In this study, I analyse the ISLE corpus,

INTRODUCTION

Why computer learner corpora?

In this study, I analyse the ISLE corpus,

an already existing learner corpus, focusing mainly on the pronunciation errors that the German and Italian protagonists of this corpus make. Learner corpora are collections of authentic texts produced by foreign or second language learners, stored in an electronic format. Aside from their precious role as a resource for second language acquisition research, they can be used to identify typical difficulties of learners of a particular learner group (e.g. intermediate or advanced learners) or learners of a particular native language (e.g. German or Italian learners of English), and thus provide a basis for the identification of frequently occurring mistakes in learner language.

Research on learner corpora immediately caught my attention, for several reasons. The first one, quite obvious and instinctive, is to have the possibility to somehow “control” big amounts of spoken or written texts increased my curiosity to explore this mysterious and perplexing field, pushing me further towards the area of corpus linguistics. The discovery then, that this kind of research has only existed since the late 1980s increased my interest in this particular area of linguistics, as I feel that my contribution to such recent and unsaturated studies really could add something new and be further used for many goals in foreign language acquisition, as well as in foreign language teaching.

These large amounts of texts are certainly appealing as much as they are intimidating, but fortunately nowadays we can dispose of very useful computerised tools that are capable of analysing large amounts of linguistic data.

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The ISLE corpus is a second language learning collection of non-native speech data, which consists of almost 18 hours of annotated speech signals spoken by Italian and German learners of English.

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Why focus on Italian and German? Why the ISLE corpus?

I opted to analyse the ISLE corpus, which is a spoken English learner corpus, containing recordings from 23 Italian and 23 German English learners. As a language learner myself, I first came in contact with English in Belgium, my country of birth, and more specifically in the Flemish speaking part of Belgium, where I studied English for 5 years, and further studied English at University in Pisa. Therefore, I can empathize both with learners having German native language roots and with learners having neo-Latinate native roots. Over the years, I noticed that, at the time when my Italian improved, my English underwent a change, predominantly in terms of pronunciation. Therefore, the ISLE corpus is to me, besides being a resource of linguistic research, a personal investigation and, hopefully, a discovery in the sphere of my personal experience of the learning of English.

Why error analysis?

At first sight, it may be considered quite odd to focus on what learners get wrong instead of what they get right. However, as error analysis proves, there are several good reasons for focusing on errors.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the field of Applied Linguistics has been subject

to many shifts. One of the more important has been from the view of the teacher

as the controller of language learning towards a more learner-centred view. This

stresses the learner’s powers of formation as he/she moves towards the bilingual

competence that is sufficient for communicative or academic needs. One major

result of this shift of attention has been an increasing involvement in the

monitoring and analysis of the learner’s language. This is an important concern

both for the language teachers and for linguists. From the standpoint of practical

teaching, linguists have become more and more aware of the long-term value of

Error analysis as a leading technique of evaluating the language learner’s

learning in general, while also taking account of the degree of match between

the learner’s learning curriculum and the teacher’s teaching curriculum. Error analysis thus finds important justification in the fact that linguistic data from the classroom can serve for theoretical discussion, and after evaluation, for the design of corrective educational programs.

Corder (1981) believes that there have always been two justifications proposed for the study of learners’ errors:

the pedagogical justification, namely that a good understanding of the nature of error is necessary before a systematic means of eradicating them could be found, and the theoretical justification, which claims that a study of learners’

errors is part of the systematic study of the learners’ language which is itself necessary to an understanding of the process of second language acquisition.

We need to have such a knowledge if we are to make any well-founded proposals for the development and improvement of the materials and techniques of language teaching. (p. 1)

In this thesis, I focus less on the methodological problems of the study of errors (i.e., the considerations of the applications of error analysis in foreign language teaching), and more on the theoretical problems. More specifically, I am particularly interested in the issues of second language acquisition and the nature of interlanguage. In this case, involving native speakers of German and Italian who are learning English.

Why focus on pronunciation?

Traditionally, pronunciation errors have received less attention than

morphological or grammatical errors in foreign language acquisition and

teaching. Numerous language teachers believed that pronunciation did not

deserve as much attention as other linguistic aspects, mainly because they

considered accent-free pronunciation a myth, and therefore an impossible goal

to achieve. This attitude has influenced, amongst other factors, the amount of

available information on how pronunciation can be best taught rather negatively.

Nowadays, linguists and teachers generally agree that a reasonably comprehensible pronunciation is more important than accent-free pronunciation.

Training of pronunciation is, unfortunately, still often neglected in traditional classroom instruction for the very simple reason that training pronunciation requires considerable time and effort for students to practice and a great deal of time from teachers to provide feedback. However, I believe that pronunciation is the first key for communication. Pronunciation is the first element that people notice in a conversation. This is not the same for vocabulary and grammar. It is possible to not have an advanced vocabulary or grammar, but to use simple vocabulary or grammatical structures in order to communicate. “Simple pronunciation” instead does not exist. There is correct and erroneous pronunciation. Pronunciation errors may hinder people from being understood and thus can affect results at school, in everyday conversation, and in working environments.

Preview of thesis structure

Chapter 1 presents a small history of theories for error interpretation. The

historical, linguistic, and psychological backgrounds of different hypotheses are

reviewed in this chapter, with a particular focus on pronunciation and

phonological issues. In the Chapter 2, I focus on second language acquisition,

both as a personal process of learning a second language and as the scientific

study of this process. In Chapter 3, I introduce learner corpora: how they look

like and what they can be used for. Chapter 4 is the methodological chapter

entirely dedicated to the ISLE corpus. Chapter 5 contains the analysis of the

pronunciation errors produced by the German and Italian English language

learners of the ISLE corpus. In Chapter 6, I will present the most interesting

outcomes of this thesis.