A Fundamental Study on English L2 Learners' Collocational Knowledge

本研究的目的是利用语料库、反应时和近红外光谱这三种数据来分析英语学习者和英语本族语者在搭配知识上的差异。我们收集了由日本英语学习者和以英语为母语的人撰写的获得版权许可的英语文章：每组收集了200篇文章。基于文章语料，我们编制了名古屋英语中介语语料库。NICE语料库包括两个子语料库：NICE-NNS(非本族语语料库)和NICE-NS(本族语语料库)。此外，我们通过n元语法程序提取了搭配短语，并创建了用于以下实验的短语列表。2007年，我们分析了非母语说话人数据(NICE-NNS)和母语说话人数据(NICE-NS)之间存在显著差异的语言特征。从随后的判别分析中，我们发现了显著的差异。我们的反应时分析显示，英语学习者确实有一些搭配知识，但这些知识的数量在熟练程度上是不同的。我们的NIRS实验表明，母语使用者只使用大脑中的语言区域来处理搭配表达，认知处理负荷最小。然而，学习者使用了语言领域以外的其他领域，没有特定的、共同的神经激活模式。我们的学习者语料库NICE目前向公众开放，并可在互联网上获得。我们的最后报告也可以在互联网上以PDF文件的形式获得。

The purpose of this research was to analyze the differences in collocational knowledge between EFL learners and native English speakers, utilizing three kinds of data: corpora, reaction time, and near-infrared spectroscopy(NIRS).In 2005, we designed and compiled a new learner corpus. We collected English essays, with copyright permission, written by both Japanese EFL learners and native English speakers: 200 essays were collected from each group. Based on the essay data, we compiled the Nagoya Interlanguage Corpus of English (NICE). The NICE consists of two subcorpora: NICE-NNS (non-native speaker data) and NICE-NS (native speaker data).In 2006, we added native English speakers' corrections to the learners' essay data in order to carry out error analysis. In addition, we picked up collocational expressions by means of an n-gram program, and created the list of expressions used for the following experiments.In 2007, we analyzed the linguistic features of distinctive differences between non-native speaker data (NICE-NNS) and native speaker data (NICE-NS). From the subsequent discriminant analysis, we found distinctive differences. Our reaction time analysis disclosed that the EFL learners did have some collocational knowledge, but that the amount of such knowledge varied among the proficiency levels. Our NIRS experiment revealed that the native speakers used only the linguistic area in the brain to process the collocational expressions, with minimum cognitive processing load. The learners, however, used various areas other than the linguistic area, with no particular, common neural activation patterns.Our learner's corpus, NICE, is currently open to the public, and available on the Internet. Our final report is also available on the Internet in the form of PDF files.