HL2C-SLLAT Seminar: Olesya Kisselev (U of Texas - San Antonio)

Title: Corpus linguistics methods in the study of learner language varieties: Using automatic measures of linguistic complexity to measure development, gains, and proficiency in second and heritage learners of Russian.

Presenter(s): Olesya Kisselev (U of Texas - San Antonio)

Date: Thursday 25 May 2023, 5:00pm to 6:00pm

How to join: The seminars are free to attend. Simply sign up to the HL2C Mailing List or to the SLLAT mailing list to receive the link to join us via Microsoft Teams link. You do not need a Teams account to access the talk.

About: This is a joint event, co-organized by the Heritage Language 2 Consortium (HL2C) and the Second Language Learning and Teaching (SLLAT) Research Group.

Abstract:

The field of second language acquisition (SLA) and the area of second language (L2) writing development more specifically have a rich history of analyzing language development through the lens of linguistic complexity (Larsen–Freeman, 2006; Lu, 2011; Verspoor et al., 2012). Until recently, however, complexity indices rarely featured in the studies of learner languages other than English and, importantly, in the study of heritage language varieties.

In this talk, drawing on some of my current research projects that explore Russian as a second (L2) and as a heritage (HL) languages (e.g., Kisselev, Kopotev, & Klimov, 2021, 2021; Kisselev, Kisselev, Soyan, Pastushenkov, & Merrill, 2022), I review the methodological considerations in extracting indices of linguistic complexity in Russian learner language. Presenting the results of these studies, I discuss how tracking various linguistic indices (i.e., lexical, morphological, and syntactic features) may help explored the unique patterns of language development in learners from different language acquisition backgrounds (heritage and second language learners), different instructional settings (instructed vs naturalistic), and various developmental levels.