Design of a Mathematical Text Analysis Tool Using Matlab for a Study of Lexical Errors

Abstract

The study of the process of foreign language acquisition can be carried out from different and varied perspectives. In this case, the aim is to analyse a corpus of learners of English as a foreign language. In order to achieve this objective, it is necessary to have at least two tools at our disposal: a corpus representative of a given population and a computer application that provides an answer to our research questions. In our case, we have the Canary Islands Corpus of Written English (Wood et al., 2004) but we do not have a computer application that would allow us to analyse student errors in this corpus. To solve this problem, we have opted to use the Matlab programming and numerical calculation platform. This programming platform is increasingly being used by scientists and engineers, while its use in the humanities is progressing more slowly. Taking into account that Matlab is a programming platform, the first thing we have done is to develop a code that we make freely accessible, as well as detailing and exemplifying the functions that this programme offers for an error analysis.

Keywords

• foreign language acquisition
• error analysis
• learner corpus
• matlab
• free access code