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Understanding the Long-Term Evolution of L2 Lexical Diversity: The Contribution of a Longitudinal Learner Corpus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 December 2020

By
Nicole Tracy-Ventura ,
Amanda Huensch  and
Rosamond Mitchell
Edited by
Bert Le Bruyn  and
Magali Paquot
Bert Le Bruyn
Affiliation:
UIL-OTS, Utrecht University
Magali Paquot
Affiliation:
FNRS – Centre for English Corpus Linguistics, UCLouvain
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Summary

This study investigated the long-term evolution of lexical diversity of adult L2 learners of French and Spanish (n = 33) over a five-year period. A longitudinal learner corpus was collected that includes oral (semi-structured interview, picture-based narrative) and written (argumentative essay) data. Three data collection waves are investigated in the current study: (a) before learners studied abroad as part of their university degree program, (b) at the end of their nine-month stay abroad, and (c) three years post-instruction. In addition to examining the potential outcomes of attrition, maintenance, or development, this study explores the extent to which variables such as peak attainment and language exposure/use predict changes in lexical diversity three years post-instruction. Results of ANOVA analyses indicate continued improvement in lexical diversity post-instruction for oral but not written tasks. Regression analyses indicate that both peak attainment in lexical diversity and language exposure/use contribute significantly to predicting gains in lexical diversity post-instruction on both oral tasks, with peak attainment explaining more of the variance than language exposure. The findings help us better understand the variables that influence the long-term evolution of foreign language proficiency after the conclusion of formal instruction.

Keywords

foreign language maintenanceforeign language attritionlexical diversitylongitudinal learner corpusSpanish second language acquisitionFrench second language acquisitionlearner corpus research
Type
Chapter
Information
Learner Corpus Research Meets Second Language Acquisition , pp. 148 - 171
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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