Lost in parallel concordances Ana Frankenberg-Garcia ISLA, Lisbon

Lost in parallel concordances When are they useful? How do you use them?

monolingual level of difficulty of concordances representativeness of corpus cognitive style of learners parallel availability of corpus

Lost in parallel concordances So when exactly are they useful?

L1 L2 Parallel concordances in L2 learning

Grammar-translation method L1 L2

Modern approaches to L2 learning L1  poor L2 fluency Multilingual classes Native-speaker teachers Monolingual materials L2

Learners use L1 schemas as templates for constructing L2 schemas Barlow (2000) Despite being told not to, learners often use L1 as a strategy for learning L2 Cohen (2001) Awareness of L1 influence upon L2 seems to help Tomasello and Herron (1988, 1989) Teaching Monolingual Classes Atkinson (1993) The Non-Native Teacher Medgyes (1994) L1 revival

Parallel concordances in L2 learning Self-access Classroom L1 L2

Learners decide what to focus on Aston (2001) Queries initiated by learners Learners engaged in finding solutions to problems that are in the forefront of their minds Concordances likely to be meaningful, relevant and conducive to successful learning Self-access

What should teachers do? Monolingual classes Teachers who know L1 Classroom But when?

But not all differences between languages are relevant to learning Wardhaugh (1970), Odlin (1989) L1  L2 Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis Lado (1957) “consciousness-raising techniques may be counterproductive where the insight has already been gained at a subconscious, intuitive level.” Sharwood-Smith (1994:184)

Classroom No use learners being swamped with language contrasts that don’t affect and could even be detrimental to their learning So what language contrasts might help?

Negative transfer from L1 Italian Lott (1983) Portuguese-English crosslinguistic influence Frankenberg-Garcia & Pina (1997) IL  L2 Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis Granger & Tribble (1996) But some IL problems can still be traced back to L1

CLI and parallel concordances in L2 learning L1 French tonic auxiliaries Roussel (1991) L1 Norwegian shall  skal Johansson & Hofland (2000) L1 Portuguese prepositions after N, V & Adj Frankenberg-Garcia (2000)

Classroom Pay attention to crosslinguistic influence Find out which language contrasts might be worth making a particular group of learners aware of Use parallel concordances to focus on these contrasts Language contrast per se Use parallel concordances to focus on IL problems that can be traced back to L1

Lost in parallel concordances How exactly do you use them?

Unlike monolingual corpora... L1 L2 ST TT

Very lost... L1  L2 ? L2  L1 ? ST  TT ? TT  ST ? ?

L1  L2 How can I say ___ in L2? Language production How meanings learners formulate in L1 can be expressed in L2

L2  L1 What does___ mean? Language reception How meanings learners don’t understand in L2 translate into L1

“actualmente” Production & Reception e.g. FALSE COGNATES “actually” L1  L2 L2  L1

+ reception - production Don’t miss the party! OK And don’t lose those keys. OK *Sorry I’m late. I lost the train.

lose miss perder English Portuguese

L2  L1? “lose” lose perder

L2  L1? “miss” miss perder

L1  L2 “perder” miss lose perder

PRODUCTION L1  L2  L2  L1 Different purposes in language teaching RECEPTION

ST  TT ? TT  ST ? Lost in parallel concordances

L1 L2 L1 English TT ST Unidirectional parallel corpora e.g. German-English INTERSECT L1 German ST TT Not much choice...

L1 L2 Bi-directional parallel corpora e.g. COMPARA, CEXI, part of ENPC ST TT ST How do you choose?

L1 L2 ST TT  TT ST Translational  Non-translational e.g. Baker (1996)

Distribution of already in COMPARA 1.6 Explicitation in TT

Against parallel corpora in L2 learning? Gellerstam (1996)

Have you already had lunch? Já almoçaste? Exposing L2 learners to translational language can be problematic

Should I be looking at translational L2? How can I take advantage of the translational & non-translational language distinction?

L1 L2 ST TT TT ST Sheltering learners from translational L2 e.g. elements with significantly different ST-TT distributions

L1 L2 ST TT TT ST Exposing learners to translational L2 e.g. culturally-bound concepts difficult to express in L2

Drawing attention to basic linguistic contrasts L1 L2 ST TT TT ST e.g. prepositions after N, V and Adj

L1, L2, ST and TT Production L1  L2 Reception L2  L1 TT  ST shelter ST  TT ST  TT expose ST+TT  TT+ST ST+TT  TT+ST

Queries that focus on basic language contrasts Unidirectional & bi-directional parallel corpora OK in both directions

Queries affected by translational/non-translational language distinction Unidirectional parallel corpora only in one direction Bi-directional corpora OK in both directions (but use right part of the corpus)