For over thirty years, Learner Corpus Research (LCR) has increasingly contributed to applied linguistics, notably to Second Language Acquisition, Language Teaching and Learning, Language Testing and Assessment, as well as to other neighbouring fields. The advances in LCR have been marked by the Learner Corpus Association's biennial conferences, the sixth of which was held at the Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies, University of Padua in 2022. The fourteen chapters in this volume originate from a selection of papers presented at this conference and revolve around the following
thematic areas: corpus compilation and annotation; text cohesion in learner interlanguage; lexical and grammatical complexity in written and spoken learner language; classroom discourse and the pragmatics of student email writing. They not only address the challenges posed by recent advances in LCR, but they also highlight the opportunities afforded by learner corpora representing various L2s (i.e., Chinese, English, German, Italian, and Swedish) and by the use of cuttingedge investigative methods (e.g., CAF research, structural equation modelling). The present studies can be considered representative of the innovative approaches and methodological rigour which characterise LCR, and pave the way for further exploration and application of the results in the field.
List of Contributors 9
Introduction
Katherine ACKERLEY & Erik CASTELLO 11
Section 1. Compiling and annotating learner corpora
Design and collection of the Bimodal Italian Learner Corpus of L2 Chinese (BILCC)
Alessia IURATO 21
Assessing Inter- and Intra-Rater Reliability in Multi-Layer Annotations: A study on Tense and Aspect in learners of English as L3
Olga LOPOPOLO & Fabio ZANDA 55
Error identification, correction and tagging: Three inter-annotator agreement experiments in a picture-elicited learner corpus
Elisa DI NUOVO, Bianca Maria DE PAOLIS, Cristina BOSCO & Elisa CORINO 89
On the other side of the error tag: Predefined normalized texts as a basis for correction annotation
Lisa RUDEBECK & Gunlög SUNDBERG 123
Section 2. Exploring text cohesion in learner interlanguage
Changing patterns of linking adverbials in L2 university student writing
Joseph J. LEE & Robert BERN 155
Development of causal connectives in Italian L1 and L2 student writing: A comparison of argumentative texts from lower and upper secondary school
Arianna BIENATI & Jennifer-Carmen FREY 179
The use of connectives in L2 German writing by L1 Dutch students: A learner corpus study
Helena WEDIG, Carola STROBL, Jim UREEL & Tanja MORTELMANS 213
The use of linking adverbials in spoken argumentative monologues of Indonesian EFL learners
Nida DUSTURIA & Marcus CALLIES 245
Section 3. Exploring syntactic and lexical complexity in written and spoken learner language
Task effects on phraseological complexity in learners' written and oral production
Stefania SPINA 265
Tracing lexical complexity across L2 Italian proficiency levels: The role of diversity, density and sophistication
Luciana FORTI, Irene FIORAVANTI & Fabio ZANDA 293
Writing style in a second language: Exploring individual differences in linguistic complexity in a large-scale corpus
Elizabeth BEAR, Xiaobin CHEN & Detmar MEURERS 325
Multidimensional analysis of linguistic development in L2 learner writing in an intensive English programme in a US university
Sangeun KIM 359
Section 4. Investigating discourse and pragmatic features of learner language
Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) in online EFL learner discussions: A mixed methods analysis of a micro-corpus
Sharon HARTLE, Giorgia ANDREOLLI & Emanuela TENCA 395
Students’ pragmatic proficiency in written interaction: Spontaneous and elicited email requests to faculty in L1 Italian and L2 English
Sara GESUATO & Elisabetta PAVAN 439