This paper presents the design of e-LIS (Electronic Bilingual Dictionary of Italian Sign Language... more This paper presents the design of e-LIS (Electronic Bilingual Dictionary of Italian Sign Language (LIS) and Italian), an ongoing research project at the European Academy of Bolzano. We will argue that an electronic sign language dictionary has to fulfil the function of a reference dictionary as well as the function of a learner’s dictionary. We therefore provide an analysis of CALL approaches and technologies, taking as example the CALL systems ELDIT and GYMN@ZILLA developed at the European Academy of Bolzano too. We will show in how far these approaches or techniques can be ported to create an electronic dictionary of sign languages, for which system components new solutions have to be found and whether specific modules for the processing of sign languages have to be integrated.
This paper presents the design of e-LIS (Electronic Bilingual Dictionary Italian Sign Language (L... more This paper presents the design of e-LIS (Electronic Bilingual Dictionary Italian Sign Language (LIS) Italian), an ongoing research project at the European Academy of Bolzano started in 2004. It is the first attempt to build a sign-language reference dictionary that contains definitions and examples in the sign language itself and which offers a search engine that guides the user in the process of reconstructing and retrieving the sign he is looking for. Thus, not only can users go from Italian to LIS, but also from LIS to Italian.
The MERLIN corpus is a written learner corpus for Czech, German, and Italian that has been design... more The MERLIN corpus is a written learner corpus for Czech, German, and Italian that has been designed to illustrate the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) with authentic learner data. The corpus contains learner texts produced in standardized language certifications covering CEFR levels A1-C1. The MERLIN annotation scheme includes a wide range of language characteristics that provide researchers with concrete examples of learner performance and progress across multiple proficiency levels.
The aim of this work is to focus on the status of pictures in pedagogical lexicography. By discus... more The aim of this work is to focus on the status of pictures in pedagogical lexicography. By discussing the examples afforded by two learner's dictionaries of German, I will try to draw the attention of lexicographers and linguists on a topic that is still largely neglected.
The MERLIN corpus is a written learner corpus for Czech, German,and Italian that has been designe... more The MERLIN corpus is a written learner corpus for Czech, German,and Italian that has been designed to illustrate the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) with authentic learner data. The corpus contains 2,290 learner texts produced in standardized language certifications covering CEFR levels A1-C1. The MERLIN annotation scheme includes a wide range of language characteristics that enable research into the empirical foundations of the CEFR scales and provide language teachers, test developers, and Second Language Acquisition researchers with concrete examples of learner performance and progress across multiple proficiency levels. For computational linguistics, it provide a range of authentic learner data for three target languages, supporting a broadening of the scope of research in areas such as automatic proficiency classification or native language identification. The annotated corpus and related information will be freely available as a corpus resource and ...
This paper presents the design of e-LIS (Electronic Bilingual Dictionary Italian Sign Language (L... more This paper presents the design of e-LIS (Electronic Bilingual Dictionary Italian Sign Language (LIS) Italian), an ongoing research project at the European Academy of Bolzano started in 2004. It is the first attempt to build a sign-language reference dictionary that contains definitions and examples in the sign language itself and which offers a search engine that guides the user in the process of reconstructing and retrieving the sign he is looking for. Thus, not only can users go from Italian to LIS, but also from LIS to Italian.
This paper presents the design of e-LIS (Electronic Bilingual Dictionary of Italian Sign Language... more This paper presents the design of e-LIS (Electronic Bilingual Dictionary of Italian Sign Language (LIS) and Italian), an ongoing research project at the European Academy of Bolzano. We will argue that an electronic sign language dictionary has to fulfil the function of a reference dictionary as well as the function of a learner's dictionary. We therefore provide an analysis of CALL approaches and technologies, taking as example the CALL systems ELDIT and GYMN@ZILLA developed at the European Academy of Bolzano too. We will show in how far these approaches or techniques can be ported to create an electronic dictionary of sign languages, for which system components new solutions have to be found and whether specific modules for the processing of sign languages have to be integrated.
In this paper we present methods for the dynamic processing of texts and images in the framework ... more In this paper we present methods for the dynamic processing of texts and images in the framework of contextualized learning. For that purpose we introduce Gymn@zilla, a browser-like application designed for intercultural and interlingual learning. Gymn@zilla combines annotated reading with the possibility to memorize and interactively practice unknown items by means of personal wordlists and dynamic exercises. Possible usage scenarios range from individual language learning over school and university classes to daily working scenarios in non-native speaking environments.
In this contribution we present the results of an extensive linguistic and psycho-social survey w... more In this contribution we present the results of an extensive linguistic and psycho-social survey we conducted on a representative sample of Italian and German-speaking high school pupils in multilingual South Tyrol (Italy). The aim of the project was to describe their L2 competences (Italian/German) according to the CEFR levels and to find out extra-linguistic factors that exercise an influence on the L2 competence levels of the students. In this article, we focus in particular on L2 motivation and orientations, explaining the role they play in this peculiar context. Furthermore, we comment on the results of the language tests in the light of these extra-linguistic findings, trying to point out some key elements that might help to promote bilingualism in South Tyrol.
ABSTRACT Since its publication in 2001, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages ... more ABSTRACT Since its publication in 2001, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) has gained a leading role as an instrument of reference for language teaching and certification. Nonetheless, there is a growing concern about CEFR levels being insufficiently illustrated in terms of authentic learner data. Such concern grows even stronger when considering languages other than English (cf., e.g., Hulstijn 2007, North 2000). In this paper, we present the MERLIN project that addresses this need by illustrating and validating the CEFR levels for Czech, German, and Italian. To achieve its goal, we are developing a didactically motivated online platform to enable CEFR users to explore authentic written learner productions that have been related in a methodologically sophisticated and rigorous way to the CEFR levels. By making a significant number of learner productions freely accessible and easily searchable in a form that is richly annotated with linguistic characteristics and learner error types, the platform will assist teachers, learners, test developers, textbook authors, teacher trainers, and educational policy makers in developing a more comprehensive conceptualization of CEFR levels based on authentic learner data. In the first, methodology-oriented part of this paper, we explain how the learner textual data were collected, re-rated, transcribed, double-checked and prepared for additional manual and automatic processing. We then illustrate the indicators we built to analyze L2 productions. Indicators were derived through (a) linguistic analyses of the performance samples, (b) the operationalization of the CEFR scale descriptors, (c) the study of relevant literature on SLA and language testing, (d) textbook analyses and (e) a questionnaire study. This study allowed us to devise a harmonized annotation schema taking into account both common and language-specific features (e.g., gender/article in German, reflexive possessive pronouns in Czech, pronoun particles in Italian). In the second, application-oriented part, we explain how, by offering a large corpus of freely accessible empirical material, the project helps provide a fine-grained characterization of the CEFR levels and how it serves language teaching and learning. MERLIN thereby aims at responding to the suggestions of the Council of Europe itself, which solicits the development of supplementary tools for illustrating the CEFR levels (http://purl.org/net/CEFR-Goullier.doc). Furthermore, we explain how the platform enables the targeted users to retrieve authentic information about the relationship of the CEFR levels to a wide spectrum of well-defined, user-need-oriented L2 challenges. MERLIN users, such as teacher or learners, can thus compare their students’ or their own performances and get a clearer picture of their strengths and weaknesses. In the third, research-oriented part, we situate MERLIN with regards to two current topics in Second Language Acquisition: validation of CEFR scales and natural language processing for learner language.
The proceedings of the 13th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility - ASSETS '11, 2011
ABSTRACT Deaf children have great difficulties in reading comprehension. In our contribution, we ... more ABSTRACT Deaf children have great difficulties in reading comprehension. In our contribution, we illustrate how we have collected, simplified and presented some stories in order to render them suitable for young Italian deaf readers both from a linguistic and a formal point of view. The aim is to stimulate their pleasure of reading. The experimental data suggest that the approach is effective and that enriching the stories with static and/or animated drawings significantly improves text readability. However, they also clearly point out that textual simplification alone is not enough to meet the needs of the target group and that the story structure itself and its presentation have to be carefully planned.
As several studies report, deaf children have specific literacy problems. In particular, they are... more As several studies report, deaf children have specific literacy problems. In particular, they are poor readers, a fact that causes them difficulties in managing everyday activities. In our contribution we describe an ICT-based web application proposing children's stories and comprehension exercises, whose aim is to support deaf children's reading comprehension skills and, in particular, their understanding of the temporal relations between the events happening in the plot. Three are the innovative aspects of our ...
This paper presents the design of e-LIS (Electronic Bilingual Dictionary of Italian Sign Language... more This paper presents the design of e-LIS (Electronic Bilingual Dictionary of Italian Sign Language (LIS) and Italian), an ongoing research project at the European Academy of Bolzano. We will argue that an electronic sign language dictionary has to fulfil the function of a reference dictionary as well as the function of a learner’s dictionary. We therefore provide an analysis of CALL approaches and technologies, taking as example the CALL systems ELDIT and GYMN@ZILLA developed at the European Academy of Bolzano too. We will show in how far these approaches or techniques can be ported to create an electronic dictionary of sign languages, for which system components new solutions have to be found and whether specific modules for the processing of sign languages have to be integrated.
This paper presents the design of e-LIS (Electronic Bilingual Dictionary Italian Sign Language (L... more This paper presents the design of e-LIS (Electronic Bilingual Dictionary Italian Sign Language (LIS) Italian), an ongoing research project at the European Academy of Bolzano started in 2004. It is the first attempt to build a sign-language reference dictionary that contains definitions and examples in the sign language itself and which offers a search engine that guides the user in the process of reconstructing and retrieving the sign he is looking for. Thus, not only can users go from Italian to LIS, but also from LIS to Italian.
The MERLIN corpus is a written learner corpus for Czech, German, and Italian that has been design... more The MERLIN corpus is a written learner corpus for Czech, German, and Italian that has been designed to illustrate the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) with authentic learner data. The corpus contains learner texts produced in standardized language certifications covering CEFR levels A1-C1. The MERLIN annotation scheme includes a wide range of language characteristics that provide researchers with concrete examples of learner performance and progress across multiple proficiency levels.
The aim of this work is to focus on the status of pictures in pedagogical lexicography. By discus... more The aim of this work is to focus on the status of pictures in pedagogical lexicography. By discussing the examples afforded by two learner's dictionaries of German, I will try to draw the attention of lexicographers and linguists on a topic that is still largely neglected.
The MERLIN corpus is a written learner corpus for Czech, German,and Italian that has been designe... more The MERLIN corpus is a written learner corpus for Czech, German,and Italian that has been designed to illustrate the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) with authentic learner data. The corpus contains 2,290 learner texts produced in standardized language certifications covering CEFR levels A1-C1. The MERLIN annotation scheme includes a wide range of language characteristics that enable research into the empirical foundations of the CEFR scales and provide language teachers, test developers, and Second Language Acquisition researchers with concrete examples of learner performance and progress across multiple proficiency levels. For computational linguistics, it provide a range of authentic learner data for three target languages, supporting a broadening of the scope of research in areas such as automatic proficiency classification or native language identification. The annotated corpus and related information will be freely available as a corpus resource and ...
This paper presents the design of e-LIS (Electronic Bilingual Dictionary Italian Sign Language (L... more This paper presents the design of e-LIS (Electronic Bilingual Dictionary Italian Sign Language (LIS) Italian), an ongoing research project at the European Academy of Bolzano started in 2004. It is the first attempt to build a sign-language reference dictionary that contains definitions and examples in the sign language itself and which offers a search engine that guides the user in the process of reconstructing and retrieving the sign he is looking for. Thus, not only can users go from Italian to LIS, but also from LIS to Italian.
This paper presents the design of e-LIS (Electronic Bilingual Dictionary of Italian Sign Language... more This paper presents the design of e-LIS (Electronic Bilingual Dictionary of Italian Sign Language (LIS) and Italian), an ongoing research project at the European Academy of Bolzano. We will argue that an electronic sign language dictionary has to fulfil the function of a reference dictionary as well as the function of a learner's dictionary. We therefore provide an analysis of CALL approaches and technologies, taking as example the CALL systems ELDIT and GYMN@ZILLA developed at the European Academy of Bolzano too. We will show in how far these approaches or techniques can be ported to create an electronic dictionary of sign languages, for which system components new solutions have to be found and whether specific modules for the processing of sign languages have to be integrated.
In this paper we present methods for the dynamic processing of texts and images in the framework ... more In this paper we present methods for the dynamic processing of texts and images in the framework of contextualized learning. For that purpose we introduce Gymn@zilla, a browser-like application designed for intercultural and interlingual learning. Gymn@zilla combines annotated reading with the possibility to memorize and interactively practice unknown items by means of personal wordlists and dynamic exercises. Possible usage scenarios range from individual language learning over school and university classes to daily working scenarios in non-native speaking environments.
In this contribution we present the results of an extensive linguistic and psycho-social survey w... more In this contribution we present the results of an extensive linguistic and psycho-social survey we conducted on a representative sample of Italian and German-speaking high school pupils in multilingual South Tyrol (Italy). The aim of the project was to describe their L2 competences (Italian/German) according to the CEFR levels and to find out extra-linguistic factors that exercise an influence on the L2 competence levels of the students. In this article, we focus in particular on L2 motivation and orientations, explaining the role they play in this peculiar context. Furthermore, we comment on the results of the language tests in the light of these extra-linguistic findings, trying to point out some key elements that might help to promote bilingualism in South Tyrol.
ABSTRACT Since its publication in 2001, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages ... more ABSTRACT Since its publication in 2001, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) has gained a leading role as an instrument of reference for language teaching and certification. Nonetheless, there is a growing concern about CEFR levels being insufficiently illustrated in terms of authentic learner data. Such concern grows even stronger when considering languages other than English (cf., e.g., Hulstijn 2007, North 2000). In this paper, we present the MERLIN project that addresses this need by illustrating and validating the CEFR levels for Czech, German, and Italian. To achieve its goal, we are developing a didactically motivated online platform to enable CEFR users to explore authentic written learner productions that have been related in a methodologically sophisticated and rigorous way to the CEFR levels. By making a significant number of learner productions freely accessible and easily searchable in a form that is richly annotated with linguistic characteristics and learner error types, the platform will assist teachers, learners, test developers, textbook authors, teacher trainers, and educational policy makers in developing a more comprehensive conceptualization of CEFR levels based on authentic learner data. In the first, methodology-oriented part of this paper, we explain how the learner textual data were collected, re-rated, transcribed, double-checked and prepared for additional manual and automatic processing. We then illustrate the indicators we built to analyze L2 productions. Indicators were derived through (a) linguistic analyses of the performance samples, (b) the operationalization of the CEFR scale descriptors, (c) the study of relevant literature on SLA and language testing, (d) textbook analyses and (e) a questionnaire study. This study allowed us to devise a harmonized annotation schema taking into account both common and language-specific features (e.g., gender/article in German, reflexive possessive pronouns in Czech, pronoun particles in Italian). In the second, application-oriented part, we explain how, by offering a large corpus of freely accessible empirical material, the project helps provide a fine-grained characterization of the CEFR levels and how it serves language teaching and learning. MERLIN thereby aims at responding to the suggestions of the Council of Europe itself, which solicits the development of supplementary tools for illustrating the CEFR levels (http://purl.org/net/CEFR-Goullier.doc). Furthermore, we explain how the platform enables the targeted users to retrieve authentic information about the relationship of the CEFR levels to a wide spectrum of well-defined, user-need-oriented L2 challenges. MERLIN users, such as teacher or learners, can thus compare their students’ or their own performances and get a clearer picture of their strengths and weaknesses. In the third, research-oriented part, we situate MERLIN with regards to two current topics in Second Language Acquisition: validation of CEFR scales and natural language processing for learner language.
The proceedings of the 13th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility - ASSETS '11, 2011
ABSTRACT Deaf children have great difficulties in reading comprehension. In our contribution, we ... more ABSTRACT Deaf children have great difficulties in reading comprehension. In our contribution, we illustrate how we have collected, simplified and presented some stories in order to render them suitable for young Italian deaf readers both from a linguistic and a formal point of view. The aim is to stimulate their pleasure of reading. The experimental data suggest that the approach is effective and that enriching the stories with static and/or animated drawings significantly improves text readability. However, they also clearly point out that textual simplification alone is not enough to meet the needs of the target group and that the story structure itself and its presentation have to be carefully planned.
As several studies report, deaf children have specific literacy problems. In particular, they are... more As several studies report, deaf children have specific literacy problems. In particular, they are poor readers, a fact that causes them difficulties in managing everyday activities. In our contribution we describe an ICT-based web application proposing children's stories and comprehension exercises, whose aim is to support deaf children's reading comprehension skills and, in particular, their understanding of the temporal relations between the events happening in the plot. Three are the innovative aspects of our ...
Uploads
Papers by Chiara Vettori