Transcript A Comparative Analysis of Verb

Patterns of lexis in learner
language:
Lithuanian learners of English vs.
native speakers
Rita Juknevičienė
Department of English Philology
Vilnius University
2-6 September 2010, SLE Conference in Vilnius
Research focus
• Structural features of written learner English.
• Contrastive analysis of multi-word units, i.e.
lexical bundles in learner language.
• Structural differences at different levels of
achievement.
Research questions
1. Structural features of lexical bundles
Distribution across major structural types: verbal,
clausal, phrasal (Biber 2006), e.g. it is obvious
that, to take into account, the nature of the, in
the case of.
2. Patterns in lexical bundles:
Do lexical patterns get “bundlized”? If so, is it
proficiency level-related? Which patterns are
most frequent, e.g. V n “to write a letter” or V toinf “want to do sth.” (Hunston & Francis 2000).
Previous studies
• De Cock (2004): lexical bundles in English
produced by French EFL learners and NS learners
• Biber et al. (2004), Biber (2006): structural and
functional classification
• Cortes (2004) and Hyland (2008): lexical bundles
in articles from different research fields
• Chen & Baker (2010): lexical bundles in L1 and L2
academic writing (BAWE corpus)
Lexical bundles
• Terminology:
–
–
–
–
recurrent sequences (Altenberg 1998, De Cock 1998),
lexical bundles (Biber et al. 1999, 2004, Cortes 2008, Hyland 2008),
clusters (Scott 1999),
chunks (O’Keeffe et al. 2007).
• Established exclusively on frequency criteria
• Structurally and semantically incomplete
• Examples: in the, and then, one of the, and this is, I think
that, in addition to this, or something like that
Corpora of learner English
• NNS corpora (Lithuanian learners):
– AFK1
• 1st year students of English Philology
• 92 050 words, 226 essays
– LICLE
• 3rd-4th year students of English Philology
• 137 004 words, 253 essays
• NS corpus
– LOCNESS
• native speakers of English (British and American)
• 164 684 words, 197 essays
Lexical bundles in this study
– Length: 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-word bundles
• Examples: I think, people are not, it is better to, becoming more
and more, one of the most etc.
– Frequency: 4 times per 100,000 words
– Distribution: at least 4 texts
– Method:
• automatically extracted with WordSmith Tools (v.5)
• manually revised eliminating topical and identical
bundles of varying lengths
Structural types of lexical
bundles
• Structural types:
– Bundles
incorporating
noun/prepositional
phrases, e.g. the way in which, a little bit more
– Bundles incorporating verb phrases, e.g. you
know it was, is going to be
– Bundles incorporating dependent clause phrases,
e.g what I want to, to come up with
Findings: structural types
Most
subtypes in
inNNS
NNScorpora:
corpora:
Mostsignificantly
significantlyunderused
overused subtypes
NP
with of-phrase
fragment:
the number of the, the end of the, the idea of
(verb/adj+)
to-clause
fragment:
Most significantly
overused
subtypes in NNS corpora:
the
In
order to be,
do
wantpron
to, to
be able
to (there are a lot, it is
rd not
(connector)
+3
person
+ VP
fragment
Prepositional
phrase expressions: at the end of, at the same time, due to
(verb/adj+)
not,70%
it is thethat-clause
most, as it fragment:
was mentioned);
the
fact
that
therenon-passive
is a, that it isverb
not,(be
thatone
it should
VP with
of the,be
become
62% more and more,
will60%
not be able, do not have to)
50%
40%
30%
48%
41%
35%
24%
20%
33%
19%
20%18%
10%
0%
AFK1
LICLE
LOCNESS
VP
Dep. Cl.
N/PrepP
Findings: verbal bundles
think about the – V prep
do not think that – V that
to understand the – V n
to understand what you – V wh
to understand that – V that
• Lexical bundles contain patterns
complementation of individual words:
of
– Belong to, people claim that, go to the etc.
• Could they reveal any differences among the
corpora?
• Each bundle examined and coded for a
specific verbal pattern:
– V n, V prep, V that etc. (Hunston and Francis
1999)
Findings: verbal patterns in lexical
bundles (% of the total in the corpus)
45
40
35
Vn
V prep
V that
V to-inf
be V-ed prep
be V-ed to-inf
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
AFK
LICLE
LOCNESS
Findings:
verbal
bundles
To see the
See the
See the
AFK1:
LICLE:
LOCNESS:
See that
See that
See how
• Numbers of bundles (both
types and
tokens)
See that
Seen as a
containing
complementation
patterns
are
Be seen as
significantly different:
Is seen to be
– AFK: 159 occurrences (norm. per 100 000 words)
– LICLE: 112 occurrences
– LOCNESS: 111 occurrences
• But NS language has more different patterns per
lexeme while in AFK and to a lesser extent LICLE
there are fewer patterns per lexeme.
Findings: clustering tendencies
Which co-text, left or right, builds a bundle with the node word?
they want to
we want to
want to be
wanted to
I think
some people think
many people think
it is thought
think it is
to think that the
thinks about the
thought that it was
Example: BELIEVE
AFK1:
LICLE:
BELIEVE THAT (34)
PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT (13)
BELIEVE IN (9)
BELIEVED THAT (7)
IT IS BELIEVED THAT (7)
TO BELIEVE (7)
MANY PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT (5)
PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE THAT (5)
SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT (5)
I BELIEVE (4)
LOCNESS:
BELIEVE THAT (26)
I BELIEVE THAT (16)
BELIEVED THAT (6)
TO BELIEVE (5)
BELIEVE IN (4)
BELIEVED IN (4)
I STRONGLY BELIEVE (4)
BELIEVE THAT (26)
BELIEVE IN (17)
I BELIEVE THAT (11)
BELIEVED THAT (10)
TO BELIEVE (8)
NOT BELIEVE (7)
THEY BELIEVE THAT (7)
BELIEVE IT (4)
Verbal patterns in lexical bundles
Number of verbs used in full sentence stems is significantly
different:
– AFK1: 42 lexemes of which 27 recur in stem bundles
“Subj+Verb” (64%)
– LICLE: 57 lexemes of which 13 recur in stem bundles (23%)
– LOCNESS: 61 lexemes of which 15 recur in stem bundles
(24%)
CONCLUSION: In the AFK1 corpus verbs tend to cluster with
subjects of the sentences more often than with their
complements.
Related studies
• Altenberg 1998:
– In speech, sentence stems form the ‘springboard’ of
utterances and lead to communicatively more important
elements which express the rheme of the sentence.
• Granger 1998:
– NNS learners significantly overuse the active sentence
structure, e.g. I/we/ think, one/we could say/notice etc.
• Herriman and Boström Aronsson 2009:
– The structural segment consisting of ”SUBJECT+VERB” is
overused for the expression of theme.
• Hasselgård 2009:
– I as subject overused in thematized stance expressions.
Hunston’s (2009)
semantic sequences (‘what is often said’)
• A verbal pattern (e.g. “V that” as in believe that)
can be studied as a single word for its collocates.
• Collocates of verbal patterns in learner language
may be very different from NS data.
Examples of semantic sequences
from lexical bundles
• AFK1 corpus:
– SOME / MANY PEOPLE believe that
– IT IS said that / PEOPLE say that
– (SOME) PEOPLE / THEY / I think
• LICLE/LOCNESS corpus:
– believe that / in
– say that / is said TO BE
– think about / that
Conclusions
1. Structural analysis of lexical bundles informs
about discourse features of learner language.
2. Distribution of structural types suggests that
lower-level learner language is closer to spoken
English while more advanced learner writing
bears more resemblance to written academic
English.
Conclusions
3. Patterns of lexis as represented in lexical bundles
offer insights into text construction strategies
used by the learners.
4. Verbal lexical bundles in NNS language reveal
not a verb complementation pattern but a full
sentence stem, so in writing NNS learners are
more worried about message construction
rather than its development.
References
Altenberg, B. 1998. On the Phraseology of Spoken English: The Evidence of
Recurrent Word-Combinations. In Cowie, A. P. (ed.) Phraseology: Theory,
Analysis and Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 101-122.
Biber, D. 2006. University Language. A Corpus-Based Study of Spoken and Written
Registers. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Biber, D., Conrad, S. and Cortes, V. 2004. If You Look at…: Lexical Bundles in
University Teaching and Textbooks. Applied Linguistics 25, 371-405.
Cortes, V. 2004. Lexical Bundles in Published and Student Writing in History and
Biology. English for Specific Purposes 23 (4), 397-423.
Cortes, V. 2008. A Comparative Analysis of Lexical Bundles in Academic History
Writing in English and Spanish. Corpora 3 (1), 43-57.
De Cock, S. 2004. Preferred Sequences of Words in NS and NNS Speech. BELL
(Belgian journal of English language and literature), 225-246.
Granger, S. 1998b. Prefabricated patterns in advanced EFL writing: collocations
and formulae. A. P. Cowie (ed.) Phraseology. Theory, Analysis, And Applications.
Oxford: Clarendon. 145-160.
References
Hasselgård, H. 2009. Thematic choice and expressions of stance in English
argumentative texts by Norwegian learners. K. Aijmer (ed.) Corpora and Language
Teaching. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 121-139.
Herriman, J. & M. Boström Aronsson. 2009. Themes in Swedish advanced learner
writing in English. K. Aijmer (ed.) Corpora and Language Teaching. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins Publishing Company. 101-120.
Hyland, K. 2008. As Can Be Seen: Lexical Bundles and Disciplinary Variation.
English for Specific Purposes (27). 4-10.
Hunston, S. 2009. The usefulness of corpus-based descriptions of English for
learners. K. Aijmer (ed.) Corpora and Language Teaching. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins Publishing Company. 141-154.
Hunston, S. & G. Francis. 1999. Pattern Grammar: A Corpus-driven Approach to the
Lexical Grammar of English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.