Developing a writing assistant to help EAP writers with collocations in real time

Ana Frankenberg-Garcia,Geraint Paul Rees,Robert Lew,Jonathan C Roberts,Nirwan Sharma

doi:10.1017/s0958344018000150

Abstract

AbstractCorpora have given rise to a wide range of lexicographic resources aimed at helping novice users of academic English with their writing. This includes academic vocabulary lists, a variety of textbooks, and even a bespoke academic English dictionary. However, writers may not be familiar with these resources or may not be sufficiently aware of the lexical shortcomings of their emerging texts to trigger the need to use such help in the first place. Moreover, writers who have to stop writing to look up a word can be distracted from getting their ideas down on paper. The ColloCaid project (www.collocaid.uk) aims to address these problems by integrating information on collocation with text editors. In this paper, we share the research underpinning the initial development of ColloCaid by detailing the rationale of (1) the lexicographic database we are compiling to support the collocation needs of novice users of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and (2) the preliminary visualisation decisions taken to present information on collocation to EAP users without disrupting their writing. We conclude the paper by outlining the next steps in the research.

Highlights

Over the last 30 years there have been considerable advances regarding both dictionary content and format
This section describes the lexicographic decisions made in the process of developing ColloCaid. It begins by explaining how previous research to identify core academic vocabulary was used to determine which collocation nodes to prioritise. It outlines how expert academic English corpora were used to compile a database of collocations and corpus-based examples to support novice English for Academic Purposes (EAP) users. 3.1 Collocation nodes To maximize the relevance of the EAP collocation support offered by ColloCaid, academic vocabulary frequently used across disciplines was taken as a starting point to determine which collocation nodes to focus on
Future work and conclusion The previous sections detailed the lexicographic coverage and primary visualisation decisions taken in the development of ColloCaid

Summary

Introduction

Over the last 30 years there have been considerable advances regarding both dictionary content and format. Studies into dictionary use show that the spectacular developments that have taken place in the past decades have not had a dramatic impact on actual dictionary-user behaviour (Atkins & Varantola, 1997; Frankenberg-Garcia, 2005, 2011; Gromann & Schnitzer, 2016; Lew & de Schryver, 2014; Welker, 2006). Developing a writing assistant to help EAP writers with collocations in real time. Few users are aware that dictionaries can help in language production, offering users information about how to employ words in texts. In this paper we describe the development of an intuitive lexicographic resource that is accessed from within digital writing environments to help learners write more idiomatically. We aim to assist users of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) with collocations

Research background

Findings

Collocates and examples