Читать книгу Introduction to Corpus Linguistics - Sandrine Zufferey - Страница 17

Corpus linguistics and experimental linguistics share very important methodological properties, since both are empirical in nature and both generally involve a quantitative rather than a qualitative approach. However, these two types of approaches differ in one very important point. On the one hand, corpus linguistics focuses on data observation as found in collections of texts, recordings, etc. On the other hand, experimental linguistics points to the manipulation of one or more variables in order to study their effect on other variables.

Let us imagine once again that we are interested in the types of language errors produced by learners of French. By means of a corpus study, we will be able to identify all the types of errors produced and then quantify each of them: for example, 30 spelling mistakes, 12 lexicon errors, 20 syntax mistakes, etc., made every 100 words. Then, by applying statistical tests, we will be able to determine whether one of the error categories is significantly more frequent than the others. We will also be able to compare the number of errors produced in each category by students of different levels and, thanks to statistical tests, determine whether students make significant progress faster in certain categories than in others. In contrast, what a corpus study will not help you to do is establish with certainty the factors influencing the number of errors. The corpus only shows you the result of the speakers’ production, but not what led to these results. In order to determine the factors that lead learners to make mistakes or not, we will need to resort to experimental methodology.

When we conduct an experiment, the goal is to manipulate the possible causes and then to observe their effects. Going back to our example research question, we may wonder what makes some students produce more errors than others, and in certain contexts, what makes the same student produce more errors than in other contexts. As regards the difference between students, we may think that one possible cause is the level of general intelligence of each student, the assumption being that overall smarter students should produce fewer errors than less intelligent students. The level of intelligence thus constitutes the cause that we will manipulate in order to observe its effect on the number of errors produced. In order to measure the effect of the intelligence variable, we will first need to measure the students’ intelligence, for example by means of an IQ test. We will then use the result of this test to determine whether the students who have a higher IQ are also the ones who make the fewest language errors.

In the case of the second research question, which seeks to determine why the same student makes more mistakes in certain contexts, we may assume that stress promotes the production of errors. In order to test this hypothesis, we will have to conduct an experiment in which half of the students are placed in a stressful situation such as an examination context or, for instance, a test with a limited amount of time to complete the task, whereas the other half of the students are placed in a low-stress situation, for example, without any time constraint, performing a task which does not involve marked assessment, etc. Then, we will compare the number of errors in the two groups so as to determine, by means of a statistical test, whether the students under a stressful situation make significantly more errors than the other students, or not. In the two examples of studies that we have just discussed, the approach is the same: to identify a possible cause and to assess its effect through experimental manipulation. Conversely, a corpus study focuses on linguistic productions without manipulating the data before collecting them.

The study of linguistic productions in a corpus and the manipulation of experimental variables both have their advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, corpus linguistics has the advantage of favoring the observation of natural data, that is, those which are not influenced by an experimental context. A corpus of journalistic texts includes real productions by journalists, which are not produced for the purpose of being observed. Likewise, a text produced by a learner is also natural, insofar as it is produced in its usual conditions, without there having been any particular manipulation. In addition, the use of corpora favors the observation of a very large amount of linguistic data, whereas experiments are based on a limited number of linguistic items for the task to remain feasible for participants, who would not be able to read thousands of sentences at a laboratory, for example. Finally, once a corpus has been created, it can be used for numerous research questions without requiring any additional time or financial costs. On the other hand, experiments require significant time resources as well as the usual obligation of having to financially compensate participants for their cooperation.

Experimental studies also have definite advantages over corpus studies. The first advantage, mentioned above, is that experiments allow us to test the existence of a causal relationship between two variables, such as the fact of being stressed and producing more errors. Corpus studies do not make it possible to draw this type of conclusion. Second, while an experimental paradigm can be developed to test almost any kind of phenomenon, there are some rare linguistic phenomena which may be absent or too little represented in a corpus to be examined in this way. For example, if we want to decide whether learners are fluent in French idioms such as “mettre le feu aux poudres” (to stir up a hornet’s nest) or “avoir un poil dans la main” (to be extremely lazy) through a corpus study, we will have to look for them in a corpus of learners’ productions. Now, it is quite possible that these expressions are never found there, but this does not necessarily mean that the learners do not know how to use them. It only means that they did not have an opportunity to produce them in the corpus. Using experimental methodology, we will be able to test whether learners have mastered these expressions. For instance, we can encourage them to read the expressions and then ask them to choose, from among several definitions, the one corresponding to their meaning. Finally, experimental linguistics makes it possible to study the linguistic competence of speakers, through different language comprehension tasks which can be more or less explicit or implicit, such as the conscious evaluation of sentences, their intuitive reading, etc. Corpora can only reflect the linguistic productions of speakers.

To conclude, corpus studies and experimental studies can often be used in a complementary way, and, when put together, they represent powerful tools for answering a good number of research questions.