Cover not available
Part of
Corpus-based Approaches to Register Variation
Edited by Elena Seoane and Douglas Biber
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 103] 2021
► pp. 235–258

Chapter 9
On the importance of register in learner writing

A multi-dimensional approach

| Uppsala University
| University of Louvain
| Northern Arizona University

The present study explores the relative importance of register in learner writing vis-à-vis learner-internal factors such as first-language background. Using multi-dimensional analysis, the study looks at learner and native-speaker student writing from two registers (argumentative essays and research papers), in comparison to published scientific articles. The results show that while certain differences could be noted across first-language background, the main differences were found between the registers, stressing its importance as a moderating variable. Specifically, the research papers and the scientific articles were characterized by topic-focussed, factual descriptions, and the argumentative texts by a more personal style. The results thus highlight the importance of taking register into consideration in learner corpus research studies.

Keywords: learner corpus research, English as a Foreign Language, first-language background, multi-dimensional analysis, register, argumentative essays, research papers, scientific articles
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Register variation in learner corpus research
  • 3.Data and method
    • 3.1Corpora
    • 3.2Method
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1The dimensions
    • 4.2The effect of L1 background, NS status, and register
      • 4.2.1Dimension 1: Personal vs. topic-focussed style
      • 4.2.2Dimension 2: Evaluative style vs. factual descriptions
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 December 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.103.09lar
References
Ädel, Annelie
2006 Metadiscourse in L1 and L2 English [Studies in Corpus Linguistics 24]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aijmer, Karin
2002 Modality in advanced Swedish learners’ written interlanguage. In Computer Learner Corpora, Second Language Acquisition and Foreign Language Teaching [Language Learning & Language Teaching 6], Sylviane Granger, Joseph Hung & Stephanie Petch-Tyson (eds), 55–76. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Altenberg, Bengt & Tapper, Marie
1998 The use of adverbial connectors in advanced Swedish learners’ written English. In Learner English on Computer, Sylviane Granger (ed), 80–93. London: Addison-Wesley Longman.Google Scholar
Berber Sardinha, Tony
2014 25 years later: Comparing Internet and pre-Internet registers. In Multi-Dimensional Analysis, 25 Years on [Studies in Corpus Linguistics 60], Tony Berber Sardinha & Marcia Veirano Pinto (eds), 81–108. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas
1988 Variation across Speech and Writing. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1995 Dimensions of Register Variation: A Cross-Linguistic Comparison. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2006 University Language: A Corpus-Based Study of Spoken and Written Registers [Studies in Corpus Linguistics 23]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas & Conrad, Susan
2019 Register, Genre, and Style, 2nd edn. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Gray, Bethany & Staples, Shelley
2016 Predicting patterns of grammatical complexity across language exam task types and proficiency levels. Applied Linguistics 37(5): 639–668. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Johansson, Stig, Leech, Geoffrey, Conrad, Susan & Finegan, Edward
1999 Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Reppen, Randi, Staples, Shelley & Egbert, Jesse
2020 Exploring the longitudinal development of grammatical complexity in the disciplinary writing of L2-English university students. International Journal of Learner Corpus Research 6(1): 38–71. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Conrad, Susan
1996 Investigating academic texts with corpus-based techniques: An example from biology. Linguistics and Education 8: 299–326. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cooper, Amy & Bikowski, Dawn
2007 Writing at the graduate level: What tasks do professors actually require? Journal of English for Academic Purposes 6(3): 206–221. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crossley, Scott A., Allen, Laura K. & McNamara, Danielle S.
2014 A multi-dimensional analysis of essay writing: What linguistic features tell us about situational parameters and the effects of language functions on judgments of quality. In Multi-Dimensional Analysis, 25 Years on [Studies in Corpus Linguistics 60], Tony Berber Sardinha & Marcia Veirano Pinto (eds), 197–238. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crosthwaite, Peter, Cheung, Lisa & Jiang, Feng (Kevin)
2017 Writing with attitude: Stance expression in learner and professional dentistry research reports. English for Specific Purposes 46: 107–123. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Egbert, Jesse & Biber, Douglas
2018 Do all roads lead to Rome? Modeling register variation with factor analysis and discriminant analysis. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 14(2): 233–273. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Egbert, Jesse, Larsson, Tove & Biber, Douglas
2020 Doing Linguistics with a Corpus: Methodological Considerations for the Everyday Use. [Cambridge Elements in Corpus Linguistics]. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Flowerdew, Lynne
2015 Learner corpora and language for academic and specific purposes. In The Cambridge Handbook of Learner Corpus Research, Sylviane Granger, Gaëtanelle Gilquin & Fanny Meunier (eds), 465–484. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gardner, Sheena, Nesi, Hilary & Biber, Douglas
2018 Discipline, level, genre: Integrating situational perspectives in a new MD analysis of university student writing. Applied Linguistics 40(4): 1–30.Google Scholar
Gilquin, Gaëtanelle
2015 From design to collection of learner corpora. In The Cambridge Handbook of Learner Corpus Research, Sylviane Granger, Gaëtanelle Gilquin & Fanny Meunier (eds), 9–34. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gilquin, Gaëtanelle, Granger, Sylviane & Paquot, Magali
2007 Learner corpora: The missing link in EAP pedagogy. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 6(4): 319–335. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gilquin, Gaëtanelle & Paquot, Magali
2008 Too chatty: Learner academic writing and register variation. English Text Construction 1(1): 41–61. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Granger, Sylviane
1996 From CA to CIA and back: An integrated contrastive approach to computerized bilingual and learner corpora. In Languages in Contrast. Text-based cross-linguistic studies, Karin Aijmer, Bengt Altenberg & Mats Johansson (eds), 37–51. Lund: Lund University Press.Google Scholar
2015 Contrastive interlanguage analysis: A reappraisal. International Journal of Learner Corpus Research 1(1): 7–24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Granger, Sylviane, Dagneaux, Estelle, Meunier, Fanny & Paquot, Magali
2009 The International Corpus of Learner English, Version 2. Handbook and CD-Rom. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses Universitaires de Louvain.Google Scholar
Granger, Sylviane & Paquot, Magali
(eds) 2012 Electronic Lexicography. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hardy, Jack A. & Römer, Ute
2013 Revealing disciplinary variation in student writing: A multi-dimensional analysis of the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP). Corpora 8(2): 183–207. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hasselgård, Hilde
2009 Thematic choice and expressions of stance in English argumentative texts by Norwegian learners. In Corpora and Language Teaching [Studies in Corpus Linguistics 33], Karin Aijmer (ed.), 121–140. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017 Stating the obvious: Signals of shared knowledge in Norwegian-produced academic English. In Language, Learners and Levels: Progression and Variation, Pieter de Haan, Rina de Vries & Sanne van Vuuren (eds), 23–44. Louvain: Presses universitaires de Louvain.Google Scholar
Heuboeck, Alois, Holmes, Jasper & Nesi, Hilary
2008 The BAWE Corpus Manual. [URL]> (26 May 2021).
Larsson, Tove
2019 Grammatical stance marking across registers: Revisiting the formal-informal dichotomy. Register Studies 1(2): 243–268. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Larsson, Tove & Kaatari, Henrik
2019 Extraposition in learner and expert writing. Exploring (in)formality and the impact of register. International Journal of Learner Corpus Research 5(1): 33–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2020 Syntactic complexity across registers: Investigating (in)formality in second-langauge writing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lu, Xiaofei
2011 A corpus-based evaluation of syntactic complexity measures as indices of college-level ESL writers’ language development. TESOL Quarterly 45: 36–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Narita, Masumi & Sugiura, Masatoshi
2006 The use of adverbial connectors in argumentative essays by Japanese EFL college students. English Corpus Studies 13: 23–42.Google Scholar
Neff, JoAnne, Ballesteros, Francisco, Dafouz, Emma, Martínez, Francisco, Rica, Juan-Pedro, Díez, Mercedes & Prieto, Rosa
2007 A contrastive functional analysis of errors in Spanish EFL university writers’ argumentative texts: corpus-based study. In Corpus Linguistics Beyond the Word: Corpus Research from Phrase to Discourse [Language and Computers 60], Eileen Fitzpatrick (ed.), 203–225. Amsterdam: Rodopi. DOI logo
Nesi, Hilary & Gardner, Sheena
2012 Genres across the Disciplines: Student Writing in Higher Education. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Paquot, Magali
2010 Academic Vocabulary in Learner Writing. From Extraction to Analysis. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Paquot, Magali & Biber, Douglas
2015 The impact of genre on EFL learner writing: A MDA perspective. Conference paper given at ICAME 36, 28 May, Trier, Germany.
Paquot, Magali, Hasselgård, Hilde & Oksefjell Ebeling, Signe
2013 Writer/reader visibility in learner writing across genres: A comparison of the French and Norwegian components of the ICLE and VESPA learner corpora. In Twenty Years of Learner Corpus Research. Looking Back, Moving Ahead. Proceedings of the First Learner Corpus Research Conference (LCR 2011), Sylviane Granger, Gaëtanelle Gilquin & Fanny Meunier (eds), 377–387. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses Universitaires de Louvain.Google Scholar
Paquot, Magali & Plonsky, Luke
2017 Quantitative research methods and study quality in learner corpus research. International Journal of Learner Corpus Research 3(1): 61–94. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pérez-Paredes, Pascual & Sánchez-Torneland, María
2015 A multidimensional analysis of learner language during story reconstruction in interviews. In Learner Corpora in Language Testing and Assessment [Studies in Corpus Linguistics 70], Marcus Callies & Sandra Götz (eds), 141–162. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Petch-Tyson, Stephanie
1998 Reader/writer visibility in EFL persuasive writing. In Learner English on Computer, Sylviane Granger (ed.), 107–118. London: Addison Wesley Longman.Google Scholar
Qin, Wenjuan & Uccelli, Paola
2016 Same language, different functions: A cross-genre analysis of Chinese EFL learners’ writing performance. Journal of Second Language Writing 33: 3–17. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Römer, Ute & O’Donnell, Matthew B.
2011 From student hard drive to web corpus (part 1): The design, compilation and genre classification of the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP). Corpora 6(2): 159–177. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Staples, Selley & Reppen, Randi
2016 Understanding first-year L2 writing: A lexico-grammatical analysis across L1s, genres, and language ratings. Journal of Second Language Writing 32: 17–35. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Staples, Shelley, Biber, Douglas & Reppen, Randi
2018 Using corpus-based register analysis to explore the authenticity of high-stakes language exams: A register comparison of TOEFL iBTand disciplinary writing tasks. The Modern Language Journal 102(2): 310–332. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Way, Denise P., Joiner, Elizabeth G. & Seaman, Michael A.
2000 Writing in the secondary foreign language classroom: The effects of prompts and tasks on novice learners of French. The Modern Language Journal 84: 171–184. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wharton, Sue
2012 Epistemological and interpersonal stance in a data description task: Findings from a discipline-specific learner corpus. English for Specific Purposes 31(4): 261–270. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yoon, Hyung-Jo & Polio, Charlene
2016 The linguistic development of students of English as a second language in two written genres. TESOL Quarterly 51(2): 275–301. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 5 other publications

Paquot, Magali, Tove Larsson, Hilde Hasselgård, Signe O. Ebeling, Damien De Meyere, Larry Valentin, Natalia J. Laso, Isabel Verdaguer & Sanne van Vuuren
2022. The Varieties of English for Specific Purposes dAtabase (VESPA): Towards a multi-L1 and multi-register learner corpus of disciplinary writing. Research in Corpus Linguistics 10:2 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Paquot, Magali & Nicole Tracy‐Ventura
2023. Using Foreign and Second Language Learner Corpora. In Current Approaches in Second Language Acquisition Research, ► pp. 96 ff. DOI logo
Pyykönen, Maria
2023. Exploring patterns of lexical variation in the use of epistemic stance markers in written L2 English across task types and levels of proficiency. International Journal of Learner Corpus Research 9:2 ► pp. 215 ff. DOI logo
Schaeffer-Lacroix, Eva
2022. "Es ist vieles getan, es bleibt vieles zu tun." – Production assistée par corpus d'un discours de fin d'année en cursus LEA allemand. Alsic Vol. 25, n° 2:Vol. 25, n° 2 DOI logo
Zhang, Yujiao
2023. A Multidimensional Analysis of Language Use in English Argumentative Essays: An Evidence From Comparable Corpora. SAGE Open 13:3 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.