The ambiguous nature of idioms has been a persistent challenge for English language learners and researches alike. Problematic issues include identifying which idioms are most pertinent for study, and the question of how frequently idiom forms found in dictionaries and other canonized resources actually function as idioms in real language use. This study differentiates between idiom forms used idiomatically (idiom-principle) versus literally (open-choice principle), and provides quantitative data to assess this difference. The data was obtained through a corpus analysis of 1,000 randomly-selected idioms in 10,000 randomly-selected contexts (10 contexts per idiom), and revealed that the majority of idiom forms were indeed functioning idiomatically in the contexts analyzed, but there were also notable exceptions. The findings are used to support the general notion in the literature that idioms represent a single lexical choice for language users, and the researcher proposes several extensions of the findings for the teaching and researching of idioms.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-03-23T13:09:34Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Cristina Borges Gil.pdf: 4736864 bytes, checksum: cc77f5e1e500d6c09793301a52d46456 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-23T13:09:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cristina Borges Gil.pdf: 4736864 bytes, checksum: cc77f5e1e500d6c09793301a52d46456 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-16 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The aim of this research is to find evidence of both the idiom principle and the open-choice principle in the written production of Brazilian students of English as a foreign language. The theoretical basis of this study is Corpus Linguistics, an area which supports the research and the study of language in use, and which is based on the view of language as a probabilistic system. Sinclair (1991, 2004) sees language as a probabilistic system with two complementary principles: the idiom principle and the open-choice principle. The idiom principle has to do with the use of sequence of words which are at least partly prefabricated and that are appropriate in a given context. The open-choice principle is a way of seeing the language in which the only restriction to lexical choices is grammaticalness. The methodology consisted of the collection of a written corpus of Brazilian students of English as a foreign language and the subsequent analysis of all the sequences of words used in each text of the corpus. This procedure, known as ‘collocation tracking’, was introduced by Berber Sardinha (2014a). The findings point out that the two principles coexist in the texts as proposed by Sinclair. In addition, they also reveal nuances in the principles described by him in the written production of the learners. We called them idiom principle I and II, and open-choice principle I and II. The study presented here intended to have made an original contribution to Corpus Linguistics and to the study of Learner Corpora as it carried out a descriptive investigation of learner language and observed variant forms of the principles which are not found in texts written by educated native speakers / Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo principal detectar indícios do princípio idiomático e do princípio da escolha aberta na produção escrita de alunos brasileiros em inglês como língua estrangeira. A base teórica desta investigação é a Linguística de Corpus, uma área que proporciona a pesquisa, o estudo e a exploração da língua em uso e que se baseia na visão probabilística da linguagem. Sinclair (1991, 2004) considera a linguagem como sistema probabilístico a partir de dois princípios complementares: o idiomático e o da escolha aberta. O princípio idiomático diz respeito ao uso de sequências de palavras que são, pelo menos em parte, pré-fabricadas e adequadas para o contexto no qual se inserem. Já o princípio da escolha aberta diz respeito ao uso de sequências de palavras que seguem o modelo abertura-e-enchimento, combinadas a partir de regras gramaticais. A metodologia consistiu da coleta de um corpus de escrita de aprendizes brasileiros de inglês e do subsequente exame de todas as sequências de palavras de cada um dos textos do corpus, comparando-as com um corpus de referência representativo da língua em questão, o inglês. Esse procedimento, conhecido por rastreamento de colocações, foi introduzido por Berber Sardinha (2014a). A análise dos resultados indicou que os dois princípios coexistem nos textos analisados, como aventado por Sinclair (1991). Além disso, também revelou que há nas redações dos aprendizes nuances nos dois princípios propostos por Sinclair (1991), que denominamos princípio idiomático tipo I e II, e princípio da escolha aberta tipo I e II. A pesquisa pretende dar uma contribuição original à Linguística de Corpus, assim como à Linguística de Corpus de Aprendiz, à medida que foi realizada uma investigação descritiva da linguagem do aprendiz baseada em corpora e observado variantes dos princípios nos textos dos aprendizes que não se encontram em textos de falantes nativos letrados da língua

The research reported in this thesis explores the degree of authenticity of the formulaic language used by NNSs and the extent to which a learner's L1 interferes in the production of different types of multi-word units, namely non-idiomatic recurrent three and four-word combinations (lexical bundles), phrasal and prepositional verbs and collocation. Drawing on Granger's Contrastive Interlanguage analysis (CIA 1996), the investigation is conducted on two different learner sample corpora and subsequently contrasted with a native sample corpus. The study aims to prove that multi-word units pose a challenge for learners for several reasons. In general terms, learners are assumed to operate predominantly on what Sinclair calls the open-choice principle, that is to say their production will be less idiomatic than that of native speakers'. This assumption is independently tested on different types of phraseological combinations. As regards non-idiomatic recurrent word combinations, learners are expected to be more repetitive in their three- and four-word combinations and use less creativity in their writing. Concerning the phrasal verbs, it is highly likely to observe a small number of phrasal verbs in the non-native writing whereas prepositional verbs are considered problematic for learners due to the...

Die korpuslinguistische Arbeit untersucht den Erwerb von Koselektionsbeschränkungen bei Lerner*innen des Deutschen als Fremdsprache in einem quasi-longitudinalen Forschungsdesign anhand des Kobalt-Korpus. Neben einigen statistischen Analysen wird vordergründig eine graphbasierte Analyse entwickelt, die auf der Graphmetrik Louvain-Modularität aufbaut. Diese wird für diverse Subkorpora nach verschiedenen Kriterien berechnet und mit Hilfe verschiedener Samplingtechniken umfassend intern validiert. Im Ergebnis zeigen sich eine Abhängigkeit der gemessenen Modularitätswerte vom Sprachstand der Teilnehmer*innen, eine höhere Modularität bei Muttersprachler*innen, niedrigere Modularitätswerte bei weißrussischen vs. chinesischen Lerner*innen sowie ein U-Kurven-förmiger Erwerbsverlauf bei weißrussischen, nicht aber chinesischen Lerner*innen. Unterschiede zwischen den Gruppen werden aus typologischer, kognitiver, diskursiv-kultureller und Registerperspektive diskutiert. Abschließend werden Vorschläge für den Einsatz von graphbasierten Modellierungen in kernlinguistischen Fragestellungen entwickelt. Zusätzlich werden theoretische Lücken in der gebrauchsbasierten Beschreibung von Koselektionsphänomenen (Phraseologie, Idiomatizität, Kollokation) aufgezeigt und ein multidimensionales funktionales Modell als Alternative vorgeschlagen. / The thesis located in corpus linguistics analyzes the acquisition of coselectional constraint in learners of German as a second language in a quasi-longitudinal design based on the Kobalt corpus. Supplemented by a number of statistical analyses, the thesis primarily develops a graph-based analysis making use of Louvain modularity. The graph metric is computed for a range of subcorpora chosen by various criteria. Extensive internal validation is performed through a number of sampling techniques. Results robustly indicate a dependency of modularity on language acquisition progress, higher modularity in L1 vs. L2, lower modularity in Belarusian vs. Chinese learners, and a u-shaped learning development in Belarusian, but not in Chinese learners. Group differences are discussed from a typological, cognitive, cultural and cultural discourse, and register perspective. Finally, future applications of graph-based modeling in core-linguistic research are outlined. In addition, some gaps in the theoretical discussion of coselection phenomena (phraseology, idiomaticity, collocation) in usage-based linguistics are discussed and a multidimensional and functional model is proposed as an alternative.