Multi-Word Verbs in Prerecorded Instructor Speech: A Corpus-Informed Study
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Date
2018-10-15Author
Theyerl, Tyler
Advisor(s)
Margolis, Douglas
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Show full item recordAbstract
Advances in corpus linguistics have contributed greatly to second language (L2) research and
teaching. For example, evidence of high-frequency vocabulary in authentic language has been
particularly useful for identifying important, general English vocabulary and words distinctive to
academia. However, most academic corpora investigations use written texts and broad-based
approaches, overlooking differences between written and spoken language and localized
vocabulary patterns. This study examines spoken academic language in a university context by
addressing a vocabulary category often associated with conversation, multi-word verbs. This
examination was completed by compiling a localized, spoken academic English corpus, the
Falcon Instructor Speech Corpus (FISC), containing 52,725 words from 15 different instructors
at a university in the United States. Four research questions drove the investigation: (1) Which of
the multi-word verbs identified in the local corpus occur most frequently? (2) How do the most
frequent multi-word verbs in the local corpus compare to phrasal verb frequency lists from large
English corpora? (3) What proportion of the local corpus is comprised of multi-word verbs? (4)
Does multi-word verb use differ between general academic contexts and ESL contexts in the
local corpus? Relevant literature on corpora and the importance of vocabulary, listening, and
multi-word verbs for university English language learners (ELLs) are surveyed. Next,
transcription, corpus compiling, and data gathering methods are outlined. Results suggest 68
multi-word verbs salient for ELLs at the university and provide evidence that at least 3% of
words in the corpus are part of multi-word verbs. The data also shows multi-word verbs were
used twice as often in general academic contexts than in ESL contexts, and that a recent,
pedagogical phrasal verb list created from large corpora analyses only covered 25% of multiword
verb occurrences in FISC. Teaching implications and areas for future research are offered.
Permanent Link
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/78794Description
Thesis, M.A., TESOL, UWRF, 2018