Using a language fluently involves knowing plenty of words and much information about them (Willis, 2003). Native corpora provide an opportunity to access millions of words and their characteristics ...in a variety of formats through real patterns of vocabulary use (Elgort, 2018). However, there is still a gap between theory and the actual implementation of corpora in the classroom (Römer, 2006). This paper extends previous works focused on learning through corpora in different educational levels, such as the activities suggested by Roca Varela (2012), since other examples of coursework including direct native corpora use in an English learning context are scarce outside the university level (for example, see Matos, 2013). In this paper we propose a sequence of activities to promote morphological awareness by taking a closer look at the diverse processes of word formation of the English language through the COCA (Davies, 2008-) and BNC (Davies, 2004) corpora within the Spanish Secondary Education context.
This paper analyses Post-Auxiliary Ellipsis voice mismatches between the antecedent clause(s) and the ellipsis site(s) in Late Modern English, using the Penn Parsed Corpus of Modern British English ...(PPCMBE) (1700-1914). This study focuses on two subtypes of Post-Auxiliary Ellipsis, namely VP ellipsis and Pseudogapping. The results show that voice mismatches were possible in Pseudogapping and VP ellipsis in Late Modern English with low frequencies. This fact serves as counterevidence for the claim about the impossibility of finding voice mismatches in Pseudogapping and confirms corpus-based findings for Present-Day English. As for VP ellipsis, corpus-based studies show that voice mismatches are not attested in Present-Day English. Since they occur in Late Modern English with low frequencies, this contrast may be due to the stylistics or register of the corpora analysed.
Abstract English reflexive anaphora in cases of VP-ellipsis may allow for strict and sloppy readings. A few L2 studies ( Epoge, 2012 ; Park, 2016 ; Ying, 2005 ) have focused on determining the role ...that L2 proficiency may exert on learners’ choices in bare, referential, and non-referential contexts. This paper provides data from 104 Spanish learners of English (A2, B1, and B2 levels) and 32 native speakers of English. Results showed that participants tended to interpret reflexives sloppily in bare and non-referential contexts, whereas strict readings prevailed in referential ones. There existed significant differences in the interpretation of learners versus native speakers, whilst the differences among the three learner groups were not so marked. However, the least proficient group differed most from native speakers. Findings partially confirm previous research and discrepancies may be tentatively ascribed to extraneous variables (e.g., the learners’ L1, the range of the proficiency levels, or the characteristics of the control groups).
This paper analyses the choice of sloppy and strict interpretations of reflexive anaphora in verb phrase ellipsis from the perspective of Relevance Theory (RT) (Sperber and Wilson 1986, 1995, 2002, ...2008; Wilson and Sperber 2002, 2004). Forty-four Spanish learners of English and 29 native speakers of English were administered two judgement tasks designed to gauge the effect of the Communicative Principle of Relevance on their interpretation of reflexive anaphora in bare, referential and non-referential contexts. Results showed that, in accordance with this principle, the sloppy interpretation is favoured in bare and non-referential contexts, while strict readings prevail in referential contexts, these preferences being less marked for L2 learners than for native speakers. Moreover, the sloppy interpretation is chosen more frequently when native speakers are given a non-referential context, whereas it decreases when L2 learners are provided with the very same context, indicating that the syntax-pragmatics interface makes up an information processing load and acts as a distractor for L2 English learners.
Following an introduction to ellipsis and its consequences both for communication and for the theory of grammar, this paper addresses a number of issues which have been debated in the linguistic ...literature on ellipsis, namely structure, identity and licensing. This study brings to the readers’ attention the effects which such conditions have for the study of ellipsis in different languages as well as their constraints within the generative framework. As case studies on the conditions and the characterisation of the linguistic strategy under scrutiny, this paper also summarises the main approaches to ellipsis in the studies embodied in this special issue.
El uso fluido de una lengua supone conocer un gran número de palabras y una amplia información sobre ellas (Willis, 2003). Los corpus nativos brindan la oportunidad de acceder a millones de palabras ...y sus características en diversos formatos con ejemplos reales de uso del vocabulario (Elgort, 2018). Sin embargo, aún existe un largo camino entre la teoría y el verdadero uso directo de los corpus en el aula (Römer, 2006). En este artículo se realiza una propuesta de implementación práctica en Educación Secundaria como la presentada por Roca Varela (2012), ya que otros ejemplos en niveles educativos fuera del contexto de la educación universitaria son escasos (véase Matos, 2013). Además, se proponen algunas actividades que promueven la conciencia morfológica, analizando diversos procesos de formación de palabras en inglés a través de los corpus COCA (Davies, 2008-) y BNC (Davies, 2004) dentro del marco de la Educación Secundaria española. Palabras clave: corpus; enseñanza del inglés como lengua extranjera; trabajo de corpus; formación de palabras; enseñanza y aprendizaje de vocabulario Using a language fluently involves knowing plenty of words and much information about them (Willis, 2003). Native corpora provide an opportunity to access millions of words and their characteristics in a variety of formats through real patterns of vocabulary use (Elgort, 2018). However, there is still a gap between theory and the actual implementation of corpora in the classroom (Römer, 2006). This paper extends previous works focused on learning through corpora in different educational levels, such as the activities suggested by Roca varela (2012), since other examples of coursework including direct native corpora use in an English learning context are scarce outside the university level (for example, see Matos, 2013). In this paper we propose a sequence of activities to promote morphological awareness by taking a closer look at the diverse processes of word formation of the English language through the COCA (Davies, 2008-) and BNC (Davies, 2004) corpora within the Spanish Secondary Education context. Keywords: corpora; EFL teaching; corpus work; word formation; vocabulary teaching and learning
Despite the existence of a great number of studies that have analysed ellipsis from a theoretical point of view, only recently has it been studied empirically using corpora (Hardt 1997; Hardt and ...Rambow 2001; Nielsen 2005; Bos and Spenader 2011). These corpus studies have tried to discover new methods and algorithms for the automatic detection and retrieval of ellipsis in Present-Day English. In this paper, I extend these studies by presenting an automatic retrieval algorithm for cases of Post-Auxiliary Ellipsis in Late Modern English (1700–1914), using data from the Penn Parsed Corpus of Modern British English.
This volume offers a representative selection of the papers presented at the Third ELC International Postgraduate Conference on Language and Cognition (ELC3), held in Santiago de Compostela, 21-22 ...September 2012. The book is structured into four parts. Part I comprises syntactic studies on the auxiliary verb get in Indian English, the grammar of verbs capable of occurring with or without an object in Contemporary English, and isolated if-clauses. Part II includes two papers dealing with word.
This paper analyses the choice of sloppy and strict interpretations of reflexive anaphora in verb phrase ellipsis from the perspective of Relevance Theory (RT) (Sperber and Wilson 1986, 1995, 2002, ...2008; Wilson and Sperber 2002, 2004). Forty-four Spanish learners of English and 29 native speakers of English were administered two judgement tasks designed to gauge the effect of the Communicative Principle of Relevance on their interpretation of reflexive anaphora in bare, referential and non-referential contexts. Results showed that, in accordance with this principle, the sloppy interpretation is favoured in bare and non-referential contexts, while strict readings prevail in referential contexts, these preferences being less marked for L2 learners than for native speakers. Moreover, the sloppy interpretation is chosen more frequently when native speakers are given a non-referential context, whereas it decreases when L2 learners are provided with the very same context, indicating that the syntax-pragmatics interface makes up an information processing load and acts as a distractor for L2 English learners. Keywords: VP-ellipsis, L2 English, reflexive anaphora, strict reading, sloppy reading, Relevance Theory. Este artículo analiza la elección de interpretaciones laxas y estrictas de la anáfora reflexiva en contextos de elipsis verbal desde la perspectiva de la Teoría de la Relevancia (Sperber y Wilson 1986, 1995, 2002, 2008; Wilson y Sperber 2002, 2004). Cuarenta y cuatro estudiantes de inglés españoles y veintinueve hablantes nativos de inglés realizaron dos tareas de juicio diseñadas para investigar el efecto del Principio Comunicativo de la Relevancia en su interpretación de la anáfora reflexiva en contextos simples, referenciales y no referenciales. Los resultados mostraron que, de acuerdo con este principio, la interpretación laxa se ve favorecida en los contextos simples y no referenciales, mientras que la interpretación estricta prevalece en los contextos referenciales, siendo estas preferencias menos marcadas en el caso de los hablantes no nativos. Además, la interpretación laxa aumenta cuando se presenta un contexto no referencial a los hablantes nativos, mientras que disminuye cuando se da ese mismo contexto a los estudiantes de L2, lo que parece indicar que la interfaz sintaxis-pragmática constituye una carga de procesamiento de información y actúa como un elemento que distrae en el caso de los estudiantes de inglés como L2. Palabras clave: elipsis verbal, inglés como L2, anáfora reflexiva, interpretación estricta, interpretación laxa, Teoría de la Relevancia.
This paper describes the process of design and compilation of the Primary Education Learners’ English Corpus (PELEC), a learner corpus which includes written (14,577 words) and spoken materials ...(47,032 words) from Primary Education learners in the Autonomous Community of Cantabria. It is composed of data from a total of 252 students in the fourth and sixth grade of Primary Education (aged 9–10 and 11–12, respectively) who were studying in five different state schools which followed either a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) or an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) approach.
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