Download Ling 127: Psychology of Language

Everywhere you go, there they are:
Mining grammar and vocabulary in
source materials for academic writing
tasks
Jan Frodesen
UC Santa Barbara
What is language mining?
• Searching for/ extracting authentic examples of
language use (grammar and vocabulary) in written
or spoken texts for specific instructional purposes
Materials development
Class activities
Homework tasks
What purposes can “mining” serve?
“Mining” offers authentic language use for many instructional purposes:
• Highlighting theme-based vocabulary needed for writing tasks
• Developing general academic vocabulary
• Creating awareness of register differences in language use (e.g.,
“everyday” English vs. academic English)
• Providing language structures to teach functional writing purposes
(e.g., cohesive devices, reporting research)
• Providing templates for developing paraphrase and summary skills
• Creating awareness of vocabulary and grammar interactions and
ways in which vocabulary choices affect grammatical ones
How do you “mine” a text?
• Start with the texts, not with the structures
• Skim texts (readings/transcripts of oral speech) to see what features
are prominent (e.g. reporting verbs, classifier nouns, specific verb
tense, noncount nouns, sentence fragments) and patterned
• Select ones that best fit your students’ writing and language
development needs – immediate and long-term
• Consider how the language items selected might be used
 in an exercise that you will create to hand out or post?
 for a text analysis (reading) activity in class?
 for a guided homework assignment?
Sources for this presentation
Composition unit materials on digital technology/digital literacy
being developed by ESL and Basic Skills writing instructors at Santa
Monica College, UCLA, UC-Irvine and UC-Santa Barbara*
– Transcript of Digital Nation (PBS video), available online
– Four readings (two from The New York Times, two from
– The Chronicle of Higher Education)
* Full references and URL information can be found at the end of
this presentation.
“Mining topics” for this presentation
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Informal register
Collocations (Verb/Verbal/Adj + Prep)
Reporting verbs and phrases
Hedging words
Reference words and phrases for cohesion
Format of presentation
• Definitions/explanations of structure
• Rationale
• Data examples from “mining” texts
• Guided activities
Informal register
• Definition: Words, phrases, and grammar
structures that are frequently found in everyday
English, e.g., conversation, informal oral interviews,
written texts such as e-mails but are less
appropriate for academic writing contexts.
• Rationale for focus: Both U.S.-educated and
international multilingual writers have difficulty
distinguishing register differences and may use
informal forms inappropriately in academic writing.
Informal register
• Text examples (Source: Video Nation transcript)
 These young teenagers on the phones and on the computers.
Like when I was growing up, it wasn’t like that.
 So it really hit me one night not that long ago… And I don’t know
it just kind of snuck up on us.
 The point is to be our most creative selves, not to distract
ourselves to death.
 He’s pretty confident that his multitasking is successful.
 There’s always gains and losses
 But [these students] have done themselves a disservice by
drinking the Kool-Aid and believing that a multilearning
environment will best serve their purposes.
Informal register
• Text examples (Digital Nation)
 My papers, my first draft, it’s always like “All right,
paragraph one, awesome. Two, awesome. Three,
awesome. I don’t see the connection.” And in my head,
well, I was probably thinking about something else then
or I wasn’t looking at the big picture. It was just short
term, short term, short term.
Informal Register
• Activities
Underline examples of informal register; ask students
to: 1) delete words that don’t need to be there (e.g.,
filler words like, just); 2) provide more academic words
or phrases for others.
 Ask students to identify fragments and expand them
(Choose ones that can be reasonably expanded)
Look at conversational vs. stylistic repetition in writing
Informal Register
• Activities
Ask students to find more examples of informal words,
phrases and grammatical structures
Assign students to look up informal expressions on the
internet for homework (e.g., “drinking the Kool-Aid) and
give brief reports on their meanings.
Collocations
• Definition: Collocations are words that frequently
co-occur; common collocations include verbs or
adjectives that are often followed by particular
prepositions.
Examples: contribute to, prevent from,
adept at, familiar with
• Rationale for focus: They are very frequent in
academic writing; student writers need to use them
in all kinds of writing, and they often have problems
using them correctly.
Collocations
• Text examples (Digital Nation transcript)
Verb/participle/verbal + adjective
 In Asia, there’s a recognition that teenagers,
many teenagers, are addicted to videogames.
 It was sobering to see row after row of kids glued
to these screens.
 I think we are behind the Asians in terms of
focusing on that problem.
Collocations
• Text examples (Digital Nation transcript)
Adjective + preposition
 It turns out multitaskers are terrible at every
aspect of multitasking.
 The experiment looks simple… but it’s rife with
traps in the forms of distractions.
 Are folks getting a little afraid of technology?
Collocations
• Activities
As a diagnostic, give students the sentences with the
prepositions deleted and ask them to fill them in
(individually or groups)
 Sort collocations according to register differences
(formal, informal, neutral) if examples
Have students start a collocation notebook or file to list
ones they would like to use in their own writing
Reporting verbs and phrases
• Definition: Reporting verbs are verbs used to cite
another’s work, whether as a summary, paraphrase
or quotation
Examples: state, emphasize, maintain, conclude
Reporting phrases are often introductory phrases
Examples: According to, from the perspective of,
as X sees it, in X’s opinion
Reporting verbs and phrases
• Rationale for focus: Academic English uses a great
variety of reporting verbs whose functions and
meanings are complex and should be learned in
context. Student writers often don’t have a large
repertoire of these verbs or may use them
inappropriately. Introductory phrases are useful as
alternate ways of referencing sources.
Reporting verbs and phrases
• Text examples (Source: Plagiarism Lines Blur, NYT)
 Susan D. Blum set out to understand how students view
authorship…
 Ms. Blum argued that student writing exhibits much of
the same qualities of pastiche that drive other creative
behaviors today
 She contends that undergraduates are less interested in
cultivating a unique and authentic identity than in trying
on many different personas..
 In the view of Ms. Wilesnky, … plagiarism has nothing to
do with trendy academic theories.
Reporting verbs and phrases
• Activities
Group and discuss reporting verb meanings and
strength of claims (weak-neutral-strong)
Identify the complement structures that follow
reporting verbs (e.g., that-clauses, noun phrases)
Classify verbs based on whether they are ‘saying’
verbs (e.g., argue, contend, note, suggest) or
‘doing” verbs (e.g., gave reasons, studied effects)
Reporting verbs and phrases
• Activities
Rewrite sentences with reporting verbs using
introductory reporting phrases for ‘saying’ verbs
Think of synonyms for the classifier words (e.g.
view, perspective, opinion) in introductory
phrases
Hedging words
• Definition: Words and phrases that limit claims or
generalizations
 Examples: modals (may, could), probability adverbs
(possibly, probably), frequency adverbs (sometimes,
usually), uncertainty verbs (seem, appear), quantifiers
(some, many)
Hedging words
• Rationale for focus: There are many options writers
have for hedging assertions. L2 writers often don’t
qualify generalizations appropriately. Modals in
particular may be challenging; they are used in
different ways in different disciplines.
Hedging words
• Text examples (Source: Literacy Debate, NYT)
 The web inspires a teenage like Nadia, who might
otherwise spend most of her leisure time watching
television, to read and write.
 Those who prefer staring at a television or mashing
buttons on a game console, they say, can still benefit
from reading on the internet.
 Some traditionalists warn that digital reading is the
intellectual equivalent of empty calories.
Hedging words
• Text examples (Source: Literacy Debate, NYT)
 Often …writers on the internet employ a cryptic argot…
 And many youths spend most of their time on the
Internet playing games or sending instant messages.
Hedging words
• Activities
Cluster hedging examples based on grammatical
types (modals, quantifiers, etc.)
Ask students to add examples to each of the
categories in clusters
Rank hedging examples based on how they limit
claims (e.g., most vs. many; can vs. might)
Have students add hedges to claims that lack
qualifiers; ask them to try several ways
Reference words and phrases
• Definition: A grammatical system including
pronouns, demonstrative pronouns (this, that,
these, those), demonstrative adjectives + NP,
definite article the + NP, such + NP used to refer to
preceding content (called the referent) in a text.
Reference words with NPs
Reference Form
Noun Phrase Examples
this
this critical issue
that
that outdated notion
these
these two competing hypotheses
those
those earlier considerations
such
such unjust accusations
the + noun phrase
the first topic that was discussed
another
another important question
other/the other
other significant factors/ the other concern
Reference words and phrases
• Rationale for focus: To understanding how
reference forms are used, we need to see them in
contexts as reference choices are discourse-based.
Reference forms are a finite set, but they combine
with other grammar/vocabulary such as classifier
phrases + modifiers in diverse and complex ways.
Learning about them as cohesive devices to
connect ideas is much more meaningful than
learning them as simply grammatical forms.
Reference words and phrases
• Text examples (Sources: Online Literacy is a Lesser
Kind, Generational Myth)
 Yes, it’s a kind of literacy, but it breaks down in
the face of a dense argument
 Those conclusions apply to middle-school and
high school programs.
 Such discussion also risk ignoring the different
ways young people use digital tools.
Reference words and phrases
• Text examples (Sources: Online Literacy is a Lesser
Kind, Generational Myth)
 Nevertheless, the results bear consideration by
those pushing for more e-learning on campus.
 All this mystical talk about a generational shift
and all the claims that kids won’t read books are
not true.
Reference words and phrases
• Activities
Give students sentence with reference forms. Ask them
to identify and write down the referent.
Find two or more references to a single referent in a
text. Have students underline the reference forms.
Discuss how the forms vary in progression. Do they get
longer? Shorter?
Discuss motivations for longer reference phrases. Why
are modifiers needed?
Consider expansions for reference forms used, e.g.
those + NP instead of pronoun those.
Reference words and phrases
• Activities
 Guided paraphrase activity: Give students
sentences with reference forms to paraphrase.
Show them how to retrieve needed information
from the preceding context to write the
paraphrase.
Reference words and phrases
• Activities
 Guided paraphrase activity:
Examples:
Original: Only 6 percent of them said that
college students come into their classes very
well prepared in writing.
Paraphrase: Most professors said that…
Source materials
Source materials
• Digital Nation transcript, PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation
• Generational Myth, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Chronicle of Higher Education,
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i04/04b00701.htm
From the issue dated 9/19/2008
• Literacy Debate: Online, RU Really Reading? Motoko Rich, New York Times, July 27,
2008
• Online Literacy is a Lesser Kind, Mark Bauerlein, The Chronicle of Higher Education,
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i04/04b01001.htm
From the issue dated September 19, 2008
• Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age, Trip Gabriel, The New York Times,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/education/02cheat.html?_r=1&ref=plagiari
sm&pagewanted=print From the issue dated August 1, 2010