Hello CALLers,
Satomi will be posting her questions for us shortly. In the meanwhile, here is a question from me as well.
Some critics of learner corpus analysis maintain that it focuses too much on learner ERRORS, and, therefore, is in essence a disempowering approach. Based on our readings for this week (+ Belz & Vyatkina, Belz & Kinginger & , as well as articles on the Grim and iWrite tools) , would you agree with this evaluation? What else is learner corpus analysis good for beyond error analysis?
And here are several QUESTIONS FROM SATOMI:
What was your impressions and understanding of “corpus” prior to reading the articles? What are your thoughts on the use of corpus data in research and language teaching after reading the articles? Would you consider using corpus in your future research and/or classroom teaching? Why or why not? What concerns and questions do you have? Please share your thoughts.
I felt that the articles were inspiring in terms of its potential for employing corpus to research and pedagogical purposes. Before reading the papers I was associating corpus solely with linguistic research (not necessarily SLA research), and have not thought much about possible usage for pedagogical purposes either (except for the fact I was quite inspired by Belz & Vyatkina’s study that was to me extremely successful in every aspect in use of technology including corpus data as well as in the research design). It seems as if just like any other tool we have discussed, corpus also do not necessarily offer a solution for everything in language learning, in which one needs to be aware of both advantages and disadvantages. Although the K & M mentioned no expert knowledge is necessary to deal with corpus, O & C’s case showed the importance of providing training and teacher guidance for getting positive feedback from the students (I believe use of technology in classroom probably needs some training one way or another, otherwise students get easily lost and possibly frustrated). Some questions I have after reading the article are that to what extent the “knowledge” is required to work with corpus both as a researcher and a teacher; I say this because I am interested in corpus but technically I have little knowledge. I also wonder if corpus can be used in completely beginning level students. If so, what would be the most effective way to incorporate the tool into teaching/learning?
Ok! I’ll go first! (but keep it short)
In response to Viktoria’s question:
I never thought that coropora are used for “error” correction. Rather I had always considered it as an advanced version of conventional “dictionary” which better facilitates language learning. I am sure there are different kinds of corpora, but even articles that we read for this week do not discuss much about drawbacks of corpora in the sense that corpora are for “error corrections.”
Pavlenko & Driagina discuss issues pertinent to acquisition of Russian emotion vocabulary (“emotion vocabulary needs to be incorporated in FL instruction as a SEPARATE AND IMPORTANT LEXICAL AND SYNTACTIC DOMAIN” (p. 229, emphasis mine). Their findings include that advanced American learners of Russian’s speech “approximated those of native speakers of Russian” (p. 228). While I agree that such emotion vocabulary can be separately taught, what you say in L2 is deeply connected to how it is typically expressed in L2 (e.g., Whorf-Sapir hypothesis, or Dan Slobin’s “thinking for speaking” approach).
Others (Kaltenbock & Mehlmauer-Larcher and Braun) do discuss clashes between “use of corpora” and “its actual use / pedagogical issues.” Yes, O’Sullivan and Chambers do talk about one use of corpus as error correction; but not necessarily “disempowering”? I tend to use words like “disempower” or “empower” in philosophical terms (poststructural, postmodern approaches to critiquing objectivism and essentialization of self and other, etc). But, yes, if you constantly find fault with language learners’ mistakes, that’s daunting and disempowering.
Any web search engine can be a corpus. For example, Google has helped me “verify” some idiomatic expressions such as “in every sense of the word.” You just use (” quotation mark “) when you search for a complete phrase on the web. Google has been my private tutor.
“Apples and Oranges” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apples_and_oranges/)
Hi Akira,
thank you for being the pioneer – almost every week!!
Some clarifications: my question was in reference to LEARNER Corpora. Learner talk is rarely used as a conventional dictionary, but I do think it’s a great resource. I will let the rest of the group make their arguments before I make mine.
A for the Pavlenko & Driagina (2007), the main purpose of the article is precisely to make the point that emotions are conceptualized differently in the two cultures, and that is why linguistically they are instantiated very differently; hence the argument for pedagogical adjustments.
In what sense did you think I used the term disempowerment?
I was actually referring to the last week’s discussion of Bourdieu’s notions of habitus and symbolic violence. So you identified the framework very well. Perhaps it wasn’t a well-formulated question. We will talk about it tonight!