The present study tries to fill the gap and investigates lexical bundles in argumentative and narrative writings by Chinese EFL learners. The lexical bundles were retrieved by kfNgram and then manually refined and classified into structural and functional categories respectively based on Biber et al.’s (1999) and Biber et al.’s (2003) frameworks. The findings show that (1) students used much more four-word bundles in argumentative writings than those in narrative writings; (2) no big difference was found in the structural patterns of the four-word lexical bundles used by the students across the two text types; (3) students relied much more on stance bundles than the other functional types of bundles in their argumentative writings, while they turned to referential expressions other than stance bundles or discourse organizers in their narrative writings. The functional purposes of various discourses explain the students’ selection of different functional patterns across the text type.

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