ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics - Volume 157, Issue 1, 2009

Abstract

This article discusses the methodology and results of a quantitative semantic analysis (result of a PhD dissertation) of about 5000 pivotal terms (keywords) in the domain of machining terminology in French. Building on a double quantitative approach and corpus data (viz. a lemmatised corpus of French technical texts of about 1,7 million tokens), the investigation attempts to find out whether, and to what extent, pivotal lexical items are polysemous. The KeyWords Method was used in order to identify the most typical words. Next, a quantitative semantic analysis of the keywords determined their degree of monosemy, which was implemented in terms of degree of overlap between co-occurrents of co-occurrents of keywords. Finally, the quantitative data were submitted to a simple regression analysis, in order to check the hypothesis that the most typical terms are not always the most monosemous terms.

In this article, we present the statistical results and linguistic interpretations of regression analyses on the 4717 keywords, on several subsets (nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs) and on the keywords of the four subcorpora (electronic reviews, technical files, technical standards, handbooks).

Abstract

Linguistic and cultural diversity is becoming an inherent feature of most schools in Europe. This is specially so in contexts such as the Basque Autonomous Community in Spain, where the presence of two official languages (Basque and Spanish) is complemented by the early teaching of English, which sets out as early as the age of four in the majority of schools. Nevertheless, the low foreign language command of Spanish students in general and the Basque students in particular has led to the implementation of CLIL experiences, which have been mushrooming in the last decade. Some voices have been raised though against the ever increasing presence of English due to its probable negative impact on language attitudes, especially on attitudes towards Basque. Many efforts have been made to normalize the situation of Basque at school and some scholars consider that these achievements can be jeopardized if the minority language yields too much space to the two international languages (Spain and English). In this paper the effect of CLIL programmes on attitudes towards trilingualism is examined through a holistic questionnaire completed by 277 secondary students. The results obtained demonstrate that CLIL can help to boost positive attitudes towards trilingualism at school, a matter of the utmost importance due to the ever increasing number of multilingual educational systems in Europe.

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of extensive form-focused instruction on a complex point of grammar, the passive voice in English. Subjects were 40 Sinophone ESL students in Grade 8 to 11, ranging in age from 13 to 17 (mean = 14.8). After a battery of pre-tests, subjects underwent an instructional phase of 7.5 hours during which they received explicit instruction on the forms and functions of the passive voice, enhanced input, implicit and negative feedback, and did a variety of exercises, from highly structured to guided writing. Post-tests were administered three weeks after the end of the instruction phase. Results showed that treatment had a significant effect on subjects\u2019 learning of the passive voice, and that the subjects were able to transfer their explicit knowledge to a communicative writing task.

Abstract

The view that explicit instruction of metacognitive strategies is important for raising reader consciousness has become prominent recently. This study was an attempt to determine the impacts of instructing metacognitive strategies on readers’ comprehension. Two groups of students majoring in English language at Shiraz University/ Iran were compared using Schraw & Denisson’s (1994) “Metacognitive Awareness Inventory” to find out the participants’ degree of awareness towards metacognitive strategies. After a period of four months of pretest- treatment–posttest design, the results revealed a significant improvement in the experimental group who were trained to use metacognitive strategies consciously in their reading tasks as compared with the control group. The pedagogical implications of the study are also discussed.

Abstract

The study examined the use of communication strategies in same- and cross-gender interactions by learners of English as a Second Language (ESL). Analysis of oral data from 10 female same- and 10 cross-gender interactions using an integrated psycholinguistic, social interaction and discourse-based framework showed that communication strategies were mainly used to overcome linguistic inadequacies rather than to enhance the message. Female learners used considerably more restructuring while male learners preferred approximation to bridge communication gaps when understanding of meanings may not be shared. The ESL learners were found to accommodate in their use of communication strategies to the gender of their interaction partners. In cross-gender dyads, there were attempts at a more careful formulation of the message, as indicated by a decrease in the use of approximation by both female and male speakers and an increase in restructuring of the message by male learners. The results revealed that it was not the gender of the learners but the gender of the interaction partners that heightened the use of message-enhancing communication strategies, particularly, topic fronting by female speakers and lexical repetition by male speakers. The potential of cross-gender interactions in ESL language learning contexts is discussed.

This article reviews Textual patterns. Key words and corpus analysis in language education

This article reviews Seeing through Multilingual Corpora. On the use of corpora in contrastive studies

This article reviews Text corpora and Multilingual lexicography