LINGUIST List 10.704

Sat May 8 1999

Sum: Parallel Texts in Learning Foreign Lang

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

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  • nerbonne, Parallel texts in FL learning

    Message 1: Parallel texts in FL learning

     Date: Sat, 8 May 1999 15:25:40 +0200 (METDST)
    From: nerbonne <nerbonnelet.rug.nl>
    Subject: Parallel texts in FL learning


    I posted a query in late '98 asking what was known about the value of parallel texts in foreign language learning. Thanks for responses to Lars Borin, Chris Butler, Rick McCallister, Tony McEnery, Derek Roff, Larry Rosenwald, June Thompson, Elia Yuste and someone at the ERIC clearinghouse at the Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington.

    I found little information directly on the question of how valuable these texts are (to what sorts of learners). Most of the papers are very interesting experiments on PROVIDING parallel texts to users without evaluation of success. If you're going to read one paper on this, it should be Barlow's.

    Maybe the most intelligent basic discussion was Palmer (1917), though it concerned the use of translation in second language learning, not parallel texts per se. He touched on many important issues (mixed in with comments that sound strange to the modern ear, e.g., speculations on which peoples learn languages best!).

    John Nerbonne

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    John Nerbonne, Alfa Informatica nerbonnelet.rug.nl University of Groningen Tel. (+31) 50 363 58 15 P.O. Box 716 Fax 363 68 55 Oude Kijk in 't Jatstraat 26 NL-9700 AS GRONINGEN http://www.let.rug.nl/~nerbonne The Netherlands

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    With specific mention of parallel texts:

    Barlow, M. (1996). Parallel Texts in Language Teaching. In Botley et al. (eds.) Proceedings of Teaching and Language Corpora 1996. 45-56.

    Botley, S., Glass, J., McEnery, T., Wilson, A. (eds.) (1996) Proceedings of Teaching and Language Corpora 1996. Technical Paper 9, University Centre for Computer Corpus Research on Language, Lancaster

    Paskaleva, E., Mihov, S. (1998). Second Language Acquisition from Aligned Corpora. In Jager, J., Nerbonne, J., van Essen, A. (eds), Language Teaching and Language Technology, Swets & Zeitlinger, Lisse, 43-52.

    Peters, C., Picchi, E., Biagini, L. (1996) Parallel and Comparable Bilingual Corpora in Langauge Teaching and Learning. In In Botley et al. (eds.) Proceedings of Teaching and Language Corpora 1996. 68-82.

    COMMENT: only Barlow and Peters et al. attempt arguments in favor of the use of parallel texts. Paskaleva and Mihov provide a tool for alignment, citing second language learning as a primary motivation.

    Others mentioned

    Bailin, A. (1995). Intelligent Computer-Assisted Language Learning: A Bibliography. Computers and the Humanities 29 (5), 375-387.

    Bauer, D., Segond, F., Zaenen, A. (1995). LOCOLEX: Translation Rolls off your Tongue. In Proc. of the Conference of the ACH-ALLC '95, Santa Barbara, USA.

    Van Els, T., Extra, G., van Os, Ch., Bongaerts, Th. (1977). Handboek voor de Toegepaste Taalkunde, Wolters-Noordhof, Groningen. Translated as Applied Linguistics and the Learning and Teaching of Foreign Languages (1984), Edward Arnold, London.

    Johns, T. (1991). Should you be Persuaded-Two Samples of Data-Driven Learning Materials. In Johns, T., King, P. (eds.) Classroom Concordancing. 1-16. Johns, T. (1993) Data-Driven Learning: An Update. TELL & CALL, 3.

    Krashen, S. (1982). The Fundamental Pedagogical Principle in Second-Language Teaching. Studia Linguistica 35 (1-2).

    Levy, M. (1997). Computer-Assisted Language Learning: Context and Conceptualization. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

    Nerbonne, J. and Dokter, D. (1999). An Intelligent, Word-Based Language Learning Assistant. Traitement Automatique des Languages 40(1), 1-18.

    Nerbonne, J., Dokter, D., Smit, P. (1998). Morphological Processing and Computer-Assisted Language Learning. Computer-Assisted Language Learning, 11(5), 421-437.

    Palmer, H. (1968, 1ed. 1917). The Scientific Study and Teaching of Languages. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

    Walker, S., Edwards, V., Blacksell, R. (1996). Designing Bilingual Books for Children. Visible Language 30(3), 268-283.

    Wichmann, A., Fligelstone, S., McEnery, T., Knowles, G. (1997). Teaching and Language Corpora. Addison-Wesley, New York.

    Widdowson, H. (1990). Aspects of Language Teaching. Oxford University Press, Oxford.