• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.631-640
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• 2023

Short-text similarity calculation is one of the hot issues in natural language processing research. The conventional keyword-overlap similarity algorithms merely consider the lexical item information and neglect the effect of the word order. And some of its optimized algorithms combine the word order, but the weights are hard to be determined. In the paper, viewing the keyword-overlap similarity algorithm, the short English text similarity algorithm based on lexical chunk theory (LC-SETSA) is proposed, which introduces the lexical chunk theory existing in cognitive psychology category into the short English text similarity calculation for the first time. The lexical chunks are applied to segment short English texts, and the segmentation results demonstrate the semantic connotation and the fixed word order of the lexical chunks, and then the overlap similarity of the lexical chunks is calculated accordingly. Finally, the comparative experiments are carried out, and the experimental results prove that the proposed algorithm of the paper is feasible, stable, and effective to a large extent.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.151-170
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• 2009

Recently speech texts have been increasingly used for English education because of their various advantages as language teaching and learning materials. The purpose of this paper is to analyze speech texts in a corpus-based lexical approach, and suggest some productive methods which utilize English speaking or writing as the main resource for the course, along with introducing the actual classroom adaptations. First, this study shows that a speech corpus has some unique features such as different selections of pronouns, nouns, and lexical chunks in comparison to a general corpus. Next, from a collocational perspective, the study demonstrates that the speech corpus consists of a wide variety of collocations and lexical chunks which a number of linguists describe (Lewis, 1997; McCarthy, 1990; Willis, 1990). In other words, the speech corpus suggests that speech texts not only have considerable lexical potential that could be exploited to facilitate chunk-learning, but also that learners are not very likely to unlock this potential autonomously. Based on this result, teachers can develop a learners' corpus and use it by chunking the speech text. This new approach of adapting speech samples as important materials for college students' speaking or writing ability should be implemented as shown in samplers. Finally, to foster learner's productive skills more communicatively, a few practical suggestions are made such as chunking and windowing chunks of speech and presentation, and the pedagogical implications are discussed.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.141-160
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• 2010

This study aims to analyze the effects of explicit lexical collocation instruction on grammatical collocation knowledge, by focusing on the preposition collocations. The forty participants consisting of twenty men and twenty women are currently freshmen English majors in college. They responded to the questionnaire on their basic lexical learning strategies in pre-post tests, and carried out a lexical collocation test and a preposition collocation test as pre-post tests. They took the open class on the lexical collocations(LC) 5 times, but they did not concretely study any grammatical collocations(GC). Each test is analyzed and compared with pre-post tests by SPSS 12.0. From all the analyses, it was first revealed that most students who didn't know about the concepts, types and uses of collocations became aware of them after the class. The effects of the lexical collocations on the lexical collocation knowledge were quite revealing. Second, the correlations between the lexical collocations and grammatical collocations were not significant, although relations among the lexical collocations were quite significant. Finally, some suggestions for methods of mixed lexical chunks instruction are made for students' productive skills. Also, it is suggested that more profound attention should be paid to giving direct instructions on the basis of the lexico-grammatical continuum between LC and GC.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.41-66
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• 2004

Under the textbook-driven approach to English education in the Korean selling, the importance of the English textbook can not be overemphasized as the main source of learning materials. Recently, with the development of computer-based language corpora, the recognition of the importance of collocations and the availability of computerized databases of words have caused a resurgence and facilitation in the instruction of collocation. The primary purpose of the present study is to identify the characteristics of lexical collocation and the extent of its use in high school 10th-grade textbooks. From all the analyses, it is revealed that the language materials reflect various constructed collocation in the case of adjective+noun and noun+noun collocations in a natural context. However, verb+noun and adverb+verb collocations are not fully reflected. This is true for delexicalized verbs, and verb and adjective intensifiers. Also the language materials do not provide sufficient support for the lexical syllabus, even though all textbooks may be somewhat adequate in terms of vocabulary size. Finally, based on the analyses of the texts, the suggestions for English collocation instruction are made in the lexical approach.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.157-176
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• 2007

Based on the consensus that vocabulary plays an essential role in improving reading ability, the present study investigates the effects of two different methods of English vocabulary instruction - the traditional wordlist-based vocabulary instruction (G1) and the collocation-based vocabulary instruction (G2) - on improving English reading ability for high school learners. First, the results of the collocation test revealed that G1 and G2 groups attained similar mean scores on the pretests; however, G2 significantly outperformed G1 on the post-test administered at the end of the learning activity. The results proved that students who learned vocabulary in a collocation-oriented setting had better retention through the lexical-chunking achieved by the collection method. Second, in terms of reading comprehension achieved on nationwide academic trial tests, the result was, after considering more tests, that G2 gained a significantly higher mean score on the third and fourth than G1 did, although the two groups yielded a similar mean score on the first and second test. The implication of these results is that collocation-based vocabulary activities had a more significant influence on reading skills than wordlist-oriented ones.