Corpus of Turkish Undergraduate Writers of English (TUWE)

The Turkish Undergraduate Writers of English (TUWE, hereafter) corpus is a learner corpus compiled at Erciyes University in Turkey for research purposes, which is expected to contribute to teaching plans and practices of L2 learners, especially for the Turkish ones, both in local and international contexts. Not only can the examination of TUWE provide us a better understanding of the interlanguage issues (i.e. grammar, vocabulary choice) but also it can allow the practitioners and researchers aiming to develop materials and design tasks for language classes by taking performances of L2 users. The corpus includes ''341 argumentative essays'' written by Turkish speakers of English at tertiary with proficiency level of upper-intermediate. The learners were all young adult undergraduate students majoring in English Language Teaching to become teachers and practitioners. They were first-and second-year undergraduate students enrolled in either Advanced Reading and Writing or Process Writing classes. The total number of words in the corpus is approximately 270.000 words, which can be considered as a medium-sized specialized learner corpus. The topics of the essays range from 'Population explosion' and 'Migration' to 'Parenting' and 'Job selection'. The reason why learners were asked to write on such broad topics is linked to make them express their opinions without much research on the topics, at least not as much as is required by academic writing on an academic topic. The learners completed their essays on the given topic by following the Process Approach in writing, which gives a chance to go back and forth in their writing to draft, revise and submit the work.

土耳其英语本科写作者（Turkish Undergraduate Writers of English，简称TUWE，下同）语料库是土耳其埃尔吉耶斯大学为科研目的编纂的学习者语料库，旨在为第二语言（L2）学习者的教学规划与实践提供支撑，尤其面向土耳其籍第二语言学习者，覆盖本土与国际教学场景。通过对TUWE语料库的分析，不仅能深化我们对中介语（interlanguage）问题（即语法、词汇选择）的认知，还可助力致力于依托第二语言使用者的写作表现开发教学素材、设计语言课堂任务的从业者与研究者开展相关工作。该语料库收录341篇议论文，均由英语为第二语言的土耳其籍高等教育阶段学习者撰写，其英语熟练度达中高级（upper-intermediate）水平。所有学习者均为以英语教师或语言教学从业者为职业目标的英语语言教育专业本科青年学生，且均为修读高级读写课程或过程写作课程的大一、大二本科生。该语料库总词数约为27万，属于中型专业化学习者语料库。议论文主题涵盖人口爆炸、移民、育儿与职业选择等议题。要求学习者围绕此类宽泛主题写作，目的是让他们无需对主题开展过多调研即可表达观点——至少无需达到学术写作中针对学术主题所需的调研量。学习者均遵循写作过程教学法（Process Approach）完成指定主题的议论文写作，该方法允许学习者在写作过程中反复进行草稿撰写、修改与最终提交。