Part of
Learner Corpora and Language TeachingEdited by Sandra Götz and Joybrato Mukherjee
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 92] 2019
► pp. 51–74
Edited by Sandra Götz and Joybrato Mukherjee
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 92] 2019
► pp. 51–74
Complexity and qualitative lexical knowledge
A corpus-based study on the use of TAKE in German learner English
This paper presents research that investigates differences in the use of the high-frequency verb TAKE between German learners of English and American English native speakers. This study examined 724 instances of TAKE and their respective lexical-syntactic structures in the German part of the ICLE and a comparable American English speaker corpus (LOCNESS). The sentences are classified according to a framework of complexity of lexical-syntactic structures adopted from Liu and Shaw (2001). The results of this research suggest that there are no significant differences in usage between both groups. The general conception that non-native speakers overuse simple verbs due to restricted vocabulary does not hold true for TAKE in the German learner data in this study.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Vocabulary knowledge and English verbs: A theoretical frame
- 2.1Quantitative knowledge
- 2.2Qualitative knowledge
- 2.3English verbs: High frequency and grammatical patterns
- 3.Method
- 3.1Data extraction
- 3.2Data analysis
- 4.Findings
- 4.1Complexity and grammatical distribution
- 4.2Collocations
- 5.Implications for language teaching
- 6.Conclusion
-
Notes -
References
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