scholarly journals Sensitivity to syntactic violation and semantic ambiguity in English modal verbs: A self-paced reading study

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 1017-1043
Author(s):  
Nadia Mifka-Profozic ◽  
David O’Reilly ◽  
Juan Guo
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Epistemic Possibility ◽  
Formal Context ◽  
Semantic Ambiguity ◽  
Modal Auxiliaries ◽  
Modal Verb ◽  
Reading Experiment ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Reading Study

AbstractThe present study is, to our knowledge, the first self-paced reading experiment to investigate the effects of syntactic violation and semantic ambiguity on processing English modal auxiliaries. Forty undergraduate students, native speakers of English, took part in the study and read 36 target sentences, each containing a modal verb in context. Two of the most frequent English modals, can and may, were used in three distinct categories of modal expression: agent-oriented/ability, epistemic possibility, and speaker-oriented/permission. The two modal auxiliaries were manipulated such that they were either congruent or incongruent with the context, or in the case of permission felicitous or infelicitous relative to the context. We found that incongruent modal use in an agent-oriented context resulted in a reading penalty that was observed in a spillover on the segments following the modal and the lexical verb. Incongruent modal use to express epistemic possibility significantly affected reading times immediately after the modal auxiliary, and also spilt over to the following segments. Reading times in sentences expressing speaker-oriented modality were not affected by inconsistency in the use of the modal verb unmarked for formality in a formal context. The substantive and methodological implications of findings are discussed.

“I’ll do this no matter if I have to fight the world!”

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 140-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Bamford ◽  
Yaz Djebbour ◽  
Lucie Pollard
Keyword(s):  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Urban Higher Education ◽  
Method Approach

Purpose – The purpose of the paper was to explore students’ learning experiences in culturally diverse urban higher education environments. Design/methodology/approach – The project used an action research method approach with a mixed-method collection of data. The data consist of a survey of undergraduate students from the two different faculties, business and science, in two London institutions (n = 393) and ten focus groups (consisting of 92 students) as well as participant observations. The survey was based on an adapted version of the National Survey on Student Engagement (NSSE) developed in the USA. The authors also piloted the use of Facebook as a learning tool and monitored the effects on communication between students and between lecturers. Findings – The authors identified statistical significance in the items that addressed the development of students’ relationships with others and found that there was a link with specific students’ profiles, that is those students who were non-native speakers of English who were less likely to engage with “others” and the learning environment. Focus groups highlighted the importance of communities of practice and that these communities aided students in developing what can be seen as resilience outcomes. Originality/value – The findings from the research indicated that resilience can be seen as key to increasing engagement and communication for students. The piloting of social media across a module at each research site indicated that such a tool can be useful in addressing issues of communication, but the introduction of such tools needs to be generated through the students.

scholarly journals Phrase frequency, proficiency and grammaticality interact in non-native processing: Implications for theories of SLA

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kailen Shantz
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Grammatical Development ◽  
Developmental Shift ◽  
Reading Experiment ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Linguistic Input

This study reports on a self-paced reading experiment in which native and non-native speakers of English read sentences designed to evaluate the predictions of usage-based and rule-based approaches to second language acquisition (SLA). Critical stimuli were four-word sequences embedded into sentences in which phrase frequency and grammaticality were crossed in order to examine whether grammatical processing is modulated by phrase frequency. The magnitude of grammaticality effects for native speakers did not differ by phrase frequency, indicating that phrase frequency does not modulate native grammatical processing. Phrase frequency did, however, modulate the magnitude of non-native grammaticality effects. This modulating effect of phrase frequency on grammatical processing for non-native speakers depended on proficiency, showing a u-shaped change in the size of grammaticality effects relative to speaker proficiency. The overall pattern of change in grammaticality effects suggests a gradual developmental shift in grammatical processing from an initial reliance on phrase frequency to an eventual abstraction of generalizable rules from the linguistic input once sufficient experience has accumulated. Results suggest that second language (L2) grammatical development relies on a combination of both usage-based and rule-based knowledge and processing, rather than exclusive reliance on one or the other.

scholarly journals An investigation of accuracy and response time regarding processing mechanism of English relative clauses in EFL contexts

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-140
Author(s):  
Navid Nasrollahi Shahri ◽  
Masoud Motamedynia ◽  
Mohammad Ghazanfari
Keyword(s):  
English Learners ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Reading Experiment ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Processing Mechanism ◽  
English Relative Clauses

Sentence comprehension in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) contexts is influenced by many factors. One of the most important ones is the processing mechanism of relative clauses which can be analyzed in different frameworks by researchers. So far, a wide range of research has been conducted on the processing mechanism of relative clauses in a number of languages. The results have shown a tendency toward two major categories which have been proven to be of significance, namely subject preference and object preference. Studies conducted on native speakers of English, for instance, have demonstrated subject preference by the participants. Consequently, in this study, the researchers conducted a self-paced reading experiment employing Linger software, and the data were analyzed by using the SPSS Statistics version 25. It aims to investigate the processing mechanism of English relative clauses by Iranian EFL learners. The participants were nine males and 21 females of advanced English learners majoring in the English literature, all being native speakers of Farsi. The results indicate that that the correctness percentage of subject relative clauses, and also subject modifying ones, are significantly higher than that of object ones. The results also indicated that subject relatives were processed swifter than object relatives. Finally, the researchers discussed the reasons behind such a tendency among the participants of the experiment in terms of a number of theories and principles. The findings of this study are expected to be employed in language syllabus designing as well as in grading or sequencing of materials by educators and teaching material developers.

scholarly journals The Double-Edged Sword of RP: the Contrasting Roles of a Pronunciation Model in both Native and Non-native Environments

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miroslav Ježek
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Received Pronunciation ◽  
The Given

Received Pronunciation (RP) is often studied as the pronunciation model in Great Britain and non-English-speaking countries separately. What my paper focuses on is the duality with which RP is essentially endowed: the role(s) in which it has to satisfy the needs of both native and non-native speakers of English. Whilst the claim that RP has changed recently goes unchallenged, the issue of reflecting these changes in the preferred transcription models is hotly debated. Upton’s model of RP is one that does include several new symbols, motivated by an attempt to ‘ensure that the description of a late twentieth century version the accent […] looks forward to the new millennium rather than back at increasingly outmoded forms’ (2001:352). I discuss the feasibility of adopting Upton’s model of RP as the pronunciation model in non-English speaking countries, where it is desirable to resolve the paradox that ‘most of our teaching is aimed at young people, but the model we provide is that of middle-aged or old speakers’ (Roach 2005: 394). The observations I make are largely based on my MA research, which is now being modified for the purposes of my Ph.D. I asked undergraduate students of English in England and the Czech Republic to evaluate seven voices ranging from the clearly regional to the unquestionably RP. The objective was to discover which sounds are considered to fall within the scope of RP by students in both countries, which approach avoids treating RP as though it were to include only the sounds ‘allowed by a preconceived model’ (Upton 2000: 78). Further, the respondents were asked to comment on the most salient features in the recordings: what they opted to comment on reveals a marked difference in the role of RP as a model accent in the given countries. Societies which lack a prestigious non-regional accent are often oblivious to the social connotations RP carries. Whilst it seems technically impossible to replace the model accent in all teaching materials all over the world, creating awareness of the fact that a rather outmoded model of RP found in many textbooks may not always be the best option is a necessary step towards ensuring that non-English speaking students are not only understood but that their speech will attract no adverse judgements.

scholarly journals Do you Like My English? Thai Students’ Attitudes towards Five Different Asian Accents

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rusma Kalra ◽  
Chayada Thanavisuth
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Indian English ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Thai Students ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Students Attitudes ◽  
Accented English ◽  
Japanese English

This research aims to explore how Thai speakers of English perceive their Asian peers’ accented English and evaluate the acceptability of their accents namely Burmese English, Chinese English, Indian English, Japanese English, and Vietnamese English. The participants were eighty undergraduate students at an International University in Thailand where English is used as a medium of instruction. They were asked to listen to five recorded speech extracts taken from five different intermediate-level reading passages. A triangulated study is used to examine the data from different angle including a questionnaire survey in a Likert-type scale and a follow-up semi-structured interview. The Index of Item Objective Congruence (IOC) and Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient were also applied to assure the content validity of the research methodology. The results in this study indicated that Thai student participants were easily able to identify that five speakers were all non-native speakers of English. The majority preferred Indian accented English to other accented Englishes. Most participants showed negative attitudes towards Japanese and Burmese accented English. It is somewhat conclusive that the participants still believe that a native-like accent is overvalued their perceived English accents.

scholarly journals Suggestion and Refusal Strategies in English by Kurdish Undergraduate Students

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 151
Author(s):  
Yaseen Alzeebaree ◽  
Mehmet Yavuz
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Private Universities ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Statistical Analyses ◽  
Response Data ◽  
Completion Task ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Refusal Strategies

This paper investigated the sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic competence of Kurdish EFL undergraduate students through the speech acts of suggestion and refusal. Eighty-three Kurdish EFL undergraduate students and 14 native speakers of English participated in the study. Data were elicited using a Discourse Completion Task consisting of three suggestive and three refusal situations, and the responses were rated on a scale developed by the researcher. The response data for suggestions and refusals were coded according to the taxonomies of Martinez-Flor (2005) and Beebe et al. (1990), respectively. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 22. Four researchers rated the Kurdish EFL undergraduate students' responses in terms of appropriate pragmatic and linguistic forms. The results of the study revealed differences in the overall strategies and strategy patterns between the responses of Kurdish EFL undergraduate students and Native speakers of English groups, as well as differences between students of state and private universities.

scholarly journals REFUSAL STRATEGIES USED BY MALAY ESL STUDENTSAND ENGLISH NATIVE SPEAKERS TO REFUSE A REQUEST

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Norma Saad ◽  
Siti Jamilah Bidin ◽  
Ahmad Affendi Shabdin
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Politeness Theory ◽  
Politeness Strategies ◽  
English Language Teachers ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Refusal Strategies

The present study investigates similarities and differences of a speech act of refusal in English as realized by Malay Speakers of English (MSE) and Native Speakers of English (NSE). The study examined the types and also the contents of the strategies used by the two groups when refusing a request made by a higher status interlocutor. An Enhanced Open Role-play was utilized to obtain data on the types and content of refusal strategies. Participants of the study comprised 12 MSE undergraduate students from a local university and 12 NSE who were IGSCE and Diploma Baccalaureate students from an international school who had refused to the higher status interlocutor’s request. Qualitative data analytic methods were used to analyse the data which were classified into semantic refusal strategies and politeness strategies. Brown’s and Levinson’s politeness theory, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and Hall’s high- and low-context cultures were used to guide the study. The findings revealed that the two groups shared many similarities in terms of types and contents of the strategies when refusing to the higher status interlocutor’s requests. Nevertheless, the NSE demonstrated a higher use of direct strategies and the content of their indirect strategies and adjuncts to refusal strategies reflect the western individualistic values.  The MSEs,’ on the other hand exhibited the eastern values which prioritize group’s importance. These findings provide further insights on the complexities of refusal interaction and the patterns could be used by English language teachers as pragmatic input to develop English as a Second Language students’ ability to use socially appropriate language for the situation they encounter.

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