scholarly journals How conceptualizing influences fluency in first and second language speech production

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
EMILY R. FELKER ◽  
HEIDI E. KLOCKMANN ◽  
NIVJA H. DE JONG
Keyword(s):  
Speech Production ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Practical Implication ◽  
Language Assessment ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Experimental Paradigm ◽  
Speech Planning ◽  
Second Language Speech Production ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Conceptual Difficulties

ABSTRACTWhen speaking in any language, speakers must conceptualize what they want to say before they can formulate and articulate their message. We present two experiments employing a novel experimental paradigm in which the formulating and articulating stages of speech production were kept identical across conditions of differing conceptualizing difficulty. We tracked the effect of difficulty in conceptualizing during the generation of speech (Experiment 1) and during the abandonment and regeneration of speech (Experiment 2) on speaking fluency by Dutch native speakers in their first (L1) and second (L2) language (English). The results showed that abandoning and especially regenerating a speech plan taxes the speaker, leading to disfluencies. For most fluency measures, the increases in disfluency were similar across L1 and L2. However, a significant interaction revealed that abandoning and regenerating a speech plan increases the time needed to solve conceptual difficulties while speaking in the L2 to a greater degree than in the L1. This finding supports theories in which cognitive resources for conceptualizing are shared with those used for later stages of speech planning. Furthermore, a practical implication for language assessment is that increasing the conceptual difficulty of speaking tasks should be considered with caution.

Three Elements That Affect the Realisation of Subject-Verb Agreement in the Speech Production of L2 Speakers of English with L1 Chinese

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 376-395
Author(s):  
Yi Ma ◽  
Yige Zou
Keyword(s):  
Speech Production ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Verb Agreement ◽  
Modular Model ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
Speech Planning ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
The Way

Abstract The experiment presented in this research is targeting a ‘positional’ stage of a ‘modular’ model of speech production originally proposed by Levelt (1989), Bock & Levelt (1994), where selected lemmas are inserted into syntactic frames. Results suggest a difference between L1 and L2 English speakers at the positional stage. While this might suggest that the speech planning process is different in native and non-native speakers, an alternative view is also proposed that the observed differences are the result of differences in the way that linguistic forms are stored, rather than a fundamental difference in the way that speech is planned. This result indicates main verb, copula be & local dependency effect are the three elements that affect the realization of English subject-verb agreement, and helps us locate the phase where L2 subject-verb agreement errors happen.

He who Hesitates: Hesitation Phenomena as Quality Control in Speech Production, Obstacles in Non-Native Speech Perception

2000 ◽  
Vol 182 (3) ◽  
pp. 72-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marnie Reed
Keyword(s):  
Quality Control ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Speech Processing ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Classification Framework ◽  
Native Speech ◽  
Control Devices ◽  
Content Processing ◽  
Hesitation Phenomena

This study was designed to determine the nature and occurrence of hesitation phenomena in spontaneous speech of native and non-native speakers, and to determine whether and to what extent the hesitation phenomena normal in spontaneous speech pose perception problems for non-native speakers. A quantitative analysis reveals that hesitation phenomena are ubiquitous in both native and non-native speech production. A qualitative analysis based on a content-processing classification framework reveals the function of hesitations. Hesitations act as overt traces of prospective and retrospective speech-processing tasks which function to forestall errors, and to permit detection and repair of errors once they are committed. Hesitations are quality control devices; native and non-native speakers are highly successful utilizing them to forestall errors. However, hesitation phenomena clearly pose perception problems for non-native speakers who show little evidence of recognizing them as such. Like native speakers, non-native speakers produce hesitation phenomena. Unlike native speakers, who edit and filter out the hesitations they hear, non-native speakers attempt to assign meaning to speakers' faulty output or to parenthetical remarks. Hesitations are unpredictable in their frequency or occurrence; failure to provide training in these oral discourse features of connected speech may result in non-native speakers whose speech production vastly outstrips their perception.

scholarly journals Notetaking and Writing from Hypertexts in L1 and L2

2008 ◽  
Vol 156 ◽  
pp. 31-50
Author(s):  
Marie-Laure Barbier ◽  
Annie Piolat ◽  
Jean-Yves Roussey ◽  
Françoise Raby
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Load ◽  
Word Processor ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Main Task ◽  
Writing Processes ◽  
Random Intervals ◽  
Paper Condition ◽  
Copy And Paste ◽  
L1 And L2

This study analyzes the cognitive effort and linguistic procedures of sixty students using information taken from an experimental website in L1 (French) and in L2 (English). The students navigated on the website and took notes on paper or with a word processor. A triple-task paradigm was used to estimate the cognitive load of reading, notetaking, and writing processes in L2. The students had to perform two additional tasks while a main task (notetaking, for example) was being carried out. They had to react as fast as possible to sound signals sent out at random intervals. They also had to identify what they were doing at the time the sound signal was heard (reading, notetaking, or writing). The study focuses on the way the students managed their cognitive resources while exploring the website, selecting and writing down the ideas they considered useful, and reconstructing them later when producing their own text. Surprisingly, no difference in cognitive load was observed between L1 and L2. By relying almost exclusively on the copy and paste functions to retrieve information from the website, the participants using a word processor in L2 succeeded in making reading a less costly activity, and they performed similarly to the notetakers in L1. The students’ difficulties in L2 became apparent only in the paper condition. The strategies and linguistic procedures of the students are described and related to the ways teachers can approach the new dimensions of notetaking and writing with a computer.

scholarly journals Investigation of Native Speaker and Second Language Learner Intuition of Collocation Frequency

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Siyanova ◽  
S Spina
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
Very Low Frequency ◽  
Second Language Learner ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
L1 And L2

© 2015 Language Learning Research Club, University of Michigan. Research into frequency intuition has focused primarily on native (L1) and, to a lesser degree, nonnative (L2) speaker intuitions about single word frequency. What remains a largely unexplored area is L1 and L2 intuitions about collocation (i.e., phrasal) frequency. To bridge this gap, the present study aimed to answer the following question: How do L2 learners and native speakers compare against each other and corpora in their subjective judgments of collocation frequency? Native speakers and learners of Italian were asked to judge 80 noun-adjective pairings as one of the following: high frequency, medium frequency, low frequency, very low frequency. Both L1 and L2 intuitions of high frequency collocations correlated strongly with corpus frequency. Neither of the two groups of participants exhibited accurate intuitions of medium and low frequency collocations. With regard to very low frequency pairings, L1 but not L2 intuitions were found to correlate with corpora for the majority of the items. Further, mixed-effects modeling revealed that L2 learners were comparable to native speakers in their judgments of the four frequency bands, although some differences did emerge. Taken together, the study provides new insights into the nature of L1 and L2 intuitions about phrasal frequency.

scholarly journals An incremental model of second language speech production mechanisms: Developmental evidence from object ellipsis in second language Chinese speech production

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 783-810
Author(s):  
Boping Yuan ◽  
Lulu Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Recall Task ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
L2 Chinese ◽  
L1 Influence ◽  
Korean Speakers ◽  
Production Mechanisms ◽  
L2 Speech Production

Aims: This study investigates object ellipsis in English and Korean speakers’ second language (L2) Chinese speech production and the effects of first language (L1) influence in L2 Chinese speech production. Design: 59 English speakers and 64 Korean speakers at various Chinese proficiency levels, as well as 16 native speakers of Chinese, participated in the study. In addition to an acceptability judgement test, an utterance-recall task was employed in the study to prime participants for relevant structures. Findings: There are early stages where derivations, such as move, deletion, etc., are not implemented in L2 speech production, although at later stages L2 speech production mechanisms can converge with that of native speakers. No evidence of L1 influence is found, and L2 learners are found to behave differently in the utterance-recall task and the sentence acceptability judgement task. Originality: The study includes data from L2 Chinese learners from beginner to advanced levels and provides a comprehensive picture of structural priming effects on the development of L2 speech production. Implications: There is a discontinuity in the development of L2 speech production mechanisms, and the development of the mechanisms is incremental in nature. Mechanisms for L2 language comprehension are different from those for L2 speech production, at least as far as L2 at the early stages is concerned.

A cross-language study on feedforward and feedback control of voice intensity in Chinese–English bilinguals

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 771-795
Author(s):  
Xiao Cai ◽  
Yulong Yin ◽  
Qingfang Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Feedback Control ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Feedforward Control ◽  
Feedback Systems ◽  
Masking Noise ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Relative Weighting ◽  
L2 Speech Production

AbstractSpeech production requires the combined efforts of feedforward and feedback control, but it remains unclear whether the relative weighting of feedforward and feedback control is organized differently between the first language (L1) and the second language (L2). In the present study, a group of Chinese–English bilinguals named pictures in their L1 and L2, while being exposed to multitalker noise. Experiment 1 compared feedforward control between L1 and L2 speech production by examining intensity increases in response to a masking noise (90 dB SPL). Experiment 2 compared feedback control between L1 and L2 speech production by examining intensity increases in response to a weak (30 dB SPL) or strong noise (60 dB SPL). We also examined a potential relationship between L2 fluency and the relative weighting of feedforward and feedback systems. The results indicated that L2 speech production relies less on feedforward control relative to L1, exhibiting attenuated Lombard effects to the masking noise. In contrast, L2 speech production relies more on feedback control than L1, producing larger Lombard effects to the weak and strong noise. The relative weighting of feedforward and feedback control is dynamically changed as second language learning progresses.

Referential choice in foreigner talk and in learners’ speech in Japanese

1998 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 57-76
Author(s):  
Satomi Kawaguchi
Keyword(s):  
Speech Production ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Underlying Mechanism ◽  
Information Economy ◽  
Attention Focus ◽  
Syntactic Development ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
Cognitive Orientations ◽  
Referential Choice

Abstract This study of referential choice by Japanese native speakers and learners of Japanese has revealed some significant features in three different types of speech: 1) NS (native speaker)-NS interaction; 2) FT (foreigner talk) and; 3) NNSs’ (non-native speakers’) speech production. The study revealed that both NS in FT and NNS simplified their referential choices. It demonstrates, moreover, that the development of referential choice by NNS correlates with their acquisition of syntax. This experiment was conducted to determine the underlying mechanism for referential choice. The results indicate that potential ambiguity and attention/focus shift affected the referential choices for both NS and NNS of Japanese. Excessive use of both full NPs and ellipsis were observed in NNS speech; by contrast only excessive use of full NPs was observed in FT. This may be explained in terms of the different underlying mechanisms for referential choice used by NS and NNS: different cognitive orientations in the use of two principles of speech production: 1) the clarity principle; and 2) the information economy principle (Williams 1988). Furthermore, the development of use of full NP and ellipsis by NNS varied according to their level of syntactic development.

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