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Article published In: Graded Resources for Second and Foreign Language Learning
Edited by David Alfter and Thomas François
[ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics 175:1] 2024
► pp. 127–161

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Swedish word family resource

Construction, applicability, strengths and first experiments

ORCiD logo with link | University of Gothenburg
 | University of Gothenburg
 | University of Helsinki
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with University of Gothenburg.

Published online: 26 February 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/itl.22026.vol
Abstract
The article introduces a novel lexical resource for Swedish based on word family principles. The development of the Swedish Word Family (SweWF) resource is set into the context of linguistic complexity in second language acquisition. The SweWF is particularly appropriate for that, given that it contains lexical items used in second language corpora, namely, in a corpus of coursebook texts, and in a corpus of learner essays. The main focus of the article is on the construction of the resource with its user interface and on its applicability for research, although it also opens vast possibilities for practical applications for language learning, testing and assessment. We demonstrate the value of the resource through several case studies.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Related research
  • 3.Constructing the Swedish Word Family resource
    • 3.1Swedish morphology – a short introduction
    • 3.2Morphological complexity in a CAF context
    • 3.3CoDeRooMor resource
    • 3.4The Swedish Word Family user interface
    • 3.5Limitations and discussion
      • 1.Polysemy within word families
      • 2.Hierarchy within word families
      • 3.Replicability
      • 4.Manual versus automatic approaches to morphological analysis
  • 4.Hypotheses and case studies
    • 4.1Hypothesis 1: Distribution of singleton families over levels
    • 4.2Hypothesis 2: Morphological complexity within a family
    • 4.3Hypothesis 3: Extralinguistic insights through word families
  • 5.Conclusions and future work
  • Notes
  • References
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