Программное обеспечение для формирования коллокационной компетенции

Transition from handwritten lexicographic practice to digital dictionaries happened due to an applied scientific discipline – computational lexicography

Quick and convenient access, unlimited space for posting information, advanced information retrieval, links to additional sources –  are among the advantages of online dictionaries over printed ones. Since the main aim of electronic dictionaries is teaching the up-to-date speech, lots of them include modern English. Upon user request, dictionaries display a selection of contexts, showing the collocability: the headword, its distributors, examples from the sources of different genres

The following methods formed the basis of the study: descriptive research method of language units’ analysis. The collection of factual material required the use of the method of continuous sampling.

The development of Internet technologies has led to the emergence of corpus linguodidactics – an interdisciplinary field aimed at studying the possibilities of using language corpora in the process of language learning. The analysis of data collected in the corpus began to be used to solve various applied problems.

There are several concepts of corpus teaching: a direct concept (data-driven learning) involves direct work with a corpus of texts, an indirect one (corpus-based) includes an intermediary in the learning process – a teacher who builds the learning process using the corpus, selecting the necessary material and developing exercises

Developing learning tools using corpus data is a time-consuming task, but thanks to automated data analysis, it is possible to build training on up-to-date information about new words, word forms and shades of meaning, as well as using illustrative examples.

 “AntConc” corpus manager designed by Dr. Laurence Anthony is designed to obtain vocabulary minimums associated with a given subject area, lists of collocations, including terminological ones, samples for thematic groups of words. Using this concordancing software you can search for contexts, evaluate their typicality

The work principles of this corpus-manager can be considered by the example of an article “Combinatorial Linguodidactics as a New Direction in the Methodology of Foreign Language Teaching”

Click the “Collocate” button and insert any word you want to analyze, e.g. linguodidactics, press the “Start” button. The program will show all collocations with this word in order of frequency (see fig.1).

Figure 1 - Analysis of the word “linguodidactics” in the AntConc software. Collocate inlay

DOI:10.18454/RULB.2023.45.27.1

The user can click on any word from the list, it will be automatically searched in the Concordance window. If the Concordance window is open, you can enter the search term, it will be searched in contexts.

In order to get the information about the combinability of the node, the user can insert the word in the inlay “N-Gram”, the concordancing software will arrange the results according to the frequency of appearance in the text. Moreover, you can set the parameters, for example, the n-gram size – the amount of words after the search term (see fig. 2).

Figure 2 - Analysis of the word “linguodidactics” in the AntConc software. N-Gram inlay

DOI:10.18454/RULB.2023.45.27.2

KWIC inlay sorts and aligns the left and the right contexts of the sought-for word, e.g. the request word linguistics gives us six hits, shown in red colour, moreover, the user can set up the amount of tokens on the left and on the right – the context size needed for the research.

There are nine tools for carrying out corpus linguistics research:

· it shows the results in a concordance format;

· the search tool shows the position of the search results in the particular text;

· it presents information on the contexts of individual texts;

· it shows word patterns based on the search word;

· the tool shows N-word clusters;

· it allows the user to study the co-occurrence of the words;

· the tool shows all the words from the text in order of their frequency of occurrence;

· one of the tools presents information on the unusually frequent words, that are characteristic of its corpus – the keywords;

· a wordcloud tool

The advantage of this software program is open access – the user can download the official release of the software from the homepage.

The use of concordance software

Concordancing software is a great source of information and a powerful language learning tool due to extensive data for the study. These programs are relatively simple and effortless to use, so learners can use them on their own.

Language corpora and concordances are resources that are not yet fully used in the learning process, but professional linguists frequently use the existing tools in the research. A careful study of word combinations and expressions in dictionaries and concordances will provide students with important information about collocations in English. The use of concordances can develop learners’ “lexical vision and understanding” of the language.

Constant attempts to optimize the process of language learning force specialists to look for and develop new ways of selecting and applying lexical material. The use of corpus resources can be of great help in learning, so the skills of forming a query, using tools, interpreting the results will contribute to independent study and autonomous work. Authentic illustrative examples contribute to the formation of lexical skills of correct word usage and give an idea of the combinatorial possibilities of the units being sought.

Authentic illustrative examples contribute to the formation of lexical skills of correct word usage and give an idea of the combinatorial possibilities of the units being sought.