Swedish word family resource

Abstract

The article introduces a novel lexical resource for Swedish based on word family principles. The development of the Swedish Word Family (SweWF) resource is set into the context of linguistic complexity in second language acquisition. The SweWF is particularly appropriate for that, given that it contains lexical items used in second language corpora, namely, in a corpus of coursebook texts, and in a corpus of learner essays. The main focus of the article is on the construction of the resource with its user interface and on its applicability for research, although it also opens vast possibilities for practical applications for language learning, testing and assessment. We demonstrate the value of the resource through several case studies.