Download News We Can Use

News We Can Use:
Implementing Research Results
in Language Learning
Laura A. Janda
CLEAR (Cognitive Linguistics: Empirical
Approaches to Russian)
UiT The Arctic University of Norway
The materials I will present today:
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The Case Book for Russian; The Case Book for Czech
The Aspect in Russian MediaModule
Cluster Types for Russian Verbs
Exploring Emptiness and the Verb Classifier Hypothesis
Grammatical Profiles and teaching Russian TAM
Russian Language Technology and Oahpa!
Some running themes...
• Research-based teaching:
– All of the pedagogical tools I will show you build upon research
results
• Cognitive linguistics:
– A usage-based theory that transfers well to the language classroom
• Minimal terminology:
– Linguistic terms kept to a bare minimum (verb, noun, adjective, etc.)
• Authentic language:
– All examples are drawn from native sources and corpora
• Gender-approriate models:
– When audio is available, one can choose male vs. female
• Public access:
– All web-based materials are publicly available, no restrictions
Cognitive linguistics
Minimal Assumption: language can be accounted for in terms of
general cognitive strategies
• no autonomous language faculty
• no strict division between grammar and lexicon
• no a priori universals
Usage-Based: generalizations emerge from language data
• no strict division between langue and parole
• no underlying forms
Meaning is Central: holds for all language phenomena
• no semantically empty forms
• differences in behavior are motivated (but not specifically
predicted) by differences in meaning
• metaphor and metonymy play a major role in grammar
The Case Book for Russian
The Case Book for Czech
• Steven J. Clancy, co-author
• Published in 2002, 2006 – Slavica Publishers
• Books come with CD-ROM with interactive version of text – you can
click on all examples to hear recordings by native speakers, plus
interactive exercises
• PDF-version (text only) of Genitive case chapter for Russian, plus
entire book for Czech available here:
– http://www.seelrc.org/projects/casebooks/
• Interactive exercises available here:
– http://languages.uchicago.edu/casebooks/russian/mainmenu.html
– http://languages.uchicago.edu/casebooks/czech/mainmenu.html
• In 2005, The Case Book for Russian won the Book Prize for “Best
Contribution to Pedagogy” from the American Association of Teachers
of Slavic and East European Languages
The Case Book for Russian
The Case Book for Czech
Main ideas:
– Based on research on case meaning (Janda 1988,
1993, 1999, 2000)
– Each case presented as a coherent whole, a
structured network of related meanings
– Prototypical meanings tend to be concrete (Genitive:
a source дочь пришла из школы), further meanings
are extended via metaphor and metonymy (Genitive:
a source дочь стыдилась бедности)
– Comprehensive explanation of ALL uses, not limited
to major ones
The Aspect in Russian MediaModule
Main ideas:
– Based on research on the meaning of aspect (Janda 2003,
2004)
– Each aspect presented as a coherent whole, a structured
network of related meanings
– The aspectual contrast is metaphorically motivated by embodied
physical experience with
• discrete solid objects (Perfective) vs.
• fluid substances (Imperfective)
– This contrast is relevant at the level of event structure, discourse,
and pragmatics
– Give learners opportunity to use real-world knowledge to make
sense of Russian aspect
Aspect Meaning
Discrete solid object:
Has shape/edges, is
unique, two cannot
occupy the same place
Perfective event:
Has clear beginning/end,
is unique, expresses
sequences
Олег
в машину и
в ресторан
Fluid substance:
Has no shape/edges, is
not unique, two can be
mixed in the same place
Imperfective event:
No clear beginning/end,
not unique, expresses
simultaneity
Олег
галстук и
на спортивной
машине
The Aspect in Russian MediaModule
• Аvailable here:
– http://ansatte.uit.no/laura.janda/aspect/ainr/
Cluster Types for Russian Verbs
Main ideas:
– Based on research on the aspectual relationships among verbs
(Janda 2007, Janda & Korba 2008)
– Four different types of Perfective verbs can be distinguished on
the basis of both meaning (metaphorically motivated) and wordformation
– Natural Perfective, Specialized Perfective, Complex Act
Perfective, Single Act Perfective
– An aspectual cluster contains an Imperfective Activity verb plus
0-4 types of Perfective verbs
– An implicational hierarchy predicts the structures of existing
clusters
Available at:
http://ansatte.uit.no/laura.janda/clusters/clusterfrontpage.html
Exploring Emptiness and
the Verb Classifier Hypothesis
Main ideas:
– Aspectual pairs such as писать/написать, варить/сварить
consist of an imperfective base verb and a prefixed perfective
partner with the same lexical meaning
– The traditional assumption is that the prefixes are empty in these
pairs (пустые приставки)
– BUT: these pairs are essential vocabulary, there are about 1400
base verbs, 16 prefixes, and 2000 correct prefix verb combinations
– We can design materials that reduce the burden of memorization for
learners
Exploring Emptiness and
the Verb Classifier Hypothesis
• Exploring Emptiness database of prefixal pairs
(Natural Perfectives):
– http://emptyprefixes.uit.no/index.php
• Book: Janda, Laura A, Anna Endresen, Julia
Kuznetsova, Olga Lyashevskaya, Anastasia
Makarova, Tore Nesset, Svetlana Sokolova. 2013.
Why Russian aspectual prefixes aren’t empty:
prefixes as verb classifiers. 2013. Bloomington, IN:
Slavica Publishers, plus link to all data and lists of
verbs:
– http://emptyprefixes.uit.no/book.htm
• Other related research: Janda 2012, Endresen et
al. 2012, Sokolova et al. 2012, Janda &
Lyashevkaya 2011, 2013
Grammatical Profiles and
teaching Russian TAM
Main ideas:
– Based on research on the distribution of verb forms in
the Russian National Corpus (Janda & Lyashevskaya
2011)
– We can identify the verbs that are most likely to be
used in certain TAM combinations, such as
imperfective imperative or imperfective non-past
– We can design teaching materials to specifically
target those verbs and forms
What is a grammatical profile?
Verbs have different forms:
eat
eats
eating
eaten
ate
749 M
121 M
514 M
88.8 M
258 M
50%
45%
40%
35%
30%
The grammatical
profile of eat
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
eat
eats
eating
eaten
ate
Grammatical Profiles of Russian Verbs
Nonpast
Imperfective
Perfective
Past
Infinitive
Imperative
1,330,016
915,374
482,860
75,717
375,170
1,972,287
688,317
111,509
70%
60%
50%
40%
Imperfective
Perfective
30%
20%
10%
0%
Nonpast
11.05.20
17
Past
16
Infinitive
Imperative
chi-squared
= 947756
df = 3
p-value < 2.2e-16
effect size
(Cramer’s V)
= 0.399
(medium-large)
Distribution of Russian verb forms according to subparadigm
Prefixation (dark) vs. suffixation (light):
Statistically significant, BUT effect sizes too
small (0.076 & 0.037)
Distribution of Russian verbs according to subparadigm:
Imperfective verbs and their attraction to imperative
Over 200
outliers
5/11/20
17
18
Imperfective imperative “be doing X!”
• Polite: guest knows what to expect: раздевайтесь
‘take off your coat’, садитесь ‘sit down’
• Insistence: hearer is hesitant: ступайте ‘get going’,
глядите ‘look’, забирайте ‘take’
• Insistence: hearer has not behaved properly
(connection with negation): проваливай ‘get out of here’,
кончай ‘stop’, не перебивай ‘don’t interrupt’
• Polite requests: выручайте ‘help’
• Kind wishes: выздоравливайте ‘get well’
• Idiomatic: давайте посмотрим ‘let’s take a look’
• Idiomatic/culturally anchored: прощай(тe) ‘farewell’,
соединяйтесь ‘unite’ (slogan), запевай ‘sing’ (army)
Distribution of Russian verbs according to subparadigm:
Imperfective verbs and their attraction to non-past
Only 10 outliers
Can you guess which
verbs they are?
The 10 imperfective verbs
most attracted to the non-past
verb
raw frequency
These verbs express
gnomic truths, not
ongoing events!
% frequency of non-past
forms
является
39543
92%
оказывается
10869
85%
касается
9719
87%
влечет
1555
85%
выясняется
805
89%
подтверждается
677
83%
обязывается
480
92%
затрудняется
275
86%
исчерпывает
100
89%
34
85%
предопределяется
Russian Language Technology and Oahpa!
Main ideas:
– Based on collaboration with the Saami Language Technology
Center at UiT
– Creation of Natural Language Processing tools for Russian,
parallel to those for Saami and Norwegian, can facilitate:
• (real) machine translation
• corpus analysis & linguistic research
• pedagogical resources
– vocabulary practice
– morphological practice (including use in generated
sentences)
– text enhancement and exercises
http://testing.oahpa.no/rusoahpa/
References -- Case
Janda, Laura A. 1988. “Pragmatic vs. Semantic Uses of Case”, in
Chicago Linguistic Society 24-I: Papers from the Twenty-Fourth
Regional Meeting, ed. by Diane Brentari et al. Chicago: U of Chicago
Press, 189-202.
Janda, Laura A. 1993. A Geography of Case Semantics: The Czech
Dative and the Russian Instrumental (=Cognitive Linguistics Research,
v. 4). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Janda, Laura A. 1999. “Peircean semiotics and cognitive linguistics: a
case study of the Russian genitive”, in The Peirce Seminar Papers, ed.
by Michael Shapiro. New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 441-466.
Janda, Laura A. 2000. “A cognitive model of the Russian accusative
case”, in Trudy meždunarodnoj konferencii Kognitivnoe modelirovanie,
No. 4, part I, ed. by R. K. Potapova, V. D. Solov’ev and V. N. Poljakov.
Moscow: MISIS, 20-43.
References – Aspect
(Metaphorical Model and Clusters, TAM)
Janda, Laura A. 2003. “A user-friendly conceptualization of Aspect”, Slavic and
East European Journal, vol. 47, no. 2, 251-281.
Janda, Laura A. 2004. “A metaphor in search of a source domain: the
categories of Slavic aspect”, Cognitive Linguistics, vol. 15, no. 4, 471-527.
Janda, Laura A. 2007. “Aspectual clusters of Russian verbs”, Studies in
Language 31:3, 607-648.
Janda, Laura A. and John J. Korba. 2008. “Beyond the pair: Aspectual clusters
for learners of Russian”, Slavic and East European Journal 52:2 (2008), 254270.
Janda, Laura A. and Olga Lyashevskaya. 2011. “Grammatical profiles and the
interaction of the lexicon with aspect, tense and mood in Russian”, co-authored
with. Cognitive Linguistics 22:4, 719-763.
References – Exploring Emptiness (partial list)
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Janda, Laura A. 2012. “Russkie pristavki kak sistema glagol’nyx klassifikatorov”.
Voprosy jazykoznanija 6, 3-47.
Janda, Laura A., Anna Endresen, Julia Kuznetsova, Olga Lyashevskaya, Anastasia
Makarova, Tore Nesset, Svetlana Sokolova. 2013. Why Russian aspectual prefixes
aren’t empty: prefixes as verb classifiers. 2013. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers.
Janda, Laura A., Olga Lyashevskaya. 2011. “Prefix variation as a challenge to
Russian aspectual pairs: Are завязнуть and увязнуть ‘get stuck’ the same or
different?”, Russian Linguistics 35 (2011): 147-167.
Janda, Laura A., Olga Lyashevskaya. 2013. “Semantic Profiles of Five Russian
Prefixes: po-, s-, za-, na-, pro-”, Journal of Slavic Linguistics 21:2, 211-258.
Sokolova, Svetlana, Olga Lyahsevskaya, Laura A. Janda. 2012“The Locative
Alternation and the Russian ‘empty’ prefixes: A case study of the verb gruzit’ ‘load’”.
In: D. Divjak & St. Th Gries (eds.). Frequency effects in language representation
(Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs. 244.2), 2012, 51-86. Berlin: Mouton
de Gruyter.
Janda, Laura A., Anna Endresen, Julia Kuznetsova, Olga Lyashevskaya, Anastasia
Makarova, Tore Nesset, Svetlana Sokolova. 2012. “Russian ‘purely aspectual’
prefixes: Not so ‘empty’ after all?”, Scando-Slavica 58:2 (2012), 231-291.