Learner corpora and contrastive interlanguage analysis

This paper gives a glimpse of pre-corpus interlanguage studies, focusing on some Scandinavian research projects, before moving on to the development of computerized learner corpora and computer-aided interlanguage analysis with special reference to the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) project. Contrastive interlanguage analysis (CIA) is defined and discussed, followed by a presentation of the so-called Integrated Contrastive Model (ICM). The two models of analysis are illustrated by means of three case studies; two using CIA to study the use of quite and I would say across four learner groups in ICLE aznd one using the ICM to analyse seem in the interlanguage of Norwegian learners. Towards the end, some challenges for interlanguage research are discussed.