Lars Fant

Multiword Structures in Different Materials, and with Different Goals and Methodologies

Following an overview of early frequency-based research of recurring word combinations and patterns, three current methods within SLA focusing spoken and written production are presented. Studies within each of these methodological paradigms are compared from qualitative aspects, such as medium, size of material, control of task, topic and discipline. This is followed by a presentation of a small-scale empirical study using two of these methods, the lexical bundle method and the ‘comprehensive’ method, applied to the same spoken material of very advanced Swedish users of L2 English and L2 Spanish and native English and Spanish controls. Both methods are usage-based, scanning entire texts for multiword structures, one computer-driven, the lexical bundle method, and one largely manual, the comprehensive method. This small-scale study has shown that two different methods, yielding different results, can fruitfully be used together, not only to inform and complement one another, but to broaden our knowledge of what being nativelike involves, not to mention the vast implications such increased knowledge may have for teaching and learning an L2.