corpus

This study examines when and how second language (L2) learners begin to exhibit sensitivity to key factors influencing the choice between the English double object and prepositional object constructions. While previous research has shown that such choices in native speakers are influenced by such factors as animacy, pronominality and verb bias, little is known about the developmental timing of these effects in L2 production. Using 5,785 dative constructions from a large-scale learner corpus, we analyzed how these variables interact with learners’ proficiency levels across 23 verbs. We found that learners showed systematic sensitivity to all of these factors, including statistical verb bias derived from a native speaker corpus (Corpus of Contemporary American English), at much earlier stages than previously suggested. These results suggest that learners may possess a cognitive bias that maps preexisting conceptual structures onto linguistic constructions, reflecting more than mere statistical learning.

Fukuta, J., Murakami, A., Terai, M., & Tamura, Y. (2026). Factors influencing L2 learners’ use of the English dative construction: Insights from a learner corpus. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. Advance Online Publication. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728925100965

Complexity, accuracy, and fluency as dimensions of L2 performance, proficiency, and development have been measured through a small number of measures that researchers arbitrarily choose. L2 performance is never a simplistic structure that can be captured through the reduction of one or two elements. Reductionism practice has overlooked perspectives of how each measure interacts and changes. The current study attempts to describe dynamic relations between various linguistic features, investigate how each element is intertwined, and explore which linguistic features play a central role in L2 oral performance, based on the complexity theory using network analysis. Spoken data were drawn from the NICT JLT Corpus, which comprises English transcriptions uttered by Japanese learners, and were attached their individual proficiency. Two networks of each proficiency group (i.e., low and high) were delineated, and centrality measures were calculated. The results reveal that the network structures in L2 oral performance change to be dependent on the learner’s proficiency. Furthermore, linguistic features that play a central role in the network structure also change with learner’s proficiency. These results are highly suggestive toward L2 oral performance and the relationship among various linguistic features. The significance of the network analysis is also discussed.