Types of L2 morphosyntactic knowledge that can and cannot be observed

in learner corpora

Ken Urano, Hokkai-Gakuen University, Sapporo email: urano@hgu.jp

2015 Joint International Methodology Research Colloquium KATE Corpus SIG & LET Kansai Methodology SIG @ National Institute for International Education

May 16, 2015

http://www.urano-ken.com/

About me

• Interests: Second language acquisition (SLA)

• SLA is the scholarly field of inquiry that investigates the human capacity to learn languages other than the first, during late childhood, adolescence or adulthood, and once their first language or languages have been acquired.

(Ortega, 2009, pp. 1–2)

About me

• Goal and scope of SLA research

• (SLA) seeks to understand universal, individual and social forces that influence what gets acquired, how fast, and how well, by different people under different learning circumstances.

(Ortega, 2009, p. 10)

Goal & scope

what gets acquired

What Acquired

what gets

pragmatics

semantics

syntax

morphology

phonology

phonetics

What

What Acquired

what gets

Acquired

• Two types of L2 knowledge

• explicit vs. implicit (e.g., Ellis et al., 2009)

• declarative vs. procedural (e.g., Dekeyser, 2007)

• learned vs. acquired (e.g., Krashen, 1981)

Two types of L2 knowledge

Two types of L2 knowledge

• Explicit knowledge is “the conscious awareness of what a language or language in general consists of and/or of the roles that it plays in human life” (Ellis, 2004, p. 229).

• Implicit knowledge is intuitive and procedural, variable but systematic, usually accessed by means of automatic processing and during fluent performance, and not verbalizable. (Gutiérrez, 2013, p. 424)

Two types of L2 knowledge

• Theories of L2 acquisition… seek to explain how learners develop implicit knowledge, not explicit knowledge…. L2 acquisition, then, is equated with the development of implicit knowledge. (Ellis, 2006, pp. 434–435)

Learner corpora

• Learner corpora can be defined as systematic computerized collection of texts produced by learners (Nesselhauf, 2005, p. 40).

Learner corpora

• The International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) [W]

• The Japanese EFL Learner (JEFLL) Corpus [W]

• The International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English (ICNALE) [W/S]

• The Louvain International Database of Spoken English Interlanguage (LINDSEI) [S]

• The NICT Japanese Learner English (JLE) Corpus [S]

Notes. W: Written, S: SpokenThis is not to be meant as an exhaustive list.

Available corpora

• The ICNALE Written

• Two topics: Part-time jobs & smoking

• 20–40 minutes per essay

• No reference allowed

• 200–300 words each

• Spelling check required (MS Word)

http://language.sakura.ne.jp/icnale/instruction.html

Data collection

• For the purposes of fundamental SLA research, oral data is an important window into learners’ underlying mental grammars, and may be relatively freer of metalinguistic interference than written data, which is complicated by additional layers of learnt knowledge and monitoring processes. (Myles, 2005, p. 375)

Written & spoken corpora

• Most of the corpus-based SLA studies have used written corpora.

• L2 written corpora… are much more readily available than oral ones. (Myles, 2005, p. 375)

Written & spoken corpora

• Most of the studies using corpora… remain rather descriptive, documenting differences between learner and native language rather than attempting to explain them, and the developmental dimension is almost totally lacking. Corpus-based L2 studies are also often not sufficiently informed by SLA theory…. (Myles, 2005, p. 380)

Written & spoken corpora

Learner corpora and SLA research

Learner corpora and SLA research

• In SLA research, learner corpora [LC] can be useful in some areas, but not in some other areas.

• Questions LC are good at handling

• Questions LC cannot really answerQuestions LC cannot really answer

Questions LC are good at handling

Questions LC are good at handling

Questions LC cannot really answer

• Questions on lexis and collocation

• Questions involving morpheme order

• Cross-linguistic comparison

Murakami (2013)

Questions LC cannot really answer

• Tested the notion of the “natural order” in (e.g., Dulay & Burt, 1973)

• Used the Cambridge Learner Corpus (CLC)

• Computed the accuracy of six morphemes by learners from six L1 backgrounds

• Found a clear L1 influence in some morphemes

L1 influence

Questions LC cannot really answer

L1 influence

• Findings (relevant to Korean & Japanese)

• Articles are ranked low in article-less L1 groups (including Korean & Japanese)

• Lower accuracy in plural –s

• Higher accuracy in possessive ’s

Learner corpora and SLA research

• In SLA research, learner corpora [LC] can be useful in some areas, but not in some other areas.

• Questions LC are good at handling

• Questions LC cannot really answer

Questions LC are good at handling

Questions LC cannot really answer

Questions LC cannot really answer

• Questions as to what is meant by“X has (or has not) been acquired”

• Questions derived from more detailed analyses of linguistic phenomena

Questions LC cannot really answer

• Target-like use (TLU) score:number of correct suppliance number of obligatory contexts+ number of overgeneralization errors

L1 Korean L1 Japanese

articles 0.77 0.76

plural –s 0.89 0.88

possessive ’s 0.87 0.80

From Murakami (2013)

Questions LC cannot really answer

• High accuracy (i.e., TLU) even in morphemes ranked “low”

• What does the accuracy actually show

• Accuracy order vs. acquisition order

• Target-like use (TLU) score:

L1 Korean L1 Japanesearticles 0.77 0.76plural –s 0.89 0.88possessive ’s 0.87 0.80third person –s 0.88 0.84

From Murakami (2013)

Questions LC cannot really answer

Third-person singular (3sg) –s

Questions LC cannot really answer

• In morpheme order studies, accuracy scores are interpreted relative to other morphemes and/or other L1 groups.

• What does the 84–88% accuracy actually mean?

• Have the Korean & Japanese learners in the CLC acquired 3sg –s?

Relevant SLA question

Questions LC cannot really answer

• Representational deficit hypothesis (RDH) vs. Missing surface inflection hypothesis (MSIH)

• RDH: Mental representation responsible for inflection is somehow impaired or missing

• MSIH: Representation is intact and inflectional errors are caused at a surface level

Relevant SLA question

Questions LC cannot really answer

• Representation of subject-verb agreement can be further divided into:

• Person (1st, 2nd, & 3rd)

• Number (singular & plural)

Relevant SLA question

Questions LC cannot really answer

• Studies have employed various methods

• Spontaneous production data (e.g., Ionin & Wexler, 2002; Lardiere, 1998)

• Oral translation (e.g., Wakabayashi & Yamazaki, 2006)

• Self-paced reading (e.g., Jiang, 2004; Shibuya & Wakabayashi, 2008; Wakabayashi, 1997, Jiang, 2004; )

• Event-related potential (ERP; e.g., Wakabayashi et al., 2007)

What can we do then?

• More detailed analysis of LC

• Discussion on the relation between TLU (accuracy) and knowledge

• Use/creation of LC with reduced interference of explicit knowledge (e.g., spoken corpora; severer time pressure in production)

What can we do then?

With corpus linguists and SLA researchers working together, learner corpora can answer more interesting questions.

Ken Urano urano@hgu.jp

Types of L2 morphosyntactic knowledge that can and cannot be observed

in learner corpora

References (1)

• DeKeyser, R. M. (Ed.). (2007). Practice in a second language: Perspective from applied linguistics and cognitive psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press.

• Ellis, R. (2004). The definition and measurement of explicit knowledge. Language Learning, 54, 227–275. • Ellis, R. (2006). Modelling learning difficulty and second language proficiency: The differential

contributions of implicit and explicit knowledge. Applied Linguistics 27, 431–463. • Ellis, R., Loewen, S., Elder, C., Erlam, R., Philp, J., & Reinders, H. (2009). Implicit and explicit knowledge in

second language learning, testing and teaching. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. • Gutiérrez, X. (2013). The construct validity of grammaticality judgment tests as measures of implicit and

explicit knowledge. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 35, 423–449. • Ionin, T., & Wexler, K. (2002). Why is ‘is’ easier than ‘–s’? Acquisition of tense/agreement morphology by

child second language learners of English. Second Language Research, 10, 95–136. • Jiang, N. (2004). Morphological insensitivity in second language processing. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25,

603–634. • Lardiere, D. (1998). Dissociating syntax from morphology in a divergent L2 end-state grammar. Second

Language Research, 14, 359–375. • Krashen, S. D. (1981). Second language acquisition and second language learning. Oxford: Pergamon.

References (2)

• Murakami, A. (2013). Cross-linguistic influence on the accuracy order of L2 English grammatical morphemes. In S. Granger, S. Gaëtanelle, & F. Meunier (Eds.), Twenty years of learner corpus research: Looking back, moving ahead: Corpora and language in use—Proceedings 1 (pp. 325–334). Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses universitaires de Louvain.

• Myles, F. (2005). Interlanguage corpora and second language acquisition research. Second Language Research, 21, 373–391.

• Nesselhauf, N. (2005). Collocations in a learner corpus. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. • Ortega, L. (2009). Understanding second language acquisition. London: Hodder Education. • Shibuya, M., & Wakabayashi, S. (2008). Why are L2 learners not always sensitive to subject–verb

agreement? EuroSLA Yearbook, 8, 235–258. • Wakabayashi, S. (1997). The acquisition of functional categories by learners of English. Ph.D. Dissertation,

University of Cambridge. • Wakabayashi, S., Fukuda, K., Bannai, M., & Asaoka, S. (2007). Japanese speakers’ sensitivity to third

person singular -s in English: Arguments based on ERP data. Second Language, 6, 19–46. • Wakabayashi, S., Fukushima, R., Maemura, S. (2006). Santangen no -s no ayamari no genin: Syugo to

doosi no kyori to sosei no syurui [Causes of errors of 3rd person singular –s: Distance between the subject and the verb, and the kind of features]”. Kagaku-kenkyu-hi hookokusho 15520364 [Kakenhi technical report 15520364], 15–44.

• Wakabayashi, S., & Yamazaki, T. (2006). Santangen no –s no ayamari ni mirareru toogokoozoo to senteki kyori no eikyo [Effects of the syntactic distance and of the linear distance in errors of 3rd person singular –s]. Kagaku-kenkyu-hi hookokusho 15520364 [Kakenhi technical report 15520364], 45–64.