Adverb use and language proficiency in young

Adverb use and language proficiency in young learners’ writing Pascual Pérez-Paredes and María Sánchez-Tornel Universidad de Murcia

Our research examines the use of general adverbs by learners across grades 5, 6, 9 and 10 in the International Corpus of Crosslinguistic Interlanguage (ICCI) by looking at whether this use increases with age. For our research we use data from the Polish, Spanish and Chinese components in the ICCI, in particular, those from the “food” and “money” topics. Our results show that general adverbs are more widely used as age increases. Statistically significant differences were found between grade 6 and 10 learners across all three L1 groups in terms of the frequency of use of general adverbs, which suggests that 10-graders integrate adverbs in their discourse in ways that differ from those in previous years. This study, together with Pérez-Paredes & Díez-Bedmar’s (2012), suggests that learners below grade 9 are more unlikely to use adverbs. Keywords: general adverbs, learner writing, International Corpus of Crosslinguistic Interlanguage, age, interlanguage development

1.

Introduction

This paper focuses specifically on the use of general adverbs (GAs) in learner language. For this study, GAs are taken to be the broad group of words associated with the POS tag RR in the CLAWS 7 tag set, i.e. any adverb except for those included in the following categories: adverbs after nominal head (else, galore), adverbs that introduce appositional constructions (namely), degree adverbs (very, so and too were tagged as RR in our research), wh- degree adverbs (how), wh-ever degree adverbs (however), comparative degree adverbs (more, less), superlative degree adverbs (most, least), locative adverbs (alongside, forward), prepositional adverb particles (about, in), wh- general adverbs (where, when, why, how), whever general adverbs (wherever, whenever), comparative general adverbs (better, Pérez-Paredes, P. and Sánchez Tornel, M. (2014). Adverb use and language proficiency in young learners’ writing. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 19,2, 178-200.

Adverb use and language proficiency in young learners’ writing 179

longer), superlative general adverbs (best, longest) and, finally, quasi-nominal adverbs of time (now, tomorrow). Our motivation is to explore Schmitt’s (2010) claims, among others, that there is a link between increased communicative competence and use of adverbs. Specifically, we are interested in testing this claim in the context of very young learners of English in different educational and cultural settings, as studies that deal with pre-university students’ use of adverbs are not abundant (Pérez-Paredes & Díez-Bedmar 2012). This motivation is additionally based on previous research that has found that lexical competence in learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) is rather low in Spanish learners (Pérez Basanta 1996, 2005; Lawley 2010; Pavón & Rubio 2010; Sánchez-Hernández & Pérez-Paredes 2005). As the presence of adverbs in discourse is positively correlated with a more sophisticated use of the language, we therefore set out to document the presence of GAs in learner language in three ICCI (Tono 2012) sub-components of different essay mean length: low (Spanish ICCI), average (Polish ICCI) and high (Chinese ICCI). In this corpus, the Spanish learners were the group that output the lowest mean of words per essay in all grades: 42.4 in grade 9 and 57.5 in grade 10. The Polish wrote 68.3 and 98.2, respectively, while the Chinese were the ones that wrote the longest essays: 135.5 and 145.6, respectively. Two research questions arise at this point: Are general adverbs significantly more widely used by learners as age increases? If so, can we identify cut-off points where learners significantly use general adverbs more frequently? ii. Is there any difference between speakers of different L1s? i.

2. Adverbs and learners In the following sections we will review research in the area of learner language and adverb use as well as the morphological foundations of adverbs in Chinese, Polish and Spanish. Section 2.1 presents an overview of studies analysing adverb use by learners of different ages, L1s and proficiency levels and highlights the importance of mastering adverb use to achieve native-like competence. This outline of previous research concludes that, in general, learners lack register awareness, which is linked the overuse or underuse of certain types of adverbs. Section 2.2 profiles the formation, functions and meaning of adverbs in Chinese, Polish and Spanish, the three languages under examination. This morphological, syntactic and semantic outline will serve to illustrate the similarities and differences of adverbs in the three languages.

180

2.1

Adverbs in (learner) language

The mastery of adverbs in spoken and written communication contributes greatly to achieving a native-like command of the language (Vilà 2005). While some educators include the mastery and use of adverbs as an integral part of the indicators that measure L1 proficiency in secondary education, others have used adverbs as one of the variables that profile our L1 sociolinguistic identity (Rodríguez Diéguez 1987). Despite this potential to predict learners’ proficiency, the internal heterogeneity of this word class, which includes distinct forms (single words, words derived from adjectives, etc.) and functions, has led linguists to coin terms such as ‘the adverbial rag-bag’ (Aitchison 1987: 102) or as the ‘dustbin’ word class (Crystal 1995: 2011 in Philip 2008). In a similar way, Quirk et al. (1972: 239) state that “the adverb is an item that does not fit the definitions for other parts of speech”. Even though the study of adverbs in learner language and, in particular, the study of lexical adverbs as opposed to discourse adverbials, is still relatively under researched (Philip 2008), this section attempts to present an overview of research findings on the topic. Adverb use is a key aspect in the characterisation of learners’ communicative competence, as evidenced by the inclusion of adverbs in the rating of standardized texts such as the Test of Written English. This tool has been widely employed to research the effectiveness of computerized tagging to detect proficiency differences among L2 learners (Grant & Ginther 2000) as well as to explore the similarities and differences among highly rated compositions using specific lexical, grammatical and discourse features as indicators (Jarvis et al. 2003). Adverbs are also an integral part of measures of lexical variation, which have, in turn, been employed to research the quality of L2 output (Lu 2012). Adverbs have been regarded as a problematic aspect, given the difficulties that acquiring the adverb system poses for language learners together with the lack of native-like usage evidenced in their written or oral production. Such difficulties are manifested differently, whether they be related to syntactic factors such as adverb placement (Osborne 2008, Rankin 2010) or to the overuse or underuse of a particular adverb (Hsue-Hueh Shih 2000) or of a type of adverb (Gilquin 2007, Pérez-Paredes et al. 2011). As regards adverb placement, Osborne (2008), in a study based on data from the International Corpus of Learner English, finds that post-intermediate learners of English were influenced by their L1, since the verbadverb-object structure was most frequently found in the production of speakers from a Romance L1 background (Italian, Spanish, French), whereas Dutch, German and Swedish native speakers rarely turned to that pattern. Issues of over- and underuse of adverbs are also widely reported in the literature. A case in point is Gilquin et al.’s study (2007), which sheds light on the underuse of very common Pérez-Paredes, P. and Sánchez Tornel, M. (2014). Adverb use and language proficiency in young learners’ writing. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 19,2, 178-200.

181

hedging devices (presumably, apparently) in academic prose and the overuse of other adverbs that denote high degrees of certainty (of course, absolutely), which are typical of spoken language. These problems seem to be common to second language learners in general, irrespective of their mother tongue, as evidenced by research findings of studies involving learners with first languages as diverse as Dutch (de Haan 1999), French (Granger 1998, Osborne 2008), Italian (Philip 2007), Spanish (Pérez-Paredes et al. 2011) and German (Lorenz 1999). Philip (2007) reports the findings of a study based on the written production of 37 Italian advanced learners of English who overused the calque structure in a … way (“in modo …”) and avoided the use of simple adverbs (persuasively, aggressively), thus highlighting the fact that interlanguage analysis should rely on other aspects apart from learner errors, namely avoidance and calquing from L1. Hinkel (2002), in her contrastive study of NS (native speaker) and NNS (nonnative speaker) choices with regard to 68 linguistic and rhetorical features, devotes a chapter to the analysis of adjective and adverb use by undergraduate and postgraduate advanced ESL learners of diverse L1 backgrounds: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian and Arabic. The focus of this analysis is the occurrence of six classes of adverbs (time, frequency, place, amplifiers, downtoners and others) in the written production of advanced learners of English compared to that of native speakers who are first-year university students performing the same composition task. She concludes that NNSs, despite having received training as language learners for years and being fluent in English, are still not well equipped to write academic texts that approximate native-like production. In particular, the analysis shows that all groups of NNSs, irrespective of their L1, used amplifiers (totally, completely) “at the rate of at least 50% greater than NSs did” (Hinkel 2002: 127) and that the group labelled other adverbs – comprising manner adverbs and conjuncts, among others – was overused by NNS, maybe because students transfer adverbs which are typical of spoken language to the written mode. Similar results are reported in a study by the same author (Hinkel 2003) where comparisons of median frequency rates of six classes of adverbs (time, place, manner, amplifiers, downtoners, and de-adjectival emphatic adverbs) in the written production of NS and NNS are established. This research reveals the existence of significant differences in the occurrence of amplifiers and emphatic adverbs in NS and NNS written production, being NNS remarkably more prone to the use of these types of adverbs. This overuse of adverbs such as always, absolutely or definitely, totally and really results in a “colloquial and overstated tone in NNS academic argumentation and expository prose” (Hinkel 2003: 1065). Moreover, with the exception of Japanese participants, manner adverbs were used Pérez-Paredes, P. and Sánchez Tornel, M. (2014). Adverb use and language proficiency in young learners’ writing. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 19,2, 178-200.

182

significantly more frequently by NNSs. Contrary to what might be thought, this finding does not reflect richness or breadth of vocabulary but rather the opposite, as it might be the case that students employ them because of the simple formation mechanism (adjective + -ly) for most manner adverbs (Hinkel 2003: 1057). Chen (2006) analyses the use of conjunctive adverbials (CAs) in academic texts produced by P.10andTaiwanese MAM.TESOL students. For the purpose of comPérez-Paredes, Sánchez Tornel, (2014). Adverb use and language proficiency in young learners’ writing. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 19,2, 178-200. parison, she compiled a corpus of TESOL research articles from prestigious journals that allowes her to examine the frequency of use of four types of conjunctive adverbials, namely additive (moreover, in fact, similarly), adversative (however, conversely, instead), causal (consequently, for that reason), and temporal (finally, overall). The study reveals that students slightly overused conjunctive adverbials (78 CAs/10,000 words vs. 72 CAs/10,000 words) when comparing corpora in terms of total number of words, but not so much when the comparison was sentence-based (165 CAs per 1,000 sentences in the EFL corpus vs. 189 CAs per 1,000 sentences in the reference corpus). A qualitative analysis called attention to the misuse of the conjunctive adverbial besides, ranked #6 in the list of CAs used by NNS and typical of oral communication, thus denoting a lack of registerawareness on the part of advanced EFL students. Conjuncts were also the object of study in Altenberg and Tapper (1998), where the use of these devices in written production by Swedish EFL learners is contrasted with their frequency of occurrence in compositions written by native speakers of English. Swedish learners were found to underuse conjuncts, particularly contrastive and resultive conjuncts, whereas others were overused (furthermore, for instance). Adverb overuse and underuse are also underscored by Granger & Rayson (1998) as part of a larger scope study that characterizes the interlanguage of a group of French EFL university students by means of automatic profiling techniques. This study uses automated quantitative analysis to investigate the most prominent lexical features of NNS written production found in an argumentative essay corpus, which are contrasted with those found in a comparable corpus of NS compositions. Three categories are found to be overused significantly by NNSs (determiners, pronouns and adverbs), three are underused (conjunctions, prepositions and nouns) and three are used similarly by NSs and NNSs (adjectives, articles and verbs). The general overuse of adverbs is said to be the result of the repeated use of some categories of adverbs (uninflected adverbs referring mostly to time and place such as always, here, sometimes) and the low frequency of use of some other categories (-ly adverbs denoting time – previously –, amplifiers – greatly –, disjuncts – importantly – and modal adverbs – supposedly). The authors conclude, first, that students resort to adverbs typical of spoken registers and, second, that the distribution of adverbs in learner language contrasts with that of native-speaker academic prose reported in previous studies (Johansson

183

1978, 1985, 2008), since the latter favours the use of adverbs derived from adjectives of Romance origin and shows lower rates of short adverbs of native origin. The situation is not dissimilar to that of other word classes analysed in this study, which shows that basic characteristics of academic written register are missing in EFL students’ production. This lack of register awareness, the authors argue (Granger & Rayson 1998: 7), may be due to the influence of the communicative approach to language teaching, which often deprives students of opportunities to be exposed to solid expository or argumentative writing. In a recent description of linking adverbial (LA) use by Chinese students of EFL, Liu (2013) compares the incidence of these cohesive devices in written and oral production contrasted to native-speaker production. The data compiled in the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS), consisting of British’s students A Levels’ essays and British and American university students’ essays, were contrasted with the Chinese Learners’ English Corpus, which contains essays written by Chinese learners of English ranging from senior high school students to juniors and seniors of English majors. The study considers five syntactic forms of linking devices: single adverbs (therefore), adverb phrases (even so), prepositional phrases (in addition), finite clauses (that is to say) and non-finite clauses (to conclude), but we will only refer here to single adverbs. With regard to written production, the comparison of the CLEC with the control corpus of NS language, the LOCNESS, yields the following results: four linking adverbials are overused, of which two are single adverbs (so, then); one adverb (finally) presents no difference in use by NSs and NNSs; ten linking adverbials, all of them single adverbs, are underused (anyway, also, well, indeed, though, actually, still, yet, even, therefore). As for spoken language, the results obtained after contrasting frequency data from the College Learners’ Spoken English Corpus (COLSEC) and the LondonLund Corpus (LLC) suggest that Chinese EFL learners overuse 13 linking adverbials, being most of them single word adverbs (so, also, well, therefore, then, even, yet, still, finally, indeed, anyway). The opposite situation is found in the case of the adverbs though and actually, which tend to be underused by NNSs. When contrasting the occurrence of LAs in spoken and written production of native-speakers and non-native speakers, Liu (2013) finds that Chinese speakers and English speakers behave differently. Thus, linking adverbials are significantly more frequent in spoken production in the case of NNSs whereas NSs tend to use more linking adverbials when they write. The researcher offers reasons to explain these findings, which have to do with mother tongue transfer, the influence of previous language instruction, poor register awareness, lack of understanding of semantic traits of LAs and pragmatic considerations.

184

Pérez-Paredes (2010) researches the quantitative and qualitative differences in the use of adverbs on the part of upper-intermediate learners of English and NSs that performed the same oral task. The study employs multidimensional analysis (MD) (Biber 1988) and focuses on the occurrence of amplifiers and downtoners, emphatic adverbs, discourse markers, and general adverbs (perhaps, quite) and concludes that British and Spanish speakers use English adverbs differently. Only Dimension 1 (involved vs. informational production) and Dimension 3 (elaborated reference vs. situation-dependent reference) seem to be affected by the use of adverbs, although downtoners and adverbial particles appear to have no effect on any of them. The MD analysis reveals that native speakers do not systematically use adverbs more frequently than their non-native counterparts when adverb use is looked at from a quantitative perspective. Regarding emphatic adverbs, both NSs and NNSs deviate from the mean scores obtained from a general, principled corpus whereas, in the case of amplifiers and general adverbs, NS come closer to the expected scores. An additional finding is the fact that the frequency of use of adverbs from both NSs and NNSs’ often resembles that of registers such as academic prose, official documents or general fiction. In a study on the use of adverbial hedges, Pérez-Paredes et al. (2011) employ the same methodology and find statistically significant differences between Spanish and British students when adverbial hedges are considered as a group, but not when a one-to-one comparison is established between particular hedging devices. The study also points out a certain lack of rhetorical awareness on the part of Spanish participants, since their use of adverbial hedges is narrower than that of native speakers. The studies mentioned so far focus predominantly on the written and oral production of adults and young adults, which show a widespread interest in undergraduate and graduate learner language. The use of adverbs in earlier stages has also been researched, although the number of studies reveals the general unavailability of this type of data. Pérez-Paredes & Díez-Bedmar (2012) present an analysis of intensifying adverbs in the written production of younger Spanish EFL learners (11 to 16 years old or grades 5 to 10) who contributed a descriptive or an argumentative essay to the ICCI. The examination of the compositions highlights two relevant facts: first, only four intensifying adverbs were used in this subcomponent of the ICCI (very, too, so, and really) and, second, intensification was used to a limited extent, being only used, on average, by 30.4% of students between grades 7 and 10. A closer analysis of the adverb very indicates that statistically significant differences exist between grades 7 and 8 in the case of 1-grade intervals and between grades 7 and 9 and 7 and 10. Additionally, the researchers present grade 8 as a possible cut-off point, since students write more words per essay and make a more extensive use of intensifying adverbs. As for accuracy of intensifying adverb use, results vary from grade to grade. Grades 8 and 9 are the levels in

185

which fewer errors are encountered; 1 out of 7 times in the former and 0.5 out of 7 times in the latter. Overall, the findings in this study support the hypothesis of the incremental nature of vocabulary acquisition posited by Schmitt (2010). In general, the studies reviewed above highlight the importance of the use of adverbs to achieve native-like performance in a second or foreign language. A common finding is the difference in adverb choice by native and non-native speakers, which contributes to hinder ‘nativelikeness’. In many cases, despite showing an optimal degree of grammatical accuracy, non-native speakers include in their written or oral production adverbs that would not be chosen by native speakers in the same context. This is linked to previous research that points in the direction that there is an extended lack of register awareness among EFL learners of various L1 backgrounds, which is evidenced by the high occurrence of adverbs typical of spoken communication in written production in the above-mentioned studies. Gilquin & Paquot (2008) offer a series of possible factors that influence the “spoken-like nature of learner writing” (Gilquin & Paquot 2008: 43): the influence of speech, transfer from the learner’s mother tongue, teaching-induced factors, and developmental factors. 2.2

A characterisation of adverbs in Chinese, Polish and Spanish

The three languages under scrutiny in this study present similarities in the formation, function and meaning of adverbs. The morphological processes whereby adverbs are formed in Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese, Polish and Spanish are similar in various respects, since the three languages admit two types of adverbs: those formed by adding derivational morphemes to already existing adjectives and those that are not derived from other words, i.e. simple, uninflected words that cannot be divided into smaller units. Regarding their function, adverbs in Chinese, Polish and Spanish can function either as modifiers (modifying another adverb, an adjective or other elements, as in He was obviously wrong) or as adverbials (functioning as a clause element on its own, as in Obviously, she had to move out to a new house after the fire). In the same way, adverbs in these three languages denote very similar semantic categories, including time, place, frequency, manner or degree, among many others. A brief semantic, syntactic and morphological characterisation of Chinese, Polish and Spanish adverbs is presented next. The description of Chinese adverbs covers briefly the characteristics of this word class in the two “dialects” spoken by the contributors to the ICCI corpus: Mandarin, spoken by the participants from Singapore and Taiwan, and Cantonese, spoken by contributors from Hong Kong. From a morphological perspective, being an isolating language, Mandarin is characterized by the limited use

186

of derivational suffixes to form adverbs from other words (Li & Thomson 1981). Suffixation is restricted to manner adverbs derived from adjectives by adding the suffix -de with or without reduplication of the adjective, as in kuài (“quick”) > kuàikuài-de (“quickly”) and zhènding (“calm”) > zhènding-de (“calmly”). In the case of Cantonese, most of the adverbs that have an equivalent in Mandarin are monosyllabic or disyllabic, whereas trisyllabic and polysyllabic adverbs are Cantonesespecific (Wong 2002). Apart from derived adverbs, there exists a large group of adverbs which are not derived from other words, such as jìng (“unexpectedly”) or yòu (“again”) (Po-Ching & Rimmington 2004). From a syntactic perspective, adverbs in Cantonese and Mandarin serve as modifier, when they operate at phrase level, and as adverbial, when they operate at clause level. The most salient difference between Chinese adverbs and adverbs in other languages is the fact that, in some cases, they can act as modifiers of noun phrases, and not only as modifiers of adjective and verb phrases, as is often the case in other languages. A different classification of Mandarin adverbs according to their position is presented in Li & Thomson (1981: 320), who distinguish between movable adverbs, which modify the entire sentence (time and attitude adverbs); non-movable adverbs, which occur only after the topic or subject (manner and non-manner adverbs); and post-verbal adverbials, which are placed after the verb to indicate frequency or duration. The semantic classification of adverbs in Cantonese and Mandarin bears a strong resemblance to that of English and other languages. Thus, the notions most often denoted by this word class include: time, frequency, scope, degree, mood or tone, spirit or manner, affirmation and negation (Bingyong & Felley 1990). Other classifications (Li & Meizhen 2008) include categories such as time, degree, scope, repetition, negation, estimation, tone, and inquiry. The characterisation of adverbs in Polish does not differ significantly from that of other languages. Morphologically, Polish adverbs can be divided into primary adverbs (non-adjectival or not derived from other words, e.g. teraz (“now”) and adjectival adverbs formed by affixation (Swan 2002). Suffixation is a very productive mechanism for the formation of adverbs in Polish, being the morphemes -o and -‘e (equivalent to -ly in English) the most widely used, as in ładnie (“prettily”), derived from the adjective ładny. From a syntactic perspective, adverbs function either as adverbials or as modifiers of verbs, adjectives or other adverbs. As in other languages, adverbs in Polish convey meanings related to time, place, degree, manner, frequency or modification, as illustrated by the classification offered by Bielec (1998). A very similar picture is found in the case of Spanish regarding the process of formation of adverbs, as well as their syntactic function and their meaning. The Real Academia Española (RAE), the official body that regulates the use the

187

Spanish language in Spain and Latin America, distinguishes two types of adverbs depending on their morphological configuration. The Spanish equivalent for the English suffix -ly is -mente, which is very frequently added to adjectives to form new adverbs, as in rápido (“quick”) > rápidamente (“quickly”). There are also simple adverbs not derived from other words such as siempre (“always”) or lejos (“far”). According to their syntactic role, Spanish adverbs are divided into argumentative (obligatory in most cases), attributive (those functioning as subject predicative or object predicative) and adjuncts (modifiers that can be omitted). The latter category can be further subdivided into nuclear or central adjuncts, which occur within the long verb phrase, and peripheral adjuncts, occurring outside it. The same body of experts offers a semantic classification of adverbs into degree, place, time, manner, affirmation, negation, doubt or aspect (Real Academia Española 2009). According to their syntactic role, Spanish adverbs are divided into argumentative (obligatory in most cases), attributive (those functioning as subject predicative or object predicative) and adjuncts (modifiers that can be omitted). The latter category can be further subdivided into nuclear or central adjuncts, which occur within the long verb phrase, and peripheral adjuncts, occurring outside it. 3. Method In the following paragraphs we will describe the data and the subjects that took part in our research as well as the rationale behind our paper. Our research explores three sub-sets of the ICCI (Tono 2012), specifically the Chinese, the Polish and the Spanish ICCI components. Over 7,000 students in grades 3 to 12 produced the ICCI texts in 2009 and 2010, and the entire corpus is made up of 844,400 running words. As pointed by Tono (2012: 28), given the peculiarities of primary education and the emphasis on oral communication in the early school years in general, more “data were collected from the sixth year onward”. The texts were originally handwritten within twenty minutes in class, and were then scanned and transcribed to machine-readable texts (Hong 2012). The thematic areas covered were argumentative and descriptive essays over a dozen of topics. The writing tasks were assigned as in-class timed essays and students were not allowed to prepare in advance or use dictionaries or other resources. For the purpose of this research, we decided to study the non-elicited uses of general adverbs in two of the writing tasks in the ICCI. In the “food” topic learners had to answer the following question: Which is your favourite food? Why? In the “money” topic, learners had to write about the following: Imagine you win the

188

lottery. What do you choose to do with the money? In the entire ICCI, over 2,000 essays were collected for the “food” and “money” topics. The Chinese ICCI component was contributed by 951 students that produced 95,058 tokens; the Polish ICCI component by 751 students that produced 65,556 tokens; finally, the Spanish ICCI component was contributed by 654 students that produced 49,174 tokens. The Chinese wrote 99.9 words per essay, the Polish students 87.2 words per essay, whereas the Spanish students wrote a mean of 75.1 words. The “food” and the “money” argumentative topics were the most popular among the contributors. Overall, 334,914 tokens were contributed by the students that chose the “food” essay, whereas 288,600 tokens were contributed by those writing on the “money” topic. In total, 20,859 tokens were labelled as general adverbs (the RR tag in the CLAWS 7 tag list) in the whole ICCI. Our interest within the boundaries of the present paper is confined then to the occurrence of general adverbs excluding the rest of adverbs except for so and too that were tagged as RR. The most frequent general adverbs in the entire ICCI are, in descending order of frequency, usually (1,815 occurrences), so (1,733 occurrences), also (1,382 occurrences), always (1,243 occurrences), too (1,044 occurrences), really (807 occurrences), only (656 occurrences), often (594 occurrences), just (557 occurrences) and maybe (450 occurrences). There are 359 hapax legomena, that is, words (or adverbs, in this case) that only occur once in the entire corpus, while there are 78 dis legomena, that is, words that occur twice in the corpus. The amount of the former can be explained as it was decided to retain the original spelling of every single word written by the students that completed the writing tasks in the corpus. Thus, *persanally occurs once, and so does *actully. On the contrary, other general adverbs that were correctly spelt, and only used once, include significantly, strictly or effectively. For the purposes of this study, we will examine the GAs produced by 616 learners from grade 5 to grade 10 and therefore analyse the total of GAs used by every single learner in the three sub-corpora. This is the ‘RR All’ variable in our study. We will similarly look at the totals of a set of the most frequently used GAs in every sub-corpus per grade and topic. After a first analysis of the corpora, this particular set of GAs was composed of nine adverbs: also, always, finally, just, never, often, once, really and too. This is the ‘RR 9’ variable in our study. For the sake of comparability, we will focus our attention on grades 5 and 6, on the one hand, and grades 9 and 10, on the other. The reason to exclude grades 7 and 8 from this inter-group contrast lies in the fact that in the Spanish sub-component, no essays were written for the “food” topic in these groups. Every single GA was evaluated by the researchers in order to make sure that tagging was correct. Thus, to provide an example, we discarded instances of once as GA when the writers, especially in the “money” topic, meant a charity bearing the same name in Spain.

189

4. Results In the following paragraphs, we will offer an account of the GAs found in every sub-corpus per topic and grade. Instances of these GAs are provided in italics and, whenever they are misspelt by the learners, we will keep the original written form preceded by an *. The normalized frequencies in Figure 1 show a tendency for learners to use more GAs across grades. Normalized frequency RR All/1,000 words 30 25

CH

20 15

PL

10

SP

5 0 G5

G6

G9

G10

Figure 1. Normalized frequencies of GAs (RR All) per 1,000 words

While the frequency increase is not linear in the case of the Spanish informants, Polish and Chinese young writers use more GAs as they progress through Secondary Education.1 Let us examine these differences across topics and grades in all three data sets. 4.1

The Chinese sub-component

In grade 6, we found 30 GAs in the “food” topic: too occurred 7 times used by 4 different writers, 3 occurrences of usually and often written by different subjects each; 2 occurrences of a bit, also and so and one occurrence of, among others, once, commonly, easily, *solorely, and almost. In grade 9, 95 occurrences of GAs were found in the “food” topic: so was found 20 times, also 16, usually 10, always and only 7, too 6, (long) ago and often 4, really, much, maybe and never 3, sweetly, finally and still 2, while some other GAs were found only once. In the “money” topic, 190 occurrences of GAs were found: so was found 22 times, maybe 17, also

1. Please note that we have no data from Chinese students in grade 5.

190

15, really 10, at last and still 9, finally 8, always, never, often and too 6, only, at first, so on, perhaps and already 5. In grade 10, 87 occurrences of GAs were found in the “food” topic: also was found 15 times, only 6, always 5, finally 4 and, among others, suddenly 1. In the “money” topic also was found 10 times, always 8, only 7, thirdly 2 and, among others, quickly 1. Table 1 shows the normalized frequencies per 1,000 words. Table 1. Normalized frequency of GAs per 1,000 words across grades and essay topics in the Chinese ICCI sub-component “food” topic grade 6 (11-year olds) grade 9 (14-year olds) grade 10 (15-year olds)

8.74 23.08 30.06

“money” topic − 20.93 23.69

Combined 8.74 22 26.88

There was a statistically significant difference between grade 6 and grades 9 and 10 as determined by one-way ANOVA (F = 38.9, p = .000) and the Games-Howell post-hoc test for both the total number of GAs (RR All) and the most frequently used GAs in the ICCI (RR 9) (F = 13.1, p = .000) in the “food” topic. No statistically significant difference was found between grades 9 and 10 for RR All and RR 9 in the “money” topic. 4.2

The Polish sub-component

In grade 5, 4 occurrences of a GAs were found for the “food” topic, never appeared twice, while good and usually occurred once; in the “money” topic, just occurred once. In grade 6, we found 29 GAs in the “food” topic: too occurred 10 times used by 8 different writers; often 7 times and always 5 times. In the “money” topic, we found 10 GAs, too occurred 3 times, while the rest of adverbs, including still or really, occurred once. In grade 9, 26 occurrences of GAs were found in the “food” topic: always was found 6 times, usually 5, often 3, while also, maybe and really occurred twice. 5 occurrences of GAs were found in the “money” essays: also, finally, just, still and really all occurred once. In grade 10, 26 occurrences of GAs were found in the “food” topic: often was found 10 times, always 6, *realy 5, ever, usually and also 4 times each. In the “money” topic, we only found 95 occurrences of GAs: really was found 12 times used three times by three writers each, also was found 10 times, maybe 9 times, so and too 6 times, always, all, and never 5 times, while probably and just were recorded 4 times. If we normalize these frequencies per 1,000 words, we find the following:

191

Table 2. Normalized frequency of GAs per 1,000 words across grades and essay topics in the Polish ICCI sub-component “food” topic grade 5 (10-year olds) grade 6 (11-year olds) grade 9 (14-year olds) grade 10 (15-year olds)

1.78 13.02 14.38 19.87

“money” topic 16.95 5.44 8.40 27.38

Combined 9.36 9.23 11.39 23.62

There was a statistically significant difference between grade 5 and Grades 9 and 10 groups and between grade 6 and grade 10 groups as determined by one-way ANOVA (F = 15.2, p = .000) and the Games-Howell post-hoc test for the total number of GAs (RR All) in the “food” topic. In a similar way, there was a statistically significant difference between grade 5 and grades 6, 9 and 10 groups as determined by one-way ANOVA (F = 11.1, p = .000) and the Games-Howell posthoc test for the most frequently used GAs in the ICCI (RR 9) in the “food” topic. There was a statistically significant difference between grade 5 and 10, grade 6 and 10 and grade 9 and 10 groups as determined by one-way ANOVA (F = 11.6, p = .000) and the Games-Howell post-hoc test for the total number of GAs (RR All) in the “money” topic. In a similar way, there was a statistically significant difference between grade 5 and 10 and grade 6 and 10 groups as determined by one-way ANOVA (F = 9.6, p = .000) and the Games-Howell post-hoc test for the most frequently used GAs in the ICCI (RR 9) in the “money” topic. 4.3

The Spanish sub-component

In grade 5, only one occurrence of a GA was found for the “food” topic, just, and another for the “money” topic: also. In grade 6, we find 4 GAs: also occurred 4 times used by 4 different writers in the “food” topic. Two occurrences of too were found in the “money” topic, both written by the same learner. In grade 9, 7 occurrences of GAs were found: too was found 4 times used by 4 different kids, while in general, never and twice were found once each. 34 occurrences of GAs were found in the “money” essays: finally occurred 7 times used by 7 different students, too 6, all of them contributed by different kids, always 4, one writer used it twice, all, only, also and well, used twice, while so, last, never, much, usually, of course, forever, even and maybe occurred once. In grade 10, 39 occurrences of GAs were found in the “food” topic: once was found 10 times, usually 6, too 6, twice 4, always 2, seldom 2, whereas normally, typically, yet, ever, fast, finally, well, hardly and slowly all occurred once. However, in the “money” topic, we only found 7 occurrences of GAs in grade 10: also was found 4 times, and well, much and too were found once. Pérez-Paredes, P. and Sánchez Tornel, M. (2014). Adverb use and language proficiency in young learners’ writing. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 19,2, 178-200.

192

Pérez-Paredes, P. and Sánchez Tornel, M. (2014). Adverb use and language proficiency in young learners’ writing. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 19,2, 178-200.

If we normalize these frequencies per 1,000 words, we find the following: Table 3. Normalized frequency of GAs per 1,000 words across grades and essay topics in the Spanish sub-component grade 5 (10-year olds) grade 6 (11-year olds) grade 9 (14-year olds) grade 10 (15-year olds)

“food” topic

“money” topic

6.06 10.61 10.37 25.98

7.09 11.11 6.51 6.17

Combined 6.57 10.86 8.43 16.07

There was a statistically significant difference between grade 10 and grades 6 and 9 groups as determined by one-way ANOVA (F = 8.02, p = .001) and the GamesHowell post-hoc test for the total number of GAs (RR All) in the “food” topic. In a similar way, there was a statistically significant difference between grade 10 and grades 6 and 9 groups as determined by one-way ANOVA (F = 6.8, p = .002) and the Games-Howell post-hoc test for the most frequently used GAs in the ICCI (RR 9) in the “food” topic. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups as determined by one-way ANOVA (F = 0.6, p = .85) for the total number of GAs (RR All) or for the most frequently used GAs in the ICCI (RR 9) (F = 0.2, p = .81) in the “money” topic. 4.4 Inter-group differences There was a statistically significant difference between Spanish 9-graders and their Polish and Chinese peers as determined by one-way ANOVA (F = 87.1, p = .000) and the Games-Howell post-hoc test for the total number of GAs (RR All). Similarly, there was a statistically significant difference between Spanish 9-graders and their Polish and Chinese peers as determined by one-way ANOVA (F = 20.6, p = .000) and the Games-Howell post-hoc test for the most frequently used GAs in the ICCI (RR 9). There was a statistically significant difference between Spanish 10-graders and their Polish and Chinese peers as determined by one-way ANOVA (F = 18.1, p = .000) and the Games-Howell post-hoc test for the total number of GAs (RR All). In a similar way, there was a statistically significant difference between Spanish10-graders and their Polish and Chinese peers as determined by one-way ANOVA (F = 7.5, p = .001) and the Games-Howell post-hoc test for the most frequently used GAs in the ICCI (RR 9).

193

5. Discussion Our research examines the non-elicited use of learners’ general adverbs across some of the ages and grades represented in the ICCI, one of the few resources available to understand learner language as used in the early stages of schoolbased formal learning. In particular, our interest lies in documenting whether GAs are more widely used by learners as their age increases. Our primary motivation is then to explore Schmitt’s (2010) claims that there is a link between increased communicative competence and the use of adverbs in the context of very young learners of English in different educational and cultural settings, an underexplored area in learner language research. To do this, we have used data from the Chinese, the Polish and the Spanish sub-components in the ICCI, in particular, those from the “food” and “money” topics. Let us discuss our research questions. 5.1

Research question (i)

The first research question aimed to discover whether general adverbs are significantly more widely used as the age of learners increases and, if so, whether it is possible to identify cut-off points where learners significantly use general adverbs more frequently. In general terms we can state that GAs are more widely used as age increases. This is clearly seen in the case of Chinese learners, where the normalized frequencies increase every year. Statistically significant differences were systematically found, between grades 6 and 10 across the two topics and national groups in terms of the total number of GAs (RR All) and the most frequently used GAs across the sub-corpora (RR 9) used by the learners except for the Spanish learners that completed the “money” topic. In the case of Polish and Spanish learners, we can see how there is an upward progression when one looks at the frequencies of GAs in grades 5 and 10. However, the path is not incremental as in the case of the Chinese learners. The Polish in the “money” topic group in grade 6 offer a very low frequency of use (5.4 GAs/1,000 words). Possibly the small number of informants in grade 5 may distort the whole picture, especially when we contrast the “food” topic normalized mean in grade 5 (1.7 GAs/1,000 words) against that in grade 6 for the same topic (13.02 GAs/1,000 words). In the case of the Spanish informants the situation is different. While it is true that the number of essays is small, it cannot be denied that the number of essays in grade 9, 22 in the “food” topic and 95 in the “money” topic, should be enough to offer evidence on our research topic. Notwithstanding this, the normalized mean of GAs decreases from grade 6 to that in grade 9 in both topics. Most of the adverbs in this grade were finally, too and always. Our results suggest that, for

Pérez-Paredes, P. and Sánchez Tornel, M. (2014). Adverb use and language proficiency

194


this group of learners at least, the money topic elicited a lower frequency of adverb use. This is corroborated by the absence of statistically significant differences among the grades in the Spanish corpus for the “money” topic. In the “food” topic, however, Spanish 10-graders showed a much higher normalized frequency mean of GAs: 25.98/1,000 words, similar to that of Chinese learners (30.06) and much higher than that of Polish learners in the same topic (19.87). In the Polish sub-component significant differences were found between grades 5 and 6 with grade 10, and between grade 5 and 9 in the “food” topic for RR All, and between grade 5 and grades 6, 9 and 10 for RR 9 in the same topic. As for the “money” topic, Polish writers showed significantly different performance in RR All between grades 5, 6 and 9 and grade 10. If we look at RR 9, these statistically significant differences are only found between grades 5 and 6 and grade 10. However, these results should been analysed cautiously as other researchers (Johansson 2008) have reported no differences between 5 and 10-graders in terms of L1 lexical density and, in particular, lexical variety. Our results suggest that GAs may behave in a different way as other lexical words and, consequently, at least in terms of frequency of use, there is evidence that non-elicited use of GAs increases along with age. The problematic nature of adverb usage reported in the literature (Hsue-Hueh Shih 2000, Gilquin 2007, Gilquin et al. 2007) should thus be confined to areas other than lack of use. In a similar way, our results show that between 5/6 grades and 10 grade there is a development gap where young writers incorporate GAs into their discourse. Further analyses should look at how this incorporation manifests along the 6-year gap comprised in our study. For example, we have found in our data indication that this GA use is not only more frequent but also more sophisticated. In grade 6, uses of too, the most frequent GA, are often linked to expressing likes in connection with food, as in Examples (1) and (2): (1) rice is my favourite food too

[icci_chn0026]

(2) Because I like seed, too, eating bread is

[icci_chn0048]

In grade 10, however, the Chinese learners have become more sophisticated and offer a wider range of adverbs to express frequency, as in Example (3): (3) I eat vegetables nearly every day

[icci_chn0931]

degree in states and actions, such as in Example (4): (4) she really loves dumplings now

[icci_chn0915]

or to signal order in discourse, as in the case of Example (5): (5) Finally, I think rice is delicious

[icci_chn0930]

195

Our results suggest that Chinese learners, apart from showing higher frequencies of GA use, present an earlier cut-off point, in grade 9, in terms of the frequency of use of GAs. In the case of their Polish and Spanish fellow students it is not until grade 10 that significant differences with earlier stages of formal training appear. In other words, it takes three years for a Chinese student to significantly increase the frequency of use of GAs in both RR All and RR 9, while it takes four years for the Polish and Spanish to do the same. The exception is for Polish writers in the “food” topic and RR 9 where there is a significant difference between grade 5 and 6. As we lack evidence from Chinese 5-graders, we cannot approach this issue in earlier stages. Polish learners do show significant differences between grade 5 and 6, although the low frequency of GAs in grade 5 in the “food” topic (1.78 GAs/1,000 words) may play a major role here. The same can be said about the written production of Spanish learners, where the analysis yields a misleading mean of GA use of 6.06. This is due to the fact that only one occurrence of GA was found in this cross-section of the ICCI, which consists only of a few essays. Based on this evidence, we can conclude that in our data set Polish and Spanish 5-graders did not incorporate GAs as part of their linguistic repertoire in communicative situations that did not explicitly elicit the use of this part of speech. Unfortunately, the unavailability of essays for this grade in the Chinese sub-component makes it impossible to establish a comparison with these learners. Our data corroborate the findings of Jarvis et al. (2003) and Lu (2012) as GA use is statistically more frequent in grade 10 across all nationalities and the two topics. Comparisons with Hinkel (2002) or Chen (2006) are difficult to establish, as their informants are adult learners of English in university settings. Our research presents then new insight into the acquisition path of adverbs in EFL than can be further examined by researchers in the SLA field. 5.2

Research question (ii)

The second research question considered whether there are differences between speakers of different L1. Irrespective of their mother-tongue, 5-graders do not show evidence of GA use in their writing, possibly because the young learner is not equipped yet to display the range of subtleties that are associated with adverbs. McNally & Kennedy (2008: 2) state that notions “such as speaker-oriented adverbial modification arguably require a semantic or discourse model which makes some sort of reference to the speech act or dialogue move being made”; and later “manner adverbs have been classically treated as verb phrase modifiers and assigned a corresponding semantics (such as a property of events denotation), while so-called “speaker-oriented” adverbs like fortunately have been analyzed as

196

sentence modifiers that denote properties of propositions”(McNally & Kennedy 2008: 6). The evidence we found on 5- and 6-graders seems to corroborate that young learners at this age, 10–12, are unaware of the functions that adverbs can perform to denote events and/or propositions. The fact that no significant differences have been found for 6-graders across the three ICCI sub-components under scrutiny seems to corroborate the hypothesis that there is threshold age where an adverb-sensitive semantic or discourse model has not yet been built by learners this age. This hypothesis should be contrasted against spoken data to refine its main tenet. However, the situation is different for 9- and 10-graders. Significant differences were found for RR All and RR 9, where all three groups of informants behave significantly differently in terms of frequency of GA use. Polish writers make a more intensive use of GAs than the Chinese and the Spanish writers, who offer the lowest mean of GAs (16.07/1,000 words) of all three sub-components. The findings in Liu (2013) may account for the larger presence of GAs in Chinese learner language in the ICCI, although this would require further analysis and consideration. Along the same lines, Liu & Zhang (2012) report repetitive use of a very limited set of cohesive devices (then, also, because) in the three Chinese components of the ICCI. In our data, however, we found that RR All and RR 9 yielded similar results. As for the Polish components, a study by Leśniewska & Witalisz (2012) suggests that, at least for advanced Polish learners, differences between NS and NNS short narratives are mainly located within the boundaries of collocational lexical aspects rather than in the distribution and use of discrete items. As discussed earlier, all three L1s present important similarities with English in terms of morphology and semantic categorisation, which may account for the increasing presence of GAs in FL discourse. 5.3

Final remarks

Our results are in line with research by Pérez-Paredes & Díez-Bedmar (2012) that found 8 and 9 grades as cut-off points in terms of the use of intensifying adverbs, and Grant & Ginther (2000) that show that, as proficiency increases, so does adjective and adverb use of L2 writers even under timed, test conditions. In our data set, grade 10 sets a dividing line for most of the L1 groups and the two topics. The same could be said about grade 9, although this is not the case for both variables (RR All and RR 9) analysed in the case of the Polish corpus. Our findings apparently clash, however, with those of Levitzky-Aviad (2012) that reports lack of significant progress during school in the use of low-frequency words. Subsequently, further research should examine the status of adverbs in

197

contrast to other word categories, as a more detailed profile of learner language that includes such analysis might be instrumental in quantifying the total weight of word categories per grade. Our results seem to suggest that the limited lexical repertoire of learners (Paquot 2012) is connected with a lack of exposure to more sophisticated features of the L2 (Levitzky-Aviad 2012) and, as pointed in Pérez-Paredes & Díez-Bedmar’s (2012), with a lack of register awareness (Aguado et al. 2012, Paquot 2012) that is constructed along with our experience as language users. This study and that by Pérez-Paredes & Díez-Bedmar (2012) suggest that learners below grade 9 are more unlikely to use adverbs. However, further research will be needed in order to establish firm links between non-elicited uses of adverbs and age in SLA.

References Aguado-Jiménez, P., Pérez-Paredes, P. & Sánchez, P. 2012. “Exploring the use of multidimensional analysis of learner language to promote register awareness”. System, 40 (1), 90–103. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2012.01.008 Aitchison, J. 1987. Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Altenberg, B. & Tapper, M. 1998. “The use of adverbial connectors in advanced Swedish learners’ written English”. In S. Granger (Ed.), Learner English on Computer. London: Addison Wesley Longman, 80–93. Biber, D. 1988. Variation Across Speech and Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511621024 Bielec, D. 1998. Polish: An Essential Grammar. London: Routledge. Bingyong, Y. & Felley, M. 1990. Chinese Romanization: Pronunciation and Orthography. Beijing: Sinolingua. Chen, C. W. 2006. “The use of conjunctive adverbials in the academic papers of advanced Taiwanese EFL learners”. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 11 (1), 113–130. DOI: 10.1075/ijcl.11.1.05che Crystal, D. 1995. The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. de Haan, P. 1999. “English writing by Dutch speaking students”. In H. Hasselgard & S. Oksefjell (Eds.), Out of Corpora. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 203–212. Gilquin, G. 2007. “To err is not all. What corpus and elicitation can reveal about the use of collocations by learners”. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 55 (3), 273–291. Gilquin, G., Granger, S. & Paquot, M. 2007. “Learner corpora: The missing link in EAP pedagogy”. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 6 (4), 319–335. DOI: 10.1016/j.jeap. 2007.09.007 Gilquin, G. & Paquot, M. 2008. “Too chatty: Learner academic writing and register variation”. English Text Construction, 1 (1), 41–61. DOI: 10.1075/etc.1.1.05gil

198 l

Granger, S. 1998. “Prefabricated patterns in advanced EFL writing: Collocations and formulae”. In A. P. Cowie (Ed.), Phraseology: Theory, Analysis and Applications. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 145–160. Granger, S. & Rayson, P. 1998. “Automatic Profiling of Learner Texts”. In S. Granger (Ed.), Learner English on Computer. London: Addison Wesley Longman, 119–131. Grant, L. & Ginther, A. 2000. “Using computer-tagged linguistic features to describe L2 writing differences”. Journal of Second Language Writing, 9 (2), 123–145. DOI: 10.1016/S10603743(00)00019-9 Hinkel, E. 2002. Second Language Writers’ Text: Linguistic and Rhetorical Features. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Hinkel, E. 2003. “Adverbial markers and tone in L1 and L2 students’ writing”. Journal of Pragmatics, 35 (7), 1049–1068. DOI: 10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00133-9 Hong, H. 2012. “Compilation and exploration of ICCI corpus for learner language research”. In Y. Tono, Y. Kawaguchi & M. Minegishi (Eds.), Developmental and Crosslinguistic Perspectives in Learner Corpus Research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 47–62. Hsue-Hueh Shih, R. 2000. “Compiling Taiwanese Learner Corpus of English”. Computational Linguistics and Chinese Language Processing, (5) 2, 87–100. Jarvis, S., Grant, L., Bikowskia, D. & Ferris, D. 2003. “Exploring multiple profiles of highly rated learner compositions”. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12 (7), 377–403. DOI: 10.1016/j.jslw.2003.09.001 Johansson, S. 1978. Some Aspects of the Vocabulary of Learned and Scientific English. Goteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Johansson, S. 1985. “Word frequency and text type: Some observations based on the LOB corpus of British texts”. Computers and the Humanities, 19 (1), 23–36. DOI: 10.1007/BF02259615 Johansson, V. 2008. “Lexical diversity and lexical density in speech and writing: A developmental perspective”. Lund Working Papers in Linguistics, 61–79. Lawley, J. 2010. “Conspicuous by their absence: The infrequency of very frequent words in some English as a Foreign Language textbooks”. In C. Abello-Contesse, R. Chacón-Beltrán & M. Torreblanca López (Eds.), Insights into Non-native Vocabulary Teaching and Learning. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 145–156. Leśniewska, J. & Witalisz, E. 2012. “Native vs. non-native English: Data driven lexical analysis”. Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, 129, 127–137. Levitzky-Aviad, T. 2012. “Lexical richness and variation in the writing of school-age EFL learners at different learning stages and different educational systems”. In Y. Tono, Y. Kawaguchi & M. Minegishi (Eds.), Developmental and Crosslinguistic Perspectives in Learner Corpus Research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 159–168. Li, C. N. & Thomson, S. A. 1981. Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. B erkeley/ Los Angeles: California University Press. Li, D. & Meizhen, C. A. 2008. A Practical Chinese Grammar for Beginners. Beijin: Beijin Language and Culture University Press. Liu, G. 2013. “On the use of linking adverbials by Chinese college English learners”. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 4 (1), 149–155. Liu, Y. & Zhang, H. 2012. “Use and misuse of cohesive devices in the writings of EFL Chinese learners: A corpus-based study”. In Y. Tono, Y. Kawaguchi & M. Minegishi (Eds.), Developmental and Crosslinguistic Perspectives in Learner Corpus Research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 169–186.

199

Lorenz, G. 1999. Adjective Intensification – Learners vs. Native Speakers: A Corpus Study of Argumentative Writing. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Lu, X. 2012. “The relationship of lexical richness to the quality of ESL learners’ oral narratives”. The Modern Language Journal, 96 (2), 190–208. DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-4781.2011.01232_1.x McNally, L. & Kennedy, C. 2008. Adjectives and Adverbs: Syntax, Semantics, and Discourse. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Osborne, J. 2008. “Adverb placement in post-intermediate learner English: A contrastive study of learner corpora”. In G. Gilquin, Sz. Papp & M. B. Díez-Bedmar (Eds.), Linking up Contrastive and Learner Corpus Research. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 127–146. Paquot, M. 2012. “EFL writing in the disciplines: Insights from the VESPA learner corpus”. Paper presented at the 5th WU Symposium organized by the Department of Foreign Language Business Communication, 29th November, 2012. Vienna. Pavón, R. & Rubio, F. 2010. “Teachers’ concerns and uncertainties about the introduction of CLIL programmes”. Porta Linguarum, 14, 45–58. Pérez Basanta, C. 1996. “La integración de los contenidos léxicos en los métodos comunicativos: Una cuestión pendiente”. In L. Durán & P. Bertrán (Eds.), Segundas Jornadas Sobre Estudio y Enseñanza del Léxico. Granada: Método, 239–310. Pérez Basanta, C. 2005. “Assessing the receptive vocabulary of Spanish of English Philology: An empirical investigation”. In E. Martínez-Dueñas (Ed.), Towards an Understanding of the English Language, Past, Present and Future: Studies in Honour of Fernando Serrano. Granada: Universidad de Granada, 545–564. Pérez-Paredes, P. 2010. “The death of the adverb revisited: Attested uses in native and non- native comparable corpora of spoken English”. In M. Moreno Jaén, F. Serrano Valverde & M. Calzada Pérez (Eds.), Exploring New Paths in Language Pedagogy: Lexis and Corpusbased Language Teaching. London: Equinox Publishing, 157–172. Pérez-Paredes, P. & Díez-Bedmar, M. B. 2012. “The use of intensifying adverbs in learner writing”. In Y. Tono, Y. Kawaguchi & M. Minegishi (Eds.), Developmental and Crosslinguistic Perspectives in Learner Corpus Research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 105–123. Pérez-Paredes, P., Sánchez Hernández, P. & Aguado, P. 2011. “The use of adverbial hedges in EAP students’ oral performance: A cross-language analysis”. In V. Bhatia, P. Sánchez Hernández & P. Pérez-Paredes (Eds.), Researching Specialized Languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 95–114. DOI: 10.1075/scl.47 Philip, G. 2007. “Decomposition and delexicalisation in learners’ collocational (mis)behaviour”. In M. Davies, P. Rayson, S. Hunston & P. Danielsson (Eds.), Proceedings of Corpus Linguistics 2007. Birmingham: Birmingham University Press. Available at: http://ucrel. lancs.ac.uk/publications/cl2007/paper/170_Paper.pdf (accessed May 2013). Philip, G. 2008 “Adverb use in EFL student writing: From learner dictionary to text production”. In E. Bernal & J. De Cesaris (Eds.), Proceedings of the XIII Euralex International Congress. Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Institut Universitari de Lingüística Aplicada, 1301–1310. Po-Ching, Y. & Rimmington, D. 2004. Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar. London/New York: Routledge. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. & Svartvik, J. 1972. A Grammar of Contemporary English. London: Longman. Rankin, T. 2010. “Advanced learner corpus data and grammar teaching: Adverb placement”. In M. C. Campoy-Cubillo, B. Bellés-Fortuño & L. Gea-Valor (Eds.), Corpus Based Approaches to English Language Teaching. London: Continuum, 205–215.

200

Real Academia Española. Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española. 2009. Nueva Gramática de la Lengua Española. Madrid: Espasa Libros. Rodríguez Diéguez, A. 1987. “Lenguaje y medio”. Cuestiones Pedagógicas: Revista de Ciencias de la Educación, 4–5, 17–22. Available at: http://institucional.us.es/revistas/cuestiones/4_5/ art_2.pdf (accessed May 2013). Sánchez-Hernández, P. & Pérez-Paredes, P. 2005. “Examining English for Academic Purposes students’ vocabulary output: Corpus-aided analysis and learner corpora”. RESLA, 201–212. Schmitt, N. 2010. “Key issues in teaching and learning vocabulary”. In C. Abello-Contesse, R. Chacón-Beltrán & M. Torreblanca López (Eds.), Insights into Non-native Vocabulary Teaching and Learning. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 28–40. Swan, O. E. 2002. A Grammar of Contemporary Polish. Bloomington: Slavica Publishers Indiana University. Tono, Y. 2012. “International Corpus of Crosslinguistic Interlanguage: Project overview and a case study on the acquisition of new verb co-occurrence patterns”. In Y. Tono, Y. Kawaguchi & M. Minegishi (Eds.), Developmental and Crosslinguistic Perspectives in Learner Corpus Research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 27–46. DOI: 10.1075/tufs.4 Vilà, M. (Ed.). 2005. El Discurso Oral Formal. Contenidos de Aprendizaje y Secuencias Didácticas. Barcelona: Editorial Graó. Wong, L. Y. 2002. The Morphology, Syntax and Semantics of Adverbs in Cantonese. Unpublished master’s dissertation, The University of Hong Kong: Hong Kong. Available at: http://pubman.mpdl. mpg.de/pubman/item/escidoc:384391:10/component/escidoc:384389/cantonese_wong2002 _o.pdf (accessed May 2013).
