2021 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Building a corpus of ELF (English Lingua Franca) user negotiated interactions
| Project/Area Number |
18K00835
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| Research Institution | Kobe City University of Foreign Studies |
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Principal Investigator |
立木 ドナ 神戸市外国語大学, 外国語学部, 教授 (80347517)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
ZENUK西出 Lori 神戸市外国語大学, 外国語学部, 教授 (30453145)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2018-04-01 – 2023-03-31
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| Keywords | simulations / ELF / corpus / community of practice / conversation analysis / repair / linguistic features / negotiation |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
Even though MUN simulations have been in existence for many decades, virtually no previous research has been done on the features inherent in MUN interactions. This is a particularly egregious situation since the majority of the speakers at the United Nations (upon which MUN simulations are “modeled”) are ELF users. Thus, the Model UN Corpus of English (MUNCE) project was created to assemble an analyzable corpus of MUN interactions. There is a need for other, specialized corpora to offer glimpses into communities of practice not yet accounted for by other established ELF corpora. Such specialized adjacent corpora provide a more nuanced understanding of ELF in current use.
Although as stated before, the ultimate goal is a large and analyzable corpus, transcription remains a slow and arduous process so not all of the interactions have been transcribed to date. In keeping with this cautious orientation, limited scale qualitative analyses or case studies are the current focus of research.
Preliminary descriptions of some of the linguistic features, language functions, uses and transformations in the Model UN Corpus of English (MUNCE) that overlap or bear resemblance to those in other ELF corpora such as VOICE and ACE have been undertaken and published. Also, methodological insights gained through the challenges faced by the researchers have been published in a chapter of a book focusing on ELF in MUN.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
As mentioned above, the sound quality of the recorded interactions is not as clear as we had hoped. Part of the problem is the ambient sounds in the rooms. However recently, the wearing of masks by speakers has significantly interfered with clarity and comprehensibility of recorded data. Therefore, the transcription of the recorded materials is taking more hours than usual since the transcribers often must listen numerous times to ensure accuracy. Since the purpose is to faithfully transcribe the data to include speaker errors and grammatical infelicities, it is not possible to use automated transcription tools since they would standardize or regularize the output. Thus, human power is necessary.
Furthermore, because of the pandemic, face-to-face interactions were not available until recently for recording. Although we were still able to access and include mentoring sessions and debriefing sessions by zoom in the corpus collection, we had to limit how much of that kind of data was included in order to prevent an imbalance in the overall collection. As live events start again we will continue to collect data. However, since mask wearing is still necessary, the audibility issues will continue to be a challenge.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
Some data was collected live in April and there are plans to continue data collection in June and following months at ongoing live MUN events. The transcription of recordings will continue in the coming months and years. Nevertheless it is possible to conduct small-scale qualitative investigations even at the earliest stages of corpus compilation.
To date, two studies of this sort have been published: One paper describes some of the linguistic features, language functions, uses and transformations in the Model UN Corpus of English (MUNCE) that are
shared with in other ELF corpora. Speakers across various ELF corpora produce certain non-standard forms quite consistently regardless of their L1. This paper presented a few examples of non-standard forms found in MUNCE that have also been widely observed in ELF corpora including the non-marking of third person singular, demonstrative ‘this’ with plural nouns and the use of ‘different’ prepositions. Another paper presented selected examples of repair found in MUNCE that have also been widely observed in other ELF corpora. By focusing on the similarities that are already emerging in the MUN corpus that resemble other ELF corpora we can validate its inclusion as an adjacent corpus. Currently other studies on accommodation strategies and the creative use of metaphors by speakers are in process.
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| Causes of Carryover |
During the COVID-19 pandemic it was not possible to travel to MUN events to collect data or to attend international conferences to present findings. Although some data was collected during virtual events, the quality was limited by the wearing of face masks and less interactional nature of online negotiations. It is hoped that in the next few months data can be collected at live events both in Japan and overseas. Overseas data collection is prudent in order to balance the corpus by ensuring that there is a diversity of ELF speakers. In the case of international conferences, presentations will continue to be made virtually as needed but if the re-entry restrictions for Japan remain low, there may be an opportunity to attend in person. At present there is some uncertainty about the projected cost of airfare so it is not possible to specify the number of trips possible. Finally, transcription work continues. As it is not possible to use machine automated transcription (machine translation regularizes non-standard expressions and does not capture pronunciation differences), human transcribers must be hired to supplement the work of the researchers.
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