Language Errors in Slovak as a Foreign Language Based on Learner Corpus
Project Coordinator: Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Komenského v Bratislave, Jana Pekarovičová
Researchers at ĽŠIL SAS: Katarína Gajdošová, Jana Levická, Katarína Rausová
Partner Institutions: Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Mateja Bela v Banskej Bystrici a Filozofická fakulta Prešovskej univerzity v Prešove
Grant scheme and Evidence number: APVV-19-0155
Annotation: Research into and the teaching of Slovak as a foreign language (SFL) are among the priorities of Slovak applied linguistics. Their topical character in new social and economic conditions is confirmed by the integration of foreigners in Slovakia. Methodological processes in SFL teaching must be, therefore, up to date with the latest scientific approaches, including corpus-based and computational linguistics, which have made research in different linguistic disciplines more efficient over the last decades. The objective of the presented project is to describe the language error types observed in process of the learning of SFL and to explore the correlations between types of language errors and various factors influencing the learning of SFL, upon the basis of the corpus of the written texts of the non-native speakers. The theoretical background of our understanding of the language errors is based on the theory of interlanguage, according to which language errors represent some natural part of foreign language learning. Particularly the research of language errors and interlanguage will enable the complex view both on the process and methodology of the learning of SFL and it will improve the preparation of the teachers of SFL. The acquisition corpus is being created by Studia Academica Slovaca – a centre for SFL at the Faculty of Arts of CU and the Department of Slovak National Corpus at Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. Except for SAS centre, since 2017, there has been included the lectorates of Slovak language abroad, which are run by the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic. In the research itself, there take part also the professionals from the leading Slovak studies institutions: the Institute of Slovak and media studies at the Faculty of Arts at PU in Prešov and the Department of Slovak language and communication of the Faculty of Arts at UMB in Banská Bystrica.