A Measure of Aggregate Syntactic Distance
We compare vectors containing counts of trigrams of part-of-speech (POS) tags in order to obtain an aggregate measure of syntax difference. Since lexical syntactic categories reflect more abstract syntax as well, we argue that this procedure reflects more than just the basic syntactic categories. We tag the material automatically and analyze the frequency vectors for POS trigrams using a permutation test. A test analysis of a 305,000 word corpus containing the English of Finnish emigrants to Australia is promising in that the procedure proposed works well in distinguishing two different groups (adult vs. child emigrants) and also in highlighting syntactic deviations between the two groups.
The Finnish-Australian English Corpus*
Australia has been one of the most important destinations for Finnish emigrants outside of Sweden, North America and Canada. Yet, apart from the scholarly work of Koivukangas (1972, 1975, 1986), and Hentula (1990) little systematic attention has been paid to this ethnic group within Australia’s shores. For instance, no published data seems to be available on the spoken English of this group of emigrants. In the Australian winter of 1994, I interviewed 135 Finnish Australians in order to compile a corpus of their spoken English. The following paper discusses previous corpus-based linguistic studies conducted in America on the spoken English of Finnish ethnic communities (Hirvonen 1982, 1988, 1992, 1993; Hirvonen and Lauttamus 1994; Lauttamus and Hirvonen 1995; Pietila 1989; Halmari 1993) before presenting a brief outline of the Finnish community in Australia. It then offers a description of the interview procedure employed during this project. Finally, I hypothesize on expected results, relating these hypotheses to current models and relatively recent scholarly work on the English of American Finns. 1. Previous linguistic studies of the spoken English of Finnish ethnic communities There have been other corpus-based studies of Finnish emigrants, but not of Finnish Australians. Most linguists, in particular Hirvonen, Pietila and Halmari have concentrated upon the English, and Finnish, of Finnish Americans. Hirvonen has compiled two separate corpora of the speech of Finnish Americans. Pietila (1983) did her initial work on the interlanguage of Finnish emigrants to America based upon Hirvonen’s earlier corpus and then compiled her own separate corpus for her later work (1989), where she paid particular attention to the social and psychological background factors which affect the English of older Finnish Americans. Halmari (1993) attempts to explain the constraints on intrasentential code-switching by applying the general syntactic principle of governmentICAME Journal No. 20
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, the European Language Portfolio, and language learning in higher education
Abstract This article explains the relevance of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and the European Language Portfolio (ELP) to language learning in higher education, especially as regards the definition of aims and learning outcomes and the promotion of students' capacity to manage their own learning. After providing some historical background, the article expounds the CEFR's action-oriented approach, explores it conceptualisation of progression in language learning and its implications for language teaching, and suggests how it can be applied to the design, implementation and assessment of language learning programmes in higher education. It then introduces the ELP, explains how it can be used in conjunction with the CEFR to support coherent programme delivery while promoting reflective learning and student autonomy, and concludes by considering the role of self-assessment in the university's assessment framework. The article ends with a cautionary tale.