Conference article

SVALA: Annotation of Second-Language Learner Text Based on Mostly Automatic Alignment of Parallel Corpora

Mats Wirén
Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University, Sweden

Arild Matsson
Språkbanken, Department of Swedish, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Dan Rosén
Språkbanken, Department of Swedish, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Elena Volodina
Språkbanken, Department of Swedish, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

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Published in: Selected papers from the CLARIN Annual Conference 2018, Pisa, 8-10 October 2018

Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 159:23, p. 227-239

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Published: 2019-05-28

ISBN: 978-91-7685-034-3

ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)

Abstract

Annotation of second-language learner text is a cumbersome manual task which in turn requires interpretation to postulate the intended meaning of the learner’s language. This paper describes SVALA, a tool which separates the logical steps in this process while providing rich visual support for each of them. The first step is to pseudonymize the learner text to fulfil the legal and ethical requirements for a distributable learner corpus. The second step is to correct the text, which is carried out in the simplest possible way by text editing. During the editing, SVALA automatically maintains a parallel corpus with alignments between words in the learner source text and corrected text, while the annotator may repair inconsistent word alignments. Finally, the actual labelling of the corrections (the postulated errors) is performed. We describe the objectives, design and workflow of SVALA, and our plans for further development.

Keywords

Normalization, Error annotation, Learner corpora, Parallel corpora, Word alignment

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