Gaetanelle Gilquin
Université catholique de Louvain

Gaetanelle Gilquin

Université catholique de Louvain
Belgium

Experimental methodologies and corpus linguistics in language learning research

No single methodology can provide a full picture of what language learning looks like. In this presentation, I will argue for the combination of experimental methodologies and corpus linguistics in language learning research. I will show how this combination makes it possible to take advantage of the strengths of each approach while compensating for their weaknesses. I will also highlight the challenges involved in combining experimental methodologies and corpus linguistics and will provide some suggestions as to how these challenges can be overcome.

The talk will be illustrated with case studies relying on different experimental methodologies and corpus linguistic techniques. One case study will centre around language learners’ knowledge of collocations with make. The results of fill-in-the-blank exercises and acceptability judgments will be compared with an error analysis and a collostructional analysis of the corpus data. The role of L1 influence will be investigated in both types of data.

The other case study will deal with language learners’ writing processes. It will be based on textual data combined with keylogging, eye-tracking and stimulated recall. The contribution of each type of data will be examined and it will be shown how the tools and techniques of corpus linguistics can help with the analysis. Some findings will be presented, including findings from data produced by language learners with dyslexia.

Biography

Gaëtanelle Gilquin is professor of English language and linguistics at the University of Louvain, Belgium, and co-director of the Centre for English Corpus Linguistics. She is the coordinator of several corpus projects, including the Process Corpus of English in Education (PROCEED), which reproduces the written product (through text files) and the writing process (through screencasting and keylogging). She has co-edited the Cambridge Handbook of Learner Corpus Research and is a founding member of the Learner Corpus Association.