Electronic Database of Non-Native Speakers’ Speech Errors as a Scientific and Educational Resource (on the Example of Russian Schools)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the development of an electronic database of speech errors of non-native speakers studying in Russian schools. The database of non-native speakers’ speech errors developed by the authors includes the following parameters: 1) name of the non-native speaker, 2) age, 3) gender, 4) native language, 5) target word / phrase, 6) context1 (context that includes an error), 7) normative spelling, 8) context2 (context with a corrected error), 9) type of text in which the error occurred, 10) category of error, 11) type of error, 12) year of the material collection. Database pattern, as well as database program, which are a client-server Web application, are presented in the article. The study involved 87 non-native speakers of 11 nationalities: Azerbaijanis (25), Uzbeks (13), Ukrainians (13), Kyrghyz (11), Armenians (11), Tajiks (5), Dargins (2), Avars (2), Talysh (2), Belarusians (2), and Vietnamese (1). The authors have collected and systematized educational written texts of 4 types (dictations, essays, summaries, and copyings) of non-native speakers studying in general education schools of the city of Cherepovets of the Vologda Region. At the moment, there are 239 texts, among which: dictations comprise 96, summary - 26, essays - 41, copying - 76. In these texts, 2039 non-normative spellings were found and qualified. The authors of the project introduced a multidimensional system for the classification of errors that were identified in the written texts of the non-native speakers. At the first level, the following types of errors were distinguished: 1) nonspelling, 2) graphic, 3) spelling, 4) lexical, and 5) grammatical. Research and educational problems that can be solved by means of this resource are considered.