1. Patterns of lexis in learner language: Lithuanian learners of English vs. native speakers
Rita Juknevičienė
Department of English Philology
Vilnius University
2-6 September 2010, SLE Conference in Vilnius
Check date – formatavimas nebaigtas

2. Research focus Structural features of written learner English.
Contrastive analysis of multi-word units, i.e. lexical bundles in learner language.
Structural differences at different levels of achievement.

3. Research questions Structural features of lexical bundles
Distribution across major structural types: verbal, clausal, phrasal (Biber 2006), e.g. it is obvious that, to take into account, the nature of the, in the case of.
Patterns in lexical bundles:
Do lexical patterns get “bundlized”? If so, is it proficiency level-related? Which patterns are most frequent, e.g. V n “to write a letter” or V to-inf “want to do sth.” (Hunston & Francis 2000).
or How much chunkiness is visible in patterns

4. Previous studies
De Cock (2004): lexical bundles in English produced by French EFL learners and NS learners
Biber et al. (2004), Biber (2006): structural and functional classification
Cortes (2004) and Hyland (2008): lexical bundles in articles from different research fields
Chen & Baker (2010): lexical bundles in L1 and L2 academic writing (BAWE corpus)
Learner language should bear traces of the learner ability to produce multi-word units which develops as the learner advances in linguistic proficiency

5. Lexical bundles Established exclusively on frequency criteria
Terminology:
recurrent sequences (Altenberg 1998, De Cock 1998),
lexical bundles (Biber et al. 1999, 2004, Cortes 2008, Hyland 2008),
clusters (Scott 1999),
chunks (O’Keeffe et al. 2007).
Established exclusively on frequency criteria
Structurally and semantically incomplete
Examples: in the, and then, one of the, and this is, I think that, in addition to this, or something like that
LB are multi-word units established, irrespective of their function, structure or semantic wholeness

6. Corpora of learner English
NNS corpora (Lithuanian learners):
AFK1
1st year students of English Philology
words, 226 essays
LICLE
3rd-4th year students of English Philology
words, 253 essays
NS corpus
LOCNESS
native speakers of English (British and American)
words, 197 essays

7. Lexical bundles in this study
Length: 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-word bundles
Examples: I think, people are not, it is better to, becoming more and more, one of the most etc.
Frequency: 4 times per 100,000 words
Distribution: at least 4 texts
Method:
automatically extracted with WordSmith Tools (v.5)
manually revised eliminating topical and identical bundles of varying lengths

8. Structural types of lexical bundles
Bundles incorporating noun/prepositional phrases, e.g. the way in which, a little bit more
Bundles incorporating verb phrases, e.g. you know it was, is going to be
Bundles incorporating dependent clause phrases, e.g what I want to, to come up with

9. Findings: structural types
Most significantly underused subtypes in NNS corpora:
NP with of-phrase fragment: the number of the, the end of the, the idea of the
Prepositional phrase expressions: at the end of, at the same time, due to the fact
Most significantly overused subtypes in NNS corpora:
(verb/adj+) to-clause fragment:
In order to be, do not want to, to be able to
(verb/adj+) that-clause fragment:
that there is a, that it is not, that it should be
Most significantly overused subtypes in NNS corpora:
(connector) + 3rd person pron + VP fragment (there are a lot, it is not, it is the most, as it was mentioned);
VP with non-passive verb (be one of the, become more and more, will not be able, do not have to)
Reikia paimti skaicius is patikslintos imties phd kai jau turesiu

10. Findings: verbal bundles
think about the – V prep
do not think that – V that
to understand the – V n
to understand what you – V wh
to understand that – V that
Lexical bundles contain patterns of complementation of individual words:
Belong to, people claim that, go to the etc.
Could they reveal any differences among the corpora?
Each bundle examined and coded for a specific verbal pattern:
V n, V prep, V that etc. (Hunston and Francis 1999)
Corpus driven further on

11. Findings: verbal patterns in lexical bundles (% of the total in the corpus)
Token values in percentages where 100 is all verbal patterns analysed. Examples TO BE ADDED on fly-ins. Patikslinti imtis po phd
Comments: the largest groups; V that mostly mental verbs; be V-ed patterns not visible in AFK; V prep overused in LICLE - facts

12. Findings: verbal bundles
LOCNESS:
To see the
See how
See that
Be seen as
Is seen to be
LICLE:
See the
See that
Seen as a
AFK1:
See the
See that
Numbers of bundles (both types and tokens) containing complementation patterns are significantly different:
AFK: 159 occurrences (norm. per words)
LICLE: 112 occurrences
LOCNESS: 111 occurrences
But NS language has more different patterns per lexeme while in AFK and to a lesser extent LICLE there are fewer patterns per lexeme.
Patterns are visible in the bundles and AFK corpus data show a significant overuse in pattern variety both in terms of tokens and types
A tentative conclusion here is that lower-level learners use seemingly more different lexemes yet each lexemes gets single pattern while more advanced learners exploit one lexeme in different patterns.

13. Findings: clustering tendencies
Which co-text, left or right, builds a bundle with the node word?
they want to
we want to
I think
some people think
many people think
it is thought
want to be
wanted to
think it is
to think that the
thinks about the
thought that it was
In the language Clustering around the node word occurs more often on the left rather than on the right of the verb

14. Example: BELIEVE AFK1: LICLE: LOCNESS: BELIEVE THAT (34)
PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT (13)
BELIEVE IN (9)
BELIEVED THAT (7)
IT IS BELIEVED THAT (7)
TO BELIEVE (7)
MANY PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT (5)
PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE THAT (5)
SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT (5)
I BELIEVE (4)
BELIEVE THAT (26)
I BELIEVE THAT (16)
BELIEVED THAT (6)
TO BELIEVE (5)
BELIEVE IN (4)
BELIEVED IN (4)
I STRONGLY BELIEVE (4)
LOCNESS:
BELIEVE THAT (26)
BELIEVE IN (17)
I BELIEVE THAT (11)
BELIEVED THAT (10)
TO BELIEVE (8)
NOT BELIEVE (7)
THEY BELIEVE THAT (7)
BELIEVE IT (4)
LICLE:
Count how many out how many are full sentence stems

15. Verbal patterns in lexical bundles
Number of verbs used in full sentence stems is significantly different:
AFK1: 42 lexemes of which 27 recur in stem bundles “Subj+Verb” (64%)
LICLE: 57 lexemes of which 13 recur in stem bundles (23%)
LOCNESS: 61 lexemes of which 15 recur in stem bundles (24%)
CONCLUSION: In the AFK1 corpus verbs tend to cluster with subjects of the sentences more often than with their complements.

16. Related studies Altenberg 1998: Granger 1998:
In speech, sentence stems form the ‘springboard’ of utterances and lead to communicatively more important elements which express the rheme of the sentence.
Granger 1998:
NNS learners significantly overuse the active sentence structure, e.g. I/we/ think, one/we could say/notice etc.
Herriman and Boström Aronsson 2009:
The structural segment consisting of ”SUBJECT+VERB” is overused for the expression of theme.
Hasselgård 2009:
I as subject overused in thematized stance expressions.

17. Hunston’s (2009) semantic sequences (‘what is often said’)
A verbal pattern (e.g. “V that” as in believe that) can be studied as a single word for its collocates.
Collocates of verbal patterns in learner language may be very different from NS data.

18. Examples of semantic sequences from lexical bundles
AFK1 corpus:
SOME / MANY PEOPLE believe that
IT IS said that / PEOPLE say that
(SOME) PEOPLE / THEY / I think
LICLE/LOCNESS corpus:
believe that / in
say that / is said TO BE
think about / that

19. Conclusions
Structural analysis of lexical bundles informs about discourse features of learner language.
Distribution of structural types suggests that lower-level learner language is closer to spoken English while more advanced learner writing bears more resemblance to written academic English.
The study is a very modest attempt to merge analysis of lexical bundles and patterns.

20. Conclusions
3. Patterns of lexis as represented in lexical bundles offer insights into text construction strategies used by the learners.
4. Verbal lexical bundles in NNS language reveal not a verb complementation pattern but a full sentence stem, so in writing NNS learners are more worried about message construction rather than its development.

21. References
Altenberg, B On the Phraseology of Spoken English: The Evidence of Recurrent Word-Combinations. In Cowie, A. P. (ed.) Phraseology: Theory, Analysis and Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Biber, D University Language. A Corpus-Based Study of Spoken and Written Registers. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Biber, D., Conrad, S. and Cortes, V If You Look at…: Lexical Bundles in University Teaching and Textbooks. Applied Linguistics 25,
Cortes, V Lexical Bundles in Published and Student Writing in History and Biology. English for Specific Purposes 23 (4),
Cortes, V A Comparative Analysis of Lexical Bundles in Academic History Writing in English and Spanish. Corpora 3 (1),
De Cock, S Preferred Sequences of Words in NS and NNS Speech. BELL (Belgian journal of English language and literature),
Granger, S. 1998b. Prefabricated patterns in advanced EFL writing: collocations and formulae. A. P. Cowie (ed.) Phraseology. Theory, Analysis, And Applications. Oxford: Clarendon

22. References
Hasselgård, H Thematic choice and expressions of stance in English argumentative texts by Norwegian learners. K. Aijmer (ed.) Corpora and Language Teaching. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Herriman, J. & M. Boström Aronsson Themes in Swedish advanced learner writing in English. K. Aijmer (ed.) Corpora and Language Teaching. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Hyland, K As Can Be Seen: Lexical Bundles and Disciplinary Variation. English for Specific Purposes (27)
Hunston, S The usefulness of corpus-based descriptions of English for learners. K. Aijmer (ed.) Corpora and Language Teaching. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Hunston, S. & G. Francis Pattern Grammar: A Corpus-driven Approach to the Lexical Grammar of English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.