A Contrastive Functional Analysis of Errors in Spanish EFL University Writers’ Argumentative Texts: Corpus-based Study

Neff, JoAnne; Ballesteros, Francisco; Dafouz, Emma; Martínez, Francisco García; Rica, Juan-Pedro; Díez, Mercedes Díaz de Cerio; Prieto, Rosa

doi:10.1163/9789401203845_013

Cited by 4 publications

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“…Other studies, focusing on more specific items, have brought to light the same problem. For example, Lorenz (1999) discusses the marked overuse of the conjunction because and the adverb so in German learner writing; French, Spanish and Swedish learners' heavy reliance on I think to express their personal opinion is reported by Granger (1998), Neff et al (2007 and Aijmer (2002) respectively; foreign learners' overuse of of course is highlighted by Narita & Sugiura (2006) for Japanese, Granger & Tyson (1996) for French and Altenberg & Tapper (1998) for Swedish.…”

Section: Learners' Confusion Of Registersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gilquin

Paquot²

2008

ETC

128

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The study reported on in this paper uses corpus data in order to examine how upper-intermediate to advanced EFL learners from a wide range of mother tongue backgrounds perform a number of rhetorical functions particularly prominent in academic discourse, and how this compares with native academic writing. In particular, it is shown that one of the problems experienced by EFL learners is that they tend to use features that are more typical of speech than of academic prose, which suggests that they are largely unaware of register differences. Four possible explanations are offered to account for this register confusion, namely the influence of speech, L1 transfer, teaching-induced factors and developmental factors.

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Section: Learners' Confusion Of Registersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Too chatty

Gilquin

Paquot²

2008

ETC

128

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“…Since the first projects in the 1980s and 1990s, (Faerch et al 1984, Granger 1993, 1998) interest has increased a hundredfold, as can be seen on the Learner Corpora around the World web page created by the Centre for Corpus Linguistics (CECL) at Louvain, Belgium (see also Pravec 2002, Granger 2008, Neff et al 2007and Diez Bedmar 2008 for Spanish CLC studies). With regard to CLC used for pedagogical purposes, several projects have been designed with the intention of improving curriculum design for the teaching of English as a Foreign Language.…”

Section: Technology For Il Students: Computer Learner Corpora and Commentioning

confidence: 99%

“We All Make Mistakes!”. Analysing an Error-coded Corpus of Spanish University Students’ Written English

MacDonald

2017

Comp.J. Eng. Stud.

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Abstract. The present study analyses the errors identified in the written argumentative texts of 304 Spanish university students of English taken from two different corpora -one from a technical university context and the other from learners enrolled in the Humanities. Considered an important design criterion for computer learner corpora studies, the metadata of the students' was recorded and their competence levels were measured using the Oxford Quick Placement Test. The scores obtained (0 to 60) were then related to the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) levels ranging from A1 to C2.Within the field of applied linguistics and language teaching/learning, many studies have been carried out over the years designed to address the phenomenon of interlanguage errors made by learners of English (Dusková 1969, Green & Hecht 1985, Lennon 1991, Olsen 1999, among many others). These studies involved analyzing a small number of texts with a limited number of tags, based on either linguistic taxonomies or surface structure categories of errors (Dulay, Burt, & Krashen 1982). However, in the last three decades, technological advances have been made which have facilitated the analysis of much larger amounts of data using computers for both the development of learner corpora and programs for a more detailed analysis of the learner data.The error coding system used in the present research work has been designed to address all the possible levels of error (with as many sub-categories as required) since learners writing in a foreign language not only make errors related to grammar and vocabulary, but also with regard to their competence in the use of syntax, discourse relations and pragmatics, among others.The aim of the present study is two-fold. Firstly, we explore the nature of the errors coded in the corpus i.e. which errors are most frequent, including not only the main categories but also the most delicate levels of errors. Secondly, we address the question of the relationship, if any, of the learners' competence levels and the type and frequency of the errors they make. The results show that grammar errors are the most frequent, and that the linguistic competence of the learners has a lower than expected influence on the most frequent types of errors coded in the corpus.

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“…), but underuse many of the characteristics of formal writing, such as a high density of nouns and prepositions. Other studies have focused on more specific items, for example I think (Granger 1998, Aijmer 2002, Neff et al 2007, of course (Granger and Tyson 1996, Altenberg and Tapper 1998, Narita and Sugiura 2006, because (Lorenz 1999) or so (Lorenz 1999, Anping 2002, showing that these items tend to be overused by learners and that this overuse gives learner writing a distinctly oral tone.…”

Section: Is L2 Writing Like English Conversation?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Besides as a connective

Hannay¹,

Martínez

Mackenzie³

2014

Pragmatics &Amp; Beyond New Series

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This paper shows, on the basis of a comparison of learner corpus data with written and spoken native corpus data, that learners tend to use spoken features when organising their academic writing. Possible explanations are offered to account for this problem of register confusion, including L1 transfer, L2 instruction and developmental factors. Suggestions are also made to help learners become more aware of register variation.

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A Contrastive Functional Analysis of Errors in Spanish EFL University Writers’ Argumentative Texts: Corpus-based Study

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Too chatty

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“We All Make Mistakes!”. Analysing an Error-coded Corpus of Spanish University Students’ Written English

Besides as a connective

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