THE OCCURRENCE AND PERCEPTION OF LISTENER VISUAL CUES DURING NONUNDERSTANDING EPISODES

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 1151-1165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim McDonough ◽  
Pavel Trofimovich ◽  
Libing Lu ◽  
Dato Abashidze
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Research Report ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Video Condition

AbstractThis research report examines the occurrence of listener visual cues during nonunderstanding episodes and investigates raters’ sensitivity to those cues. Nonunderstanding episodes (n = 21) and length-matched understanding episodes (n = 21) were taken from a larger dataset of video-recorded conversations between second language (L2) English speakers and a bilingual French-English interlocutor (McDonough, Trofimovich, Dao, & Abashidze, 2018). Episode videos were analyzed for the occurrence of listener visual cues, such as head nods, blinks, facial expressions, and holds. Videos of the listener’s face were manipulated to create three rating conditions: clear voice/clear face, distorted voice/clear face, and clear voice/blurred face. Raters in the same speech community (N = 66) were assigned to a video condition to assess the listener’s comprehension. Results revealed differences in the occurrence of listener visual cues between the understanding and nonunderstanding episodes. In addition, raters gave lower ratings of listener comprehension when they had access to the listener’s visual cues.

VISUAL CUES AND RATER PERCEPTIONS OF SECOND LANGUAGE COMPREHENSIBILITY, ACCENTEDNESS, AND FLUENCY

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Aki Tsunemoto ◽  
Rachael Lindberg ◽  
Pavel Trofimovich ◽  
Kim Mcdonough
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Personal Story ◽  
Video Clips ◽  
Static Image ◽  
Speech Assessment

Abstract This study examined the role of visual cues (facial expressions and hand gestures) in second language (L2) speech assessment. University students (N = 60) at English-medium universities assessed 2-minute video clips of 20 L2 English speakers (10 Chinese and 10 Spanish speakers) narrating a personal story. They rated the speakers’ comprehensibility, accentedness, and fluency using 1,000-point sliding scales. To manipulate access to visual cues, the raters were assigned to three conditions that presented audio along with (a) the speaker’s static image, (b) a static image of a speaker’s torso with dynamic face, or (c) dynamic torso and face. Results showed that raters with access to the full video tended to perceive the speaker as more comprehensible and significantly less accented compared to those who had access to less visually informative conditions. The findings are discussed in terms of how the integration of visual cues may impact L2 speech assessment.

The visual signature of non-understanding: A systematic replication of McDonough, Trofimovich, Lu, and Abashidze ()

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Kim McDonough ◽  
Rachael Lindberg ◽  
Pavel Trofimovich ◽  
Oguzhan Tekin
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Replication Study ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Visual Cue ◽  
Systematic Replication ◽  
Dynamic Movement

Abstract This replication study seeks to extend the generalizability of an exploratory study (McDonough et al., 2019) that identified holds (i.e., temporary cessation of dynamic movement by the listener) as a reliable visual cue of non-understanding. Conversations between second language (L2) English speakers in the Corpus of English as a Lingua Franca Interaction (CELFI; McDonough & Trofimovich, 2019) with non-understanding episodes (e.g., pardon?, what?, sorry?) were sampled and compared with understanding episodes (i.e., follow-up questions). External raters (N = 90) assessed the listener's comprehension under three rating conditions: +face/+voice, −face/+voice, and +face/−voice. The association between non-understanding and holds in McDonough et al. (2019) was confirmed. Although raters distinguished reliably between understanding and non-understanding episodes, they were not sensitive to facial expressions when judging listener comprehension. The initial and replication findings suggest that holds remain a promising visual signature of non-understanding that can be explored in future theoretically- and pedagogically-oriented contexts.

that both Syrians and Americans are more likely to either accept or mitigate the force of the compliment than to reject it. Both groups employed similar response types (e.g. agreeing utterances, compliment returns, and deflecting or qualifying comments); however, they also differed in their responses. US recipients were much more likely than the Syrians to use appreciation tokens and a preferred Syrian response, acceptance + formula, does not appear in the US data at all. Recently, in a conversation with an American who had taught EFL in Damascus for two years, one of the researchers mentioned that she was investigating the strategies Syrians use in responding to compliments. The teacher looked surprised and asked, ‘What’s there to study? Syrians just say Shukran (“thank you”). When I’m complimented in Arabic, that’s what I say – Shukran.’ This teacher was apply-ing a rule from his L1 speech community to an L2 speech community. The rule he was transferring is one that American parents teach their children and one that is taught in etiquette books: ‘When you are complimented, the only response nec-essary is “Thank you” ’ (Johnson 1979: 43). Compliment responses in Syrian Arabic, as shall become clear later, are much more complex than saying Shukran when praised. In this paper, we report on a study of Syrian Arabic speakers’ and American English speakers’ verbal responses to compliments. The purpose of the study is to better understand the strategies used by Syrians and Americans in responding to compliments, to discover similarities and differences between the two groups, and to relate the findings to second language acquisition and second language teaching.

2005 ◽  
pp. 171-171
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Similar Response ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Verbal Responses ◽  
Arabic Speakers ◽  
Compliment Responses ◽  
The Us ◽  
American English Speakers

Visual cues during interaction: Are recasts different from noncorrective repetition?

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim McDonough ◽  
Pavel Trofimovich ◽  
Libing Lu ◽  
Dato Abashidze
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
University Students ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Undergraduate University Students ◽  
Anchor Points

Visual cues may help second language (L2) speakers perceive interactional feedback and reformulate their nontarget forms, particularly when paired with recasts, as recasts can be difficult to perceive as corrective. This study explores whether recasts have a visual signature and whether raters can perceive a recast’s corrective function. Transcripts of conversations between a bilingual French–English interlocutor and L2 English university students ( n = 24) were analysed for recasts and noncorrective repetitions with rising and declarative intonation. Videos of those excerpts ( k = 96) were then analysed for the interlocutor’s provision of visual cues during the recast and repetition turns, including eye gaze duration, nods, blinks, and other facial expressions (frowns, eyebrow raises). The videos were rated by 96 undergraduate university students who were randomly assigned to three viewing conditions: clear voice/clear face, clear voice/blurred face, or distorted voice/clear face. Using a 100-millimeter scale with two anchor points (0% = he’s making a comment, and 100% = he’s correcting an error), they rated the corrective function of the interlocutors’ responses while their eye gaze was tracked. Raters reliably distinguished recasts from repetitions through their ratings (although they were generally low), but not through their eye gaze behaviors.

Production of Subject-Verb Agreement in Spanish as a Second Language

2003 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 196-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Nicol ◽  
Delia Greth
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Error Patterns ◽  
Verb Agreement ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Semantic Variables ◽  
Advanced Proficiency

Abstract. In this paper, we report the results of a study of English speakers who have learned Spanish as a second language. All were late learners who have achieved near- advanced proficiency in Spanish. The focus of the research is on the production of subject-verb agreement errors and the factors that influence the incidence of such errors. There is some evidence that English and Spanish subject-verb agreement differ in susceptibility to interference from different types of variables; specifically, it has been reported that Spanish speakers show a greater influence of semantic factors in their implementation of subject-verb agreement ( Vigliocco, Butterworth, & Garrett, 1996 ). In our study, all participants were tested in English (L1) and Spanish (L2). Results indicate nearly identical error patterns: these speakers show no greater influence of semantic variables in the computation of agreement when they are speaking Spanish than when they are speaking English.

scholarly journals From “No, she does” to “Yes, she does”: Negation processing in negative yes–no questions by Mandarin speakers of English

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Haoruo Zhang ◽  
Norbert Vanek
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Reaction Time ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Production Experiment ◽  
Mandarin Speakers ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Negative Questions

Abstract In response to negative yes–no questions (e.g., Doesn’t she like cats?), typical English answers (Yes, she does/No, she doesn’t) peculiarly vary from those in Mandarin (No, she does/Yes, she doesn’t). What are the processing consequences of these markedly different conventionalized linguistic responses to achieve the same communicative goals? And if English and Mandarin speakers process negative questions differently, to what extent does processing change in Mandarin–English sequential bilinguals? Two experiments addressed these questions. Mandarin–English bilinguals, English and Mandarin monolinguals (N = 40/group) were tested in a production experiment (Expt. 1). The task was to formulate answers to positive/negative yes–no questions. The same participants were also tested in a comprehension experiment (Expt. 2), in which they had to answer positive/negative questions with time-measured yes/no button presses. In both Expt. 1 and Expt. 2, English and Mandarin speakers showed language-specific yes/no answers to negative questions. Also, in both experiments, English speakers showed a reaction-time advantage over Mandarin speakers in negation conditions. Bilingual’s performance was in-between that of the L1 and L2 baseline. These findings are suggestive of language-specific processing of negative questions. They also signal that the ways in which bilinguals process negative questions are susceptible to restructuring driven by the second language.

scholarly journals PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSING OF STRESS BY NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS LEARNING SPANISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Ramsés Ortín ◽  
Miquel Simonet
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Phonological Processing ◽  
First Language ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Recall Task ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Auditory Stimuli ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
L1 English ◽  
Processing Stress

Abstract One feature of Spanish that presents some difficulties to second language (L2) learners whose first language (L1) is English concerns lexical stress. This study explores one aspect of the obstacle these learners face, weak phonological processing routines concerning stress inherited from their native language. Participants were L1 English L2 learners of Spanish. The experiment was a sequence-recall task with auditory stimuli minimally contrasting in stress (target) or segmental composition (baseline). The results suggest that learners are more likely to accurately recall sequences with stimuli contrasting in segmental composition than stress, suggesting reduced phonological processing of stress relative to a processing baseline. Furthermore, an increase in proficiency—assessed by means of grammatical and lexical tests—was found to be modestly associated with an increase in the accuracy of processing stress. We conclude that the processing routines of native English speakers lead to an acquisitional obstacle when learning Spanish as a L2.

scholarly journals Can Google Translate Rewire Your L2 English Processing?

Digital ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-85
Author(s):  
Natália Resende ◽  
Andy Way
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Vocabulary Learning ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Syntactic Priming ◽  
Web Based ◽  
English Syntax

In this article, we address the question of whether exposure to the translated output of MT systems could result in changes in the cognitive processing of English as a second language (L2 English). To answer this question, we first conducted a survey with 90 Brazilian Portuguese L2 English speakers with the aim of understanding how and for what purposes they use web-based MT systems. To investigate whether MT systems are capable of influencing L2 English cognitive processing, we carried out a syntactic priming experiment with 32 Brazilian Portuguese speakers. We wanted to test whether speakers re-use in their subsequent speech in English the same syntactic alternative previously seen in the MT output, when using the popular Google Translate system to translate sentences from Portuguese into English. The results of the survey show that Brazilian Portuguese L2 English speakers use Google Translate as a tool supporting their speech in English as well as a source of English vocabulary learning. The results of the syntactic priming experiment show that exposure to an English syntactic alternative through GT can lead to the re-use of the same syntactic alternative in subsequent speech even if it is not the speaker’s preferred syntactic alternative in English. These findings suggest that GT is being used as a tool for language learning purposes and so is indeed capable of rewiring the processing of L2 English syntax.

Second language learning via syntactic priming: The effects of modality, attention and motivation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marion Coumel ◽  
Ema Ushioda ◽  
Katherine Messenger
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Syntactic Priming ◽  
Input Modality ◽  
Online Study ◽  
L2 Learning ◽  
Short And Long Term ◽  
High Motivation

We examined whether language input modality and individual differences in attention and motivation influence second language (L2) learning via syntactic priming. In an online study, we compared French L2 English and L1 English speakers’ primed production of passives in reading-to-writing vs. listening-to-writing priming conditions. We measured immediate priming (producing a passive immediately after exposure to the target structure) and short- and long-term learning (producing more target structures in immediate and delayed post-tests without primes relative to pre-tests). Both groups showed immediate priming and short- and long-term learning. Prime modality did not influence these effects but learning was greater in L2 speakers. While attention only increased learning in L1 speakers, high motivation increased L2 speakers' learning in the reading-to-writing condition. These results suggest that syntactic priming fosters long-term L2 learning, regardless of input modality. This study is the first to show that motivation may modulate L2 learning via syntactic priming.

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document