Corpus and Computational Methods for Usage-Based Chinese Language Learning: Toward a Professional Multilingualism

Abstract

Language is a complex functional adaptive system (Beckner et al. in Lang Learn 59:1–26, 2009; Ellis in Usage-based perspectives on second language learning, De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, pp 49–73, 2015). Language learning is learning to use a complex system Larsen-Freeman (Alternative approaches to second language acquisition, Routledge, London, pp 47–72, 2011). It is a multidimensional task involving social cognitive processes that interact both in time and space MacWhinney (Usage based perspectives on second language learning, De Gruyter, Berlin, pp 19–48, 2015). Language learning in the twenty-first century is “enmeshed in globalization, technologization, and mobility” and hence “emergent, dynamic, unpredictable, open ended, and intersubjectively negotiated” (The Douglas Fir Group in Mod Lang J 100:19–47, 2016: 19). Accordingly, the field of language teaching is more interdisciplinary than ever. It requires not only knowledge of language as a functional system and knowledge of language learning as a human socio-cognitive endeavor but also expanded communication across domains traditionally separated by differences in the methodology of knowledge construction. This chapter focuses on the usage-based model of language and language learning within a broader cognitive theory of linguistic knowledge and its development. The goal is to establish a theoretical relevancy and methodological necessity of corpus and computational methods to the knowledge base for language pedagogy as a practical field. In doing so, this chapter serves to ground the application of such methods as part of a professional multilingualism that informs the learning, teaching, and assessment of Chinese as a second language.