involvement in personal narratives-ma of learner language

Involvement in personal narratives. A multidimensional analysis of Chinese, French, German and

Spanish learners’ spoken language.

Pascual Pérez-Paredes (U.Murcia)María Sánchez Tornel (U. Murcia)Huaqing Hong (Nanyang Technological University)

Involvement in personal narrativesMA of learner language

1.Introducing the notion of involvement2.Research methodology3.Results4.Discussion



1.Introducing the notion of involvement


In Multidimensional Analysis (Biber, 1988) linguistic data can be interpreted in the light of variation across registers and different dimensions of use.

Register + dimension of use

Textual linguistics/ text analysis / genre studies

Data-driven and functionally explained



Different registers >>> different dimensions of use

The subsequent factor analysis returned factors or dimensions that were fully discussed and interpreted according functional criteria. Conrad and Biber (2001:24) describe this interpretative task as one where “linguistic co-occurrence patterns reflect underlying communicative functions”.

Biber (1988) isolated 67 linguistic features for analysis



1. Involved versus information production

2. Narrative versus non-narrative concerns

3. Explicit versus situation-dependent reference

4. Overt expression of persuasion

5. Abstract versus non-abstract information



By focusing on dimension continua researchers “consider the likely reasons for the complementary distributions between positive and negative feature sets […] and co-occurrence patterns

(Conrad and Biber 2001: 24).



Involved versus information production

Narrative versus non-narrative

concerns

Explicit versus situation-

dependent reference

Overt expression of persuasion

Abstract versus non-abstract information



Features and loadings in Biber 88

Biber 88 mean (normalized)

Private verbs .96 18,0That deletion .91 3,1Contractions .90 13,5Present tense verbs .86

77,7

2nd person pronouns .86

9,9

Features and loadings in Biber 88

Biber 88 mean(normalized)

Nouns -.88 180,5Word length -.58 4,5Prepositions -.54 110,5Attributive adjectives -.47

60,7

Positive loadings Negative loadings



Involved versus information production



Involved versus information productiondimension

Dimension 1 marks affective or interactional content, as opposed to information density and exact informational content.



Our research looks at how the LINDSEI CH FR GE & SP components (personal narratives, part 1) behave along this dimension of use in order to shed light on the learner language peculiarities.

Aguado, P., Pérez-Paredes, P., & Sánchez, P. 2011. Exploring the Use of Multidimensional Analysis of Learner Language to promote Register Awareness. System, 39(4). Forthcoming.

Pérez-Paredes, P. 2008. A multidimensional analysis of spoken learner language: the LINDSEI register . Spoken Learner Corpus Colloquium. UCL. January 2008.



Programa «Salvador de Madariaga» para investigadores seniors. Programa Nacional de Movilidad de Recursos Humanos de Investigación, en el marco del Plan Nacional de Investigación Científica, Desarrollo e Innovación Tecnológica 2008-2011.

MINISTERIO DE CIENCIA E INNOVACIÓN.

PR 2009-0439



2. Research methodologyPersonal narrative

CH FR GE SP components of

LINDSEI

Personal narrative CH FR GE SP

components of LINDSEI

POS tagged at Northern Arizona

University

POS tagged at Northern Arizona

University

Every linguistics feature in the corpus was counted

Every linguistics feature in the corpus was counted

Standardised score of the texts for

each factor/ dimension

Standardised score of the texts for

each factor/ dimension

Characterise register variation and contrast

texts against dimensions

Characterise register variation and contrast

texts against dimensions

Dimension scores were computed for each text/interview

Dimension scores were computed for each text/interview



(er) I wou I would like to talk my: I would like to talk my favourite film . (er) my favourite film is a film: (er) named life is so beautiful .. (mm) it's a it's a . Italian film . (er) it won the o it won the Oscar the best foreign . film . last year I think most of I think most the people have seen the film it's very moving (mm) it tells a story about a man who was a Jew . who was a Jew and . he . got married w (er) got married with (er) with a Italian girl . and that and and there were . there were . a lot of . there were lot of ridiculous ridiculous and funny story be between them (er) after after marriage they produced a very lovely boy . little boy . (mm) when the boy was when the boy: was four or five years old . (er) life seems (mm) b beautiful life seems just . began . began . but at this moment the Second World War broke up .. and . you know that . Italian . in . Italy . (mm) the Nazi the Nazi yeah . (mm) .. they: . they put all the Jews into a camp .. of course this man this man can not ca (er) couldn't escape .. they: (er) the man and his uncle and his little boy were sent to a camp .. (er) at a at a time at the moment of the parting . his wife arrived at the s railway station . he beg the: he beg the . officers to: let her go with her p her family . and she succeed .

CHCH



okay I've seen a wonderful film it was the Shadow Men . (er) it was fifteen years ago or something like that it was (erm) in an old (erm) . British College it was a teacher a bachelor and he was working . there for a long time and (em) he has . he had built around him a universe (em) which was (em) . untouchable because (er) everybody (er) well nobody could (em) . could be stronger than him in his field and so on and so on so he was always the best one . he wrote some pieces of I cannot remember well he wrote (er) I don't know what . and (er) he made also lectures and so on and so on 1: yeah 2: and (er) a woman was attending all his lectures and (er) reading all he: wrote 1: what like his articles and books or things like that 2: yeah I cannot remember . and (er) they once met and (er) they fell in love but it was a bachelor so he was really: (er) . afraid of the woman I don't know . and (er) . she: made him realise that (em) .. he had built that universe and (er) ... well 1: what sort of to protect himself or yeah 2: yes to protect himself so he: . yes .. and (em) .. so they fell in love but first they: didn't want to marry they had a kind of agreement (er) they are married but I don't know I think it was because of the child . and (er) . but they: they don't (er) .. well really: l . live as (er) husband and wife and then they will really fall in love and they . they will s he will understand what really (eh) what love really is . and (em) . in the end she will die of (eh) cancer I think . and (er) FRFR



I would like to talk to you about my: . high school year in the United States which I . (erm) participated in . in ninety ninety-eight and ninety ninety-two and: the whole year was a great . experience for me and it just taught me so many things because . first of all it was this thing of being away from home and staying well not . on by myself but with a host family which is not like . quite like the ho (eh) the: original family like my mum and dad ..

DEDE



well I would like to talk about my years . at . at primary school is well while I've been there . for . (mm) . twelve years . from . pre scholar . to . C O U I well it was a school . which was (eh) . directed by by priests . a a private school . (mm) I think that's the . the best experience which I've had in my life because . when you go out of there . well perhaps when when you're inside . you always think ah these priests always saying no don't don't do that don't do this . but when you go out . you see what what they have . done for you . and all the all the . all the habits with . which they have created . in you such as for example . attending classes yes I have friends which . who who have who have gone . to a . to a public school which is . as as good as . as a private school but . well they usually skip classes on . I don't know . they're now in first or . or second . well I'm . in my last year . of my degree . and . I have to give thanks to . to all these priests in my primary school .. what more could I say about this . I don't know all all experiences were were great there ..

SPSP



Em…the country. which I visited that impressed me is..Greece: went to Crete, two years ago..stayed in Malta…it was. it was really nice it’s got two different parts to Malia it’s got the..it’s got the new part, which wasn’t so nice..and then the old part, which was like, a nice village…like eh. bars, made out of eh..caves and stuff like that. The new part, was just for the English yobs really but… I I don’t think I’d go back there, just because of that, but, but it was nice..nice beaches..i found a beach where there was nobody really on it..and we sat there..probably for an hour before we saw anybody walk past us which was nice. we had the whole beach to ourselves, golden sun and clear water..at night time we’d just go to the old village, we met a bloke there called Mario, it was…eh he treated us like we er. like at home so you know. that was nice em. we paid a car, and we travelled round a bit. went to..went to walk through a gorge, which was called eh. can’t remember what it was called now, it was X gorge it was called, it was a ten K walk, I was knackered by the end of it but. it was a good walk, I enjoyed it. it was tiring for my feet em…don’t really know what more I can say: about the place..except the people were friendly, the place was nice..there were just too many English bars there for my liking, that’s about it really

NSNS



Methodological assumptions/constraints

-Learner language analysed: upper intermediate to advanced

-Our study is crosssectional

-Standard ratios of POS tagging accuracy



3. Results



Pérez-Paredes, P. (2010). The death of the adverb revisited: attested uses of adverbs in native and non-native comparable corpora of spoken English.Exploring new paths in language pedagogy Lexis and corpusbased language teachingEquinox English linguistics and ELT (pp. 157-172). Equinox.

78 informants



Features with negative loadings, esp, Nouns, Attributive adjectives and prepositions



Typically, texts up on the D1 are produced under conditions of high personal involvement and real time constraint

Low explicitness in the expression of meaning



4. Discussion A multidimensional analysis perspective may increase our uderstanding of underlying communication uses in genres, traditional and new >>>>Learner corpora are certainly becoming more widespread >>>inter/intra copora insights

More importance should be given to the role of task/elicitation in corpora: corpus/ data bias

Dimension 1: Involved versus information productionDuncan Grouping Mean Speaking taskA 30.830

Interaction

B

B

27.293

Personal Narrative

B 24.643 Picture DescriptionAlpha 0.05Error Degrees of Freedom 226Error Mean Square 112.6946Harmonic Mean of Cell Sizes 76.20474Number of Means 2 3Critical Range 3.389 3.567

Pérez-Paredes (forthcoming)



It can also spice up an exclusive under/over use approach to language production of individual features which is too dependent on corpus design features.

The analysis of top positive features in D1 was not very conclusive. Those negative, however, tended to be more revelaing of the reasons why espc. GE and SP scored so high.



The uses that these adverbial hedges were put to by both groups of speakers were not statistically significant when the different uses of adverbial hedging are considered individually. The differences between learners and native speakers’ groups were only significant when the five categories of adverbial hedging were taken as a unique set of data (p 0.003 ). This means that both groups of speakers did not behave differently when using the four adverbials analysed across the different uses we looked at, that is, imprecision word choice, approximators and quantifiers, uncertainty and degree diminishing.

Pérez-Paredes, P., Sánchez Hernández, P., & Aguado Jiménez, P. (2011). The use of adverbial hedges in EAP students’ oral performance: A cross-language analysis. Researching Specialized Languages (pp. 95-114). John Benjamins.

The language used by CH FR GE SP falls within expected categories along D1, but this cannot be predicted by studying features in isolation.



In terms of CA, these results confirm that the informants in the LINDSEI components analyzed use language in ways which resemble those of native speakers( under exact conditions), although further research should confirm whether these differences are significant or not .

The combination of multi-feature analysis and the interpretation of the different roles of genres in communication may increase our understanding of learner language and at the same time offer opportunities to analyse how different linguistic features affect/constraint/enhance communication as shown in SLA studies or error analysis.



Thank you

http://perezparedes.blogspot.com

involvement in personal narratives-ma of learner language

Education

learner language peculiarities

nonabstract information

dimension of use

different dimensions

subsequent factor analysis

linguistic features

linguistic data

pascual prezparedes