Development of perception of second language Japanese geminates: Role of duration, sonority, and segmentation strategy

2009 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
DEBRA M. HARDISON ◽  
MIKI MOTOHASHI SAIGO
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Complex Interaction ◽  
Speech Segmentation ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Segmentation Strategy ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Beginning Learners

ABSTRACTThis study explored the second language perceptual accuracy of Japanese geminates (moraic units) by English-speaking learners at three proficiency levels: beginner (28), low–intermediate (42), and advanced (15). Stimuli included singleton and geminate /t/, /k/, /s/ followed by /a/ or /u/ produced by a native speaker in isolated words and carrier sentences. Results of a forced-choice identification task revealed a significant complex interaction involving all factors. Simple effects tests indicated scores for geminate /s/ followed by /u/ in carrier sentences were significantly lower across proficiency levels. The singleton-geminate contrast for /t, k/ was significant for beginning learners, marginal for low–intermediate, and nonsignificant for advanced. Duration differences did not account for all findings. Greater consonant–vowel sonority difference facilitated perception, enhancing mora boundaries for speech segmentation.

Phonological awareness in young second language learners

1995 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maggie Bruck ◽  
Fred Genesee
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Phonological Awareness ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Phoneme Awareness ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Bilingual Group ◽  
English Speaking

ABSTRACTEnglish-speaking children (N = 91) who were attending French schools (bilingual group) were given a battery of phonological awareness tests in kindergarten and in grade 1. At the time of kindergarten testing the mean age of the children was 5:9. Their performance was compared to age-matched English-speaking children (N = 72) attending English schools (monolingual group). The bilingual children showed heightened levels of phonological awareness skills in kindergarten in the area of onset-rime awareness. By grade 1, the pattern of group differences was more complex. The monolingual and bilingual children performed similarly on onset-rime segmentation tasks. The monolingual children had higher phoneme awareness scores than their French-schooled peers; this result is interpreted to reflect the role of literacy instruction on phoneme awareness development. In comparison, the bilingual children had higher syllable segmentation scores than their monolingual peers. This result is interpreted to reflect the role of second language input on phonological awareness.

Serving Nontraditional Students

2015 ◽  
pp. 106-128
Author(s):  
Dianna L. Newman ◽  
Meghan Morris Deyoe ◽  
David Seelow
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Adult Learners ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Skills Transfer ◽  
Content Areas ◽  
Writing Tutorials ◽  
English Speaking

The role of technology and educational media in supporting nontraditional adult learners is growing. One key area in which more research and development is needed is the improvement of writing, especially writing that is related to formal education. This chapter presents findings related to the use of online writing modules developed to support English as a Second Language and nontraditional English speaking college students. Participants reported improved content-specific writing skills, transfer of writing skills to other content areas, and increased self-efficacy in writing. Differences continued to be noted by key student characteristics. The study has implications for continued development and use of digitally supported writing tutorials for nontraditional adult learners.

Referring In a Second Language

1985 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 15-25
Author(s):  
Andy Bentlage
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
Secondary School Students ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Referential Communication ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
School Students ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Data Analyses

Naming and describing are important aspects of referential communication (RC). In an investigation of RC in a second language (L2), 36 secondary school students, divided into three groups of 12 with different proficiency levels, had to work in pairs on a description/identification task involving twelve nonrepresentative shapes. One task session consisted of six trials which were performed in English. The results of three different data analyses (numbers of words, naming and describing, and referential strategies) showed that RC in L2 differs from RC in L1 in three aspects: nonnative speakers (NNS) need longer references for the shapes; NNS' final references are structurally more complex; NNS with a lower L2 proficiency use their L1 more often than NNS with a higher L2 proficiency.

Variation in Native Speaker Speech Modification to Non-Native Speakers

1985 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan M. Gass ◽  
Evangeline Marlos Varonis
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Negotiation Of Meaning ◽  
Data Bases ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Telephone Interviews

This study builds upon prior research dealing with the nature of discourse involving non-native speakers. In particular, we examine variables influencing native speaker foreigner talk and the form that speech modification takes. The data bases are (1) 80 taped telephone interviews between NNSs at two distinct proficiency levels, (interviewer) and NSs (interviewee), and (2) 20 NS-NS interviews. We consider five variables: 1) negotiation of meaning, 2) quantity of speech, 3) amount of repair (following a specific NNS request for repair), 4) elaborated responses, and 5) transparent responses. We find that the speech of NSs changes as a function of an NNS's ability to understand and be understood. We further suggest a general cognitive principle—transparency—underlying aspects of both foreigner talk and second language acquisition.

The emergence of tense and agreement in child L2 French

1998 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanne Paradis ◽  
Mathieu Le Corre ◽  
Fred Genesee
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Acquisition Sequence ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Lexical Transfer ◽  
Grammatical Structures

The present study examined the acquisition of tense and agreement by L2 learners of French. We looked at whether the features and and the categories AGRP and TP emerged simultaneously or in sequence in the learners' grammars.We conducted interviews with English-speaking children acquiring French as a second language and with grade-matched native-speaker controls once a year for three years. The data were analysed for the productive use of morphosyntax encoding tense and agreement. Results revealed that items encoding agreement emerged before items encoding tense, suggesting that the abstract grammatical structures associated with these morphosyntax items emerge in sequence. The findings are interpreted with respect to three prevailing views on the acquisition of functional phrase structure in L2 acquisition: the Lexical Transfer/Minimal Trees hypothesis (Vainikka and Young-Scholten, 1994; 1996a; 1996b), the Weak Transfer/Valueless Features hypothesis (Eubank, 1993/94; 1994; 1996) and the Full Transfer/Full Access hypothesis (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1994;1996). Possible reasons for the existence of this acquisition sequence in French are also discussed.

The case of the conditional and the imperfect in variable mood-choice contexts in second-language and native-speaker Spanish

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aarnes Gudmestad
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Form Function ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Range Of Functions ◽  
Mood Choice

The current study builds on research on mood distinction in Spanish, which has focused on the subjunctive mood, by examining the full inventory of verb forms that second-language learners and native speakers (NSs) of Spanish use in mood-choice contexts. Twenty NSs and 130 learners corresponding to five proficiency levels completed three oral-elicitation tasks. The results show that participants use a wide repertoire of tense/mood/aspect forms in mood-choice contexts and that NSs and learners use largely the same forms. An analysis of the conditional and imperfect suggests that learners tend to restructure and strengthen their form-function connections between these verb forms and a range of functions.

scholarly journals Second language pragmatic ability: Individual differences according to environment

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 519-556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Wyner ◽  
Andrew D. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Teacher Development ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Individual Factors ◽  
Discussion Section ◽  
Pragmatic Transfer

The aims of this paper are to review research literature on the role that the second language (L2) and foreign language (FL) environments actually play in the development of learners’ target language (TL) pragmatic ability, and also to speculate as to the extent to which individual factors can offset the advantages that learners may have by being in the L2 context while they are learning. The paper starts by defining pragmatics and by problematizing this definition. Then, attention is given to research literature dealing with the learning of pragmatics in an L2 context compared to an FL context. Next, studies on the role of pragmatic transfer are considered, with subsequent attention given to the literature on the incidence of pragmatic transfer in FL as opposed to L2 contexts. Finally, selected studies on the role of motivation in the development of pragmatic ability are examined. In the discussion section, a number of pedagogical suggestions are offered: the inclusion of pragmatics in teacher development, the use of authentic pragmatics materials, motivating learners to be more savvy about pragmatics, and supporting learners in accepting or challenging native-speaker norms. Suggestions as to further research in the field are also offered.

Asymmetric transfer and development of temporal-aspectual sentence-final particles in English-Cantonese bilinguals’ L3 Mandarin grammars

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanyu Guo ◽  
Boping Yuan
Keyword(s):  
Structural Similarity ◽  
Bilingual Learners ◽  
Third Language ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Source Selection ◽  
Content Acquisition ◽  
Language L ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Final Particles

Abstract Aiming to shed new light on the discussion on transfer at initial stages of third language (L3) acquisition and development at later stages, this article reports on an empirical study of L3 acquisition of Mandarin temporal-aspectual sentence-final particles (SFPs) le, ne and láizhe by English speaking and English-Cantonese bilingual learners, at both low and high proficiency levels. Cantonese is typologically and structurally closer to Mandarin than English is. Our findings show obvious facilitative effects on le by its Cantonese counterpart in English-Cantonese bilingual learners’ L3 Mandarin, which supports the L3 models that advocate the deterministic role of structural similarity in the transfer source selection. A transfer asymmetry is observed between the cases of le and láizhe. No transfer effects are found in the L3 Mandarin data of láizhe, even though it has an equivalent SFP in Cantonese. This discrepancy is argued to be attributable to input factors and misleading forms. Moreover, patterns observed over different proficiency levels indicate that the quality and quantity of input and the register property of a particular SFP can greatly affect initial transfer and later development of L3 acquisition.

Construct operationalization, L1 effects, and context in second language processing

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 694-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALAN JUFFS
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
First Language ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Second Language Processing

Cunnings (2016) provides welcome insights into differences between native speaker (NS) sentence processing, adult non-native speaker processing (NNS), and working memory capacity (WMC) limitations. This commentary briefly raises three issues: construct operationalization; the role of first language (L1); and context.

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