Automatic Linguistic Analysis for Language Teachers: The Case of Zeros

Automatic Linguistic Analysis for Language Teachers: The Case of Zeros MITSUKO YAMURA-TAKEI Graduate School of Information Sciences Hiroshima City University 3-4-1 Ozuka-higashi, Asaminami-ku, Hiroshima, JAPAN 731-3194 yamuram@nlp.its.hiroshima-cu.ac.jp MIHO FUJIWARA Department of Japanese and Chinese Willamette University 900 State Street, Salem, OR. USA 97301 mfujiwar@willamette.edu MAKOTO YOSHIE Graduate School of Information Sciences Hiroshima City University yoshie@nlp.its.hiroshima-cu.ac.jp TERUAKI AIZAWA Faculty of Information Sciences Hiroshima City University aizawa@its.hiroshima-cu.ac.jp Abstract This paper presents the Natural Language Processing-based linguistic analysis tool that we have developed for Japanese as a Second Language teachers. This program, Zero De- tector (ZD), aims to promote effective instruc- tion of zero anaphora, on the basis of a hy- pothesis about ideal conditions for second language acquisition, by making invisible zeros visible. ZD takes Japanese written narrative discourse as input and provides the zero-specified texts and their underlying structures as output. We evaluated ZD’s performance in terms of its zero detecting accuracy. We also present an experimental report of its validity for practical use. As a result, ZD has proven to be pedagogically feasible in terms of its accuracy and its impact on effective instruction. Introduction Natural Language Processing (NLP) is an emerging technology with a variety of real-world applications. Computer-Assisted Language Learning/Teaching (CALL/CALT) is one area that NLP techniques can contribute to. Such techniques range from indexing and concor- dancing to morphological processing with on-demand dictionary look-ups and syntactic processing with diagnostic error analysis, to name a few. But little work has been done on discourse-level phenomena, including anaphora. Zero anaphora or zero pronouns (henceforth zeros) are referential noun phrases (NPs) that are not overtly expressed in Japanese discourse. These NPs can be omitted if they are recoverable from a given context or relevant knowledge. The use of zeros is common in Japanese and this poses a challenge for Japanese as a Second Lan- guage (JSL) learners for their accurate compre- hension and natural-sounding production of Japanese discourse with zeros. Some learners fail to understand a passage correctly because of the difficulty of identifying zeros and/or their antecedents. Other learners produce grammati- cally correct but still unnatural-sounding Japa- nese due to overuse or underuse of zeros. Yet, very few textbooks provide systematic instruction or intensive exercises to overcome these difficulties with zeros. Consequently many Japanese language teachers rely on their intuitions when explaining zeros. Intuition is a conventional tool in teaching one’s native lan- guage, but from a student’s perspective, a well-developed systematic method of instruction can be more convincing. Also from a teacher’s standpoint, such analysis will be helpful in pre- paring teaching materials and evaluating stu- dents’ performance. Analysis of zeros can be divided into three phases: zero identification, zero interpretation and zero production. This paper focuses on the first phase and proposes a method of systemati- cally identifying the presence of zeros in order that teachers might provide effective instruction of zeros, based on some pedagogical principles from relevant second language acquisition (SLA) theory. We regard teachers as primary users of the program and aim to help …

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