Nordic Scholars Research Articles

In-depth Data-driven Learning: At Least Eight Reasons to Rejoice!

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Revisiting the Computer as Informant from a Teacher-Mediated Perspective: Suggested Implementation of an Automated Language Diagnostics Tool

This article argues for considering a shift in focus towards teacher-mediated tools in English as an Additional Language (EAL) teaching. The argument is primarily carried by previous research within Data-Driven Learning (DDL) and Second Language Acquisition (SLA). A tool currently being developed as a part of an ongoing dissertation project in collaboration with EAL teachers is used to showcase how such an implementation could look, and respondent drawings collected as a part of that project are used to fit the implementation within the routines of a small sample of practicing EAL teachers at the upper-secondary level in Sweden (n=4). The results indicate that teacher-mediated data-driven tools could work within theoretical frameworks of corrective feedback, language learning models and suggested routines of practice, but also highlight that much more research is needed before a wider implementation is considered.

A Theoretical Rationale for the Importance of Patterning in Language Acquisition and the Implications for Data-driven Learning

This article makes the case for the importance of exposure to language patterns in the context of second language acquisition. From the theoretical perspective of the Usage-Based (UB) model of acquisition, I argue that in the process of first and second language acquisition, the learner attends to frequently used form-meaning pairings that they experience. These then become entrenched as grammatical knowledge in the mind of the speaker (Ellis and Ferreira-Junior 2009). From a data-driven learning (DDL) perspective, I argue that the UB model provides a strong rationale for this approach because it offers a principled means of curating data from corpora to aid L2 learning. Work that brings the UB model and corpus linguistics (CL) together is emerging. For example, Römer (2019) explores patterns of verb-argument constructions (VACs) acquired by German beginner-level learners of English. Building on Römer’s work, this study focuses on certain patterns and explores these using data from the 55-million-word Cambridge Learner Corpus. It illustrates how patterns develop across proficiency levels in learner English and compares this with L1 patterns (using the British National Corpus, Burnard and Aston 1998). Overall, it is argued that, through a UB understanding of how language is acquired, DDL has the potential to bring an acceleration of language experience to the learner. However, the curation of language input needs to be sensitive to and differentiated for stages of learning. It is argued that UB theory coupled with CL analysis can aid this process.

Human Rights and Oppressed Peoples: Collected Essays and Speeches

Human Rights and Oppressed Peoples: Collected Essays and Speeches

Literature and Data-driven Learning

This article aims to examine how and why we can use digital storytelling (DST) to teach literature in the upper secondary classroom, and makes use of Mark Haddon’s complex, multimodal novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2004) as an example. DST is a powerful tool for the 21st century classroom, with the potential to help pupils to become empathetic, creative, inquisitive and critical thinkers. When applied to literature, DST allows pupils to continue the literary text in creative ways by making their own digital story using a basic video editing application such as iMovie or Microsoft Bilder. Such literature-based DST (LDST) distinguishes itself from ordinary DST use in school. The values, qualities and peculiarities of literature offer an imaginative point of departure for new ways of using digital media in school. The Curious Incident is an exceptionally appropriate novel to use with DST, because the novel and the method share numerous features, not least multimodal ones. The narrative structures and aesthetic dimensions of the novel overlap with characteristics of DST. Furthermore, the many hermeneutic dimensions of Haddon’s novel can also be explored by the imaginative possibilities of DST. The definitions and interrelations between literature, text and modality are discussed throughout the article with reference to both philosophers and school didacticians. LDST is remarkable in the way it encourages pupils to sympathise, to interpret, to think critically and to develop their own imaginative ability and language skills. This article argues that LDST is useful in upper secondary education by examining the corresponding educational qualities and possibilities of Haddon’s multimodal novel and DST, and by drawing upon the new education reform in Norway articulated in the Core curriculum of 2020 and the Curriculum in English. Furthermore, the article concludes with the presentation, analysis and assessment of a pilot LDST-project conducted in an upper secondary school in Troms County as part of an MA lector thesis at UiT The Arctic University Norway. Thus, this article’s wider aim is to bring new research perspectives to English education, with a special focus on the use of literature and active forms of learning.

Using Very Large Corpora to Teach Modern English (1500–1945)

This article describes the incorporation of a corpus-based research assignment in a 7.5-credit Master’s-level module on Early and Late Modern English. The design of the module as a whole as well as of the research assignment is discussed, and it is shown how this design tallies with intended learning outcomes based on Bloom’s revised taxonomy. I also suggest ways in which students with little previous experience of corpus-based research can be introduced to the use of very large corpora relatively quickly with the aid of, among other things, exercises and pre-recorded lectures. A key component of the research assignment concerns methodological desiderata such as ensuring recall and precision in corpus-based retrieval of historical features, operationalizing frequency appropriately, taking into account the influence of the genre parameter, being mindful of the limitations of the corpus used, and citing and evaluating secondary sources. Students learn about the value of these desiderata largely through data-driven learning before and during their work on the assignment; examples of how they have been addressed in individual papers are provided. Finally, the value of including empirical, corpus-based components in a historical course is discussed.

Reserved for Research? Normalising Corpus Use for School Teachers

There has been much discussion about the persistent gap between research and practice in the use of corpora in the classroom (Frankenberg-Garcia 2012; Chambers 2019 among others), despite strong evidence of its benefits (Boulton 2017). The majority of studies into data-driven learning (DDL) have been carried out by those with a particular interest and skill level, predominantly in higher education, and the need to complement these with a broader base of studies involving practising language teachers in a school environment has been highlighted (e.g., Boulton 2010; Chambers 2019). For such studies to take place, however, more school teachers need to be made aware of DDL and its potential for use in the classroom.This article discusses what we can learn from research into DDL with younger learners and teacher training in this context in order to shape a teacher training programme. It describes a pilot project introducing DDL to a group of secondary school student teachers (STs) of English at a Swedish university, and their responses to it regarding the feasibility of including it in their future teaching practice. The need for further training, particularly in practical pedagogical applications suitable for their learners, was apparent, echoing the outcomes of previous studies. It is suggested that integrating a range of classroom-focused DDL activities throughout their remaining course may be an effective approach. This also provides an opportunity to raise awareness of pre-prepared resources and novel approaches to DDL more likely to appeal to their learners, and practical examples of this are discussed.

About the Contributors

Bio notes for contributors to the special issue Data-Driven Learning: Tools, Approaches, and Next Steps 22(1)

‘To my surprise, I don’t particularly like my own opinions’: Exploring Adaptations of the ‘Open-Guise’ Technique to Raise Sociolinguistic Language Awareness

The following study describes a data-driven learning scenario aimed at raising sociolinguistic awareness of matters related to gender, language and stereotyping. The design is inspired by the matched-guise technique (MGT), a quantitative data driven experimental method that has been used extensively to investigate language attitudes. In the scenario, differences in respondents’ response patterns to two gender-manipulated versions (male-female vs. female-male dyads) of the same recorded dialogue were used as a starting point for awareness-raising activities aimed at highlighting how gender stereotypes may affect perceptions of a dialogue. The main focus of the article is a comparison of the learning outcomes of two variants of the setup: a traditional undisclosed MGT-inspired setup, where the design and purpose of the experiment was kept secret until after the response phase, and a so-called open-guise design, where respondents were informed of the design and purpose of the experiment prior to the response phase. Preliminary results suggest that respondents adjust their assessments of a speaker depending on the guise, even when they know it is the same speaker they are listening to. Moreover, the open-guise design seemed to lead to greater pedagogic impact than the scenario based on the undisclosed design. However, further studies are needed to confirm these findings.

A Matter of Extreme Indelicacy: Neo-Victorian Critical Memory in <i>Kind Hearts and Coronets</i> (1949)

Critical assessments of Robert Hamer’s Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) more often than not aim solely at discussing a larger cultural phenomenon, to wit, the Ealing Comedies and their impact on post-war Britain. Readings outside this paradigm are scarce. The film, however, engages with several issues the recent phenomena of neo-Victorian fiction and film consistently address. These are the relationship between the past and the present (as well as the capital role memory plays in it), nostalgia as the underlining desire for the new recasting of Victoriana, the reassessment of history through marginal and/or alternative identities, as well as the blatantly post-modern continuous deferral of meaning. This article explores these issues in order to inscribe the film within neo-Victorian aesthetics, not only to update the critical discourse about the film, but also to reveal what the film has to say about neo-Victorian culture.

Review of Gottlieb, Henrik. 2020. <i>Echoes of English: Anglicisms in Minor Speech Communities – with Special Focus on Danish and Afrikaans</i>

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Word, Self, and Silence in Samuel Beckett

The article focuses on the relationship between language and self in Samuel Beckett and explores how the writer both represents and undermines the concept of self as contingent on words. Issuing from the ego and ultimately leading to the ego, language in Beckett is arbitrary and tautological, and solipsism seems to be the inevitable result. Beckett shares a deep skepticism of language with such philosophers as Fritz Mauthner and Ludwig Wittgenstein. It is however difficult, if not outright impossible, to determine the degree of influence that their ideas might have had on Beckett. Rather than rigorously using them as theoretical bases which might serve as a key to ‘unlocking’ Beckett, the article eclectically makes use of them, seeing them as springboards for a better understanding of his work. The article also discusses how Beckett transcends the idea of solipsism. In his plays and prose works there is a radical annihilation of the self, and the concept of a unified ego is undermined. Several characters/narrators/voices speak with a voice they cannot claim as their own and often they do not even relate to themselves with the pronoun ‘I’. Since language is an arbitrary and inadequate system, silence seems to be the inevitable result and, possibly, escape.

Necropolitics in Sinan Antoon’s <i>The Corpse Washer</i>

Sinan Antoon’s The Corpse Washer (2013) constitutes an account of post-war Iraq narrated by an Iraqi youth and authored by an Iraqi émigré. It is thus a valuable alternative to American fiction on the conflict and its aftermath. From this premise, this article explores how the myth of the trauma hero, which has whitewashed the American invasion in redemptive terms, is here replaced by a more nuanced discourse. Mbembe’s necropolitics—i.e. the “subjugation of life to the power of death” (2003: 39)—helps explain the story of Jawad, the corpse washer of the title, and of Iraq as one of dehumanization, wounding and spatialization inflicted by Western supremacy and alleged ‘rationality.’ The novel challenges Western necropolitics in two main ways: Iraqi stereotypes are questioned, especially their identification with terrorism and martyrdom. On the other hand, surrealism and gothic elements help the protagonist and his country to sublimate the trauma derived from American neocolonial politics.

Connecting the Functions of Lexical Bundles and Moves in Published Research Articles: The Case of Developmental and Educational Psychology

The Introduction-Methods-Results-Discussion (IMRD) pattern is frequently used in research articles (RAs) in many disciplines. Following the IMRD format enables writers to organize research content more easily, and thoroughly understanding IMRD sections and their functions will facilitate the writing of IMRD-structured RAs (Mack 2018). Studying lexical bundles, especially their functions, can help understand how research writing is organized. Combining top-down move analysis of RAs with bottom-up frequency-based identification of bundle functions can provide evidence for the occurrence of bundle functions in a particular position of an RA. However, previous studies integrating these two approaches tend to focus on RA Introductions, lacking a systematic investigation of the other three sections. To fill this gap, the present study connects bundle functions and moves in all the sections of RAs in the field of developmental and educational psychology. The results reveal that there are differences between RA sections in terms of the functional distribution of lexical bundles, which are related to the respective roles of the four sections in RAs. The results also show that lexical bundles of certain functions stand out in the moves of each RA section. For novice writers, awareness of such salient combinations of bundle functions and specific moves in the IMRD sections may improve the clarity of argumentation and make their writing more persuasive.

Experienced Lecturers’ Reasoning behind Grammar Feedback Practices in EFL Writing Teacher Education

Little is known about feedback practices and the reasoning behind grammar feedback in English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher education. This article presents a study based on the interview data of 12 experienced EFL lecturers in Norway. The analysis suggests that the lecturers predominantly use metalinguistic and indirect feedback, while global, focused, oral and elicitative feedback are used far less. Their strategy choices are influenced by multifaceted personal and contextual factors. The personal factors are negative beliefs about elicitations and positive beliefs about metalanguage and autonomy-promoting strategies. The contextual factors include feedback-providing and feedback-receiving situations, formal and informal contexts and the use of common marking code systems. This study contributes to the discussions about how context-dependent and personal factors can shape and improve grammar feedback practices in teacher education. As such, this study highlights a clear need for best practice recommendations specific to EFL writing teacher education.

Playing Board Games: A Case Study of Gender Differences in Language

This case study investigates the variables of language and communication, as well as gender, in the board gaming community of practice. The study provides an analysis of gender and language during ten board gaming videos from YouTube using methods of digital ethnography, conversation analysis, and the community of practice framework. The levels of verbosity and other aspects of language are also investigated. The findings suggest that the differences in members’ behaviours are connected to core or peripheral memberships within the community of practice, rather than to the gender variable.

A Posthumanist Reading of ‘The Sphinx’ and ‘Mesmeric Revelation’

This article proposes a new reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s two short stories ‘The Sphinx’ and ‘Mesmeric Revelation’. The moth/monster conversation in ‘The Sphinx’ dramatizes Poe’s speculation of the world. The monster-like cosmos is mysterious and elusive, however human beings endeavor to contain and stabilize it into the hierarchy of human knowledge. ‘Mesmeric Revelation’ goes beyond the surface stability and unearths a hidden world of becoming. This process also marks a progression from anthropocentrism to posthumanism. In this posthumanist world, the decentering of human beings enables the equality of multiple species and their harmonious symbiosis. Poe’s hypothetical world of particles further consolidates this posthumanist reading: all things originate from indivisible particles, and particles are in a constant process of becoming and coalescing, capable of infinite potentialities. Once the particles are perceived by human organs, they will configurate into reality in accord with human idiosyncrasy. ‘The Sphinx’ accentuates the scientific aspects of moth/monster, and ‘Mesmeric Revelation’ highlights the mysterious dimensions of the issue; together they outline the obscure path from anthropocentrism to posthumanism in Poe’s epistemology.

From National to Global Obsession: Football and Football English in the Superdiverse 21st Century

Today’s football enjoys an unprecedented global status, as the world’s favourite sport as well as a mass cultural phenomenon. To a significant degree, it transcends national, social and cultural boundaries. European top teams are characterized by a striking ethnic and linguistic diversity; Manchester United fans may be found across the globe. Today’s football can thus be seen as a special example of ‘superdiversity,’ a notion introduced following far-reaching changes in migration patterns since the 1990s, in Britain and elsewhere. Its emergence coincided with a vastly increased media coverage of football worldwide, in turn contributing to greatly increased use of football language, on television and the internet. Football language—involving communication at various levels among players, spectators, fans and commentators—represents a conceptual sphere shared by the (‘imagined’) global community of all those who take an interest in the ‘people’s game.’ Consequently, due to football’s present-day status, millions of people across the globe are also familiar with football language. Sociolinguistically, it makes up a special part of a person’s linguistic repertoire, independently of more conventional sociolinguistic variables. Against this background, we argue that today’s football and football language—especially football English as a register of Global English—may serve as a communicative link across barriers related to nationality, culture and language. In this regard, certain parallels are noted between the early social history of British football and the potential of today’s football and football English to promote integration and a sense of identity in superdiverse societies, not least by providing opportunities for communicative interaction.

Foreword

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Resistance Through Song

Concentrating primarily on the so-called ‘Navvies,’ this paper interprets the songs of metal workers among casual labourers in nineteenth and twentieth century Britain as an expression of shared values and aspirations. The term ‘Navigators’ or ‘Navvies’ was first used of Irish refugees of Celtic origin, though some were of ‘English settlement’ origin, who came to Scotland and England in the 19th century to take part in manual work. This study focuses first on songs which concentrated on working conditions, and later discusses songs (which have usually been neglected) in which the workplace features more than one singer. The last part of the study examines a Scottish demonstration and march to London in the 1980s when metal workers resisted the planned closure of their rolling mill with a ‘sung’ march to London that echoes the resistance of the early Navvies and others. In an article in Imagined States (2001), written in collaboration with the present writer, Reimund Kvideland made a study of ‘rallar(e)’ (navvies) in Norway and Sweden between 1880 and 1930. He wrote, ‘the railway navvies constructed a new genre of narrative song and employed it to give voice to a unique and positive occupational worldview […] This occupational group created a compensatory and imagined state in which inverted and opposing values prevailed.’ This process is what I aim to investigate in relation to the material described above.