Past projects

There has recently been growing interest in cognitive linguistics and cognitive grammar. Yet, this body of research has only had a marginal impact on the teaching of grammar to learners of English. Many (if not most) pedagogical grammars still list grammatical rules in a linear fashion and never attempt to identify the cognitive principles that might govern the grammatical system. This needlessly complicates the acquisition of L2 grammar.

This project aims to fill this gap by analyzing the English tense-aspect system from a cognitive grammar perspective. The tense-aspect system was chosen because even advanced learners often fail to fully master it and because of the existence of cross-cultural differences in how temporality is conceptualized. Furthermore, multiple, sometimes congruent, sometimes conflicting, cognitive models of the English tense-aspect system currently coexist, which underlines the need to shed light on its workings and harmonize the meta-language used in cognitive descriptions of the tense-aspect system.

This project will first produce a cognitive description of the English tense-aspect system, which will be followed by a proposal for the pedagogical treatment of this description in a cognitive- and corpus-based grammar for advanced French-speaking learners of English. Using learner corpora will make it possible to identify which errors require a more advanced cognitive treatment, while native corpora will be used to extract information on the use and frequency of the different forms in various types of texts. This project will be conducted in conjunction with the LONGDALE project, which aims to compile a longitudinal corpus of learner English and will provide the raw material required to study the acquisition and evolution of the L2 tense-aspect system.

Since we have recently completed the last LONGDALE data collection for the first cohort of participants, we are currently annotating this dataset to identify tense-aspect errors. This will form the basis of a preliminary study whose results will soon be published.

This project is funded by the Fonds Spécial de Recherche (FSR) of the Université catholique de Louvain.

Project Director: Fanny Meunier
FSR Fellow: Damien Littré

Languages differ in the types of devices that they use to signal discourse relations, as well as in the extent to which they need to mark these relations explicitly by means of cohesive markers. As regards the English-French language pair, the dominant position is that French tends to be more explicitly cohesive than English. In the absence of solid empirical evidence, however, this claim remains largely hypothetical. The first aim of the study is to test this assertion on an empirical basis, focusing on the meaning relation of contrast. For that purpose the powerful methods of corpus linguistics will be combined with the theoretical framework of Systemic Functional Grammar. On the basis of a comprehensive list of French and English markers of contrast analysed in large comparable and translation corpora, I will not only determine which language uses the larger number of markers of contrast overall, but I will also identify the preferences of each language for specific structural and semantic subtypes of markers. The second main objective of the study is to investigate and compare the placement patterns of adverbial markers of contrast (e.g. however, cependant) in English and French. I will try to establish whether the two languages differ not only in terms of the inherent possibilities that they offer for adverbial marker placement, but also in terms of their preferred positional patterns within the same range of possibilities. Finally the study adopts a variationist approach with a view to assessing the impact of register on the use of cohesive markers in each language.

Supervisors: S. Granger and L. Degand

In spite of the growing literature on discourse markers ("nonpropositional and metadiscursive" elements, Hansen 2006: 25) on the one hand and disfluency on the other, a combined and exhaustive approach to both phenomena is still lacking today. This project thus aims at filling the gap by investigating the contribution of French and English discourse markers to the production of fluent and disfluent speech. The approach is therefore contrastive and makes use of DisFrEn, a comparable corpus gathered from existing speech material in the two languages.

A first methodological challenge is the elaboration of a cross-linguistic and operational annotation scheme that will allow a paradigmatic description of discourse markers, based on a combination of syntactic, semantic and functional parameters. Several theoretical issues are at stake regarding the definition of this heterogeneous category and the identification of potential discourse-marking elements in contextualised authentic data. One major contribution of this project will therefore be the combination of a theoretical and a more empirical, operational definition of discourse markers.

Another key aspect of this research is corpus design. Contrastive analysis of discourse markers requires a relatively large amount of speech data in French and English. While the latter benefits from extensive, representative speech corpora of various registers (the ICE-GB will be used here, Nelson, Wallis and Aarts 2002), the former suffers from the multiplicity of smaller data collections in different formats and conventions. Our comparable corpus DisFrEn will offer balanced subcorpora of homogenized contents and forms in no less than eight interactional situations, as defined through a combination of relevant metadata variables (see Crible, Dumont, Grosman and Notarrigo 2014). The resulting files will be sound-aligned and machine-readable for annotation under the EXMARaLDA suite (Schmidt 2011).

Finally, this preliminary methodological work will be applied to the framework of disfluency annotation and analysis. Potential (dis)fluency markers or "fluencemes" (Götz 2013) under investigation are coded according to Shriberg's (1994) protocol which distinguishes complex disfluent structures (repetitions, substitutions) and simple disfluent elements (pauses, fillers, editing terms, discourse markers) as well as diacritics (misarticulation, truncation). The specific contribution of this research project will thus be to situate the role of (different types of) discourse markers within a typology of fluencemes, to account for the impact of contextual variables, and to identify language-specific as well as more universal mechanisms that motivate the use of discourse markers as potential markers of (dis)fluency.

This project is funded within the framework of a concerted action project on “Fluency and disfluency markers. A multimodal contrastive perspective”, whose aim is to investigate markers of fluency and disfluency in spoken and sign language, focusing on three main modalities: first language discourse (French and English), (advanced) foreign language discourse (English), and sign language (Belgian French).

Supervisors : Liesbeth Degand & Gaëtanelle Gilquin

References

• Crible L., Dumont A., Grosman I. & Notarrigo I. 2014. “Situational features”. Technical Report. Université Catholique de Louvain.
• Götz, S. 2013. Fluency in Native and Nonnative English Speech. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
• Hansen M.-J. M. 2006. “A dynamic polysemy approach to the lexical semantics of discourse markers (with an exemplary analysis of French toujours)”. In K. Fischer (ed.), Approaches to discourse particles. Amsterdam: Elsevier. 21-42
• Nelson G., Wallis S. and Aarts B. 2002. Exploring Natural Language: Working with the British Component of the International Corpus of English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Schmidt T., Wörner K., Hedeland H., Lehmberg T. 2011. "New and future developments in EXMARaLDA". German Society for Computational Linguistics and Language Technology (GSCL) 96. 253-256.
• Shriberg, E. 1994. Preliminaries to a theory of speech disfluencies. Doctoral dissertation. University of California at Berkeley.

An advanced hypermedia CALL system featuring LP tools for a smart treatment of authentic documents and free production exercices (FREETEXT).
The FreeText project developed a hypermedia computer assisted language learning system for intermediate to advanced learners of French that relied on natural language processing and communicative approaches to second language acquisition. The software incorporates authentic documents and various sentence processing tools to involve learners in the foreign language structure discovering process.

Concerted Action Project (2003-2008)

The project had three main objectives:

Theoretical: studying

• both developmental and cross-linguistic influence on the learning of foreign languages
• in two (so far) largely neglected areas, i.e. phraseology and discourse
• at more advanced proficiency levels

Methodological:

• demonstrating the importance of corpus data and methodology to complement experimental data. We will make use of The International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) which currently contains over 2 million words of argumentative essay writing from university students of English from 14 different mother tongue backgrounds. ICLE is used as a research tool for analysing features of written interlanguage grammar, lexis and discourse.
• evaluating automatic language analysis tools

Applied: reinforcing the link between theory and practice in FLL research by

• taking classroom practice into account in FLL research
• integrating research findings in teaching practice (adapting the curriculum, improving teaching methods and offering tailor-made tools for advanced learners)

Up until recently, the field of variationist/contact linguistics and that of Second Language Acquisition have followed largely separate paths, with World Englishes (i.e. indigenized L2 varieties of English) and Learner Englishes (i.e. English as a foreign language) being viewed as distinct varieties of the language. Yet, a close examination of the literature in the two fields reveals interesting similarities, both in terms of theoretical considerations (though terminologies may differ) and in terms of the non-standard features displayed by the varieties.

This project explores a possible rapprochement between the two fields, by first bringing to light any linguistic similarities that may exist between World Englishes and Learner Englishes, and then trying to explain these by means of fundamental cognitive principles such as simplification or analogy. A number of variables that may have an impact on the characteristics of the varieties will also be examined, most notably the influence of the mother tongue or substrate language and the amount (and type) of exposure to the English language.

The basis for the comparison is empirical, relying as it does on corpus data and elicitation data. The corpus data will come (among others) from the International Corpus of English (ICE) for World Englishes, and the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) and the Louvain International Database of Spoken English Interlanguage (LINDSEI) for Learner Englishes. Data from native corpora will be used as a baseline against which the two types of L2 varieties will be compared. Particular attention will be paid to spoken genres, as innovative uses are expected to first appear in speech, before making their way into writing. The elicitation data will consist in two types of tests: grammaticality judgments, whose results will reflect subjects’ tolerance for certain forms as well as their linguistic insecurities, and fill-in exercises, which will reveal their preferences but also bring to light any possible prototypicality effects, according to a methodology described in Gilquin (2008). The linguistic phenomena investigated will range from syntactic structures such as embedded inversion to phraseological patterns (word clusters) through items like phrasal verbs (see Gilquin 2011) or discourse markers. The approach will not only be quantitative, focusing on cases of over- and/or underuse, but also qualitative, seeking for instance to highlight more creative uses of the language.

It is hoped that the rapprochement between World Englishes and Learner Englishes will benefit both variationist/contact linguistics and Second Language Acquisition, showing how the two can enrich each other and resulting in a unified and integrated model that describes the nature of acquisitional processes, no matter whether these take place essentially through interactions in a naturalistic environment (World Englishes) or through formal instruction in a classroom setting (Learner Englishes).

This project is funded by the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS).

References

• Gilquin, Gaëtanelle. 2011. Corpus linguistics to bridge the gap between World Englishes and Learner Englishes. In L. Ruiz Miyares & M.R. Álvarez Silva (eds) Comunicación Social en el siglo XXI, Vol. II (pp. 638-642). Santiago de Cuba: Centro de Lingüística Aplicada.
• Gilquin, Gaëtanelle. 2015. At the interface of contact linguistics and second language acquisition research: New Englishes and Learner Englishes compared. English World-Wide 36(1): 91-124.

This project seeks to improve the writing skills of French-speaking university students majoring in English through regular practice in writing and an optimized use of online writing tools (dictionaries, corpus interfaces, etc.). Regular practice is essential to develop ‘writing fluency’ (Nguyen 2015). It is achieved via a portfolio that is made up of essays written at regular intervals throughout the year. As for the use of writing tools, it has been shown to have a positive impact on the development of learners’ writing skills (e.g. Gaskell & Cobb 2004, Todd 2001), especially at an advanced level (Granath 2009), provided that students receive adequate training (see, e.g., Bitchener & Ferris 2012: 159 or O’Sullivan & Chambers 2006).

Building on the latter observation, the use of online writing resources is the subject of specific training, which has been developed in two phases. The first phase consists in identifying the problems that students encounter during the writing process and in their use (or not) of online writing tools. This is done by capturing the writing process of the target group during an in-class writing task via keylogging and screen recording (cf. PROCEED corpus). The videos thus collected are annotated via a multi-layer annotation system in ELAN, making it possible to answer questions such as: when do students make use of online writing tools? how do they use these tools? does the use of these tools help them improve their texts? The answers to these questions feed into the second phase, which consists in developing a self-learning Moodle module that provides students with tailor-made training in the use of online tools. The module offers video demos of a range of tools, and an incremental learning course through weekly exercises for students to learn to master the tools and develop habits of use. It is tailored to the students’ needs since it focuses on the areas that have been identified as problematic for them (linguistic difficulties, but also inadequate use of specific tools) during the first phase.

The ultimate aim is that, combined with regular practice and more traditional teaching methods (e.g. feedback provided in class), this online course will empower students with long-lasting skills to become more autonomous and proficient writers in English.

This project is funded by the Fonds de développement pédagogique.

Project director: Gaëtanelle Gilquin
FDP collaborator: Samantha Laporte

References

Bitchener, J. & D.R. Ferris. 2012. Written Corrective Feedback in Second Language Acquisition and Writing. NY: Routledge.

Gaskell, D. & T. Cobb. 2004. Can learners use concordance feedback for writing errors? System 32: 301-319.

Granath, S. 2009. Who benefits from learning how to use corpora? In K. Aijmer (ed.) Corpora and Language Teaching (pp. 47-65). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Nguyen, T.C.L. 2015. Written fluency improvement in a foreign language. TESOL Journal 6.4: 707–730.

O’Sullivan, Í. & A. Chambers. 2006. Learners’ writing skills in French: Corpus consultation and learner evaluation. Journal of Second Language Writing 15: 49-68.

Todd, R.W. 2001. Induction from self-selected concordances and self-correction. System 29: 91-102.

The CECL coordinated the Integrated Digital Language Learning (IDILL) seed grant project within the Kaleidoscope EU-funded Network of Excellence.

The IDILL group brings together two groups of researchers - from academia and industry - who have a vested interest in language:

• language specialists with expertise in Natural Language Processing, corpus linguistics, lexicography, lexical computing, technology-enhanced language learning
• Technology-Enhanced Learning researchers who want to explore new and more effective ways of dealing with language.

The IDILL group offers an opportunity to share new findings and technology and develop joint methods and initiatives.
The IDILL homepage stores an extensive resource of news, documents, projects and provides a lively forum for researchers from both academia and industry.

The aim of this project is to gain insight into the (dis)fluency behavior of learners of English, as compared to native speakers of English. The focus will be on French-speaking learners of English and the approach will be integrated, in the sense of Götz (2013), i.e. it will encompass not only the traditional temporal variables, but also other markers such as the use of discourse markers, reformulations, formulae, and so on.

Main lines of investigation

The first line of investigation is descriptive and aims at giving a comprehensive description of the use of (dis)fluency markers in French-speaking learners’ English, and relating this to native behaviour. On the basis of these descriptions, fluency profiles will be identified among learners and native speakers. Each profile will correspond to a particular combination of features and will contribute to defining different speaker types. The comparison of the fluency profiles of French- and German-speaking learners will be the starting point of an analysis seeking to assess the role of transfer from the mother tongue in learners' use of (dis)fluency markers. Finally, the issue of idiolects will be examined: the data will also be approached from a more individual perspective, looking at each text/speaker separately.

Methodology

The ENL1/ENL2 comparison will be based on data from the Louvain International Database of Spoken English Interlanguage (LINDSEI; Gilquin et al. 2010) and its native counterpart, the Louvain Corpus of Native English Conversation (LOCNEC; De Cock 2004). Since these corpora were designed according to the same criteria, they are entirely comparable. Within LINDSEI, the focus will be on the French component, but other components of the corpus – especially the German component – will be resorted to sporadically in order to determine the influence of L1 for certain specific markers. For native speech, other corpora will also be exploited in so far as they present a slightly different (but still comparable) “golden standard”. In particular, the corpora collected within the ICE (International Corpus of English) project will be useful as they include a wide range of genres and registers, and also represent different varieties of English.

This project is funded within the framework of a concerted action project on “Fluency and disfluency markers. A multimodal contrastive perspective”, whose aim is to investigate markers of fluency and disfluency in spoken and sign language, focusing on three main modalities: first language discourse (French and English), (advanced) foreign language discourse (English), and sign language (Belgian French).

Supervisors

Gaëtanelle Gilquin & Sylviane Granger

References

De Cock, S. 2004. Preferred sequences of words in NS and NNS speech. Belgian Journal of English Language and Literatures (BELL), New Series 2, 225–246.
Gilquin, G., Granger, S. & S. De Cock. 2010. The Louvain International Database of Spoken English Interlanguage. CD-ROM and Handbook. Louvain: Presses Universitaires de Louvain.
Götz, S. 2013. Fluency in Native and Nonnative English Speech. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.