Language Development Study with a Thematic Approach, Using Corpus Linguistics Tools Study on the Word család (family)

Abstract

The article analyzes the language development of students learning Hungarian as a foreign language, between the beginners’ level and the B2 level, on a thematic basis using corpus linguistic tools. The language development analysis examines the individual development of the learners focusing on two topics: the family and human relations. It studies the subject’s essential basic vocabulary and its use in two language corpora: the MagyarOK open pedagogical corpus, and the KorSzak learner corpus containing students’ language products. The study aims to investigate the most frequent words of the topic, to explore the context of the words, the patterns of their use, and the similarities and differences between patterns and language levels based on the data of the different corpora. The general goal is to analyze the specificities of individual language development in a thematic approach and to integrate the results into teaching and methodological practice.