Learner Corpora: Construction and Explorations in Chinese and Related Languages (eBook)

This edited book reflects the state of the art in learner corpus and related approaches to Chinese as a second language (CSL). CSL as a field has flourished in the past few decades due to the increasingly important role of the Chinese language at the world stage, yet studies of Chinese as a second language based on learner corpora have been less well developed due to the limited availability of data and lack of theoretical insights. This book  represents the latest research in this area by 1) assembling a large group of active researchers from multiple international research communities (USA, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Taiwan, and France); 2) discussing the latest resources and technologies in Chinese and other Asian languages learner corpora and corpus building; 3) basing Chinese as a second language studies on data from learners of Chinese with a wide range of first language backgrounds (English, Japanese, Korean, French, among others); and 4) integrating corpus methods with a wide range of related methods in allied fields-language acquisition, usage-based linguistics, psycholinguistics, and neurolinguistics. This comprehensive collection is  indispensable for anyone who is interested in corpus approaches to CSL and Chinese applied language studies in general.

Howard Hao-Jan Chen is Professor of Applied Linguistics and former Chair of English Department at the National Taiwan Normal University. His areas of expertise include computer-assisted language learning, corpus linguistics, and applied linguistics. He has also served as Director of Mandarin Training Center of National Taiwan Normal University for four years. He has published numerous journal articles related to computer-assisted language learning and corpus linguistics. He also serves on several editorial boards, including Computer Assisted Language Learning, English Teaching and Learning, and International Journal of Digital Learning Technology. He is also managing the Cool English website, a website for English learning supported by Taiwan Ministry of Education.

Keiko Mochizuki is Professor of Applied Linguistics in Graduate School of Global Studies, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. She specializes in Chinese linguistics, second language acquisition, contrastive linguistics between Japanese, Chinese, and English as well as pedagogy based on learners' native languages. Her recent works, mostly learner corpus-focussed, have included 1) research on cross-referential learners' corpora of English, Chinese, and Japanese; 2) an Online Learners' Composition Corpus and Error Dictionary with the cooperation with researchers in natural language processing; 3) a collaborative project between the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, National Taiwan Normal University, National Taiwan University, Peking University, Shanghai International Studies University, the University of Leeds, and Akita International University collecting data for an English-Chinese-Japanese Learner Corpus and constructing Learners' Error Corpora of English/Chinese/Japanese Searching Platform; and 4) International Research on Spoken and Written Corpora of Learners of English, Chinese, and Japanese through University-High School Collaboration. She was Executive Committee Member of International Association of Chinese Linguistics in 2010-2011.

Hongyin Tao is Professor of Chinese language and linguistics and applied linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to UCLA, he taught at the National University of Singapore and Cornell University. His areas of expertise include Chinese linguistics, corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics. His recent books include Working with Spoken Chinese (2011), Chinese under Globalization (co-edited with Jin Liu, 2011), and Integrating Linguistic Research with Chinese Language Teaching and Learning (2016). His research is supported by the US Department of Education. He was 2014 President of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, USA, is Distinguished Chair Professor at the National Taiwan Normal University, and serves on over twenty editorial boards, including Chinese Language and Discourse, the Heritage Language Journal, and Contemporary Chinese Linguistics.

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This edited book reflects the state of the art in learner corpus and related approaches to Chinese as a second language (CSL). CSL as a field has flourished in the past few decades due to the increasingly important role of the Chinese language at the world stage, yet studies of Chinese as a second language based on learner corpora have been less well developed due to the limited availability of data and lack of theoretical insights. This book  represents the latest research in this area by 1) assembling a large group of active researchers from multiple international research communities (USA, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Taiwan, and France); 2) discussing the latest resources and technologies in Chinese and other Asian languages learner corpora and corpus building; 3) basing Chinese as a second language studies on data from learners of Chinese with a wide range of first language backgrounds (English, Japanese, Korean, French, among others); and 4) integrating corpus methodswith a wide range of related methods in allied fields-language acquisition, usage-based linguistics, psycholinguistics, and neurolinguistics. This comprehensive collection is  indispensable for anyone who is interested in corpus approaches to CSL and Chinese applied language studies in general.