The phonological form of lexical items modulates the encoding of challenging second-language sound contrasts.

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (8) ◽  
pp. 1590-1610
Author(s):  
Miquel Llompart ◽  
Eva Reinisch
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Phonological Form ◽  
Lexical Items

Learning Arabic Through Language of Journalism

2019 ◽  
pp. 1837-1867
Author(s):  
Mai Samir El-Falaky
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
First Language ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Natural Context ◽  
Direct Exposure ◽  
Lexical Items

Second language learning requires more than memorizing rules and vocabulary detached from contexts. Language teachers have to encourage the exposure to real context to enable their students to ‘acquire' the language in the same way they acquire their first language. This could entail an unconscious induction called ‘analogy'. Analogy may enable language learners to create neologisms for the purpose of communicating. This could also enable them to obtain a better understanding of lexical items in context. This chapter highlights the benefits of direct exposure to neologisms in journalistic texts, which influences learners' morphological choice. Mass media in general and journalism in particular are thought to be a perfect means of learning any language in its natural context.

scholarly journals Constructional tolerance

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florent Perek ◽  
Martin Hilpert
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Relative Ease ◽  
Grammaticality Judgment ◽  
Grammaticality Judgments ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
The Way

The present paper investigates the question whether different languages can be categorized into ‘constructionally tolerant’ languages, which grant speakers considerable freedom to combine syntactic constructions with lexical items in non-conventional ways, and ‘valency-driven’ languages, which impose stronger restrictions on the way in which constructions and lexical items can be combined. The idea of such a typological distinction is sketched for instance by Rostila (2014). In order to explore possible effects of constructional tolerance, a grammaticality judgment task is administered to speakers of English and French, which are two languages that differ with regard to this phenomenon: English verbs can be used across different argument structure constructions with relative ease, French verbs are more constrained. Both populations of speakers are exposed to stimuli sentences of varying creativity in a second language, namely German. The paper advances the constructional tolerance hypothesis, which states that speakers of a constructionally tolerant language should judge non-conventional examples in an L2 with more lenience than speakers of a valency-driven language. The experimental results are in line with this hypothesis, but they also suggest that grammaticality judgments are influenced by the availability of a productive L1 construction that shows functional overlap.

ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY IN EYE-TRACKING

2013 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 389-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patti Spinner ◽  
Susan M. Gass ◽  
Jennifer Behney
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Ecological Validity ◽  
Font Size ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Font Type ◽  
Screen Layout

Eye-trackers are becoming increasingly widespread as a tool to investigate second language (L2) acquisition. Unfortunately, clear standards for methodology—including font size, font type, and placement of interest areas—are not yet available. Although many researchers stress the need for ecological validity—that is, the simulation of natural reading conditions—it may not be prudent to use such a design to investigate new directions in eye-tracking research, and particularly in research involving small lexical items such as articles. In this study, we examine whether two different screen layouts can lead to different results in an eye-tracking study on the L2 acquisition of Italian gender. The results of an experiment with an ecologically valid design are strikingly different than the results of an experiment with a design tailored to track eye movements to articles. We conclude that differences in screen layout can have significant effects on results and that it is crucial that researchers report screen layout information.

scholarly journals Phonological form influences memory for form-meaning mappings in adult second-language learners

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica M. Morrison ◽  
Carla L. Hudson Kam
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Articulatory Suppression ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Exposure Condition ◽  
Novel Object ◽  
Phonological Form ◽  
Repeated Words ◽  
Production Problems

This study asks whether phonological form affects adult second language learners’ ability to learn the meanings of novel words. Specifically, we ask whether hard-to-pronounce words, defined as having phones/phone combinations not present in the learner’s native language, are more difficult to learn meanings for, and further, if learnability differences are due to interference from production problems or more general representational difficulties. We exposed participants to easy- and hard-to pronounce novel word-novel object pairings and tested their memory for the pairings. Participants who had either repeated words aloud, performed subvocal repetition, or heard another learner’s attempts to repeat the words during exposure performed worse on hard-to-pronounce words when tested immediately after exposure. When tested the following day, all participants, regardless of exposure condition, showed the effect. In a follow-up experiment, participants who engaged in an articulatory suppression task during learning did not have more difficulty with hard-to-pronounce words, suggesting that differences cannot simply be due to interference. Rather, we suggest that more difficult phonological forms lead to weaker representations which are then more difficult to link up with meanings in memory.

Lexical Constraints on Syntactic Acquisition

1987 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh Ard ◽  
Susan M. Gass
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Semantic Relatedness ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Grammaticality Judgment ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Semantic Acquisition ◽  
Lexical Constraints

This paper investigates what has traditionally been viewed as syntactic acquisition, with the goal of questioning whether what appears to be syntactic acquisition is more appropriately described as lexical or semantic acquisition. Data come from responses to a grammaticality judgment test by learners of English as a second language at two proficiency levels. Four syntactic structures were examined. The sentences tested varied in the verbs used (e.g., John donated/gave Mary a present; John donated/gave a present to Mary). The results suggest that less proficient subjects use syntactic strategies, more proficient learners use more semantic based strategies, and there is more lexical differentiation at the lower levels of proficiency. Thus, as learners gain in proficiency, there is an increased influence of the semantic relatedness of lexical items.

scholarly journals The effect of gestures on second language memorisation by young children

Gesture ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marion Tellier
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Visual Modality ◽  
Young Learners ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Motor Modality

This article examines the impact of gesture on second language memorisation in teaching to very young learners. Twenty French children (mean age 5;5) took part in an experiment. They had to learn eight words in a foreign language (English). One group of children (N = 10) were taught words with pictures and another group (N = 10) words with accompanying gestures. Children in this group had to reproduce the gestures while repeating the words. Results show that gestures and especially their reproduction significantly influence the memorisation of second language (L2) lexical items as far as the active knowledge of the vocabulary is concerned (being able to produce words and not only understand them). This finding is consistent with theories on multimodal storage in memory. When reproduced, gestures not only act as a visual modality but also as a motor modality and thus leave a richer trace in memory.

When alphabets collide: Alphabetic first-language speakers’ approach to speech production in an alphabetic second language

2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-417 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela Vokic
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Phonological Awareness ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Visual Code ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Distributional Properties ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
L2 Speech Production

This study analysed the extent to which literate native speakers of a language with a phonemic alphabetic orthography rely on their first language (L1) orthography during second language (L2) speech production of a language that has a morphophonemic alphabetic orthography. The production of the English flapping rule by 15 adult native speakers of Spanish (NSS) was analysed. Flap production should not be problematic for NSS learning English as L2, since the flap [ ] exists in the Spanish phonemic inventory and it has similar acoustic, articluatory, and distributional properties in English and Spanish. However, this study hypothesizes that access to the flap is blocked by NSS participants’ lack of phonological awareness in English, which is brought about by the participants’ reliance on the Spanish orthographic system, since the graphs used to represent the English flap intervocalically have either different surface realizations in Spanish (such as <t> and <d>) or have no equivalents in the Spanish orthographic system (such as <tt> and <dd>). It was found that NSS relied on the Spanish orthographic system at a statistically significant level, despite both languages having alphabetic orthographies and sharing the same visual code. Less reliance on L1 orthography was observed in frequent L2 lexical items, demonstrating that negative effects of L1 orthography are inversely correlated to familiarity with L2 lexical items and that frequent lexical items promote L2 phonological awareness.

scholarly journals Foreign cuisine in Poland. Adapting names and dishes

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 241-265
Author(s):  
Jolanta Tambor
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Tomato Sauce ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Polish Culture

One of the more interesting layers of vocabulary in Polish are lexical items related to cuisine, sometimes, though rarely, referred to as gastronyms. In this text I intend to mainly discuss the names which exist at the crossroads of languages and cultures, as I believe they may, often after various transformations and adaptations, constitute Polish culturemes. I consider them distinctive indicators of a culture. Those include not only bigos [sour cabbage stew], pierogi and schabowy [pork chop], but also fasolka po bretońsku [“Breton beans”, beans, bacon and sausage in tomato sauce] and śledź po japońsku [“Japanese herrings”, pickled herring, hard-boiled egg and pickle salad], as well as bogracz [a stew], a word which despite having Hungarian origins does not operate in Hungarian as the name of a dish. I shall also focus on the methods of Polonising some borrowed names. The problems which I shall discuss offer an opportunity for teachers of Polish as a foreign/second language to help their students more easily accept the cultural differences at the intersection of Polish culture and their own cultures.

Learning Arabic through Language of Journalism

2015 ◽  
pp. 471-498
Author(s):  
Mai Samir El-Falaky
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
First Language ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Natural Context ◽  
Direct Exposure ◽  
Lexical Items

Second language learning requires more than memorizing rules and vocabulary detached from contexts. Language teachers have to encourage the exposure to real context to enable their students to ‘acquire' the language in the same way they acquire their first language. This could entail an unconscious induction called ‘analogy'. Analogy may enable language learners to create neologisms for the purpose of communicating. This could also enable them to obtain a better understanding of lexical items in context. This chapter highlights the benefits of direct exposure to neologisms in journalistic texts, which influences learners' morphological choice. Mass media in general and journalism in particular are thought to be a perfect means of learning any language in its natural context.

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