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Academic Keywords in L2 English: A corpus study on French and Norwegian L1 students’ production of academic keywords in written L2 English

Sorli-Sidselssonn, Ole Andreas
(2020)

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Details

Supervisors
Paquot, Magali ; Hilde Hasselgård
Faculty
Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres
Degree label
Master [120] en linguistique
Abstract
Learners of English as a second language with Romance language backgrounds have facilitatory effects on receptive competences of academic English vocabulary, compared with Germanic L1 learners of L2 English (Corson, 1997). This study investigates whether French L2 ESL learners produce more academic keywords than Norwegian students of linguistics when writing academic papers in English. For the corpus-based research, texts from 161 different intermediate to advanced ESL learners of French and Norwegian L1 backgrounds, from the VESPA learner corpus, and English native novice writers from the BAWE corpus were analysed. With a backdrop of sub-corpora size discrepancies and amateurish cognate evaluation, it was found that French L1 ESL learners produce more academic keyword tokens than Norwegian L1s, and this latter group produced more academic keyword types. In addition, the learner groups demonstrate both signs of crosslinguistic influence, typical learner traits, and a tendency of similar behaviour like in the native reference corpus, indicating a developing sensitivity to academic genre and style norms by increased exposure to academic language.