Tove Larsson

Main ongoing projects (more information about these and other current and former projects can be found here) :

(a) The Lancaster-Northern Arizona Corpus of American Spoken English (LANA-CASE)

Collaborators at NAU: Tove Larsson, Jesse Egbert, Doug Biber, Randi Reppen, Lizzy Hanks

Collaborators at Lancaster University: Tony McEnery, Paul Baker, Vaclav Brezina, Gavin Brookes, Isobelle Clarke, Raffaella Bottini

The goal of this project is to compile a comparable American English counterpart to the widely known Spoken BNC2014 (Love et al., 2017). While there are several spoken corpora that represent specific subsets of the United States population, this corpus will be the first publicly available, large-scale corpus that represents general conversational American English. More details are available on our website and Twitter, @LANA_corpus.

(b) On the importance of linguistic interpretability in corpus linguistics

Due to a variety of factors, doing linguistics with a corpus is arguably becoming increasingly challenging. We might think that the fact that we have access to more corpora, more corpus tools, and more statistical methods than ever before would make it easier, but instead, it seems as if we are witnessing a trend away from language and linguistic description toward increased focus on statistical reporting. As linguists, we find this trend troubling. In a series of publications, we explore some ways for us to improve how we approach linguistic research questions with quantitative corpus data. We also have a blog where we write about methodological issues related to corpus linguistics: https://linguisticswithacorpus.wordpress.com/.

Larsson, T., & Biber, D. (In press). On the perils of linguistically opaque measures and methods: Toward increased transparency and linguistic interpretability. In P. Crosthwaite (Ed.), Corpora for Language Learning: Bridging the Research-Practice Divide, Routledge. 

Larsson, Tove, Egbert, Jesse, & Biber, Doug. (2022). On the status of statistical reporting versus linguistic description in corpus linguistics: A ten-year perspective. Corpora, 17(1).

Larsson, Tove, Egbert, Jesse, & Biber, Doug. (2021). Do corpus linguists focus on statistics at the expense of linguistic description? A ten-year perspective. In B. Busse, N. Dumrukcic, & R. Möhlig-Falke (Eds.), Language and linguistics in a complex world: Data, interdisciplinarity, transfer, and the next generation (Extended book of abstracts from ICAME 41). Cologne: USB Cologne.

Egbert, Jesse, Larsson, Tove, & Biber, Doug. (2020). Doing linguistics with a corpus: Methodological considerations for the everyday user. Cambridge Elements in Corpus Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

(c) Grammatical complexity from a register perspective

Grammatical complexity is defined as the addition of optional structural elements to ‘simple’ phrases and clauses (Biber et al., 2022). We are hoping to learn more about its status as a multidimensional construct by using a confirmatory framework.

Biber, D., Larsson, T., & Hancock, G. R. (Accepted). Dimensions of text complexity in the spoken and written modes: A comparison of theory-based models. Journal of English Linguistics.

Larsson, T., Biber, D., & Hancock, G. R. (In press). On the role of cumulative knowledge building and specific hypotheses: The case of grammatical complexity. Corpora, 19(3).

Biber, D., Larsson, T., & Hancock, G. R. (In press). The linguistic organization of grammatical text complexity: Comparing the empirical adequacy of theory-based models. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory.

Larsson, Tove, Berber Sardinha, Tony, Gray, Bethany, & Biber, Doug. (2022, September). Exploring early L2 writing development: A register-functional approach to grammatical complexity. LCR 2022.

Biber, Doug, Larsson, Tove, Gray, Bethany, Hancock, Gregory R., & Reppen, Randi. (2022, September). Dimensions of lexico-grammatical complexity in L2 writing: A comparative analysis of theory-based models. LCR 2022.

Larsson, Tove, Biber, Doug, & Hancock, Gregory R. (2022, September). On the differing patterns of variation of spoken versus written registers: Grammatical complexities revisited. AACL 2022.

Biber, Doug, Larsson, Tove, Hancock, Gregory R., & Gray, Bethany. (2022, September). Comparing the adequacy of theory-based models of grammatical complexity. AACL 2022.

Larsson, Tove, Biber, Doug, & Hancock, Greg. (2022, July). A complex puzzle: Comparing theory-based models of grammatical complexity in spoken versus written registers. ICAME 43.

(d) Investigations of L2 spoken and written production

Two key findings of corpus linguistic research over the years are (a) that language is highly patterned and (b) that register plays an important part for language production. In a series of projects, my collaborators and I explore different aspects of L2 spoken and written production using corpus linguistic methods to better understand these phenomena.

(i) Register in L2 writing

While the importance of taking register variation into consideration has been stressed in multiple studies on native-speaker production, it is not yet the norm in learner corpus research to take this variable into account. In a series of papers, my collaborators and I investigate (a) the relative importance of register in learner writing vis-à-vis learner-internal factors such as first-language background, and (b) students’ register awareness. Due to its importance as a moderating variable, we stress the importance of taking register into consideration in studies of learner corpus data.

Larsson, Tove, Paquot, Magali, & Biber, Doug. (2021). On the importance of register in learner writing: A multi-dimensional approach. In E. Seoane & D. Biber (Eds.), Corpus based approaches to register variation. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Larsson, Tove & Kaatari, Henrik. (2020). Syntactic complexity across registers: Investigating (in)formality in second-language writing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 45.

Larsson, Tove. (2019). Grammatical stance marking in student and expert production: Revisiting the informal-formal dichotomy. Register Studies, 1 (2), 243–268.

Larsson, Tove & Kaatari, Henrik. (2019). Extraposition in learner and expert writing: Exploring (in)formality and the impact of register. International Journal of Learner Corpus Research, 5 (1), 33–62.

(ii) Extramural English

Collaborators: Henrik Kaatari (University of Gävle), Ying Wang (Karlstad University), Seda Acıkara Eickhoff (NAU), Pia Sundqvist (University of Oslo)

While classroom instruction remains an important source of L2 development strategies for students, extramural activities such as gaming and social media have been found to play an important role as well. Using a new corpus of high school student writing, the Swedish Learner English Corpus (SLEC; Kaatari, Wang, & Larsson, in press), we explore the role of extramural activities for students’ English language development.

Kaatari, H., Wang, Y., & Larsson, T. (In press). Introducing the Swedish Learner English Corpus: A corpus that enables investigations of the impact of extramural activities on L2 writing. Corpora, 19(1).

Kaatari, H., Larsson, T., Wang, Y., Acıkara Eickhoff, S., & Sundqvist, P. (2023, July). The effect of English extramural activities on L2 students’ lexical diversity and grammatical complexity. CL 2023.

Larsson, T. (2023, April). A corpus-based study of the impact of extramural activities on L2 student writing. (Project collaborators: Kaatari, H., Wang, Y., Acıkara Eickhoff, S., & Sundqvist, P.) Invited talk given for the Department of Second Language Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, HI, USA, April 27, 2023.

Kaatari, H., Larsson, T, Wang, Y., Acıkara Eickhoff, S., & Sundqvist, P. (2023, March). On the impact of extramural activities on L2 student writing. AAAL 2023.

Kaatari, Henrik, Larsson, Tove, Wang, Ying, Acıkara Eickhoff, Seda, & Sundqvist, Pia. (2022, September). Exploring the effect of target-language extramural activities on students’ written production. LCR 2022.

(iii) Formality and prescriptive norms

Adherence to norms pertaining to formality remains important for students wishing to join the scientific community. This series of projects aim to (a) investigate what affect students’ perceptions of formality by looking at the individual and combined impact of register and prescriptive and descriptive linguistic features, or (b) take a sociolinguistic perspective on the influence of prescriptive norms on linguistic production.

Larsson, T., Kaatari, H., Dixon, T., & Egbert, J. (2023). Examining novice writers’ perceptions of formality. Journal of English for Research Publication Purposes, 4(1), 29-55.

Dixon, T., Egbert, J., Larsson, T., Kaatari, H., & Hanks, E. (2023). Toward an empirical understanding of formality: Triangulating corpus data with teacher perceptions. English for Specific Purposes, 71, 161-177.

Larsson, Tove, Kaatari, Henrik, Dixon, Tülay, & Egbert, Jesse. (2022, March). Examining students' perceptions of formality in academic writing. AAAL 2022. Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 18-22 March, 2022.

Dixon, Tülay, Egbert, Jesse, Larsson, Tove, Kaatari, Henrik, & Hanks, Lizzy. (2022, March). What is formality? Triangulating corpus data with teacher perceptions. AAAL 2022. Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 18-22 March, 2022.

Kostadinova, Viktorija, Larsson, Tove, & Dixon, Tülay. (2022, September). Using CMC data to explore the effects of language ideology on morphosyntactic variation: Prescriptivism in language use on Reddit. CMC 2022.

(iv) Adverb placement in spoken and written L1 and L2 production

These projects look at what linguistic and extralinguistic factors impact adverb placement in L1 and L2 spoken and written production.

Hober, Nicole, Dixon, Tülay, & Larsson, Tove. (2023). Toward increased reliability and transparency in projects with manual linguistic coding. Corpora, 18(2).

Larsson, Tove; Callies, Marcus; Hasselgård, Hilde; Laso, Natalia Judith; Van Vuuren, Sanne; Verdaguer, Isabel; & Paquot, Magali. (2020). Adverb placement in EFL academic writing: Going beyond syntactic transfer. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 25(2), 155-184.

Larsson, Tove, Paquot, Magali, & Plonsky, Luke. (2020). Inter-rater reliability in learner corpus research: Insights from a collaborative study on adverb placement. International Journal of Learner Corpus Research, 6(2), 237-251.

Larsson, Tove, Callies, Marcus, Dixon, Tülay, Hasselgård, Hilde, Hober, Nicole, Judith Laso, Natalia, Verdaguer, Isabel, van Vuuren, Sanne & Paquot Magali. (2022, July). Adverb placement in L2 spoken production: The effect of linguistic and extralinguistic factors. ICAME 43.

(e) Research methods and research ethics

(i) Benefits of structural equation modeling for corpus linguistics research

Despite recent advancements in statistical techniques used in corpus linguistics, there are still questions pertaining to the multivariate nature of language that our current methods cannot accommodate. In an effort to expand our analytic repertoire, this project seeks to introduce Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and discuss its great potential for corpus linguistic analysis. SEM is a powerful analytical framework that encompasses a large set of statistical techniques (e.g., path analysis, confirmatory factor analysis). Compared to traditional approaches, structural equation models are highly flexible in that they not only allow for investigation of a variety of different variables and relations, but also enable examination of relations among unobserved variables (latent variables). Despite these and many other strengths, however, SEM remains largely unknown in corpus linguistics.

Kostromitina, M., Goulart, L., & Larsson, T. (2023, May). Exploring features of elaborate vs. compressed language in spoken academic discourse: An SEM approach. ICAME 44.

Larsson, T., Plonsky, L., & Hancock, G. R. (2022). On learner characteristics and why we should model them as latent variables. International Journal of Learner Corpus Research, 8(2), 237 - 260.

Larsson, T., Plonsky, L., & Hancock, G. R. (2021). On the benefits of structural equation modeling for corpus linguists. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 17(3), 683-714.

Larsson, Tove. (2022, November). Methodological advances in corpus linguistics: How structural equation modeling can help us answer new research questions. Invited talk given for Computational Communication and Development, ILCB Research Institute, Aix-Merseille University, France, November 2, 2022 [online].

Larsson, Tove, & Gregory R. Hancock. (2022, June). Structural equation modeling for corpus linguistic data. Invited workshop for the Quantitative research methods for Social Sciences, Lancaster University, June 15, 2022. [online]

Larsson, Tove; Plonsky, Luke; & Hancock, Gregory. (2021, June). Answering previously unanswerable research questions: Benefits of structural equation modeling for quantitative linguistic analysis. Invited talk given at a higher seminar in the Department of English, Uppsala University, Sweden, 3 June, 2021. [online]

(ii) Questionable Research Practices: The (un)ethical handling of data in quantitative humanities research

Collaborators: Luke Plonsky (NAU), Scott Sterling (Indiana State University), Merja Kytö (Uppsala University), Kate Yaw (University of South Florida), Margaret Wood (NAU)

Questionable Research Practices (QRPs) are often viewed as the “murky waters” of research ethics. Steneck (2006: 54) describes QRPs as practices that fall between “ideal behavior” and absolute misconduct such as Fabrication, Falsification and Plagiarism (FFP). Applying a mixed-methods approach, the proposed project investigates QRPs in the context of quantitative humanities research (e.g. linguistics, languages, digital humanities) to explore activities that researchers engage in, whether knowingly or unknowingly, that run counter to standards of rigor and transparency. More specifically, we seek to (a) uncover, define, and develop a taxonomy for the range and severity of QRPs faced by quantitative researchers in the humanities; and use this information to (b) survey researchers’ experiences with different QRPs, and (c) assess the extent to which methodological training for PhD students in the field addresses these QRPs. Based on the results of (a–c), one of the outcomes of the project will be a set of humanities-specific materials for researcher training related to QRPs. More information here: https://sites.google.com/view/qrp-humanities/home

Larsson, T., Plonsky, L., Sterling, S., Kytö, M., Yaw, K., & Wood, M. (in press). On the frequency, prevalence, and perceived severity of questionable research practices. Research Methods in Applied Linguistics.

Plonsky, L., Larsson, T., Sterling, S., Kytö, M., Yaw, K., & Wood, M. (In press). Developing a taxonomy of ethical decisions in applied linguistics research. In P. I., De Costa, A., Rabie-Ahmed, & C., Cinaglia (Eds.), Ethical issues in applied linguistics scholarship. John Benjamins.

Yaw, K., Andringa, S., Gass, S., Hancock, G., Isbell, D., Kim, J., Kytö, M., Larsson, T., Plonsky, L., Sterling, S., & Wood, M. (in press). Research in progress: Discussions on the past, present, and future of quantitative research ethics in applied linguistics. Language Teaching.

Sterling, S., Plonsky, L., Larsson, T., Kytö, M., & Yaw, K. (2023). Introducing the Delphi method for applied linguistics research. Research Methods in Applied Linguistics, 2(1), 100040. 

Yaw, K., Plonsky, L., Larsson, T., Sterling, S., & Kytö, M. (2023). Research ethics in applied linguistics. Language Teaching, 1-17. 

Wood, M., Larsson, T., Plonsky, L., Sterling, S., Kytö, M., & Yaw, K. (2023). Research ethics training materials: Questionable research practices in the quantitative humanities. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-502481

Larsson, T., Plonsky, L., Sterling, S., Kytö, M., Yaw, K., & Wood, M. (2023, March 31). How Widespread are Questionable Research Practices in Quantitative Humanities Research? Paper presented at Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) 2023. [online].

Larsson, T., Plonsky, L., Sterling, S., Kytö, M., Yaw, K., & Wood, M. (2023, March). Questionable research practices: Prevalence, frequency, and perceived severity. Paper presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) 2023, Portland, Oregon. 

Larsson, T., Plonsky, L., Sterling, S., Kytö, M., Yaw, K., & Wood, M. (2022, December 16). Questionable research practices: Sweden vs. the US. Symposium on research ethics, Uppsala University, Sweden.

Larsson, T., Plonsky, L., Sterling, S., Kytö, M., Yaw, K., & Wood, M. (2022, September). On the frequency, prevalence, and perceived severity of questionable research practices. Symposium on research ethics, Northern Arizona University, AZ.

Plonsky, L., Larsson, T., Sterling, S., Kytö, M., & Yaw, K. (2022, March). What counts as ‘questionable’? A taxonomy of ethical decisions in quantitative applied linguistics research. Colloquium paper presented at AAAL, Pittsburgh, PA.

Plonsky, L., Larsson, T., Sterling, S., Kytö, M., & Yaw, K. (2022, February). What do you mean by ‘questionable’? Developing a taxonomy of ethical decisions in quantitative humanities research. Paper presented at APPE (Association for Practical and Professional Ethics), Cincinnati, OH.

Larsson, T., Plonsky L., Sterling, S., & Kytö, M. (2020, December). Questionable Research Practices: The (un)ethical handling of data in quantitative humanities research. Invited talk given at the Open Science Community Sweden (OSCS) Conference 2020, [online].