Cross-linguistic influence and formulaic language: French EFL learners’ use of recurrent word sequences under scrutiny
(2013) Learner Corpus Research 2013 — Location: Bergen, Norway (27.September.2013)
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- The last few years have witnessed a remarkable boom in the number of phraseological studies that examine learners’ use of lexical bundles, i.e. “recurrent expressions, regardless of their idiomaticity, and regardless of their structural status” (Biber et al. 1999: 990). Some of the studies have put specific patterns of misuse, overuse and underuse of lexical bundles down to the learners’ mother tongue (see Paquot & Granger, 2012 for a review). Allen (2011: 111), for example, partly ascribed Japanese students’ infelicitous use of the singular noun result in bundles such as result of this experiment (e.g. in the Japanese learner’s sentence: The result of this experiment was expressed by following graphs.) to the fact that the corresponding form in Japanese can denote both single and multiple findings and similarly attributed Japanese learners’ overuse of it can be said that to the L1, as its translational equivalent is repeatedly used in Japanese academic writing. Rica (2010) adopted a lexical bundle approach to the study of linking adverbials in EFL learner writing and noted that a large proportion of the multi-word connectors that non-native writers overused were very similar to those word sequences which learners use in their L1 to express similar meanings (e.g. English and Spanish I think ~ Creo que and for example ~ por ejemplo). However, no study has targeted transfer effects on EFL learners’ production of recurrent word sequences as their primary object of investigation. One of the main objectives of the author’s current research is to fill in this existing gap by conducting careful transfer studies of recurrent word combinations in EFL learner writing (Paquot, in press; Paquot, 2013). The present work deals with lexical bundles of various lengths (from 2 to 5 words) and focuses more particularly on: 1. Correct and incorrect multi-word sequences that fulfil organizational or rhetorical functions, e.g. contrasting (on the contrary), exemplifying (let us take the example), concluding (in conclusion, we can say), 2. Preferred co-occurrences that exemplify collocations (e.g. deeply rooted) colligations (e.g. considered as) and syntactic structures (e.g. role to play). The study makes use of Jarvis’s (2000) methodological framework to test transfer effects on recurrent word sequences in the French component of the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) (Granger et al. 2009) as compared to nine other ICLE learner sub-corpora. Intra-L1-group homogeneity (Effect 1) is most evident when directly compared with inter-L1-group heterogeneity (Effect 2) (Jarvis 2000), and I, therefore, rely on comparison of means tests and post hoc tests to examine Effects 1 and 2. While the first two effects readily lend themselves to automatic and quantitative evaluation, intra-L1-group congruity between French learners’ L1 and IL performance does not. Assessing this third effect requires a more qualitative approach. First, the use of each lexical bundle was carefully analysed in ICLE-FR. The next steps consisted in identifying the French potential ‘equivalent’ of each lexical bundle in context, describing its use in French L1 corpora and comparing learners’ L1 and IL patterns of use. Applying Jarvis’s (2000) unified framework on learner corpus data brings to light interesting findings relating to L1 influence on word use. It helps to identify a number of transfer effects that remain largely undocumented in the SLA literature: transfer of function, transfer of the phraseological environment, transfer of style and register, and transfer of L1 frequency. These transfer effects make up what, following Hoey (2005), I refer to as transfer of ‘lexical priming’. EFL learners’ knowledge of words and word combinations in their mother tongue includes a whole range of information about their preferred co-occurrences and sentence position, stylistic or register features, discourse functions and frequency. Primings for collocational and contextual use of (at least a restricted set of frequent or core) L1 lexical devices are particularly strong in the mental lexicon of adult EFL learners. They are the result of many encounters with these lexical items in L1 speech and writing. Mental primings in the L1 lexicon probably influence EFL learners’ knowledge of English words and word sequences by priming the lexico-grammatical preferences of an L1 lexical item to its English counterpart. These results support Kellerman’s claim that the ‘hoary old chestnut’ according to which transfer does not afflict the more advanced learner “should finally be squashed underfoot as an unwarranted overgeneralization based on very limited evidence” (Kellerman, 1984: 121). However, they also suggest that the main effect of the first language on higher-intermediate to advanced EFL learners’ use of recurrent word combinations is not errors (compare with transfer effects on learners’ use of collocations as reported in Nesselhauf, 2005 and Laufer & Waldman, 2011). Rather, findings provide more subtle evidence of L1 influence in the form of patterns of overuse and underuse (see also Neff van Aertselaer, 2008; Paquot, 2010). References Allen, D. (2011). Lexical bundles in learner writing: an analysis of formulaic language in the ALESS learner corpus. Komaba Journal of English Education 1. Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S. & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Longman. Granger S., Dagneaux E., Meunier F. & Paquot M. (2009) The International Corpus of Learner English. (second edition). CD-Rom and Handbook. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses Universitaires de Louvain. Available from http://www.i6doc.com Hoey, M. (2005) Lexical priming: a new theory of words and language. London & New-York: Routledge. Jarvis S. (2000) Methodological rigor in the study of transfer: identifying L1 influence in the interlanguage lexicon. Language Learning 50(2): 245-309. Kellerman E. (1984) The empirical evidence for the influence of the L1 in interlanguage. In Davies A., C. Criper and A. Howatt (eds) Interlanguage (pp. 98-122). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Laufer, B., & Waldman, T. (2011). Verb-noun collocations in second language writing: A corpus analysis of learners’ English. Language Learning 61(2): 647–672. Neff van Aertselaer, J. (2008). Contrasting English-Spanish interpersonal discourse phrases: A corpus study. In F. Meunier, & Granger, S. (Eds.), Phraseology in Foreign Language Learning and Teaching (pp. 85–100). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: Benjamins. Nesselhauf N. (2005) Collocations in a Learner Corpus. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: Benjamins. Paquot, M. (2010). Academic vocabulary in learner writing: from extraction to analysis. London & New-York: Continuum. Paquot, M. (2013). Transfer effects on French EFL learners’ use of textual phrasemes. Paper presented at EUROSLA, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 28-31 August 2013. Paquot, M. (in press). Transfer effects and lexical bundles. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 18(3). Paquot, M. and Granger, S. (2012). Formulaic Language in Learner Corpora. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 32: 130-149. Rica, J.P. (2010). Corpus analysis and phraseology: transfer of multi-word units. Linguistics and the Human Sciences 6: 321–343.
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Paquot, M. (2013). Cross-linguistic influence and formulaic language: French EFL learners’ use of recurrent word sequences under scrutiny. Learner Corpus Research 2013, Bergen, Norway. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/202729