Corpora: Re: design for a corpus/database of L2 data

James L. Fidelholtz (jfidel@siu.buap.mx)
Tue, 29 Jun 1999 11:42:15 -0500 (CDT)

>From: David Wible <dwible@mail.tku.edu.tw>
>
>I am working with a group that is setting up a database of English
>compositions by Chinese university students in Taiwan. It is to serve
>as a tool for research in SLA or L2 pedagogy. Currently we are
>working with Comp Sci faculty who have enthusiastically agreed to
>design the database and its search tools and user interface. WHAT
>WE WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IS what sorts of functions we should design
>into the database and its search tools. The prototype can do KWIC
>searches with hyperlinks from each token to the metadata of the essay
>that the token appears in. We also have asked for frequency lists,
>counts of sentence length and essay length, and collocation searches.
>We would greatly appreciate any advice on other functions we should
>include in order to make the database as useful a tool as possible and
>on mistakes that we should be sure to avoid. Any pointers to
>references or other databases that we could examine would be
>extremely helpful to us as well.

Dear David:
Since no one seems to have answered your query, I'll take a stab
at it. You might try the CORPORA list ( corpora@hd.uib.no is the
address for sending in contributions and queries, and I don't think you
have to be a member to send it in, but you might want to join the list
in any case, which I unfortunately don't have further information on how
to do it). In fact I will send this along also to that list, and
perhaps you'll get further answers from some of their members. I know
some of them are working with corpora on L2 subjects.
Jim

James L. Fidelholtz e-mail: jfidel@siu.buap.mx
Maestría en Ciencias del Lenguaje
Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades
Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, MÉXICO