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Article published In:
International Journal of Learner Corpus Research
Vol. 8:1 (2022) ► pp.67–96
Research articles

The use of synonymous adjectives by learners of Finnish as a second language

Applying the MuPDAR(F) approach

| University of Turku
| University of Turku

In this study, we apply Gries and Deshors’s (2014) and Deshors and Gries’s (2016) MuPDAR(F) approach to explore the use of synonymous adjectives tärkeä (i.e. “important”) and keskeinen (i.e. “central”) in academic native and advanced learner Finnish, linking the phenomenon with the general assumptions of usage-based cognitive linguistics. This method confidently modelled the differences between using near-synonyms in native data and distinguished between native-like and non-native-like uses in learner data. Crucially, it differentiated between the contexts in which one synonym was clearly favoured and those in which either one was acceptable, in accordance with Gries and Deshors (2020). The results suggest that Finnish learners fairly coherently follow the tendencies of native speakers, but several variables differentiate their use of synonyms from the latter’s. We interpret the differences to reflect complexity- and prototypicality-related phenomena. On the one hand, learners use more common options more often. On the other, non-nativelike adjectives are used only in contexts that are structurally in the most prototypical and least complex form, suggesting that learners employ complexity-related structural alternations – e.g., non-prototypical grammatical subjects or degree modifiers – after lexical alternations.

Keywords: Finnish, academic learner language, synonymous adjectives, MuPDAR(F), random forests
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Learning synonymy in the crossroads of form, meaning and use
    • 2.2Corpus-based work on near-synonyms
  • 3.Dataset and methodology
    • 3.1Corpus data: Native and non-native written academic Finnish
    • 3.2Data extraction and annotation
    • 3.3The MuPDAR(F) approach
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Model 1: Random forests for NS Finnish data used to predict the near-synonymous adjectives in advanced NNS Finnish data
    • 4.2Model 2: Random forest on F2 data used to predict F1-likeness in the L2 data
    • 4.3Variables that distinguish between F1-like and non-F1-like uses
      • 4.3.1Adjective choice
      • 4.3.2Word order
      • 4.3.3Type of grammatical subject
      • 4.3.4Case marking
      • 4.3.5The use of modifiers
  • 5.Discussion and concluding remarks
    • 5.1RQ1: Similarities and differences between NS and NNS in the use of tärkeä (“important”) and keskeinen (“central”) in a predicative construction
    • 5.2RQ2: Applicability of the MuPDAR(F) approach to studying the use of near-synonymous adjectives in academic NS and NNS Finnish
    • 5.3Future directions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 March 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijlcr.21006.kek
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