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<Paper uid="W03-0206">
  <Title>Transforming Grammar Checking Technology into a Learning Environment for Second Language Writing</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
2 Background
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> The study of acquisition and development of Swedish as a second language is a vast research area that goes back to the early 70's in Sweden. In this research work, three main perspectives can be distinguished: linguistic, socio-linguistic and pedagogical. Studies conducted through these perspectives agree on viewing the acquisition and development of second language as a multifaceted process in which is necessary to combine different foci. They have, however, most often focused on the study of speech and the development of immigrants' communicative competence (cf. Kotsinas (1985)).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> Questions regarding the role of writing during the acquisition and development of a second language have usually been overlooked. Another common characteristic of all three perspectives is that they have neglected the question of the role of language tools in supporting learning, and more in particular, in helping learners to reflect on and develop awareness of the language they produce. Furthermore, the use of CALL applications in second-language education is still limited in Sweden. The few educational institutions that have introduced CALL applications in their curricula use mostly email, chat or multimedia; programs that actually have very little input from language technology research (cf.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Cerratto and Borin (2002)). In this sense, it should come as no surprise that computer-assisted language learning applied to Swedish as a second language rarely incorporates features that are able to analyze learners' written or spoken productions (cf. Cerratto and Borin (2002)).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> Unlike computer-assisted language learning in the context of Swedish as a second language, language tools for Swedish have an important place within the writing process of native speakers. However, concentrated as they have been on the development of robust and highly efficient algorithms and rules that are able to correctly detect and diagnose language errors, they have neglected the pedagogical potential of such tools (Vernon, 2000). Developed to support correct writing, they have often been based on models of native writers neglecting then writers who are learning Swedish as a second language.</Paragraph>
    <Section position="1" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
2.1 Granska - a Swedish Grammar Checker
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> Granska is a grammar checker for Swedish developed at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden (Domeij et al., 2000). It is together with other language tools integrated in a writing environment supporting different aspects of the writing process. Granska combines probabilistic and rule-based methods to achieve high efficiency and robustness (see also Carlberger and Kann (1999)).</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> Using special error rules, the system can detect a number of Swedish grammar problems and suggest corrections for them that are presented to the user together with instructional information. The current version of Granska, used in this study, is designed for native Swedish writers.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> The core of the Granska system is a statistical PoStagger, a collection of phenomena-based grammar checking rules, and a robust shallow parser. In the studies presented in this paper, Granska was used with a web interface. Granska's web interface allowed the students to use any word processor they liked on any platform.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> Granska has been evaluated on five different text genres including mostly texts from native speakers of Swedish (Domeij et al., 2002). The recall was ranging from 37% on student essays to 87% on texts from popular science. The precision of the program was ranging from 66% on student essays to 25% on text from international news. The student essays is the text genre that mostly resemble the text genre of the learners presented in this study. To conclude, we can expect a quite good precision, but a rather low recall on the second language learners' texts. An evaluation of the Swedish grammar checker in Microsoft Word (Birn, 2000) shows a grammar checker with better precision, but lower recall than Granska. However, comparisons on the same text genres remain to be done. One notable difference is that Word's grammar checker does not search for the complex error type split compounds, which Granska does with some loss in precision as a result.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
    <Section position="2" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
2.2 Theoretical Framework
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> The perspective on written language as a tool is grounded in the Socio-cultural perspective (cf. (Vygotsky, 1978; Engestr&amp;quot;om, 1987; Cole and Engestr&amp;quot;om, 1993; Rabardel, 1995; Wertsch, 1998; Bliss and S&amp;quot;alj&amp;quot;o, 1999; B'eguin and Rabardel, 2000)). According to this perspective, the most important psychological tool is language, understood as a semiotic resource providing signs that can be flexible, and creatively used in social practices. One of the fundamental notions is that there is a psychological relation between user -learner- and object of activity -languagethrough the use of a tool (Rabardel, 1995; Cerratto, 1999; Cerratto Pargman, forthcoming). This notion inherited from the cultural-historical school of Russian psychology puts tools in the position of intermediators of human action. Considered as intermediators, tools in use are far from being transparent. Just as language carries ideology within it, so too do language tools (Haas, 1996).</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> Focus on the Writing Process Our interest in writing relies on the central place that writing occupies in the development of language and thinking processes (Vygotsky, 1962; Vygotsky, 1978), (Luria, 1946, cited by Downing (1987)). &amp;quot;Cognitive processes and structures are transformed significantly by the acquisition of our best-recognized cultural (and intellectual) tool, namely, writing&amp;quot; (Olson (1995), p. 96). Both Vygotsky and Luria suggested that writing not only allowed one to do new things but more importantly, turned speech and language into objects of reflection and analysis (cf. Olson (1995)). From this perspective, writing is of utmost importance as it affects consciousness and cognition through providing a model for speech and a theory for thinking about what is said. It is in fact this new consciousness of language that is central to the conceptual implications of writing. &amp;quot;Far from transcribing speech, writing creates the categories in terms of which we become consciousness of speech&amp;quot; (Olson (1995), p. 119).</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> Language Tools are Viewed as Cognitive Partners Few are the studies paying attention to the question of the role of language tools in supporting learning, and more in particular, in thinking development in order to help learners reflect on and develop awareness of the language they produce. According to S&amp;quot;alj&amp;quot;o (1996), the role of tools - psychological as well as technical - and the concept of mediation play a fundamental role in the understanding of human thinking and learning. Quoting Wertsch (1998), he emphasizes that &amp;quot;in contrast to many contemporary analyses of language which focus on the structure of the sign systems independent of any mediating role they might play, a sociocultural interpretation presupposes that one conceives of language and other sign systems in terms of how they are part of and mediate human action&amp;quot; (S&amp;quot;alj&amp;quot;o (1996), p. 84-85) &amp;quot;... By acquiring concepts and discursive tools, we appropriate ways of understanding reality that have developed within particular discursive practices in different sectors in a complex society&amp;quot;(S&amp;quot;alj&amp;quot;o (1996) p. 87).</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> According to this view on language and tools, the use of language tools may alter second-language learning and writing processes.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
  </Section>
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