CONCORDANCE ~ Literature and Linguistic students' best companion…

For this 6^th and final posting, I’m once again partnered with my course mate, Sim Ming Quan in the task of analyzing Concordance.

Before going into the discussion on the article “Beyond Concordance Lines: Using Concordances to Investigate Language Development” by Arshad Abd Samad. We’ll begin with the definition of the Concordance. According to Wikipedia, Concordance is ‘an alphabetical list of the principal words used in a book or body of work, with their immediate contexts’.

Here’s a little information from Wikipedia on Concordance application useful in linguistics. As students of linguistic, it is undeniable that Concordance plays a very useful role especially in our language learning process. Concordances are frequently used as a tool in linguistics for the study of a text, such as:

• Comparing different usages of the same word
• Analyzing keywords
• Analyzing word frequencies
• Finding and analyzing phrases and idioms
• Finding translations of sub sentential elements, e.g. terminology, in bitexts and translation memories
• Creating indexes and word lists (useful for publishing)

“Beyond Concordance Lines: Using Concordances to Investigate Language Development” - The Summary

The main purpose of the article “Beyond Concordance Lines: Using Concordances to Investigate Language Development” by Arshad Abd Samad page 70 in OTL text is to show the use of Concordances in the investigation of language development. “The language corpus offers a useful resource in language pedagogy.” According to (Woolard, 2000), concordance was previously used as the basis of dictionaries and teaching materials and now it has been improved by the use of concordance software. The corpus aids in a way that it informs how words and grammatical constructions are used. In addition, it also makes language teaching and learning more interesting [Schmitt (2002:34)].

Much effort has been done by the local universities such as University Technology Malaysia (UTM), University Malaya (UM) and University Putra Malaysia (UPM) in developing concordance. One of the results from the effort is EMAS corpus by researches from UPM and it is based on the data of this corpus that this article investigates language development. The EMAS was developed in 2002, consisting almost half a million words (Arshad et al., 2002) and it contains written data in the form of three essays written by around 800 students ranging from primary school to secondary school students. The corpus has proven that most students are average in their English language proficiency. The research was conducted with all the students involved given three essays on several topics which are suitable for their levels and they are given guidelines to write the essay. They are expected to write well if they are familiar with the topic. Pictorial or visual prompt are used to get the optimize result from the students. As the investigating development was carried out, the focus was on specific target structures and it examines the acquisition of these structures for a period of time. The data in EMAS is cross sectional and the development patterns are implied by comparing the language use of three different age group. The corpus is done by studying the language productivity and vocabulary use. The language productivity is indicated by the number of sentences per essay and the words per sentence. The studies show a gradual increase based on their groups. Those that are in the higher group produce more sentences and more use of words.

The diversity of the vocabulary used in corpus is often determined by calculating the type of token ratio (Schmitt, 2002). The higher ratio indicates more usage of uncommon words while the lower ratio indicates a limited number of words. In examining the sophistication of vocabulary, the nonsensical words in essays are deleted, proper names are excluded and the misspelled words are corrected in order to produce an effective research. This process is determined by using the software such as RANGE (Nation, 2002). As to be expected, the lower grades students used most words from the lowest level or better known as the category of most frequent 1000 English words consisting of 4000 forms and types while the older age groups tend to use a wider range of words. As a conclusion, the use of concordance in this study shows that students with higher level education can apply more words in English. They are able to express their feelings and thoughts in the essay using more choices of words. However, the EMAS corpus was done in the year 2002, it is encouraged that another research should be conducted in the coming years so that we are able to show whether there is improvement in Malaysia’s language programs, as noted by Hunston (2002).

The gist of the discussion of the article

Basically, the article tells us in depth of the use of concordance. On the apparent, it may just seem like you’re reading a research or study that was carried out. When we first came across the article, our first respond towards it was: “Hmmm….so how exactly are we supposed to summarize this? It does not provide us information we need to about concordance to complete the blog task!” As a matter of fact, after putting some thoughts into it, it is basically concordance put into use in the effort of improving language teaching and learning. If read critically, the article actually provides detailed information about the use of concordance; only that it wasn’t told directly. This article has attempted to present the relevant of corpus data in inspecting language development without having to analyze concordance lines. Based on all of the summarization, we can see that the concordance is used to make index and word list, count words frequencies, compare different usage of a word, analyze keywords, find phrases and idioms and lastly publish to the web.

We’ve browse through the web for to search for the applications of concordance in literary work and linguistic. There are plenty that turned up from the search making it impossible for us to go through it all and but here’s some articles and publications regarding to concordance application in literary work and linguistic.

University at Buffalo, The State University of New York has included Concordance as one of the main resource for English and American Literature study. The passage below adapted from their webpage, <http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/asl/guides/poetry.html#1> shows and explains in great detail on how to find words and passages of poetry. Let’s be honest here, me and my partner is obviously still learners and still in the progress of furthering our understanding towards the usage of concordance; so instead of hearing from us, we thought it’d be better to share the knowledge we’ve obtained to readers of our blogs that comes from the expert.

Poems - Locating and Researching Poetry

Using a Concordance to Find Words or Passages in a Poem

Suppose you are writing a paper on William Butler Yeats and you remember the following phrase:

When shall the stars be blown about the sky,

Like sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?

The passage is relevant to your topic, but you can't remember which poem it's from. To find the passage, consult a CONCORDANCE. Concordances gather all the words of a certain work or author and arrange them in alphabetical order. Each word is followed by a citation to the appropriate line or passage where the word appears. Most concordances include the surrounding words or line in which the word appears. When using a concordance, try looking up an important word in the passage. For instance, if you look up "smithy" in the concordance of Yeats, you will find:

SMITHY : LIKE SPARKS BLOWN OUT OF A SMITHY, AND DIE?...170 SECRET ROSE 30

This tells you that the passage you are looking for is line 30 of the poem "The Secret Rose," which can be found on page 170 of the Variorum Edition of the Poems of W. B. Yeats. The introduction to the concordance will tell you which edition or volume the page number refers to. Some concordances refer to two or more editions for greater convenience, usually an "authoritative" edition or a variorum edition. (A variorum edition records differences in the various editions and/or manuscripts.) Remember, concordances don't contain the actual poems, they just tell you which poems contain the word you're looking for. You can then find the poem in the edition listed in the concordance or in any "complete" edition of the poet's works.

To find a concordance to the works of your poet, try a keyword search in the catalog using the poet's name and the word concordance? The ? will retrieve catalog records with "concordance" (usually used in the title) or "concordances" (usually used in the subject headings). For example:

k=yeats and concordance?

k=lorca and concordance?

<http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/asl/guides/poetry.html#1>

Besides that, we’ve also found a publication that applies Concordance as an open source on Shakespeare’s work. The site was built for four attributes: “Power, Flexibility, Friendliness, and Openness” and Concordance is an exploit for looking up words from the poems. To find a word and its links to Shakespeare’s poem, there are choices of typing out the word, it can be either the exact spelling, just the first part of the word form or any part of the word will do as well. “What is a word form? A word like "play" can take several forms, like plays, playing, and played. Each word form is listed in the database, along with the number of times the word form occurs in the text collection.”

Options to choose any letters from A to Z are also provided. Beside the alphabet itself for example A, the numbers of inventory with words in Shakespeare’s work that begins with an A is also stated- “A (1,569)” After picking an alphabet, the whole list of words will be displayed, by selecting any one of the words, where the word occurs in text will be shown. For example, by clicking on ‘abides (8)’, the page will show as below.

Shakespeare concordance: All instances of "abides"

abides occurs 8 times in 8 lines within 7 works. Possibly related word: abide Look up "abides" in the Merriam-Webster dictionary (offsite link; may not be found) The links below will show abides in each listed work, or you may want to see all the instances at once.

Antony and Cleopatra (1) Henry IV, Part II (1) Henry VI, Part II (1) Measure for Measure (1) Much Ado about Nothing (1) Richard III (2) Timon of Athens (1)

Where the word ‘abides’ occurred in Shakespeare work is not only listed, but even the links to his particular masterpiece is provided. As a literature student, I must say it is very useful because in most of our essays, we’re required to quote from the actual text and finding that particular phrase can be a difficult time consuming task. We remember certain words from the phrase but we can’t possibly memorize the whole phrase and this is when publications as such with the applications of concordance come in handy.

Another great website that that applies Concordance usages and is highly recommended for literature students is ‘The Concordance Workbooks’.

“This site is devoted to the study of literature using literary computer concordances, a form of analyzing text. This document will attempt to help students understand what is meant by literary concordancing and will ask questions about featured Romantic writers which may be answered by using the English department concordance site.”

<http://www.dundee.ac.uk/english/conc.htm>

To further understand corpus linguistics and its connection to ELT, the website below can also be referred to.

http://ifa.amu.edu.pl/~kprzemek/Chapter1.pdf

To have discovered this software program is indeed beneficiary and as stated in the title for this posting, Concordance can be a companion that students’ of literature and linguistic would not want to lose. Language productivity and bombastic vocabulary use can now be widened. On the occasion that this would be the last posting for this course, I must once again emphasize the awareness I’ve gained towards the use of ICT in developing extensive English language studies. The mission of completing the tasks handed out to us throughout the course has been an interesting and an enlightening journey. It is an eye-opener to have discovered all the effort done to improve the education system in order to produce competitive future leaders of our nation. So much more opportunities and possibilities are laid ahead now. With hope, I’d love to see the day when I can return the offer and contribute my part with all the knowledge and insights I’ve gained throughout my literature undertakings.

Dealing with Online Test.....

OTL (Online Teaching Learning) in ELT, Theme 3, ‘Online Language Proficiency Assessment’:

“In the current era of globalization, mastery of English is associated with leading edge scientific, technological and economic developments. At the same time, the rapid rate of innovations in information technology (IT) has hastened the rise and spread of the English language as an international language for global communication. Therefore, the mastery of English language is seen to be instrumental for developing nations such as Malaysia to gain competitive edge in the global market.”

For this week posting regarding online test, I’ve chose to begin with the phrase above picked up from OTL in ELT text. Before proceeding into details on the online test, I would like to first share the insights I’ve gained from reading the chapter ‘Online Language Proficiency Assessment’ on UKM efforts to implement English language as a medium of instruction back into the education system in order ‘to remain competitive in a borderless world’. Little did I know before about the involvement of the School of Language Studies and Linguistics of UKM in this particular area. Much has been done to ‘develop the English language training module for in-service lecturers at UKM’ and this is solely for the purpose to ensure that lecturers are well qualified and prepared in passing on their knowledge to generate competitive future leaders of our nation.

An online English competency test is carried out for this purpose and the concept of K-campus is established to create a ‘knowledge-centric e-campus whereby a web-based system is used to facilitate education knowledge and resource services for the campus community’. One of the steps taken to realize this is the implication of web-based system Learning Care platform to ‘support teaching and learning online’. This platform has also allowed the development of online test for the UKM academicians which is the main discussion for this posting.

First of all, let us look into the Learning Care Assessment module. This is where questions can be created and managed by lecturers. Results of test takers can be kept in a database built in the system and the questions can be programmed in several forms such as fill in the blanks; true and false; multiple choice; matching and etc. Lecturers as portfolio owners can decide the time and date for the quiz to be taken by students and the duration of the quiz can also be set before hand.

Through SKBP 1023 Language and Information Technology, I had the opportunity to experience this online test as one of the tutorial tasks. The test titled ‘UJI ICT’ comes under 3 levels, ‘ASAS’, ‘PERTENGAHAN’ and ‘LANJUTAN’. It is an open online test and we were to complete the ‘ASAS’ (basic) level consisting 30 questions that are to be answered within 30 minutes. The short test is conducted in Malay language and the content of questions are regarding to ICT components. This is precisely the result I’ve obtained from the test.

Online Quiz Results Summary

Online Quiz Results :: Kemahiran Asas ICT

Your Score : 22/30

Your #Attempts : 1
Total Class #Attempts : 625
Your Quiz Score : 22/30
Your Highest Score Ever : 22

Not only is the immediate feedback provided, the marking scheme is also informed before hand.

Skala Permarkahan dan Kemahiran

UJIAN MARKAH BAND Peringkat Asas 0-10 1 11-20 2 21-30 3 Peringkat Pertengahan 0-15 1 16-25 4 26-35 5 36-45 6 Peringkat Lanjutan 0-30 1 31-40 7 41-50 8 51-60 9

The ability of immediate feedback and the provision of marking scheme I would say have made the online test a user friendly one. It is easily accessible through the Learning Care platform which all members of UKM are subscribed to, whether it be the lecturers or students. Test takers would not be able to get answers from peers because of the randomized questions. Me and my coursemates may be taking the same online test at the same time, but the questions that turned out for each of us are different.

The marking scheme provided allow me to know how I will be evaluated and therefore, before taking the test itself, I know how many questions I have to get right in order to achieve certain band. As for the immediate feedback, I personally think it is an encouragement for me to complete the test so I can know how I score and so I can find out my general proficiency on ICT knowledge. As I went through the questions, I once again discover its relevance with my other course subject which is SKPD 1053 Teknologi Maklumat Untuk Sains Sosial. Much of it has actually been dealt with in that particular course subject; the only obstacle has to be the fact that the test is conducted in Malay language. I believe that this is the difficulty that most test takers come across because we are all more familiar with English when it comes to terms in ICT. Therefore, throughout the test, I think I spent more time translating and trying to guess the meaning of the Malay language vocabulary of ICT than the time spent on trying to figure out the answer. Besides this, there are also a few frailties that this online test can be improved on. The feedback can be further enhanced by including the answers for the questions taken so test takers will be able to go through it and find out which questions they have done wrongly. Without it, it is as though nothing much has been gained besides to experience of taking online test. Halfway through the test, maybe after 15 minutes since I started, I began to find the test dull and routine like and felt the tendency to quit before completing it. It could be the effect of the endless unclear ICT terms. Possibly if some visuals were to be added in it to provide some non verbal clues, the test would not have felt like such a time consuming process. It would be a dread to students who are yet ICT savvy. Whereas on the security aspect, only the UKM community will be able to access the test and to obtain the result of the test, password and username is required. One may argue that they can always give their password and username to others who's better to help take the test. I must say nothing much can really be done to reach the highest level of security for such online test because if a person intend to cheat, they would do whatever it takes. In my opinion, as an adult and a university level student, one should expect more of themselves to be honest in cases as such because by the end of the day, it is no one else's lost but themselves.

Other than that, it is the sense of formality I would like to discuss on. One thing for sure is that the privacy we usually can find in traditional paper and pencil test is not much found in this online test. The lack of formality causes the online test to appear trivial and I felt little pressure in putting my best at it. However, the advantage of it is that we are free from the examination hall pressure and tension which can at times be negative for some students’ overall performance. They would feel at ease and work on their own pace while taking the test.

Overall, I think the implementation of online assessment is something pragmatic that is worth investing effort in. When it comes to dealing with a large amount of test takers and exam questions are merely that of true or false/multiple choices, it is wiser to implement online test than the traditional paper test. It is an approach much more suitable for university level students comparing to scheduled exams as it can be assessed easily and students can arrange time that fits into their hectic schedule better to take the test when they’re ready. Most importantly, online test reduces the manpower needed to mark the test. All the work to be done in managing and evaluating such test is now feasible and there will be no cases of bias results because it is all done by computer. Complementing and supplementing online test into the education system will be a benefiting step to take.

Reflecting on Blogging Experience

After the exposure of blogging experience through this course, I'm made aware of much more knowledge towards the advantages of this activity. In this 4th posting, I'll be reflecting on my own personal experience on blogging. It has only been weeks since we began this blogging activity for this course so I wouldn’t say my writing has already improved in such short term. However, I would say it is the topics given to blog about instead that are useful for my writing skills. First of all, it’s on ‘Computerized Reading’, then ‘Computer Assisted Writing’ and the ‘Impact of Wireless Technology in Education’.

All these topics are very much related to my other course subject, SKBS 1033 Written Communication that is, conducted by lecturer Pn. Azizah Yaakob. In academic writing, the usage of computer and information technology is unlimited. Much research has to be done to come up with an informative essay that has reliable quotations, statistics and other resources. The assignment on ‘Computerized Reading’ and ‘Computer Assisted Writing’ is very helpful in obtaining the right method to browse for dependable resources and also expose me towards a lot of software that assist improvement on writing. As for ‘Impact of Wireless Technology in Education’, I discover accommodating tools for a writer. For example, a Tablet Pc; it is smaller than a notebook, travel friendly and allows wireless connections. This I look forward in owning someday so I can indulge in writing anytime, anywhere. Other than that, the blogging tasks given also keeps me in practice on paraphrasing, quoting and citing which are all vital skills for my essay writing assignments in Written Communication course.

In my opinion, I think that it is clear and obvious enough that blogging is a useful learning experience, not only to me, but benefiting to all. Most of us would remember how teachers and or adults used to encourage diary writing. I personally do remember about it and did attempt on keeping a diary, yet as the world progress and how life tends to move in a faster pace, it seems so impossible and maybe tedious too; to actually find a time to sit down with a pen and a book to reflect on what's been done throughout the day. The fact is, the difference between keeping a personal diary and blogging is the audience. For a diary, basically you're the writer and the reader at the same time. One would easily get to the point of thinking: 'What's the point?' As life gets more difficult and complicated, by the end of the day, people not only want to share but needs to share. I am saying this on a general sense where it applies to all sorts of blogs. For example, I personally find it very rewarding that all the effort I've put in to complete the assignments does not just stay on the lecturer's desk once done. Besides my lecturer reading my work and commenting on it, the result of my effort can be shared with my course mates or maybe even to the world at large. Someone out there may be searching for information on the topics I've wrote in my blog and as they ‘google’ the title, they might actually come across my blog and find it useful. This, I must say is the reason why blogging makes such a useful learning experience, its nature itself is motivation that keeps people writing. I have seen how some of my Chinese friends who used to be poor in English improving sub-consciously through writing blogs. Besides, the language itself, one is motivated to be creative in order to keep readers entertained, therefore, they explore creative ways in expressing themselves. All these, makes writing so much more enjoyable than keeping a diary that remains in only your drawer. As I've mentioned before, keeping a diary can be tedious too, because with the advancement of technology, it is no longer quite as practical as blogging itself. With gadgets such as PDAs and mobiles that allows connection through wireless technology, one can write anytime and anywhere. Saving time or maybe as a pass time while waiting for the train, while having a cup of coffee in Starbucks and so on. It is a practical and effective learning experience for all. Most importantly, the learning experience is an enjoyable one.

In order to complete the blogging activity successfully, I have to first know what it is that I wish to be writing and of course, there has to be something I want to write about. For this course subject blogging activity, I would have to consult my lecturer, Pn Zaini first hand to make sure I do not waste time progressing on the wrong track. It is after all an assignment that will be evaluated; therefore, it is wiser to first know what your main audience expects to see from your blog. After getting a rough idea on the expected content for the topic given, I would take the next step of going through the lecture notes regarding the topic. This is to ensure that I am not merely doing the assignment blindly without knowing what it is that I should be learning, otherwise, I would consider it to be a waste of time if I spend time on it and not taking full advantage on what the course subject is trying to teach. After that, I'm all set to start gathering information to answer the topic. It is so much easier to search for information through the net when you are sure enough with what it is that you're looking for. All information found, I make sure I know the source well and keep track of it for citing purposes. The next step would be to read through and understand all the information I’ve found. It is often clear when a person do not read and do just cut and paste because you will see that the flow of the essay is not a coherent one. Therefore, it is important that I know the information I will include in my blog. After all these steps, I would say I am well off in completing the blog activity. Sometimes, I would need to read blogs written by others, (for this case, it is the seniors' blogs that the lecturers have commented to us) before beginning to write myself. The purpose is to first be inspired and sometimes you just need that one last assurance before setting off on your own writing.

Main problem using blog for me personally is my stubbornness or to say how I'm determined to come out with the best I have to offer or I’ll not write at all. This is closely related to the previous paragraph on what I need to know before completing a blog activity. I have to follow those steps mentioned specifically and make sure I know well enough on what I am posting for the public's view. For example, on how I intend to learn through the activity and read through all the information I have found. The problem is that, there are too many information and knowledge made available that sometimes you have to tell yourself that you can't have it all and to STOP PROCRASTINATING! and to GET ON WITH YOUR WORK ALREADY! It is very time consuming to achieve perfection and for the course's blogging activity, there's a due date given with so many other assignments from other courses making it difficult for me to full fill my intention of giving my best. Other than that, it has to be the same problem that most users would come across occasionally, that is the slow connection and the failure of connection. It can be rather frustrating at times when the website is down or the server is too busy making you stare into the monitor blankly for a long period of time and feeling absolutely like a slave to technology. There is another time consuming factor which is the part where you have to manage the outlook of your blog to make it more interesting and consisting more varieties. For example, to include music and slideshows, you’re required to join a few more other websites in order to have its functions on your blog. This adds up to more websites you have to manage. The blogsite itself don’t usually offer enough templates that may suit different individuals so one has to browse through the net to find more variety of templates.

The problems are still manageable so despite some of it's inevitable weaknesses, I would still recommend blogging as a benefiting activity to others. How would I recommend it? Exactly the same thing that I am doing now. Reflecting on my very own experience and what I’ve gained through Language and Information Technology blogging assignments and share the knowledge and my point of view to others. The opportunity to express one self with words should be widely utilized.

I know we were told to answer the questions in paragraph and not state the question out but here's the next and final question: "Now that you are able to blog online will you continue using it even after the course is over?" It is still a question in consideration. I would definitely continue my blogging experience but maybe not using the same website I use for this course because I believe that there’s a theme for every writer’s blog and readers will know what to expect when they come to a certain particular blog. For instance I would say that this blog is more of an informative one and there are some people that focus on blog about travel, food, etc. So I’ll most probably be continuing my blogging experience in a different direction.

Overall, this course has provided input on useful information technology that aids in writing for me and I would say instead of it being a waste of time, the assignments were time well spent on and the efforts are benefiting