Some issues in the mark-up of handwriting in a learner corpus

In learner corpora, as in any corpus, mark-up is an important issue. One aspect of learner corpora so far largely ignored, however, is the specific question of handwriting and in particular how to mark-up handwriting anomalies, especially with learners whose native language uses a different writing system. In this paper we pose some open questions about what aspects of a learner’s handwriting might be of interest and how these features can be marked-up in a learner corpus of handwriting. We begin by considering some general issues related to the acquisition of a second writing system, and consider whether and how handwriting anomalies should and could be marked up in a learner corpus. We consider the relevance of mark-up guidelines for manuscripts in general, and are guided by the importance of handwritten material in second language acquisition. A number of examples taken from a small corpus of English essays handwritten by Arabic-speakers are presented.