Research based on translation expertise, which is also sometimes referred to as translation competence, has been a growing area of investigation in translation studies. These studies have not only focused on how translation expertise may be conceptualised and defined, but also on how this expertise is acquired and developed by translators. One of the key observations that arise from an overview of current research in the field of translation expertise is the prevalence of process-oriented methodologies in the field, with product-oriented methodologies used comparatively infrequently. This study is based on the assumption that product-oriented methodologies, and specifically the corpus-based approach, may provide new insights into translation expertise. The study therefore sets out to address the lack of comprehensive and systematic corpus-based analyses of translation expertise. One of the foremost concerns of corpus-based translation studies has been the investigation of what is known as the features of translated language which are often categorised as: explicitation, simplification, normalisation and levelling-out. The main objective of this study is to investigate the hypothesis that the features of translated language can be taken as an index of translation expertise. The hypothesis is founded on the premise that if the features of translated language are considered to be the textual traces of translation strategies, then the different translation strategies associated with different levels of translation expertise will be reflected in different frequencies and distributions of these features of translated language in the work of experienced and inexperienced translators. The study therefore aimed to determine if there are significant differences in the frequency and distribution of the features of translated language in the work of experienced and inexperienced translators. As background to this main research question, the study also investigated a secondary hypothesis in which translated language demonstrates unique features that are the consequence of various aspects of the translation process. A custom-built comparable English corpus was used for the study, comprising three subcorpora: translations by experienced translators, translations by inexperienced translators, and non-translations. A selection of linguistic operationalization’s was chosen for each of the four features of translated language. The differences in the frequency and distribution of these linguistic operationalization’s in the three sub corpora were analysed by means of parametric or non-parametric ANOVA. The findings of the study provide some support for both hypotheses. In terms of the translation expertise hypothesis, some of the features of translated language demonstrate significantly different frequencies in the work of experienced translators compared to the work of inexperienced translators. It was found that experienced translators are less explicit in terms of: formal completeness, simplify less frequently because they use a more varied vocabulary, use longer sentences and have a lower readability index score on their translations, and use contractions more frequently, which signals that they normalise less than inexperienced translators. However, experienced translators also use neologisms and loanwords less frequently than inexperienced translators, which is suggestive of normalisation occurring more often in the work of experienced translators when it comes to lexical creativity. These linguistic differences are taken as indicative of the different translation strategies used by the two groups of translators. It is believed that the differences are primarily caused by variations in experienced and inexperienced translators‟ sensitivity to translation norms, their awareness of written language conventions, their language competence (which involves syntactic, morphological and vocabulary knowledge), and their sensitivity to register. Furthermore, it was also found that there are indeed significant differences between translated and non-translated language, which also provides support for the second hypothesis investigated in this study. Translators explicitate more frequently than non-translators in terms of formal completeness, tend to have a less extensive vocabulary, tend to raise the overall formality of their translations, and produce texts that are less creative and more conformist than non-translators‟ texts. However, statistical support is lacking for the hypothesis that translators explicitate more at the propositional level than original text producers do, as well as for the hypothesis that translators are inclined to use a more neutral middle register. / MA (Language Practice), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2013

Magistro darbo objektas yra vienas žodis lietuvių ir anglų kalbose: viltis ir hope, kuris panašus, ar tapatus, tiek turiniu, tiek forma. Šio žodžio reikšmės tyrimas atliekas vis labiau populiarėjančiu tekstynų lingvistikos metodu. Darbe didelis dėmesys kreipiamas į vilties kolokacijas, rastas lyginamuose tekstynuose, nes būtent tekstynuose yra randama įprastinė abstrakto raiška. Kognityvinės metaforos, rinktos iš kolokacijų, pagrindžiamos ne bet kokiais, o įprastiniais kasdienės kalbos posakiais. Dėl šios priežasties darbo šaltiniais pasirinkti British National Corpus ir Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos tekstynas. Interneto vartotojams šiuose tekstynuose prieinama po 100 mln. žodžių, ir tai pakankamai didelis pavyzdžių skaičius tokio pobūdžio tyrimams. Darbo tikslas – išanalizuoti abstraktaus daiktavardžio viltis konceptualizavimą lietuvių ir anglų kalbose. Kadangi konceptualiosios metaforos yra sietinos ne tik su žmogaus jutimine, bet ir su visos tautos kultūrine patirtimi, manoma, kad žodžio viltis konceptualizavimas gretinamose kalbose turėtų skirtis. Pasirinktoji magistro darbo tema aktuali, nes žodžio viltis konceptualizavimas lietuvių kalboje ligi šiol nėra nagrinėtas ar lygintas su anglų kalbos atitikmeniu hope. / The master paper deals with one lexeme in Lithuanian, viltis, and its equivalent in English hope. The author provides the analysis of the selected words from the corpus using a corpus-based approach which becomes more and more popular. The paper demonstrates that metaphors, if they are to reflect the most popular understanding of a concept, should be obtained from collocations. On that score their concordances were compiled from the Corpus of Contemporary Lithuanian and the British National Corpus. They are both of the size of 100 million running words in their Internet versions and they offer a reliable source of data for this kind of analysis. The main goal of this paper is to describe the concept represented in Lithuanian and English by the word hope. As conceptual metaphors are linked not only with man‘s sensual, but also with the whole nation‘s cultural experience, the conceptualization of hope in languages should differ. The theme is relevant because conceptualization of hope had not been explores in Lithuanian and compared with its equivalent in English.

Research based on translation expertise, which is also sometimes referred to as translation competence, has been a growing area of investigation in translation studies. These studies have not only focused on how translation expertise may be conceptualised and defined, but also on how this expertise is acquired and developed by translators. One of the key observations that arise from an overview of current research in the field of translation expertise is the prevalence of process-oriented methodologies in the field, with product-oriented methodologies used comparatively infrequently. This study is based on the assumption that product-oriented methodologies, and specifically the corpus-based approach, may provide new insights into translation expertise. The study therefore sets out to address the lack of comprehensive and systematic corpus-based analyses of translation expertise. One of the foremost concerns of corpus-based translation studies has been the investigation of what is known as the features of translated language which are often categorised as: explicitation, simplification, normalisation and levelling-out. The main objective of this study is to investigate the hypothesis that the features of translated language can be taken as an index of translation expertise. The hypothesis is founded on the premise that if the features of translated language are considered to be the textual traces of translation strategies, then the different translation strategies associated with different levels of translation expertise will be reflected in different frequencies and distributions of these features of translated language in the work of experienced and inexperienced translators. The study therefore aimed to determine if there are significant differences in the frequency and distribution of the features of translated language in the work of experienced and inexperienced translators. As background to this main research question, the study also investigated a secondary hypothesis in which translated language demonstrates unique features that are the consequence of various aspects of the translation process. A custom-built comparable English corpus was used for the study, comprising three subcorpora: translations by experienced translators, translations by inexperienced translators, and non-translations. A selection of linguistic operationalization’s was chosen for each of the four features of translated language. The differences in the frequency and distribution of these linguistic operationalization’s in the three sub corpora were analysed by means of parametric or non-parametric ANOVA. The findings of the study provide some support for both hypotheses. In terms of the translation expertise hypothesis, some of the features of translated language demonstrate significantly different frequencies in the work of experienced translators compared to the work of inexperienced translators. It was found that experienced translators are less explicit in terms of: formal completeness, simplify less frequently because they use a more varied vocabulary, use longer sentences and have a lower readability index score on their translations, and use contractions more frequently, which signals that they normalise less than inexperienced translators. However, experienced translators also use neologisms and loanwords less frequently than inexperienced translators, which is suggestive of normalisation occurring more often in the work of experienced translators when it comes to lexical creativity. These linguistic differences are taken as indicative of the different translation strategies used by the two groups of translators. It is believed that the differences are primarily caused by variations in experienced and inexperienced translators‟ sensitivity to translation norms, their awareness of written language conventions, their language competence (which involves syntactic, morphological and vocabulary knowledge), and their sensitivity to register. Furthermore, it was also found that there are indeed significant differences between translated and non-translated language, which also provides support for the second hypothesis investigated in this study. Translators explicitate more frequently than non-translators in terms of formal completeness, tend to have a less extensive vocabulary, tend to raise the overall formality of their translations, and produce texts that are less creative and more conformist than non-translators‟ texts. However, statistical support is lacking for the hypothesis that translators explicitate more at the propositional level than original text producers do, as well as for the hypothesis that translators are inclined to use a more neutral middle register. / MA (Language Practice), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2013

By linguistically examining 162 articles published during the summer of 2015 in two UK broadsheets: The Guardian (TG) and The Daily Telegraph (TDT), this essay aims to analyse the discursive representation of the ‘migrant crisis’. To do so, the representation of the social actors migrating (SAM) during the ‘crisis’ was focused on. A combined Corpus Linguistic (CL) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach was implemented to investigate the most frequently used terms to refer to the SAM. Once the terms were found, their usage across the corpora was examined by looking at frequency distributions. Next, collocates of the terms referring to SAM were analysed by way of Van Leeuwen’s (2008) Social Actor Network. Collocate and concordance analyses helped to show how the SAM were represented in the articles and how the representation varied across the two newspapers. The results of the analyses indicated that the most frequent terms used to refer to the SAM were migrant, people and refugee. It also indicated differences in connotations of those three words, with refugee ‘sympathetically’ connoted, migrant negatively connoted and people connoted both negatively and positively. The overall conclusion was that the SAM’s representation was more ‘sympathetic’ in TG than in TDT.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T18:22:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Eduardo de Carvalho Cassimiro.pdf: 21483325 bytes, checksum: 91a5b7094d9685eaf8f389489794b204 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-12-16 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The author of this empirical language study aims at offering evidence of the linguistic characterization of some Wonder Woman comic book characters by finding which keywords from specific reference corpora have been incorporated to the aforementioned characters vocabulary, and to what extent. In order to achieve such an aim, the researcher, first, brings to light the 100 relevant keywords from each of his six specific natural language samples by comparing their vocabularies to that of a generic reference corpus (such as the BNC); then, the incorporated keywords are found. Only the texts (not the drawings) from 24 issues of the WONDER WOMAN comic book (published in the late 1980s) have served him as his study corpus. All the stories in that selected corpus were both written and drawn by George Pérez. The researcher s methodological and theoretical basis is from the Corpus Linguistics field (or the corpus-based approach). The results seem to warrant the conclusion that, based on the study of those characters vocabulary, which is a manifestation of the writer s stylistic choices, both the method developed for this research and the theoretical basis selected by the researcher have been proven valuable not only to make the linguistic characterization (of comic book characters) evident, but also to analyze it / O objetivo do autor deste estudo de linguagem empírico é evidenciar a caracterização linguística de personagens de histórias em quadrinhos da Mulher-Maravilha mediante a descoberta de quais palavras-chave de córpora de referência específicos estão incorporadas ao vocabulário de tais personagens, e em qual proporção. Para atingir esse objetivo, o pesquisador, primeiro, descobre as 100 palavras-chave relevantes de seis amostras de linguagem específica por meio da comparação do léxico delas ao dum córpus de referência formado por linguagem genérica (como o BNC); depois, as palavras-chave incorporadas. Apenas os textos de 24 edições da revista WONDER WOMAN do fim da década de 1980, roteirizadas e desenhadas por George Pérez compõem o córpus de estudo. A fundamentação teórico-metodológica do pesquisador é de Linguística de Córpus (ou da abordagem baseada em córpus). À luz dos resultados obtidos, o autor considera admissível afirmar que tanto o método desenvolvido para esta pesquisa quanto o referencial teórico são adequados para a descoberta e para a análise da caracterização linguística de personagens de histórias em quadrinhos com base no vocabulário destes, que é decorrente de escolhas estilísticas do seu roteirista

台灣英語教育多以考試取向為主，許多教師進行英語字彙指導時採用填鴨式教學，致使學生無法於新的情境靈活使用字彙。 本研究旨在於探究以語料庫為本之教學對於台灣大學生在英語近似詞學習成效的影響，以台北市某一所大學86位英語學習背景及能力相似之大一生為研究對象。研究人數均分成兩班進行教學實驗，一班為實驗組，以資料觀察法進行教學，另一班為對照組，以傳統形式教學為主，每週一次五十分鐘，共進行十週。資料蒐集包含近似詞學習成就測驗前、後測，並且依據研究對象於實驗教學結束後接受語料觀察教學法回饋問卷，蒐集研究對象對於語料觀察法之反應與感知，進行量化分析。最後，透過訪談高分組和低分組學生，蒐集其質性資料進行研究探討哪些因素會影響不同英語能力學生對於資料觀察法的意願與需求。本研究發現如下: 一、近似詞教學有助於提升台灣大學生的英語字彙能力。兩組教學均在後測有 進步。但就後測成績來說，實驗組顯著優於控制組。資料觀察法之近似詞教學 均較傳統教學法更能有效提升學生的英語字彙能力。 二、在不同程度的學生學習成效上，高、低分組學生均在後測成績有進步。對於 高分組而言，實驗組後測成績顯著優於控制組後測。但對於控制組而言，實驗 組的與控制組的後測成績未呈顯著差異。 三、大部分的學生對於運用資料觀察法學習單字均給予正面回饋，也肯定資料觀 察學習法活動的效益。另外，根據高、低分組學生訪談結果發現，英語程度的 高低的確會影響學生對於資料觀察法的喜愛和需求。高分組的學生希望先以資 料觀察學習法為開端，再以傳統講解式方式做總結。但對低分組的學生而言， 喜歡參與小組討論。由於單字量的不足，低分組學生希望在語料庫為主的教材 旁能附上中文解釋，降低學習焦慮。 根據上述研究結果，本研究建議大學英語教師在教學現場能夠融入語料觀察學 習法並依照不同程度的學生進行教材設計，以助提升學生學習英語單字。 關鍵字:資料觀察學習法、近似詞、語料庫為本 / Corpus Linguistics has progressively become the center in different domains of language research. With such development of large corpora, the potential applications and possibilities of corpora in second language teaching and learning are extended. A discovery-based authentic learning environment is provided as well as created by such corpus-based language learning. Synonym or near-synonym learning is a difficult aspect of vocabulary learning, but a linguistic phenomenon with ubiquity. Hence, this research aims to investigate the effectiveness of the application of data-driven learning (DDL) approach in near-synonyms instruction and compare the teaching effect on the high and low achievers through the near-synonyms instruction. Participants of this study were given instruction throughout the eight-week corpus-based teaching with materials compiled by the teacher. This is a quasi-experimental study consisting of comparison between two experimental conditions, with a pre-post test and control-experimental group design, followed by qualitative method of semi-structure interviews and questionnaire provided to the experimental group of EFL university students in Taiwan. Two intact classes of 86 college students participated in this study. The quantitative analysis of the pre- and posttest scores and questionnaire were conducted through descriptive statistics and frequency analysis in order to explain the learning effects and learners’ perceptions. The results of the study revealed that: (1) participants in the experimental group made significant improvement in the posttest; (2) EFL high proficiency learners with DDL approach performed better than high achievers who were taught by the traditional method. However, low achievers may not be able to benefit from DDL approach in the form of concordance teaching materials; (3) the majority of the participants had positive feedback on DDL activities. Also, types of preferred DDL activities were strongly influenced by students’ proficiency level. Low achievers preferred activities that should involve Chinese translation as the supplementary note while as for the high achievers, they were looking for the teacher’s explanation of words’ usages and functions in the end. This study demonstrates the importance in illuminating the dynamic relationship between DDL approach and second language near-synonyms learning, as well as provides English EFL teachers with a better concept to incorporate corpus or concordance lines into vocabulary instruction. Key words: data-driven Learning, near-synonym, corpus-based approach

In Cognitive Linguistics, a conceptual metaphor is a systematic set of correspondences between two domains of experience (Kövecses 2020: 2). In order to have an extensive understanding of metaphors, metaphoricity (Müller and Tag 2010; Dunn 2011; Jensen and Cuffari 2014; Nacey and Jensen 2017) has been emphasized to address one of the properties of metaphors in language usage: gradience (Hanks 2006; Dunn 2011, 2014), which indicates that metaphorical expressions can be measured. Despite many noteworthy contributions, studies of metaphoricity are often accused of subjectivity (Müller 2008; Jensen and Cuffari 2014; Jensen 2017), this is why this study uses a big corpus as a database. Therefore, the main aim of this dissertation is to measure the gradient senses of the preposition in in an objective way, thus mapping the highly systematic semantic extension. Based on these gradient senses, the semantic and syntactic features of the preposition in produced by advanced Chinese English-major learners are investigated, combining quantitative and qualitative research methods. A quantitative analysis of the literal and other ten metaphorical senses of the preposition in is made at first. In accounting for the five factors influencing image schemata of each sense: “scale of Landmark”, “visibility”, “path”, “inclusion” and “boundary”, the formula of measuring the gradability of metaphorical degree is deduced: Metaphoricity=[[#Visibility] +[#Path] +[#Inclusion] +[#Boundary]]*[#Scale of Landmark]. The result is that the primary sense has the highest value:12, and all other extended senses have values down to zero. The more shared features with proto-scene, the higher the value of the metaphorical sense, and the less metaphorical the sense. EVENT and PERSON are the “least metaphoric” (value = 9-11); SITUATION, NUMBER, CONTENT and FIELD are “weak metaphoric” (value = 6-8); Also included are SEGMENTATION, TIME and MANNER (value = 3-5), and they are “strong metaphoric”; PURPOSE shares the least feature with proto-scene, and it has the lowest value, so it is “most metaphoric” (value = 0-2). Then, a corpus-based approach is employed, which offers a model for employing a corpus-based approach in Cognitive Linguistics. It compares two compiled sub-corpora: Chinese Master Academic Writing Corpus and Chinese Doctorate Academic Writing Corpus. The findings show that, on the semantic level, Chinese English-major students overuse in with a low level of metaphoricity, even advanced learners use the most metaphorical in rarely. In terms of syntactic behaviours, the most frequent nouns in [in+noun] construction are weakly metaphoric, whilst the nouns in the construction [in the noun of] are EVENT sense, which is least metaphorical. Moreover, action verbs tend to be used in the construction [verb+in] and [in doing sth.] in both master and doctorate groups. In the qualitative study, the divergent usages of the preposition in are explored. The preposition in is often substituted with other prepositions, such as on and at. The fundamental reason for the Chinese learners’ weakness is the negative transfer from their mother tongue (Wang 2001; Gong 2007; Zhang 2010). Although in and its Chinese equivalence zai...li (在...里) share the same proto-scene, there are discrepancies: the metaphorical senses of the preposition in are TIME, PURPOSE, NUMBER, CONTENT, FIELD, EVENT, SITUATION, SEGMENTATION, MANNER, PERSON, while those of zai...li (在...里) are only five: TIME, CONTENT, EVENT, SITUATION and PERSON. Thus the image schemata of each sense cannot be correspondingly mapped onto each other in different languages. This study also provides evidence for the universality and variation of spatial metaphors on the ground of cultural models. Philosophically, it supports the standpoint of Embodiment philosophy that abstract concepts are constructed on the basis of spatial metaphors that are grounded in the physical and cultural experience.

No description available.

L’enseignement-apprentissage du lexique spécialisé chinois est un chemin semé d’obstacles. Pour les apprenants non natifs, les combinaisons lexicales spécialisées (CLS) (L’Homme, 2000) soulèvent des difficultés syntaxico sémantiques et représentent ainsi un défi majeur dans l’acquisition de compétences lexicales. On recense, toutefois, peu de propositions méthodologiques pour résoudre ces difficultés dans la littérature consacrée à la didactique du chinois sur objectifs spécifiques (COS) (Q. Li, 2011). Dans cette recherche, nous nous attachons à explorer de quelle manière une méthode de description lexicale basée sur une représentation sémantique et syntaxique assiste les apprenants non natifs dans la résolution des problèmes lexicaux soulevés par les CLS. Notre thèse vise à concevoir une méthode de description des CLS en vue de la résolution de difficultés lexicales par les locuteurs non sinophones. La méthode mise au point est appliquée à l’élaboration du dictionnaire CHINOINFO, une ressource lexicale chinois-français portant sur le domaine de l’informatique. Cette ressource s’adresse aux apprenants francophones du chinois. L’objectif secondaire de notre thèse consiste à évaluer l’efficacité du CHINOINFO auprès des apprenants francophones qui reçoivent une formation de chinois dans un établissement universitaire au Québec ou en Chine. Notre recherche fait appel à des notions empruntées à trois cadres théoriques. Premièrement, la Lexicologie explicative et combinatoire (Mel’čuk et al., 1995) nous sert d’appui théorique pour fonder la description des CLS sur la représentation sémantique du lexique spécialisé. Deuxièmement, notre démarche de collecte et d’analyse des CLS est guidée par l’approche lexico sémantique à la terminologie (L’Homme, 2020a). Enfin, nous nous appuyons sur l’approche cognitive en didactique des langues secondes (Chastain, 1990) pour envisager une présentation structurée des connaissances lexicales. Notre démarche méthodologique s’est déroulée en trois phases. Nous avons d’abord assemblé un corpus spécialisé chinois pour en extraire un échantillon de CLS et les renseignements permettant de les décrire. L’analyse des données collectées à partir du corpus nous a amenée à anticiper trois types de difficultés syntaxico-sémantiques soulevées par les CLS : 1) distinguer les acceptions d’un polysème dans différentes CLS; 2) différencier les sens distincts de CLS de forme identique; 3) choisir les cooccurrents appropriés d’un terme. À la deuxième phase, nous avons mobilisé différentes stratégies pour décrire les propriétés syntaxico-sémantiques des CLS. Une méthode descriptive intégrant les solutions proposées a ensuite été appliquée à la création du CHINOINFO. Cette ressource en ligne répertorie 91 termes fondamentaux du domaine de l’informatique, pour lesquels nous avons encodé au total 282 termes reliés et 644 CLS. La structuration des données au sein des articles s’est largement inspirée de l’adaptation du DiCoInfo (Observatoire de linguistique Sens-Texte, 2022) à un dictionnaire d’apprentissage (Alipour, 2014). Différents moyens techniques ont été mis en œuvre pour assurer la convivialité de la ressource. La dernière phase de notre recherche consiste en une expérimentation comparative visant à évaluer l’efficacité pédagogique du CHINOINFO. Nous avons fait passer un test lexical à deux groupes d’apprenants francophones, soit le groupe contrôle (GC) et le groupe expérimental (GE), en leur proposant un nombre d’outils de référence. Seul le GE a eu accès à CHINOINFO. Nous avons aussi collecté, au moyen de questionnaires de sondage, le profil des participants ainsi que leur appréciation sur le test et les outils de référence proposés. De manière générale, l’analyse comparative des résultats du test lexical montre que le GE a mieux réussi à résoudre les trois types de difficultés soulevées par les CLS. Les participants étaient plutôt satisfaits de l’organisation du test. Le GE a eu moins de difficultés à réaliser le test puisqu’il se sentait mieux outillé pour trouver des éléments de réponses aux questions du test par rapport GC. Le GE s’est exprimé favorablement quant à l’utilité du CHINOINFO pour résoudre les problèmes lexicaux dans le cadre de notre expérimentation. Pour conclure, les résultats de notre analyse fournissent des indices sur l’apport du CHINOINFO en tant qu’une ressource d’apprentissage des CLS, ce qui laisse entrevoir l’intérêt de la méthode de description lexicale que nous avons proposée dans un contexte pédagogique. / The teaching and learning of Chinese specialized lexicon is a path strewn with obstacles. For non-native learners, specialized lexical combinations (SLCs) (L’Homme, 2000) raise syntactic and semantic difficulties and thus represent a major challenge in the acquisition of lexical skills. However, there are few methodological proposals to solve these difficulties in the literature devoted to the teaching practice and applied research of Chinese for specific purposes (Q. Li, 2011). In this research, we explore how a lexical description method based on semantic and syntactic representation assists non-native learners in solving lexical problems raised by SLCs. This thesis aims at designing a method for describing SLCs to help non-Chinese speakers solve lexical difficulties. The proposed method is applied to develop CHINOINFO, a Chinese-French dictionary of computer science and information technology terms. This lexical resource is designed for French-speaking learners of Chinese and can also be used as a writing tool for language professionals (translators, technical writers, and proofreaders), as well as professionals in this field. The secondary objective of this thesis is to evaluate the pedagogical effectiveness of the developed resource among French-speaking university students. This research draws on concepts derived from three theoretical frameworks. Firstly, the Explanatory and Combinatorial Lexicology (Mel’čuk et al., 1995) provides theoretical support for founding the lexical description on the representation of semantic features of the specialized lexicon. Secondly, the collection and analysis of SLCs are guided by the lexical-semantic approach to terminology (L’Homme, 2020a). Finally, we draw on the cognitive approach to second language didactics (Chastain, 1990) to explore the effective ways to organize and present the descriptive information of the specialized lexicon. Our methodological approach was carried out in three stages. We started by assembling a specialized Chinese corpus to extract a sample of SLCs and their descriptive information. The analysis of the data collected from the corpus led us to anticipate three types of syntaxico-semantic difficulties raised by SLCs: 1) distinguishing polysemes in different SLCs; 2) identifying, in a given context, the meaning of a lexical combination that is syntactically ambiguous; and 3) selecting appropriate co-occurrents for a term. In the second stage, we deployed different strategies to describe the syntaxico-semantic features of SLCs. Subsequently, a descriptive method that incorporates the proposed solutions has been applied to the creation of CHINOINFO. This online lexical resource contains 91 basic terms related to computer science and information technology. For these terms, we encoded a total of 282 related terms and 644 SLCs. The organization of content in the entries has been largely inspired by the conversion of DiCoInfo (Observatoire de linguistique Sens-Texte, 2022) into a learner’s dictionary (Alipour, 2014). We used various techniques to make the resource user-friendly. The final stage of our research consists of a comparative experiment to evaluate the pedagogical effectiveness of CHINOINFO. We had two groups of French-speaking learners, the control group (CG) and the experimental group (EG), take a lexical test by providing them with several reference materials. Only the EG had access to CHINOINFO during the test. We also collected the information about the participants' learning profile and their appreciation of the test and the proposed reference materials. Overall, the comparative analysis of the test results shows that the GE succeeded better in solving the three types of difficulties raised by the SLCs. The participants were quite satisfied with the organization of the lexical test. The EG encountered less difficulty in answering questions during the test since they felt better equipped to find elements of answers in the reference materials than the GC. The EG commented favorably on the utility of CHINOINFO in solving lexical problems. To conclude, the results of our experiment provide clues about the pedagogical interest of CHINOINFO as a SLC learning resource, which suggests the relevance of the lexical description method we proposed in a pedagogical context.

In many international schools where English is the language of learning and teaching there are large percentages of students whose first language is not English. Many of these students may have low vocabulary levels which inhibits their chances of taking full advantage of their education. Low vocabulary levels can be a particular problem for students in mainstream classes where fluent English speaking teachers are using English to teach content areas of Mathematics, Science and History. Not only do students have to comprehend the low-frequency, academic and technical vocabulary pertaining to the subject, but they also need to know the higher frequency vocabulary that makes up general English usage. If students’ vocabulary levels fall too far below the vocabulary levels with which their teachers are speaking, then their chance of comprehending the topic is small, as is their chance of succeeding in their subjects. This study has two broad aims. Firstly, I have set out to assess the English vocabulary levels of students at an international school where English is the language of learning and teaching. The majority of students at this school do not have English as their first language. The second aim of this study is to explore the vocabulary profile of the teachers’ spoken discourse at the research school. By gaining a better understanding of the nature of teacher discourse – specifically the percentage of high, mid and low-frequency vocabulary, as well as academic vocabulary that they use – English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers will be in a stronger position to identify what the vocabulary learning task is and be able to assist students in reaching the vocabulary levels necessary to make sense of their lessons. This study revealed a large gap between the generally low vocabulary levels of ESL students and the vocabulary levels spoken by their teachers. As a result the need for explicit vocabulary instruction and learning is shown to be very important in English medium (international) schools, where there are large numbers of students whose first language is not English. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Applied Linguistics)