scholarly journals Gender inferences: Grammatical features and their impact on the representation of gender in bilinguals

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 792-807 ◽  
Author(s):  
SAYAKA SATO ◽  
PASCAL M. GYGAX ◽  
UTE GABRIEL
Keyword(s):  
Social Workers ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Plural Form ◽  
Gender Information ◽  
French And English ◽  
L1 English ◽  
Gender Specific

We investigated the effects of grammatical and stereotypical gender information on the comprehension of human referent role nouns among bilinguals of a grammatical (French) and a natural gender language (English). In a sentence evaluation paradigm, participants judged the acceptability of a gender-specific sentence referring to either a group of women or men following a sentence containing the plural form of a role noun female (e.g., social workers), male (e.g., surgeons) or neutral (e.g., musicians) in stereotypicality. L1 French and L1 English bilinguals were tested both in French and English. The results showed that bilinguals construct mental representations of gender associated with the language of the task they are engaged in, shifting representations as they switch languages. Specifically, in French, representations were male-dominant (i.e., induced by the masculine form), whereas in English, they were stereotype-based. Furthermore, the results showed that the extent to which representations shifted was modulated by participants’ proficiency in their L2, with highly proficient L2 participants resembling native speakers of the L2 and less proficient L2 participants being influenced more by their native language.

The Relation of Language Context and Religiosity to Trilemma Judgments

2021 ◽  
pp. 002202212110339
Author(s):  
Elyas Barabadi ◽  
Mohsen Rahmani Tabar ◽  
James R. Booth
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Standard Measure ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Language Context

Utilitarian judgments maximize benefit for the most people, whereas deontological judgments are based on moral norms. Previous work shows that people tend to make more utilitarian judgments in their second compared to their native language, whereas higher religiosity is associated with more deontological judgments. However, it is not known whether the effect of language context is moderated by the religiosity of the individual. We hypothesized that more religious participants from all three languages would favor deontological choices irrespective of language context. In order to investigate this, we studied native speakers of Persian who either had Arabic or English as their second language, and all participants were given a standard measure of religiosity. Decision making was measured by the classic trolley trilemma in which a participant could “push” a person to save the lives of more people which is considered a utilitarian judgment. Alternatively, they could “switch” a track to save the lives of more people (“indirect”), or do nothing (“inaction”), both of which are considered deontological. Consistent with the literature showing more utilitarian judgments in the second language, English participants preferred the push option, whereas Persian participants favored the inaction option. L2 Arabic participants more often chose the indirect option. However, participants’ religiosity moderated this effect of language context. Although L2 Arabic participants’ choices were not influenced by religiosity, higher religiosity in the L2 English and L1 Persian groups was associated with more deontological choices.

English language schooling, linguistic realities, and the native speaker of English in Hong Kong

Multilingua ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jette G. Hansen Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Educational Background ◽  
Government School ◽  
The Impact ◽  
At Home

AbstractThe study employs a case study approach to examine the impact of educational backgrounds on nine Hong Kong tertiary students’ English and Cantonese language practices and identifications as native speakers of English and Cantonese. The study employed both survey and interview data to probe the participants’ English and Cantonese language use at home, school, and with peers/friends. Leung, Harris, and Rampton’s (1997, The idealized native speaker, reified ethnicities, and classroom realities.TESOL Quarterly 31(3). 543–560) framework of language affiliation, language expertise, and inheritance was used to examine the construction of a native language identity in a multilingual setting. The study found that educational background – and particularly international school experience in contrast to local government school education – had an impact on the participants’ English language usage at home and with peers, and also affected their language expertise in Cantonese. English language use at school also impacted their identifications as native speakers of both Cantonese and English, with Cantonese being viewed largely as native language based on inheritance while English was being defined as native based on their language expertise, affiliation and use, particularly in contrast to their expertise in, affiliation with, and use of Cantonese.

scholarly journals Regular and Novel Metonymy: Can You Curl up with a Good Agatha Christie in Your Second Language?

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roumyana Slabakova ◽  
Jennifer Cabrelli Amaro ◽  
Sang Kyun Kang
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Second Language ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Teaching Practices ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Stages Of Development ◽  
Psychological Reality ◽  
Experimental Support ◽  
Agatha Christie

Abstract This article presents results of two off-line comprehension tasks investigating the acceptability of unconventional and conventional metonymy by native speakers of Korean and Spanish who speak English as a second language. We are interested in discovering whether learners differentiate between conventional and unconventional metonymy, and whether the acceptability of metonymic expressions in the native language has an effect on learners’ judgments in the second language. The findings of this study constitute further experimental support for the psychological reality of the distinction between conventional and unconventional metonymy, but only in English. Learners of English at intermediate levels of proficiency exhibit transfer from the native language in comprehending metonymic shifts of meanings. Restructuring of the grammar is evident in later stages of development. Finally, complete success in acquiring L2 metonymic patterns is attested in our experimental study. Implications for L2A theories and teaching practices are discussed.

scholarly journals The Role of Native Language and the Fundamental Design of the Auditory System in Detecting Rhythm Changes

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 835-852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikhail Ordin ◽  
Leona Polyanskaya ◽  
David Maximiliano Gómez ◽  
Arthur G. Samuel
Keyword(s):  
Auditory System ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Processing System ◽  
Rhythmic Pattern ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Regular Rhythm ◽  
Fundamental Design

Purpose We investigated whether rhythm discrimination is mainly driven by the native language of the listener or by the fundamental design of the human auditory system and universal cognitive mechanisms shared by all people irrespective of rhythmic patterns in their native language. Method In multiple experiments, we asked participants to listen to 2 continuous acoustic sequences and to determine whether their rhythms were the same or different (AX discrimination). Participants were native speakers of 4 languages with different rhythmic properties (Spanish, French, English, and German) to understand whether the predominant rhythmic patterns of a native language affect sensitivity, bias, and reaction time in detecting rhythmic changes in linguistic (Experiment 2) and in nonlinguistic (Experiments 1 and 2) acoustic sequences. We examined sensitivity and bias measures, as well as reaction times. We also computed Bayes factors in order to assess the effect of native language. Results All listeners performed better (i.e., responded faster and manifested higher sensitivity and accuracy) when detecting the presence or absence of a rhythm change when the 1st stimulus in an AX test pair exhibited regular rhythm (i.e., a syllable-timed rhythmic pattern) than when the 1st stimulus exhibited irregular rhythm (i.e., stress-timed rhythmic pattern). This result pattern was observed both on linguistic and nonlinguistic stimuli and was not modulated by the native language of the participant. Conclusion We conclude that rhythm change detection is a fundamental function of a processing system that relies on general auditory mechanisms and is not modulated by linguistic experience.

Making Multiculturalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minjeong Kim
Keyword(s):  
Social Workers ◽  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Multicultural Society ◽  
Community Volunteers ◽  
Multicultural Programs ◽  
Gender Specific

Chapter 5 turns to the Korean “multicultural agents” who work for Korean multiculturalism, including government officers, community volunteers, and social workers to describe in greater detail the local, day-to-day operation of Korean multiculturalism. Drawing on the idea of “makeshift multiculturalism,” the chapter traces how local multicultural programs were developed using individual actors’ prior knowledge and interests, and calls into question their contributions to making a multicultural society. Also, the chapter shows that multicultural agents ground their mission in diverse affective bases including benevolence, paternalism, and pity, and a multicultural “economy of gratitude” (Hochschild 2012) expects that gifts of service are exchanged for gifts of gender-specific reproductive contribution and commitment to marriage. Lastly, the chapter shows that marriage immigrants and their husbands take part in “making” multiculturalism.

scholarly journals Variation is information: Analyses of variation across items, participants, time, and methods in metalinguistic judgment data

Linguistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-81
Author(s):  
Véronique Verhagen ◽  
Maria Mos ◽  
Joost Schilperoord ◽  
Ad Backus
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representation ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Prepositional Phrases ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
Judgment Data

AbstractIn a usage-based framework, variation is part and parcel of our linguistic experiences, and therefore also of our mental representations of language. In this article, we bring attention to variation as a source of information. Instead of discarding variation as mere noise, we examine what it can reveal about the representation and use of linguistic knowledge. By means of metalinguistic judgment data, we demonstrate how to quantify and interpret four types of variation: variation across items, participants, time, and methods. The data concern familiarity ratings assigned by 91 native speakers of Dutch to 79 Dutch prepositional phrases such as in de tuin ‘in the garden’ and rond de ingang ‘around the entrance’. Participants performed the judgment task twice within a period of one to two weeks, using either a 7-point Likert scale or a Magnitude Estimation scale. We explicate the principles according to which the different types of variation can be considered information about mental representation, and we show how they can be used to test hypotheses regarding linguistic representations.

Contrasting Preterite and Imperfect use among advanced L2 learners: Judgments of iterated eventualities in Spanish

2013 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Rafael Salaberry
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Classroom Environments ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Specific Component ◽  
Frequency Effects ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Grammaticality Judgments ◽  
L1 English

AbstractThere are numerous studies that analyze the second language (L2) acquisition of aspect (e.g., see overviews and summaries in Ayoun and Salaberry 2005; Bardovi-Harlig 2000; Labeau 2005; Salaberry, 2008; Salaberry and Shirai 2002). The present study focuses on a specific component of tense-aspect: the iteration of eventualities (iterativity and habituality) conveyed with the use of Spanish Preterite and Imperfect respectively. The analysis is based on data from monolingual Spanish speakers and L1 English speakers with near-native competence in the L2 with the use of contextualized grammaticality judgments. The findings of the study show that near-native speakers of L2 Spanish do not distinguish fine-grained representations of aspectual knowledge (iterativity versus habituality), even though they demonstrate native-like judgments with more prototypical uses of aspect. The discussion of the findings points to possible effects of mapping of meaning and form in the L2, as well as possible instructional effects paired with frequency effects prompted by classroom environments.

Native language influences on the production of second-language prosody

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evia Kainada ◽  
Angelos Lengeris
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Transfer Effects ◽  
L1 Transfer ◽  
Prosodic Feature ◽  
Pitch Level ◽  
F0 Contour

This study examined native language (L1) transfer effects on the production of second-language (L2) prosody by intermediate Greek learners of English, specifically the set of tonal events and their alignment, speech rate, pitch span and pitch level in English polar questions. Greek uses an L* L+H- L% melody giving rise to a low–high–low f0 contour at the end of the polar question that does not resemble any of the contours used by native speakers in English polar questions. The results showed that the Greek speakers transferred the full set of Greek tonal events into English associating them with stressed syllables, and consistently placed the focus on the verb. The Greek speakers also anchored the peak of the phrase accent in polar questions around the midpoint of the stressed vowel across L1/L2 despite using longer vowel durations in L2. At the same time, their productions deviated from L1 forms in terms of speech rate (slower in L2), pitch span (narrower in L2) and pitch level (lower in L2), indicating that even when learners adopt an L1 prosodic feature in their L2, they still produce interlanguage forms that deviate from L1.

World Englishes in language testing: a call for research

English Today ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 32-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyun-Ju Kim
Keyword(s):  
World Wide ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Language Testing ◽  
Oral Proficiency ◽  
World Englishes ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Important Goal ◽  
The World ◽  
Native Speakers Of English

Native speakers of English are a minority; there are far more non-native speakers in the world (cf. Kachru 1997, Pennycook 2001). In addition, native speakers' standard or ‘correct’ English, in terms of its grammar and phonology, is not always useful or even appropriate in international contexts (cf. Gisborne 2000, Newbrook 1998, Shim 1999). However, despite global changes in the use of the language, the norms for ENL (English as a Native Language) remain dominant, most notably for the assessment of oral proficiency. Yet it is a major deficiency in the use of international oral tests that the proficiency of non-native speakers is measured against unrealistic and irrelevant standards (cf. Jenkins, 1996). The present paper focuses on the need to revisit the testing of English oral proficiency for non-native speakers, bearing in mind that English is used for world-wide communication and that being able to understand one another (cf. McKay, 2002) is the most important goal.

How cognitive typology affects second language acquisition: A study of Japanese and Chinese learners of English

2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 689-710 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Spring ◽  
Kaoru Horie
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Learning Curves ◽  
Third Language ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
Language Type

AbstractThis study looks at the effect of one's first language type, as proposed by Talmy (2000) and Slobin (2004), on their second language acquisition. Talmy (2000) gives an account of languages as being either verb-framed or satellite-framed based on how path and manner of motion are encoded in motion events. Meanwhile, Slobin (2004) argues for a third language type, which he calls equipollently-framed. This study compares and contrasts the learning curves of equipollently-framed language (Mandarin Chinese) native speakers and verb-framed language (Japanese) native speakers as they learn a satellite-framed language (English). It examines not only the learner's pattern preferences, but also their manner of motion encoding preferences and deictic verb usage to show that there is a clear difference in how the two groups of learners acquire a second language of a different type from their own native language.

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