Comprehension process of second language indirect requests

1994 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-506 ◽  
Author(s):  
Satomi Takahashi ◽  
Herbert L. Roitblat
Keyword(s):  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Literal Interpretation ◽  
Japanese Learners Of English ◽  
Sentence Reading ◽  
Comprehension Process ◽  
Indirect Requests ◽  
Japanese Learners ◽  
Subsequent Target

ABSTRACTThis study examined the comprehension of English conventional indirect requests by native English speakers and Japanese learners of English. Subjects read stories inducing either a conventional or a literal interpretation of a priming sentence. Reading speeds did not vary as a function of the interpretation. Subsequent target sentences that paraphrased either the literal or the conventional interpretation of the prime sentence were read more quickly when they paraphrased a conventional interpretation of the sentence than when they paraphrased a literal interpretation. Target sentences were also read more quickly if they paraphrased the interpretation induced by the context than if they did not match. The results suggest that both native and nonnative speakers process both meanings of an ambiguous conventional request.

scholarly journals Perceived Phonological Overlap in Second-Language Categories: The Acquisition of English /r/ and /l/ by Japanese Native Listeners

Languages ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 4
Author(s):  
Michael D. Tyler
Keyword(s):  
Goodness Of Fit ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Discrimination Accuracy ◽  
Japanese Learners Of English ◽  
Immersion Experience ◽  
Phonological Categories ◽  
Japanese Learners ◽  
The Continuum

Japanese learners of English can acquire /r/ and /l/, but discrimination accuracy rarely reaches native speaker levels. How do L2 learners develop phonological categories to acquire a vocabulary when they cannot reliably tell them apart? This study aimed to test the possibility that learners establish new L2 categories but perceive phonological overlap between them when they perceive an L2 phone. That is, they perceive it to be an instance of more than one of their L2 phonological categories. If so, improvements in discrimination accuracy with L2 experience should correspond to a reduction in overlap. Japanese native speakers differing in English L2 immersion, and native English speakers, completed a forced category goodness rating task, where they rated the goodness of fit of an auditory stimulus to an English phonological category label. The auditory stimuli were 10 steps of a synthetic /r/–/l/ continuum, plus /w/ and /j/, and the category labels were L, R, W, and Y. Less experienced Japanese participants rated steps at the /l/-end of the continuum as equally good versions of /l/ and /r/, but steps at the /r/-end were rated as better versions of /r/ than /l/. For those with more than 2 years of immersion, there was a separation of goodness ratings at both ends of the continuum, but the separation was smaller than it was for the native English speakers. Thus, L2 listeners appear to perceive a phonological overlap between /r/ and /l/. Their performance on the task also accounted for their responses on /r/–/l/ identification and AXB discrimination tasks. As perceived phonological overlap appears to improve with immersion experience, assessing category overlap may be useful for tracking L2 phonological development.

scholarly journals Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis of Discourse Markers Used by Nonnative and Native English Speakers

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazunari Shimada
Keyword(s):  
English Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Learner Corpus ◽  
Japanese Learners Of English ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Japanese Learners ◽  
Qualitative Analyses

In this study, the use of discourse markers (DMs) in the speech of Japanese learners of English was investigated. To explore the features of their DM use, corpora of nonnative and native English speakers’ speech were analysed using the methodology called Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis. A frequency analysis of DMs revealed significant differences between Japanese learners’ and native speakers’ speech, supporting earlier findings. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the learner corpus data suggest that Japanese learners may use the marker so more frequently than other nonnative English learners, while also using certain interpersonal or cognitive function markers such as you know, I mean, and just less frequently. The findings suggest the need for language instructors and materials writers to understand the characteristics of Japanese learners’ interlanguage and to provide them with appropriately designed DM input. 本研究は、日本人英語学習者の話し言葉における談話標識（discourse markers: DMs）の使用を調べたものである。日本人英語学習者のDMs使用の特徴を探るために、対照中間言語分析の手法に基づき、非英語母語話者と英語母語話者の話し言葉コーパスを分析した。まず、日本人英語学習者と英語母語話者の話し言葉におけるDMsの使用頻度を分析したところ、先行研究と同じく、大きな差が見られた。次に、非英語母語話者の話し言葉を量的・質的の両面で分析した結果、日本人英語学習者が、他の非英語母語話者に比べてsoを多く使用し、you know, I mean, justなどの対人関係的、認知的機能をもつDMsをあまり使用しないことが明らかになった。その結果は、教師や教材作成者が日本人英語学習者の中間言語の特徴を理解し、学習者に対して慎重にDMsをインプットしていく必要性があることを示唆している。

scholarly journals Effects of HVPT on perception and production of English fricatives by Japanese learners of English

2019 ◽  
pp. 186-192
Author(s):  
Atsushi Iino
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Computer Program ◽  
Reading Aloud ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
High Variability ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Japanese Learners Of English ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Japanese Learners ◽  
Perception Training

This study investigated the effects of High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT) on beginner level English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Japanese learners’ perceptions and productions of the English fricatives /f/, /v/ and /θ/. With the use of the computer program ‘English Accent Coach’ (EAC, Thomson, 2017), two groups of participants were engaged in learning the sounds in a two-syllable environment: target consonant + vowels (CV) and target consonant + vowels + consonant (CVC). The perception training with EAC was conducted for five weeks between a pre-test and a post-test in perception and production. Production was measured in the form of recorded reading aloud and was evaluated by native English speakers and a Japanese teacher of English. The results indicated the advantageous effects of CVC environments on perception as well as on production.

scholarly journals How much do visual cues help listeners in perceiving accented speech?

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-109
Author(s):  
YI ZHENG ◽  
ARTHUR G. SAMUEL
Keyword(s):  
Visual Information ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Apparent Distance ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Accented Speech ◽  
Compressed Speech ◽  
Degraded Speech

AbstractIt has been documented that lipreading facilitates the understanding of difficult speech, such as noisy speech and time-compressed speech. However, relatively little work has addressed the role of visual information in perceiving accented speech, another type of difficult speech. In this study, we specifically focus on accented word recognition. One hundred forty-two native English speakers made lexical decision judgments on English words or nonwords produced by speakers with Mandarin Chinese accents. The stimuli were presented as either as videos that were of a relatively far speaker or as videos in which we zoomed in on the speaker’s head. Consistent with studies of degraded speech, listeners were more accurate at recognizing accented words when they saw lip movements from the closer apparent distance. The effect of apparent distance tended to be larger under nonoptimal conditions: when stimuli were nonwords than words, and when stimuli were produced by a speaker who had a relatively strong accent. However, we did not find any influence of listeners’ prior experience with Chinese accented speech, suggesting that cross-talker generalization is limited. The current study provides practical suggestions for effective communication between native and nonnative speakers: visual information is useful, and it is more useful in some circumstances than others.

Complex Structures in the Child-Directed Speech of Native and Nonnative Speakers

2018 ◽  
pp. 127-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aslı Altan ◽  
Erika Hoff
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Complex Structures ◽  
Child Interaction ◽  
Mother Child Interaction ◽  
Bilingual Communities

Children in bilingual communities are frequently exposed to speech from nonnative speakers, but little research has described how that input might differ from the input of native speakers. There is evidence that input from nonnative speakers might be less useful to language learning children, but little research has asked why. This chapter analyzes the frequency of complex structures in the child-directed speech of 30 native English speakers and 36 nonnative speakers who were late learners of English, all speaking English to their two-and-a-half-year-old children. All instances of nine categories of complex structures were coded in transcripts of mother-child interaction. The frequency of all but one category was greater in the speech of native speakers. These findings suggest that input provided by native speakers provides more frequent models of complex structures than nonnative input.

Fillers, Repairs and Repetitions in the Conversations of Saudi English Speakers: Conversational Device or Disfluency Markers

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 193
Author(s):  
Yaseen A. Azi
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
The Other ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Normal Speaking

Based on the literature review, the three patterns (fillers, repairs and repetitions) in the conversations of the native English speakers are generally regarded as results of the normal speaking between people. On the other hand, the same patterns in the conversations of the L2 speakers are always seen as a marker of disfluency and linguistic disabilities of the nonnative speakers. Therefore, this study simply focuses on finding how the three disfluency patterns are used by the Saudi English speakers from different levels of fluency. The sampling of the study includes two groups of participants from different fluency levels. Through the transcriptions and the discourse analysis of one hour recoding of the two groups, the results showed that the three patterns (fillers, repairs and repetitions) should not be generally associated with disfluency. Instead, repetitions and self-repairs have been equally used by the two groups and such patterns can be used as a conversational device. However, the filler “uh” with longer pausing can clearly predict disfluency among the Saudi English speakers. 

Comparative Acoustic Analyses of L2 English: The Search for Systematic Variation

Phonetica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 77 (6) ◽  
pp. 441-479
Author(s):  
Rebecca Laturnus
Keyword(s):  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Language Background ◽  
Accented Speech ◽  
Foreign Accents ◽  
Acoustic Analyses

<b><i>Background/Aims:</i></b> Previous research has shown that exposure to multiple foreign accents facilitates adaptation to an untrained novel accent. One explanation is that L2 speech varies systematically such that there are commonalities in the productions of nonnative speakers, regardless of their language background. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> A systematic acoustic comparison was conducted between 3 native English speakers and 6 nonnative accents. Voice onset time, unstressed vowel duration, and formant values of stressed and unstressed vowels were analyzed, comparing each nonnative accent to the native English talkers. A subsequent perception experiment tests what effect training on regionally accented voices has on the participant’s comprehension of nonnative accented speech to investigate the importance of within-speaker variation on attunement and generalization. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Data for each measure show substantial variability across speakers, reflecting phonetic transfer from individual L1s, as well as substantial inconsistency and variability in pronunciation, rather than commonalities in their productions. Training on native English varieties did not improve participants’ accuracy in understanding nonnative speech. <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> These findings are more consistent with a hypothesis of accent attune­ment wherein listeners track general patterns of nonnative speech rather than relying on overlapping acoustic signals between speakers.

Japanese learners’ acquisition of English manner-of-motion verbs with locational/directional PPs

2002 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shunji Inagaki
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Motion Verbs ◽  
Directed Motion ◽  
L1 Transfer ◽  
Positive Evidence ◽  
Japanese Learners Of English ◽  
Japanese Speakers ◽  
Japanese Learners

This study investigated first language (L1) influence on second language (L2) argument structure in a situation where an L2 argument structure forms a superset of its L1 counterpart. In such a situation, a partial fit between the L1 and the L2 may trigger L1 transfer, whereas availability of positive evidence may allow the learner to arrive at the L2 grammar (White, 1991b). This study tested these predictions by investigating whether Japanese speakers can recognize the directional reading of English manner-of-motion verbs ( walk, swim) with locational/directional PPs ( under, behind), such as John swam under the bridge, where under the bridge can be either the goal of John’s swimming (directional) or the location of John’s swimming (locational). By contrast, their Japanese counterparts allow only a locational reading, as Japanese is more restricted than English in allowing only directed motion verbs ( go) to appear with a phrase expressing a goal. Thirty-five intermediate Japanese learners of English and 23 English speakers were tested using a picture-matching task. Results show that, unlike English speakers, Japanese speakers consistently failed to recognize a directional reading. I suggest that positive evidence need not only be available but also be frequent and clear in order to be used by L2 learners to broaden their interlanguage grammar.

scholarly journals Analyses of Verb Tense and Voice of Research Article Abstracts in Engineering Journals

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 139-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahjoobeh Abarghooeinezhad ◽  
Shahla Simin
Keyword(s):  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
General Guideline ◽  
Electronic Engineering ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Nonnative Speakers Of English ◽  
Novice Writers ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Verb Tense

This paper seeks to analyze the research article abstracts among native English speakers and non-native (Iranian) speakers in the field of Electronic engineering. The analysis mainly focuses on the rhetorical structure, i.e. the constituent Moves/Sub-Moves. In addition, Verb choices and the voice and tense of the verbs in Move 2 and Move 4 respectively were examined. To this end, 25 published abstracts from each field (a total of 50 abstracts), all appearing in established, ISI journals, were selected. The model proposed by Santos (1996), composed of 5 moves along AntMover software was employed as a general guideline in order to identify Moves/SubMoves. The results compared and contrasted the dominant move patterns of each field, their unique Move/SubMoves, and the typical voice and tense of verbs employed in Move 4. It was also found that there were some variations between the abstracts written by native English speakers and nonnative speakers of English. It is hoped that with detailed analyses of abstracts, the results of this study may serve as a complement to the guidelines for novice writers to construct a proper research article abstract in electronic engineering.

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