Designing a South African Multilingual Learner Corpus of Academic Texts (SAMuLCAT)

Abstract

Abstract This article provides an overview of the process and initial outcomes of designing a multilingual corpus of academic texts produced by university students with different mother tongues in South Africa, with a view to making it available as an open resource for pedagogical applications and research. We first give an overview of the history of corpus development for pedagogical purposes world-wide, with particular emphasis on learner corpora, and highlight the absence of a South African corpus of academic learner texts. Thereafter, the objectives of the corpus project are outlined. The remainder of the article describes and justifies the design-features of the corpus as well as the process of setting up the data management system to facilitate the collection of the learner texts and their integration with the metadata. We conclude with a summary of the current status of the project, including the limitations, and a preview of the way forward.