• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
• /
• v.7 no.3
• /
• pp.439-444
• /
• 2021

This study investigates the relationship between syntactic complexity and English proficiency for Korean college students, using the recently developed TAASSC(the Tool for the Automatic Analysis of Syntactic Sophistication and Complexity) program. Essays on the ICNALE(International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English) corpus were employed and phrasal complexity indices and clausal complexity indices, respectively were used to predict English proficiency level for Korean students. Results of stepwise regression analysis showed that indices of phrasal complexity explained 8% of variance in English proficiency, while indices of clausal complexity accounted for approximately 11%. That is, indices of clausal complexity were slightly better predictors of English proficiency than indices of phrasal complexity, which contradicts Biber et at.(2011)'s claim that phrasal complexity is the hallmark of writing development.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
• /
• v.7 no.3
• /
• pp.433-438
• /
• 2021

This study investigates the relationship between lexical sophistication features and English proficiency for Korean college students. Essays from the ICNALE(International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English) corpus were analyzed, using TAALES program. In order to examine whether or not there are statistically significant differences in lexical sophistication features across three groups, MANOVA was conducted. Results showed that the lexical sophistication features were significantly affected by English proficiency level. Essays written by Korean students with different English proficiency levels can be differentiated in terms of various lexical sophistication features including content words frequency, content words familiarity, lexical decision mean reaction time function words, hypernymy verbs, word naming response time function words, age of acquisition content words.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
• /
• v.8 no.5
• /
• pp.691-696
• /
• 2022

This study explored the lexical sophistication features to distinguish the group membership of English proficiency, using the automatic analysis program of lexical sophistication. A total of 600 essays written by 300 Korean college students were extracted from the ICNALE (International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English) corpus and a discriminant function analysis was performed using SPSS program. Results showed that the lexical features to distinguish three groups of English proficiency are SUBTLEXUS frequency content words, age of acquisition content words, lexical decision mean reaction time function words, and hypernymy verbs. High-level Korean students used frequent content words from SUBTLEXUS corpus to a lesser degree and produced more sophisticated words that can be learned at a later age and take longer reaction time in lexical decision task, and more concrete verbs.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
• /
• v.9 no.5
• /
• pp.229-235
• /
• 2023

This study investigates the relationship between syntactic complexity indices and scores on language use in Jacobs et al.(1981)' analytic rating scale. Syntactic complexity indices obtained from TAASSC program and 440 essays written by EFL students from the ICNALE corpus were analyzed. Specifically, this study explores the relationship between scores on language use and Lu(2011)'s traditional syntactic complexity indices, phrasal complexity indices, and clausal complexity indices, respectively. Results of the stepwise regression analysis showed that phrasal complexity indices turned out to be the best predictor of scores on language use, although the variance in scores on language use was relatively small, compared with the previous study. Implications of the findings of the current study for writing instruction (i.e., syntactic structures at the phrase level) were also discussed.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
• /
• v.1 no.2
• /
• pp.57-72
• /
• 2020

This study seeks to add to the current understanding of learners' use of modality in argumentative writing. A learner corpus of argumentative essays on four topics was created and compared to native English speaker data from the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English (ICNALE). The relationship between learners' use of modal devices (MDs) and the devices' appearance in the school's curriculum was also examined. The results showed that learners relied on a very narrow range of MDs compared to those in previous studies. The frequency of use of MDs varied based on the topic and did not seem to be driven by cultural factors as has been previously suggested. Learners used more hedges than boosters on all topics, contradicting most previous studies. Curriculum was determined to have a direct correlation with MD use, and other important factors may include perception of topic and overreliance on certain MDs over others (the One-to-One principal). This research implies that learners' perception of topic should be explored further as a variable affecting MD use. Curricula should be designed based on frequency of MD use by English native speakers, and learners should receive instruction that teaches the norms of MD use in academic writing. The methodology used in the study to determine correlations between MD use and the curriculum has a wide range of potential applications in the field of Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.23-34
• /
• 2021

This research examines Japanese non-native speakers' (JNNS) modal auxiliary verb use from two different perspectives: frequency of use and preferences for modalities. Additionally, error analysis is carried out to identify errors in modal use common among JNNSs. Their modal use is compared to that of English native speakers within a spoken dialogue corpus which is part of the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners' English. Research findings show at a statistically significant level that when compared to native speakers, JNNSs underuse past forms of modals and infrequently convey epistemic modality, indicating the possibility that JNNSs fail to express their opinions or thoughts indirectly when needed or to convey politeness appropriately. Error analysis identifies the following three types of common errors: (1) the use of incorrect tenses of modal verb phrases, (2) the use of inflected verb forms after modals, and (3) the non-use of main verbs after modals. The first type of error is largely because JNNSs do not master how to express past meanings of modals. The second and third types of errors seem to be due to first language transfer into second language acquisition and JNNSs' overgeneralization of the subject-verb agreement rules to modals respectively.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.35-49
• /
• 2022

This study examines crosslinguistic influence on the use of concessive conditionals by Japanese EFL learners. Contrastive analysis suggests that Japanese native speakers may overuse the concessive conditional even if due to partial similarities to Japanese concessive conditionals, whose formal and semantic restrictions are fewer than those of English concessive conditionals. This hypothesis is tested using data from the written module of the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English (ICNALE). Comparison of Japanese native speakers with English native speakers and Chinese native speakers reveals the following trends. First, Japanese native speakers tend to overuse concessive conditionals compared to native speakers, while similar overuse is not observed in Chinese native speaker data. Second, non-nativelike uses of even if appear in contexts allowing the use of concessive conditionals in Japanese. Third, while overuse and infelicitous use of even if is observed at all proficiency levels, formal errors are restricted to learners at lower proficiency levels. These findings suggest that crosslinguistic influence does occur in the use of concessive conditionals, and that its particular realization is affected by L2 proficiency, with formal crosslinguistic influence mediated at an earlier stage than semantic cross-linguistic influence.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
• /
• v.4 no.2
• /
• pp.1-39
• /
• 2023

Recent research in usage-based Second Language Acquisition has provided new insights into second language (L2) learners' development of formulaic language (Wulff, 2019). The current study examines the use of phrase-frames, which are recurring sequences of words including one or more variable slots (e.g., it is * that), in written and oral production data from Asian learners of English across four proficiency levels (beginner, low-intermediate, high-intermediate, advanced) and native English speakers. The variability, predictability, and discourse functions of the most frequent 4-word phrase-frames from the written essay and spoken dialogue sub-corpora of the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English (ICNALE) were analyzed and then compared across groups and modes. The results revealed that while learners' phrase-frames in writing became more variable and unpredictable as proficiency increased, no clear developmental patterns were found in speaking, although all groups used more fixed and predictable phrase-frames than the reference group. Further, no developmental trajectories in the functions of the most frequent phrase-frames were found in both modes. Additionally, lower-level learners and the reference group used more variable phrase-frames in speaking, whereas advanced-level learners showed more variability in writing. This study contributes to a better understanding of the development of L2 phraseological competence.