The Importance of Prioritising Writing in the L2 Chinese Classroom

We recently published Developing Writing Competence in L2 Chinese Classrooms edited by Li Yang and Laura Valentín-Rivera. In this post the editors introduce the book and explain why they chose to focus their research on writing Chinese as a second language.

Introduction to the book

Our edited volume is focused exclusively on writing Chinese as a second language (L2). It provides readers with cutting-edge empirical research and insightful teaching methods and strategies for effectively developing L2 writing competence in L2 Chinese classroom contexts. In particular, each chapter in the volume offers practical, detailed and insightful pedagogical recommendations to (1) assist language teachers, educators,  graduate students and research scholars in making well-informed decisions on how to efficiently provide writing instruction in L2 Chinese and (2) facilitate the implementation of writing-focused activities to promote the construction of meaning, as opposed to reducing writing to the mere practice of specific vocabulary and grammar points.

Focusing on “writing” as the theme

The reasoning of focusing our edited collection on writing was our surprise caused by the fact that writing as a skill is not prioritized when being taught in the L2 classroom, especially considering that writing is a productive skill that should be as prioritized as orality. We consider that this is a pedagogical deficiency that compromises the holistic linguistic growth of L2 learners. Therefore, we aspire that our work provides pedagogical guidance that allows language instructors and academics to further their learners’ abilities as writers, that is, who can independently and collaboratively construct messages that convey complex meanings.

Targeting “Chinese” as the language: 

Originally, we had anticipated focusing on Chinese and Spanish, not only because these two represent our respective languages of research specialty, but also since both languages represent codes that are widely spoken and learned as second languages globally. However, we realized that we could make a greater contribution to the field by dedicating a single collection to one language at a time. Given the limited work available on Chinese settings, we decided to dedicate our time to said language, aspiring to make a greater contribution to the SLA field.

For more information about this book please see our website.

If you found this interesting, you might also like Cross-Linguistic Transfer of Writing Strategies by Karen Forbes.

Connecting SLA Research and Instructed Second Language Acquisition

This month we published Psycholinguistic Approaches to Instructed Second Language Acquisition by Daniel R. Walter. In this post the author reveals the questions answered in the book and who it is for.

As second language acquisition (SLA) researchers and educators have likewise expressed, there is a significant gap between research in SLA and its application by teachers, educators, and curriculum developers. This gap not only exists in terms of the amount of communication and knowledge transmission between researchers and educators, but also how research should be used to inform pedagogical choices. This book is an attempt to remedy some of those issues by making direct connections between the lab and classroom, the researcher and educator, and broad spectrum of psycholinguistic research into language learning and the complex learning environment in which the language learner takes part.

Taking a psycholinguistic approach, this book explores the connections between SLA research and instructed second language acquisition (ISLA). Some of the questions I answer for colleagues at multiple levels of research an instruction include: What is the role of consciousness in second language (L2) learning? What are the underlying psycholinguistic mechanisms that support L2 learning? How can an understanding of these processes impact the way we teach languages, from early L2 learners through post-secondary students? And how can cutting-edge research in psycholinguistics and SLA inform the way we design learning over the course of a curriculum?

In writing this book, I hoped it might find a home not only with fellow SLA researchers, but also with educators at multiple levels; from those teaching in immersion programs in kindergartens and elementary schools, to those teaching at the post-secondary level. And also, that the knowledge contained and presented in this book would be useful for teachers from the first day of a new language class, all the way through the most advanced levels of instruction.

For teachers, it provides clear connections between psycholinguistic research and its implications for the language learning classroom, with straightforward methods and recommendations to support student language learning and development. It can function as an important tool for pedagogues, especially those entrusted with training future teachers and providing professional development to current teachers, who can see how the different activities, with which they already engage inside their classes, apply to the psycholinguistic development of their students.

And finally, I hope this book also impacts the field of (I)SLA in general. First, it could act as a catalyst for more teacher/scholars to make explicit connections between theory, findings, and practice in the space of second language learning. And secondly, and maybe more importantly, for researchers and educators to find places to connect, to bring about a deeper discussion at the personal and professional level, about how those who may lean more towards theory or towards praxis can come together to build a deeper understanding of our applied field of ISLA.

For more information about this book please see our website.

If you found this interesting, you might also like Complexity Perspectives on Researching Language Learner and Teacher Psychology edited by Richard J. Sampson and Richard S. Pinner.

The Importance of Teachers’ Meta-Knowledge of the Lexicon

This month we published Advanced Students’ Knowledge of Vocabulary in a First and Second Language by Monica Karlsson. In this post the author explains why the book is important.

Despite a virtual explosion of research on vocabulary teaching and learning during the last few decades, there still seems to be a general consensus among teachers that whereas most L2 language areas need to be taught explicitly, the learning of vocabulary will take place implicitly, and, for that reason, does not require much time in the second language classroom. Admittedly, students may incidentally acquire knowledge of words while, for instance, reading and listening, learning thus occurring haphazardly, in a non-structured way. This book, however, originates from a strong belief that vocabulary too needs to be addressed explicitly, and that this can be done by providing teachers with more meta-knowledge of different areas of the L2 lexicon.

For instance, based on the results in Chapter 3, dealing with suffixation, it is clear that students would benefit from a teaching syllabus that considered the complexities and frequencies of the stem, the derivative form and the suffix, as well as discussions of the effects of these factors. For idioms, proverbs and multi-word verbs, addressed in Chapters 4 and 5, it would be useful for students to learn that these items of vocabulary are not equal in terms of transparency and commonality, and that these factors most certainly affect to what extent students are able to spot, comprehend, remember and ultimately produce such items correctly (see also Karlsson, 2019). It would also be valuable for learners to know that within the greater lexicon, there are smaller worlds of vocabulary where interconnections are formed in various ways. This phenomenon could, for instance, be exemplified by means of polysemous words and the process of layering, thus enhancing students’ knowledge of the meanings of high-frequency words. Finally, the results in Chapter 7 show that quite a few learners display a great potential for inferring word knowledge when provided with contextual clues. By dedicating time in the L2 classroom to discussions regarding such clues and what conclusions can be drawn based on them, this inherent awareness, most likely dormant in many students, could be enhanced further, even helping low-achievers come to grips with new word meanings much more quickly.

It is my sincere hope that my book will encourage L2 instructors to learn more about the lexicon, theoretically as well as practically, so that they may find the courage to approach vocabulary in a more structured way, and that it will inspire linguists to do more research that will support such a development.

For more information about this book please see our website.

If you found this interesting, you might also like the author’s previous book, Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language.

How do Individual Differences in L1 Skills Impact L2 Achievement?

This month we published Exploring L1-L2 Relationships by Richard L. Sparks. In this post the author explains how he came to write the book.

My research has addressed L2 learning from a different angle, namely that first language (L1) and L2 learning are similar. Given my background, my approach to research for L2 learning described in the book may not be surprising. I am a L1 educator whose specialties are learning disabilities, reading disabilities (dyslexia), language learning, and assessment. My study of L2 learning, and later L2 aptitude, was serendipitous and began when I encountered US college students with difficulties fulfilling their L2 course requirement. For several years, I conducted studies with secondary level students with L2 learning difficulties, but soon expanded my research to include both high- and low-achieving L2 learners. I speculated that there would be strong connections between students’ L2 achievement and their L1 achievement, an intuition that was quickly validated by my research. These findings encouraged me to continue this line of investigation for the simple reason that despite longstanding research by L1 researchers that had revealed individual differences (IDs) in all aspects of students’ language development by preschool age, there had been little or no research on L1-L2 relationships.

The book brings a new and different approach to the study of L2 learning, one that has been largely neglected by L2 educators and researchers – how individual differences (IDs) in students’ L1 skills impact their L2 aptitude and subsequent L2 achievement. Early on, my late colleague, Leonore Ganschow, and I developed a hypothesis which claimed that L1 and L2 learning have a common foundation – language ability. My book takes the reader on a journey over 30+ years in which our studies, some lasting 3-10 years, provided strong support for our hypothesis about L1-L2 relationships by showing that:

• L2 achievement is reflected in students’ levels of L1 achievement
• L2 aptitude and L2 achievement run along a continuum of very strong to very weak learners, just like L1 achievement
• L2 learning problems are, first and foremost, language learning problems
• L2 aptitude (like L1 ability) is componential and comprised of different language skills
• L2 aptitude and L2 achievement are constrained (moderated) by L1 achievement.
• L2 anxiety is largely determined by students’ levels of L1 achievement, L2 aptitude, and L2 achievement

A valuable section of the book introduces the reader to evidence for the strong relationships between students’ L1 and L2 reading skills in alphabetic languages through the use of the Simple View of Reading model. This research supports L1-L2 connections for reading and demonstrates how to evaluate students’ L1 or L2 reading skills in English and Spanish through the use of accessible assessment tools. Another important contribution for L2 educators is the discussion throughout the book of the concepts of inter-individual and intra-individual differences, culminating in a new, heretofore unpublished chapter in which I review the extensive literature on IDs in L1 ability and provide a tutorial on how to understand IDs in, and the connections between, L1–L2 skills. The tutorial explains that there is variation – often substantial variation – between and within individual learners, and variation in IDs profiles across multiple characteristics. The tutorial also shows how learners’ inter- and intra-individual differences in L1 are manifested in their L2 aptitude and L2 achievement. The book concludes with presentation of my model of future directions for L2 research.

For more information about this book please see our website.

If you found this interesting, you might also like Explorations of Language Transfer by Terence Odlin. 

Why Should Forced Migration be Considered in Research on Language Learning?

This month we published Language Learning and Forced Migration edited by Marte Monsen and Guri Bordal Steien. In this post the editors explain why it’s important to consider forced migration in language learning research.

When you listen to debates about migration in some European countries, you might get the impression that the rest of the world spend their life waiting for an opportunity to pack their bags and penetrate the European borders. As academics living in Norway, we are used to a discourse where adult language learners are portrayed as people who came to Norway voluntarily and need to meet strict Norwegian language requirements to prevent too many others taking the same journey. Researchers on second language acquisition also tend to view second language learning for adults as voluntary, and of course, many people both move across borders and learn new languages voluntarily for work, for studies or even just for the sake of new experiences.

However, many people experience that they are moved across borders with force. In Norway, the immigration policies are strict, so migrants coming to Norway from outside the EU will not be able to settle in Norway unless they are in special need of protection, such as UN resettlement refugees. Adult second language learners in Norway are thus usually forced migrants. In our work, we have met people who have been forced from their homes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, often by means of cruelty beyond our imagination. They have fled on foot to Uganda, where they have lived a rough life in a sort of limbo, as they know their life in Uganda is only temporary. Under these circumstances, many of them have learned new languages through communicating with people “in the streets”, and many of them have large language repertoires. After years in transit, sometimes decades, they have been resettled in Norway, where few or none of their current language resources are valued. Entering many countries in the Global North entails forced attendance of classes to learn the host language, as is also the case for Norway.

The language courses and language tests that the migrants will come up against in Norway and other European countries are based upon the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). A well-known critique of this framework is that it allows policymakers to easily use language proficiency levels as standards and gatekeepers, while the empirical foundation for these standards is weak, and while the descriptions of language proficiency in CEFR initially was developed to measure foreign language learning by students. Well used concepts within SLA that might further guide the language courses, like Selinker’s theories on interlanguage or various models of motivation or investment in language learning, are also based upon knowledge from students or voluntary migrants. This means that a large number of people that attend language classes in the Global North enter a system that lacks knowledge of their language backgrounds, their needs and their lived experience.

Because of the unique situation of refugees and other forced migrants, we believe we need a research agenda that takes into consideration the experiences of people who have been forced to cross borders. That is what we hope to initiate with our book Language Learning and Forced Migration.

For more information about this book please see our website.

If you found this interesting, you might also like Crossing Borders, Writing Texts, Being Evaluated edited by Anne Golden, Lars Anders Kulbrandstad and Lawrence Jun Zhang.

What Affects the Uptake of and Access to Foreign Languages?

This month we published Discourses, Identities and Investment in Foreign Language Learning by Jennifer Martyn. In this post the author explains what inspired her to write the book.

The story of this book goes back to my own history of language learning. Access to other languages at an early age outside of the classroom context stands out as being crucial in not only developing my own plurilingual repertoire, but also in piquing my interest in the way in which language learning is socially situated and a fundamentally political activity that can draw in some whilst excluding others. 

A range of contradictory discourses surround foreign language learning (foreign language learning usually describes classroom-based learning of a language that is not generally used by the speaker in their wider community). At secondary school, languages can be perceived as difficult and inessential, but also assets in the jobs market. Language learning is sometimes also perceived as something that girls and women are better at, an ideology that stubbornly endures.

Although each person has some degree of agency in terms of whether or not they choose to study a language or which language to study, we are all very much influenced, whether we are aware of it or not, by the discourses of language learning that circulate in our communities and across wider society. Languages are talked about and represented in a myriad of ways, all of which mediate our perception of them and our learning experiences. Whether or not one has access to a language, both in the literal and figurative senses, can also determine language learning experience. Some of us have access to other languages from an early age, while others do not. Nor are all languages valued equally in the marketplace and in wider society.

As a socially situated activity, language learning, then, is far from straightforward. Structural barriers, gendered language ideologies, and discourses of elite multilingualism, for instance, coalesce to make language learning seem difficult, unnecessary, uninspiring, or simply ‘not for us’. In the Irish context, there is limited research on sociolinguistic perspectives on foreign language education, particularly at the secondary school level. By employing an ethnographic perspective, this book investigates what young language learners think about language learning, while locating their experiences and beliefs within broader societal discourses and practices. It is hoped that this book contributes to a discussion of the social forces that mediate the learning experience in Ireland and elsewhere.  

For more information about this book please see our website.

If you found this interesting, you might also like Portraits of Second Language Learners by Chie Muramatsu.

L2 English Use Online and Its Effects on Language Learning

We will soon be publishing Second Language Use Online and its Integration in Formal Language Learning by Andrew D. Moffat. In this post the author explains what inspired the book.

Over a decade of teaching English as a second/foreign language, I was increasingly struck by the range of internet-facilitated, English-language encounters, that my students and the students of colleagues seemed to be having on a regular basis. Kids who were chronic homework-shirkers but avid Call of Duty players disrupting lessons with shouts of “FIRE IN THE HOLE!!”; adults who were shy in class – and not necessarily very ‘advanced’ from a formal perspective – but could be drawn into discussions about their participation in English-language Facebook groups – one chap was a keen amateur astronomer and moved in English-language astronomy spaces online; young adults working in global-facing companies that needed to use English in very ‘real’ situations. I was fascinated by these little windows into the L2 lives of my students, and in particular by the fact that they didn’t seem to do these things to ‘practice their English’ – these were not learning activities per se.

I also reflected on my own Spanish development while living in Spain.  I had some semi-formal one-on-one lessons and spent a fair amount of time doing grammar activities on the beach, but when I was actually interacting within the local community – renting an apartment, grocery shopping at the market, arguing with my bank about unfair account charges – I didn’t feel at all that I was a Spanish ‘learner’ in those moments.  I was just getting things done with my Spanish – pretty important things sometimes, like registering the births of my twin daughters at the Registro Civil. I wasn’t there to learn Spanish, and yet I distinctly remember the word ‘hembra’ – ‘female’ – lodging itself in my long-term memory after that particular experience.

It seemed to me that there was much more to language learning than the language classroom. I certainly felt that I grew the most as a Spanish speaker in those meaning-driven interactions, and I could see that same kind of development in the kinds of students mentioned above – even though I was fortunate enough to be living in an immersion environment and they were not. Could the internet be providing opportunities for the kinds of interactions and exposure more typically associated with ‘live-abroad’ learning? And what should I be doing about it as a language teacher?

These observations and interests came together in the research underlying Second Language Use Online and its Integration in Formal Learning.  The book explores L2 English use online, its effects on language learning, and how classroom practices can and must adapt to embrace learners’ online interactions. It reports on a survey undertaken in partnership with Cambridge University Press that garnered over 10,000 responses from L2 English users in 157 different countries, providing an empirical evidence base of unprecedented scope attesting to online interactions, concerns, and difficulties. This is partnered with a corpus analysis of the Cambridge and Nottingham E-Language Corpus, exploring the idiosyncratic ways in which English is used in different forms of computer-mediated communication. Together these form the basis for a needs analysis for the 21st century, hyper-connected English learner, and a proposal for addressing these needs in the classroom.

I’m hugely grateful to everyone at Multilingual Matters for facilitating the publication of this work, and genuinely proud to be able to contribute a volume to a book series that has provided so much inspiration for my own academic work and development.

For more information about this book please see our website.

If you found this interesting, you might also like Second Language Literacy Practices and Language Learning Outside the Classroom by Miho Inaba.

Nurturing the Vocabulary Studies Tree

We recently published Vocabulary Theory, Patterning and Teaching edited by Paweł Szudarski and Samuel Barclay. In this post the editors discuss their book’s contribution to the flourishing field of vocabulary studies.

Let’s step back in time. It is the 1940s and we are sitting in the back of an English language class. The teacher is standing at the front reading a dialogue aloud. After listening, we voice first one character and then the other before completing substitution, transformation, and chain drills. Forty-five minutes later we recite the dialogue perfectly and leave the classroom smiling.

Cut to thirty years later, the 1970s, and the teacher has embraced the communicative approach. We are interacting with our classmates, completing discussion and problem-solving activities. We are encouraged to focus on transacting meaning and communicating fluently, and after another, slightly noisier, forty-five minutes we stand up to leave.

These two scenarios represent markedly different views of language, learning, and learners and yet they are similar in one very important way: neither adopts a principled approach to the teaching and learning of vocabulary. In 2021, although many curricula may still lack a systematic process of vocabulary selection, instruction, and recycling, the picture looks, on the whole, lexically richer, at least when it comes to empirical findings and a growing interest in this area. Vocabulary plays an increasingly central role in language teaching, and research into lexical studies has flourished over the past few decades. The field then, is in a healthy state.

This situation has not come about by chance but rather is the result of the consistent endeavour of a handful of individuals. These researchers nurtured the foundations of the field, providing the roots upon which current research activity proudly stands, actively cultivating the field from an overlooked sapling into the position of prominence it holds today. One of these scholars is Professor Norbert Schmitt, in whose honour this edited volume is written. Anyone who knows Second Language Acquisition and Vocabulary Studies knows Norbert from his considerable research contributions over the last 30 years, and perhaps also the colourful Tigger t-shirts he wears to conferences. He has written about various aspects of the field – teaching and learning, formulaic language, assessment, theory – and, crucially, for a variety of audiences – from textbooks for students and introductory books for instructors, to research manuals and reports for those who are more research oriented. In doing so, he has helped to ignite and sustain research interest in vocabulary, while nurturing the next generation of scholars and ensuring that students of applied linguistics have a positive educational experience.

This volume is, however, much more than an extended thank-you letter to Norbert. It presents cutting-edge research from prominent scholars in the field. There are nine experimental chapters organised into three sections – theory and assessment, formulaic language, and teaching and learning. Each section also contains an opening chapter written by leading scholars in the field of Vocabulary Studies, where they offer their perspective on the reported findings, their place within the wider area of lexical and applied linguistic research, and also make suggestions for future studies. In this way, the volume acts as a microcosm of Norbert’s career; it contains thought-provoking and innovative designs and methodologies, but also seeks to foster future research activity. There is also a fascinating preface written by Michael McCarthy and a hilarious afterword penned by Zoltan Dornyei, both of whom were Norbert’s colleagues and collaborators during his career at the University of Nottingham. The volume represents, to continue the metaphor started above, that the vocabulary tree is strong and healthy. It has solid roots and is growing ever bigger, expanding in different directions, and becoming denser in certain key areas. Thankfully, the more it develops, the more ground it has the capacity to influence, the more nutrients its products feed into the educational ecosystem. The image on the front cover of this volume is this tree and we hope that the reported findings sufficiently contribute to the foliage. We may have stretched the metaphor a little too far now, so let us make one final point before wrapping up.

This volume would not have been possible without our gracious contributors. Specific thanks go to Ana Pellicer-Sanchez. Not only has she co-authored a chapter, but she also suggested we contact each other when first I (Paweł) and then I (Sam) called her to discuss an idea for an edited volume. What started as an innocent chat in a small café in London has now turned into an academic publication we are deeply proud of. It has been a great pleasure to have worked together on this volume for the past three years. It has not been all hops and barley, but our work as editors was made easier by the energy and positivity of all the collaborators. It is a sign of the esteem in which Norbert is held that each and every person we emailed about contributing to the volume replied enthusiastically. We hope that you are similarly enthusiastic about the volume and look forward to hearing your thoughts. Happy reading!

Paweł Szudarski and Sam Barclay

For more information about this book, please see our website.

If you found this interesting, you might also like Perspectives on the L2 Phrasicon by Sylviane Granger.

How Can Language Education Be Adapted for Senior Language Learners?

We recently published Insights into Senior Foreign Language Education by Marek Derenowski. In this post the author explains the particularities of working with senior learners and how teachers might alter their approach accordingly.

World society is constantly aging and in the next three to four decades the number of people who are over 65 years of age is going to triple. Population aging should be considered as a story of success. However, we need to remember that the process of aging should be accompanied with security, dignity, respect, avoidance of negative stereotyping, and complete social inclusion. If these conditions are met, longer life creates a unique opportunity to pursue new activities such as further education (lifelong learning) or long neglected passions.

In some cases, seniors attend education in order to compensate for lost opportunities in their younger life, to avoid social exclusion (e.g. non-citizens, immigrants), overcome the feeling of loneliness, and prevent depression. Others see learning as a perfect way to ‘exercise’ their memory and strengthen their (cognitive) thinking abilities. Regardless of their individual motives, seniors are constantly increasing their educational activity. This in turn creates new challenges for educators who need to create sufficient learning conditions for their older learners.

Teachers who work with senior learners often find this experience exhilarating. Senior learners are wonderful partners in the educational process. They are equipped with a wealth of life experience and are willing to share it in the classroom. They come to the classroom full of positive energy. Furthermore, seniors present a mixture of increased motivation and anxiety. On the one hand, they are afraid to present their private opinions in public. On the other hand, they are extremely motivated to participate, never skip a class, or forget their homework.

Working with senior learners requires a different approach and often focuses on building their confidence and reducing potential stress. In order to do so, teachers may:

• Create and promote a friendly and relaxed atmosphere
• Provide senior learners with more time during activities
• Avoid traditional testing and think of alternative forms of assessment
• Find out more about their motivations and reasons for joining the course
• Develop techniques based on positive psychology in order to create empathy
• Focus on providing positive feedback
• Cater for any problems they may have with active participation

The relationship created between teachers and learners is always unique, regardless of their age and teaching/learning experience. Senior learners appreciate teachers who are well prepared, provide their learners with clear guidelines, and use a variety of teaching techniques. Furthermore, senior learners appreciate approachable teachers who value their life experience and are sympathetic. It is important to notice that senior learners do not pay attention to the age of the teacher who is usually younger than their learners. As long as the educator pays attention to their needs, caters for their well-being in the classroom, and organizes interesting lessons, seniors are willing and ready to engage.

David Bowie once said: ‘Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you should have always been’.  We should not see the passing time as a reason to hurry up and try to make up for all the lost opportunities. We should look for new challenges, also educational, and enjoy every moment of our lives. In the words of 20th century American baseball player Satchel Paige: ‘How old would you be if you did not know how old you are?’

Marek Derenowski, Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań/State University Konin, Poland
derenosiu73@gmail.com

For more information about this book please see our website.

If you found this interesting, you might also like Third Age Learners of Foreign Languages edited by Danuta Gabryś-Barker.

Phraseology and the Foreign Language Learner

This month we published Perspectives on the L2 Phrasicon edited by Sylviane Granger. In this post Sylviane explains how interest in the study of phraseology has grown.

We do not speak in single, independent words. As soon as we select one word, the number of words by which it can be followed or preceded becomes severely restricted. For example, the gap in I’m staying at home today because I have a ___ cold will typically be filled by adjectives such as bad, nasty or terrible, not by large, big or considerable. Such word partnerships come naturally to native speakers of English, but represent a major difficulty for foreign language learners. However, for a long time the study of lexis was largely confined to the study of single words. Multiword units were considered peripheral features of language, and the only units that were given prominence in foreign language teaching were semantically non-compositional units, i.e. units whose meaning could not be deduced from the meaning of their parts, in particular figurative idioms (to spill the beans), proverbs (the early bird catches the worm) and phrasal verbs (to give in).

Interest in phraseology, which can be roughly defined as the study of multiword units of various kinds, took a sharp upward turn with the advent of corpus linguistics, i.e. the study of language on the basis of large electronic collections of authentic language and automated methods and tools to investigate them. This major development opened up a brand-new world, in which phraseology took centre stage. Corpus studies have shown that opaque, figurative units are fairly infrequent compared with other units, in particular collocations, i.e. strongly associated pairs of words such as bad cold, and lexical bundles, i.e. longer recurrent word sequences, such as you know what I mean in speech and as a result of in writing. Unlike idioms, these two types of unit pose no particular problem of comprehension. However, they are very frequent and constitute a major hurdle for productive purposes. The reason is that these units, being semantically compositional, tend to go unnoticed: learners are often not aware of their formulaic nature and tend to transfer the literal equivalent from their mother tongue to the target language.

This widening of the scope of phraseology led to a greater focus on non-idiomatic multiword units in reference and teaching materials. For a number of years now, large corpora of native English have been used to show the company that words prefer to keep, in particular collocations, and, on that basis, to ‘phrase up’ dictionary entries, word lists and vocabulary exercises. The problem is that this exclusive focus on native use tells us nothing about the difficulty that learners experience with these units. Does learner use differ from native speaker use and if so, in what way? Do some types of unit cause learners more difficulty than others? Is use of these units greatly influenced by the learner’s mother tongue? Does phraseological use vary with proficiency and if so, how? Does phraseology function differently in speech and writing? These types of question can only be answered by analysing authentic learner data.

The main objective of this book is to make the voice of language learners heard. It does so by relying on learner corpora, i.e. electronic collections of writing and/or speech produced by foreign/second language learners. Scholars started compiling learner corpora in the early 1990s with the twofold objective of, first, contributing to Second Language Acquisition theory by providing a better description of learner language and a better understanding of the factors that influence it and, second, of producing pedagogical tools and methods that more accurately target the needs of language learners. In this book, learner corpora are used to investigate the impact of a range of variables (target language, language background, proficiency level, spoken vs written mode, degree of exposure to the foreign language, topic, time span) on learners’ use of multiword units, mainly collocations but also lexical bundles and lexico-grammatical patterns. The multiword units are extracted automatically from learner corpora on the basis of their frequency and strength of association. The studies in the volume highlight the power of new phraseological indices to assess the quality of learner texts, thus offering great potential for language assessment and automated scoring. Altogether, the book provides a unique window on the learner phrasicon and prompts further studies in this exciting and important research field.

Prof. Dr Sylviane Granger
sylviane.granger@uclouvain.be

For more information about this book please see our website.

If you found this interesting, you might also like Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language by Monica Karlsson.