20th Annual Graduate Student Symposium | Bridging Words, Worlds, and Wonder: Exploring Innovations in Language Studies
Friday, April 4, 2025 from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm
- In-person event
- 303, St. Patrick’s Building, Carleton University
- 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6
On Friday, April 4, 2025, SALaDS will be hosting their annual graduate student symposium. This year the topic of the symposium is Bridging Words, Worlds, and Wonder: Exploring Innovations in Language Studies.
The symposium brings together and showcases graduate student and upper-year undergraduate student research from the School of Linguistics and Language Studies (SLaLS) and related disciplines in a supportive atmosphere to share ideas and discuss recent projects.
Schedule
| Time | Details |
|---|---|
| 3:00 p.m. | SALaDS opening address and presentation of the Lynne Young Award |
| 3:15 p.m. | Keynote by Professor Brian Strong |
| 3:45 – 4:50 p.m. | Interactive poster session |
Keynote with Brian Strong | Why Are Phrasal Verbs So Hard to Learn? Corpus and Experimental Insights
Phrases like pick up or run out may seem simple, but for people learning English as a second language, these phrasal verbs present a real challenge. Why are phrasal verbs so tricky? They’re slippery—hard for learners to guess and even harder to remember.
In this talk, Brian will explain what phrasal verbs are, why they confuse second language learners, and what my research reveals about how learners acquire and retain them. Brian will begin with a corpus study comparing texts written by non-native and native English speakers. The findings show that non-native writers use phrasal verbs far less frequently, revealing notable gaps in their productive vocabulary. Next, he will present results from an experiment investigating two learning methods for phrasal verbs. In one condition, learners guessed the meanings—often incorrectly, generating errors. In the other, they were given the meanings from the outset, avoiding errors altogether.
This study examines whether making and correcting errors (a trial-and-error approach) supports retention more effectively than error-free study. Together, these studies shed light on why phrasal verbs remain difficult for L2 learners, and how different learning conditions may support their retention. This talk offers fresh insights into a persistent challenge in second language acquisition, with practical implications for teachers, learners, and researchers interested in vocabulary development.
Poster Session Titles
For more information about these presentations, please review the abstracts in the symposium program.
- Exploring Language Ideological Debates in French-Language Press: The Case of Mary Simon (2021-2022)
- Rethinking Language Assessment in the 21st Century: Plurilingualism for Fairness, Empowerment, and Social Justice
- Do You ‘Give Up’ or ‘Surrender’? Exploring Phrasal Verb Preferences in Turkish, French, and German Speakers
- Introducing Language Documentation to EFL Learners: a Project-Based Curriculum
- We Do That: Linguistic Performativity in Tabletop Role-playing Games
- Effectiveness of Errorful versus Errorless Methods in L2 Vocabulary Learning
- AI-assisted Research Writing by Chinese Doctoral Students: A Survey and Case Study
- Multimodality and Learning Disabilities in Writing: What Role does Assessment Play?
- Timing Matters: The Impact of Spacing and Input Modality on the Learning and Retention of Figurative Phrasal Verbs
- Examining Implicit and Explicit Oral Corrective Feedback in Advanced EFL Classrooms: Comparative Effects of Human, AI, and Hybrid Feedback Approaches
- “I Associate, Like, The Masculinity With… Masculinity”: The Portrayal of Masculinity in Queer Women’s Discourse
- History of Kwa’kwala Documentation
- What is Ethical Art, and Who Gets to Decide?: A Discourse Historical Analysis of a YouTube Video Essay
- Whose Voice Is Heard?: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Social Actors and Speech in POLITICO’s Coverage of Catalan as a Language of the European Union