Context and idiom understanding in second languages

2002 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 155-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Liontas
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Idiom Comprehension ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
The Right ◽  
Affect Transfer ◽  
Main Effects ◽  
Idiomatic Meaning

This article describes the results of a study conducted with fifty-three adult third-year learners of Spanish, French, and German in order to investigate (a) the degree to which idiom type affects the speed and ease of idiom comprehension and interpretation, (b) the effect that context exerts on idiom understanding, (c) the strategies second language learners employ in computing the idiomatic meaning of multiword phrasal units during contextualized and acontextualized reading of texts containing such idioms, and (d) the cognitive processes that are likely to constrain the construction of the right idiomatic mappings between target and domain idioms. Findings indicate that (a) there were significant main effects for lexical and post-lexical level idioms in both the context and the non-context treatment; (b) translation, guessing, and the use of context are highly important in the construction of idiomatic meaning; and (c) the degree of opacity between target and domain idiom, knowledge of vocabulary, graphophonics and syntactic arrangement, and literal meaning of an idiom influence and affect transfer of idiomatic knowledge in significant ways.

World Englishes, Second Language Acquisition, and Language Contact

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajend Mesthrie
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
World Englishes ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Second Languages

Although areas of potential overlap between the fields of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and World Englishes (WE) may seem obvious, they developed historically in isolation from each other. SLA had a psycholinguistic emphasis, studying the ways in which individuals progressed towards acquisition of a target language. WE studies initially developed a sociolinguistic focus, describing varieties that arose as second languages in former British colonies. This chapter explores the way in which each field could benefit from the other. The SLA emphasis on routes of development, overgeneralization, universals of SLA, and transfer in the interlanguage has relevance to characterizing sub-varieties of WEs. Conversely, the socio-political dimension of early WE studies and the notion of macro- or group acquisition fills a gap in SLA studies which sometimes failed to acknowledge that the goal of second language learners was to become bilingual in ways that were socially meaningful within their societies.

Understanding text in a second language: a psychological approach to an SLA problem

1993 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Jenkin ◽  
Suzanne Prior ◽  
Richard Rinaldo ◽  
Ann Wainwright-Sharp ◽  
Ellen Bialystok
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
First Language ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Visual Display ◽  
Psychological Approach ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
The Way

The study is an attempt to assess the way in which second language learners form mental representations of information they read. Subjects were asked to read passages in their first and second languages and to demonstrate comprehension of the information by using it to make a judgement of a visual display of the same information. Following this there was a surprise recognition task to determine whether or not they still had access to verbatim representations of the passages. The results showed that information read in a second language is represented differently from the same information read in subjects' first language.

scholarly journals The analysis of word class and morphology for Stage2 and Stage 4 texts in ESLL context

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (45) ◽  
pp. 503-512
Author(s):  
Mohammed Abed Saleh
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Word Class ◽  
Sentence Structure ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Stage 4 ◽  
The Right

Abstract   This research is intended to present the writing difficulties that second language learners have encounter through their learning process.  Linguists have proved that English second language learners (ESLL) face some difficulties in their writing because it is hard to understand ESLL perspectives. Many samples of ESLL writing have been examined and proved that their writing lacks some linguistic features. Coherent, accurate and creative text is the goal for English language teachers to be produced by their students. Word class (parts of speech) and morphology are the key features of language that indicate its linguistic system, especially sentence structure. The researcher tries to analyze word class and morphology in two selected texts of stage 2 and stage 4 in a second language learning center. One of the findings of this research is the use of bound grammatical morpheme (inflectional morpheme) for both texts is to some extent justifiable although the writer of S2 text makes some mistakes in producing the right word to give new meaning.

scholarly journals Extrametricality and second language acquisition

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guilherme Duarte Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Phonetic Cues ◽  
The Right

This paper examines how native English speakers acquire stress in Portuguese. Native speakers and second language learners (L2ers) of any given language have to formulate word-level prosodic generalizations based on a subset of lexical items to which they have been exposed. This subset contains robust as well as subtle cues as to which stress patterns are more or less productive, so that when speakers encounter novel forms they know which stress position is more likely. L2ers, however, face a much more challenging task, mainly if they are adults and have long passed the critical period. These difficulties are particularly notable in word-level prominence, where several interacting phonetic cues are involved. The trends observed across three proficiency levels in the judgement task described in this paper are consistent with a foot-based analysis, and show that L2ers successfully reset extrametricality (Yes in the L1; No in the L2) and shift the default stress position from antepenult (L1) to penult (L2). The latter is expected to follow from the former in a foot-based approach where feet become aligned to the right edge of the word as extrametricality is reset to No.

scholarly journals EXPOSURE TO ENGLISHES IN LISTENING CLASSROOMS: THE PERSPECTIVES OF INDONESIAN ESL LEARNERS

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-68
Author(s):  
Reni Kusumaningputri
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
The Right ◽  
Esl Learners ◽  
Ted Talks ◽  
Single Variety

Due to the global scale of English use, English as a lingua franca (ELF) is at play. Given this reality, exposes to different varieties of English rather than a single variety of English, preparing second language learners to Englishes is paramount for readiness to involve in ELF communication. This paper reports on the classroom instruction of exposing college listeners with Englishes via TED talks using a portfolio to find out how they see these varieties and what they can learn from them. Data were from records of portfolio and questions at the end of the instruction. Using general inductive analysis, there were three lessons learned from the instruction. Acknowledgement of many models of English, Englishes can be the ‘right’ English, and Englishes as a marker of identity were lessons observed to appear from the Englishes exposure. The exposes to Englishes also brought about complexities of wholehearted adoption to Indonesian accent. Pedagogical implications for classroom instructions are also made.

Markedness in Right-edge Syllabification: Parallels across Populations

2002 ◽  
Vol 47 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 151-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Goad
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Emergent Property ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
The Right

AbstractThe position that languages require both coda and onset options for the syllabification of word-final consonants is adopted. The latter option is further divided into languages where final consonants are onsets of empty-headed syllables and those where final consonants are syllabified through onset-nuclear (ON) sharing. ON sharing is reserved for languages where final consonants display fortition (overt release): the nucleus hosts the release of the consonant. Empirical evidence from across populations demonstrates that ON sharing is unmarked. It is favoured among the outputs of first and second language learners and individuals with Specific Language Impairment. It is further argued that final onsets are optimal for parsing in end-state grammars, as they demarcate the right word-edge more effectively than codas. Among the two types of onsets, ON sharing is preferred: through the nuclear release, it is better able to host the range of contrasts that right-edge onsets display. The parsing argument serves to illustrate how ON sharing provides an advantage to end-state grammars, beyond being an emergent property from acquisition.

scholarly journals Second Language Learners’ Pauses Over Different Times Intervals in L2 Writing Essays: Evidence From a Keystroke Logging Program

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 180-202
Author(s):  
Mohammed Mohsen
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Video Recording ◽  
L2 Writing ◽  
Advanced Technology ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
Language Writing ◽  
Argumentative Essays

Purpose. Several studies have been conducted to analyse students’ pauses during first language and/or second language writing to indicate the magnitude of the underlying cognitive processes learners have. Majority of studies have examined students’ pauses at a threshold 200ms. However, little is known about recording second language learners' pauses at different pauses’ times over different types of genres. The current investigation reports a case study of L2 learners’ cognitive processes by recording their pauses (<500ms, <1000ms, and <2000ms) during L2 writing in response to multiple genres prompts. Design / methodology / approach. Twenty-five postgraduate students were asked to write three essays over three weeks, and their writing processes were recorded using a keystroke logging program (Inputlog, 7, Leijten & van Waes, 2013). Data was triangulated using a log file from the keystroke logging program, a process graph for writing behavior through different stages, and a visual video recording of their captured screens during writing behaviours. Findings. Results found that the students paused over sentence and paragraph boundaries and their pauses between paragraphs were significantly higher in writing narrative essay than in their argumentative essays at pauses intervals <500 and <1000ms respectively, and in turn, their pauses between sentences in an argumentative essay were significantly higher than their pauses in a descriptive essay at <500, <1000 respectively. However, there were no significant differences across word boundaries over genre types. Conclusions. The current study extends the previous literature in examining the underlying cognitive processes during L2 writing tasks as the trendy issue of psycholinguistics. Knowing the cognitive processes is crucial in diagnosing the students’ difficulties in writing L2 essays as advanced technology has the potential to explore intrusively the accurate cognitive processes learners involved during writing tasks. Originality / value. This paper is innovative in examining a state-of-the-art issue and has implications to the field of psycholinguistics.

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