Randi Reppen’s research while affiliated with Northern Arizona University and other places

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Publications (13)


Monograph Series Representing Language Use in the University: Analysis of the TOEFL 2000 Spoken and Written Academic Language Corpus
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  • Full-text available

January 2004

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8,524 Reads

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132 Citations

Douglas Biber

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Randi Reppen

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[...]

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Alfredo Urzua
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Developing linguistic literacy: perspectives from corpus linguistics and multi-dimensional analysis

June 2002

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59 Reads

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15 Citations

Journal of Child Language

In their conceptual framework for linguistic literacy development, Ravid & Tolchinsky synthesize research studies from several perspectives. One of these is corpus-based research, which has been used for several large-scale research studies of spoken and written registers over the past 20 years. In this approach, a large, principled collection of natural texts (a ‘corpus’) is analysed using computational and interactive techniques, to identify the salient linguistic characteristics of each register or text variety. Three characteristics of corpus-based analysis are particularly important (see Biber, Conrad & Reppen 1998): [bull ] a special concern for the representativeness of the text sample being analysed, and for the generalizability of findings; [bull ] overt recognition of the interactions among linguistic features: the ways in which features co-occur and alternate; [bull ] a focus on register as the most important parameter of linguistic variation: strong patterns of use in one register often represent only weak patterns in other registers.


What does frequency have to do with grammar teaching?

June 2002

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1,054 Reads

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168 Citations

Studies in Second Language Acquisition

Using frequency findings from corpus linguistics, this paper explores the relationship between the information presented in ESL-EFL materials and what is known about actual language use based on empirical studies. Three aspects of materials development for grammar instruction are discussed: the grammatical features to be included, the order of grammatical topics, and the vocabulary used to illustrate these topics. For each aspect, we show that there are often sharp contrasts between the information found in grammar materials and what learners encounter in the real world of language use. In our conclusion, we argue that a selective revision of pedagogy to reflect actual use, as shown by frequency studies, could result in radical changes that facilitate the learning process for students.


Speaking and Writing in the University: A Multidimensional Comparison

March 2002

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532 Reads

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302 Citations

TESOL Quarterly

The dozens of studies on academic discourse carried out over the past 20 years have mostly focused on written academic prose (usually the technical research article in science or medicine) or on academic lectures. Other registers that may be more important for students adjusting to university life, such as textbooks, have received surprisingly little attention, and spoken registers such as study groups or on-campus service encounters have been virtually ignored. To explain more fully the nature of the tasks that incoming international students encounter, this article undertakes a comprehensive linguistic description of the range of spoken and written registers at U.S. universities. Specifically, the article describes a multidimensional analysis of register variation in the TOEFL 2000 Spoken and Written Academic Language Corpus. The analysis shows that spoken registers are fundamentally different from written ones in university contexts, regardless of purpose. Some of the register characterizations are particularly surprising. For example, classroom teaching was similar to the conversational registers in many respects, and departmental brochures and Web pages were as informationally dense as textbooks. The article discusses the implications of these findings for pedagogy and future research.



Corpus Linguistics: Investigating Language Structure and Use

April 1998

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62 Reads

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814 Citations

This book is about investigating the way people use language in speech and writing. It introduces the corpus-based approach to linguistics, based on analysis of large databases of real language examples stored on computer. Each chapter focuses on a different area of linguistics, including lexicography, grammar, discourse, register variation, language acquisition, and historical linguistics. Example analyses are presented in each chapter to provide concrete descriptions of the research methods and advantages of corpus-based techniques. Ten methodology boxes provide clear and concise explanations of the issues in doing corpus-based research and reading corpus-based studies and there is a useful appendix of resources for corpus-based investigation. This lucid and comprehensive introduction to the subject will be welcomed by a broad range of readers, from undergraduate students to professional researchers.



Citations (13)


... In the past years, online corpora have become increasingly accessible to a broader audience of scholars and linguists (Biber et al., 1998). Corpus linguistics continues to help explore and redefine theories of language that were difficult to grasp before the creation of corpora. ...

Reference:

Corpus Applications in ELT in Colombia: An Exploratory Survey
Corpus Linguistics: Investigating Language Structure and Use
  • Citing Book
  • April 1998

... Since this group of texts is identified by external constraints such as their social purpose, situational characteristics 3 and institutional location as described above, rather than by a set of internal constraints such as linguistic features, it is possible, and perhaps even likely, that such a group of texts would show internal linguistic variation (Biber, 1988(Biber, , 1993and Biber et al., 2003). Individual texts may then be grouped together into sub-groups, or profiles, based on this use of linguistic features to better understand such internal variation. ...

Comments on Douglas Biber, Susan Conrad, Randi Reppen, Pat Byrd, and Marie Helt's "speaking and writing in the university: A multidimensional comparison" - The authors respond: Strenghts and goals of multidimensional analysis
  • Citing Article
  • March 2003

TESOL Quarterly

... Añadido a esto, y gracias a los avances tecnológicos, actualmente se consideran los corpus como colecciones de textos que, además de representar el lenguaje real, han sido procesadas por computadores de manera sistemática (Levchenko, 2017), siguiendo un conjunto de criterios preestablecidos (Reynolds, 2015). El uso de los corpus ha contribuido, entre otras áreas de la lingüística, a la lexicografía y gramática descriptiva, por ejemplo, al brindar ejemplos de usos frecuentes de muchos individuos (Biber, Reppen, Clark y Walter, 2001;Burgess y Cargill, 2013), permitiendo una descripción mejorada del lenguaje a través de la observación sistemática de su uso real (Sánchez, 2016). En relación con la enseñanza de la producción escrita, el corpus se usa para dar acceso a los individuos a la práctica de escritura real de miembros de una comunidad, lo que permite también evidenciar lo que es aceptable y comúnmente usado en un contexto particular (Burgess y Cargill, 2013). ...

Representing Spoken Language in University.Settings: The Design and Construction of the Spoken Component of the T2K-SWAL Corpus
  • Citing Article
  • January 2001

... Regarding newspaper corpora, Gabrielatos (2007) offers practical guidance on how texts can be systematically collected by pre-determining query terms, searching for articles in a text archive (such as LexisNexis or Factiva) and then downloading them. Typically, and following recommendations by Egbert and Schnur (2018) and Biber (2021) to treat the text as the main unit of analysis, this means that we construct the corpus article by article, saving one newspaper article per txt file. But even after collecting the raw texts, preparing the data for corpus analysis is another matter altogether. ...

Corpus Linguistics Texts
  • Citing Article
  • October 2003

TESOL Quarterly

... Domain definition, which is more relevant to this study, concerns the documentation of communicative demands and linguistic features in a specific target context. Over the years, many corpora have been created which constitute a useful resource for test developers in understanding language use in specific contexts (e.g., Biber et al., 2004). For listening assessment, however, existing corpus-based studies that have investigated temporal fluency measures (e.g., speech rate) of authentic spoken texts are limited. ...

Monograph Series Representing Language Use in the University: Analysis of the TOEFL 2000 Spoken and Written Academic Language Corpus

... Insights from this study could prove valuable for political analysts, linguists, and historians, as well as for current political leaders seeking to refine their rhetorical strategies to resonate effectively with diverse audiences. Biber et al. (2002) conducted an extensive analysis on the linguistic tasks encountered by international students, examining the TOEFL 2000 Spoken and Written Academic Language Corpus to compare spoken and written registers in U.S. university settings. The study revealed notable distinctions, such as classroom teaching resembling conversational language, while institutional brochures demonstrated similar informational density to textbooks, underscoring the differing demands across academic contexts. ...

Speaking and Writing in the University: A Multidimensional Comparison
  • Citing Article
  • March 2002

TESOL Quarterly

... The findings of the present corpus-based analysis can be utilized as the direction to provide suggestions on English language teaching as Conrad et al. (2003) recommended corpus-based studies might throw light on basic conventions of the grammar of English and, consequently, provide the chance of proper and effective pedagogical application.The study also suggests thatthere is a need to conduct corpus-based studies on Pakistani English writers across various discipline by constructing more lengthy corpora to study other linguistic features along with the conjunctive cohesion. ...

The Authors Respond: Strengths and Goals of Multidimensional Analysis
  • Citing Article
  • March 2003

TESOL Quarterly

... Umumnya, kajian analisis korpus sebagai suatu teknik alternatif pengajaran dan pembelajaran tatabahasa dijalankan dengan berlandaskan pendekatan linguistik korpus. Linguistik korpus adalah suatu kaedah penganalisisan linguistik yang menggunakan data dari bahan-bahan bahasa yang terkumpul dalam suatu sumber yang disebut korpus atau korpora (bank bahasa) (Biber, Conrad & Reppen, 1996;Charteris-Black, 2004;Hanks, 2009;Leech, 2011;McEnery, Xiao & Tono, 2006;Sinclair, 1991). Menurut McEnery dan Wilson (2001), bahan-bahan tersebut berasal dari penggunaan bahasa dalam pelbagai genre, ragam, dan bahan lisan mahupun tertulis yang boleh dianggap menggambarkan fenomena sebenar penggunaan bahasa oleh pengguna bahasa. ...

Corpus-Based Investigations of Language Use
  • Citing Article
  • March 1996

Annual Review of Applied Linguistics

... The application of Corpus-based approaches allows researchers to analyse and identify complex association patterns: the systematic ways where linguistic features are used together with other linguistic and non-linguistic features (Biber et al., 1998). Such known approaches are also applicable to educational linguistics, which can come in handy in planning successful materials and activities for classroom and workplace training, therefore students are able to familiarize with the language that is used in varied target settings and locations. ...

Corpus Linguistics: Investigating Language Structure and Use
  • Citing Article
  • January 1998

TESOL Quarterly

... As Nelson (2010) states, to have a real corpus, there are certain steps and procedures to follow. Here we should be very careful as the corpus is not simply a collection of the texts (Biber & Reppen, 1998). So, in order to have a real corpus and not a mere compilation of texts, an explicit and distinct strategy needs to be created long before anything else can be done. ...

Comparing Native and Learner Perspectives on English Grammar:A Study of Complement Clauses
  • Citing Article
  • January 1998