The development of verb constructions in spoken learner English

Abstract

Based on datasets of L1 Italian and Spanish learner language culled from the Trinity Lancaster Corpus Sample, this paper investigates how verb-argument constructions (VACs) develop in the spoken English of L2 learners across proficiency levels. In addition to proficiency and L1 effects, we focus on the potential influence of native English usage on learner VAC production. Insights into learners’ productive knowledge of five target VACs and the verbs used in those VACs are gained through (1) comparisons of normalized entropy scores for verbs in VACs; (2) correlation analyses comparing for each VAC the verbs produced by groups of learners and by native English speakers; and (3) regression analyses comparing learner verb-VAC associations against indices of VAC usage, including verb-VAC frequency, VAC-verb association strength and contingency. Results indicate that, across L1 backgrounds, more proficient learners are more productive in their VAC use and closer to patterns in L1 English usage than less proficient learners.

Observing the Emergence of Constructional Knowledge

“…As Lowie and Verspoor (2015, p. 78) remind us, “All of the most relevant questions about SLA …, are implicitly or explicitly about change over time.” By comparing VACs in language data produced by L2 learners at different proficiency levels and correlating them with data on the same VACs from native English usage, this study has contributed new corpus-derived evidence in support of usage-based approaches to SLA with a focus on changing verb-VAC association over time. Confirming and expanding on results from previous usage-based SLA studies that focused on smaller sets of VACs and used data from smaller learner corpora (Bestgen & Granger, 2014; Ellis & Ferreira-Junior, 2009b; Eskildsen, 2009; Eskildsen & Cadierno, 2009; Römer, & Garner, in press), our findings indicate that the emergence of constructions in learners is characterized by the following: an expansion of the learners’ VAC repertoire in terms of VAC types; growth in the learners’ verb-in-VAC repertoire from small sets of high-frequency, general verbs to larger sets of more specific, lower-frequency verbs; an increase in the schematicity of selected high-frequency VACs; and a move in verb-VAC associations toward a native usage norm. We also observed that VAC acquisition appears to be strongly impacted by input frequencies, as indicated by the overlap of verbs that appear in usage and those used by learners.…”

Principled pattern curation to guide data-driven learning design

“…For example, in the VL (verb locative) construction, movement to place, go is the prototype verb, followed by come ; in the VOO construction (verb + object + object), give is the prototype, followed by send . When learners come across subsequent verbs found in the same syntactic contexts, or slots, in the input, they draw on the prototype from which to infer meaning ( Römer and Garner 2019 ; see also Section 3 below). These prototypes are "the hubs in the construction's semantic network " (Ellis and Ogden 2017: 609).…”

“…UB studies that use corpus data to examine verb argument constructions (VACs) in L2 language are growing ( Ellis et al, 2016 ;Römer et al, 2014 ;2018 ). Römer and Garner (2019) investigate five VACs constructions, in the Trinity Lancaster Corpus Sample (TLCS), using an L1 Italian and Spanish subcorpora (c. 1 million words). Their study gains insight into development of verb construction knowledge, comparing the findings with L1 usage using the BNC as a benchmark.…”

“…Römer and Garner 2019 ), Römer (2019) finds that lower level learners make use of a more restricted range of fixed verb associations which give way to a wider variety of associations at the higher levels of proficiency. The importance of both Römer and Garner (2019) and Römer (2019) is that they clearly underscore the need for a differentiated view of learner language. O'Keeffe (2021a) makes a case for the importance of building on Römer's findings to help guide and enhance DDL design using one of the patterns identified in the (2019) results.…”

Applied corpus linguistics for language acquisition, pedagogy, and beyond

“…The second study in this section on usage-based SLA was co-authored by Jamie Garner and appeared as Römer and Garner (2019). The study focuses on the use of five high-frequency VACs (a subset of the 19 VACs covered in Römer & Yilmaz, 2019) in L1 Italian and L1 Spanish learner English production.…”