Well I’m not sure I think… The use of well by non-native speakers

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Aijmer
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Pragmatic Markers ◽  
Management Problems ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Lexical Items

Pragmatic markers are an important part of the grammar of conversation and not simply markers of disfluency. They have a number of functions that help the speaker to organise the conversation and to express feelings and attitudes. Advanced EFL learners use frequent pragmatic markers such as well. However their use of well diverges from the native speaker norm. The present study uses data from the Swedish component of the LINDSEI corpus and its native speaker counterpart (LOCNEC) to examine similarities and differences between native and non-native speakers. The overall picture is that Swedish learners overuse well, although there are considerable individual differences. Thus learners use well above all as a fluency device to cope with speech management problems but underuse it for attitudinal purposes. Pragmatic markers cannot be taught in the same way as other lexical items but it is important to discuss how and where they are used.

scholarly journals The Difficulties Faced by Indonesian EFL Learners in Pronouncing "S" and "Es" Suffixes in the Simple Present Tense Verbs and in Plural Form of Nouns

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Andri Saputra ◽  
M.Arif Rahman Hakim ◽  
Eko Saputra ◽  
Yurike Nadiya Rahmat
Keyword(s):  
English Education ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Relevant Research ◽  
Teaching Experiences ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Plural Form ◽  
Teachers Experiences ◽  
Present Tense

The authors perceive that Indonesian EFL learners find it challenging to pronounce -s and -es suffixes properly. This position was first established during the authors’ teaching experiences in some high schools, English centre course and colleges (for students majoring in English Education) in Indonesia. The observations were confirmed not only during teaching, but throughout the authors’ own English study. It seemed difficult to adhere to the rules of suffix use in spoken language, i.e. How -s and -es suffixes should and should not be pronounced during a conversation. Generally speaking, Indonesian EFL learners do not pay much attention to pronouncing the suffixes of -s or –es, and although many English users accept such mistakes in conversation with non-native speakers, it is not, however, an error a native-speaker is likely to make. In fact, this issue could lead to misunderstanding when non-native English users have conversations with native speakers. This study aims to present comparative literature review of a number research studies related to teachers’ experiences and other EFL learners. Firstly, this study explains a presentation of existing relevant research on pronunciation is offered. This is followed by an explanation of the specific difficulties faced by Indonesian EFL learners in pronouncing -s and -es suffixes in the present tense verbs and plural form of nouns. The discussion part suggests practical ways of dealing with the difficulties in pronouncing -s and -es suffixes of present tense verbs and the plural form of nouns, and proposes several activities to this end.

Some aspects of repair in native and non-native speaker conversations in English

1999 ◽  
Vol 125-126 ◽  
pp. 253-275
Author(s):  
Martha Eleftheriadou ◽  
Richard Badger
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Pilot Study ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
General Preferences

Abstract The ability to carry out repairs is a key skill in spoken discourse for non-native speakers of English and has been widely studied. However, VAN HEST et al. (1997) have suggested that investigations into repair in L2 need to be more theoretically driven and less concerned with individual differences. Drawing on information from a pilot study of twenty-three conversations, lasting 185 minutes between six native and six non-native speakers, this paper argues that there is no conflict between a concern with individual differences and theory building. What is needed is a contextualised theory which is grounded in particular situations and individual differences. The paper identifies three possible areas of difficulty that may arise if a theory is not contextualised. Firstly, the paper argues that theory driven research encourages methods of data collection that we characterise as experimental and suggest that these need to be supplemented by more naturalistic forms of data collection. Secondly, the paper criticises the view that there are general preferences as to who initiates and who completes repairs and argues that a contextualised theory of repair would capture initiation/completion patterns more adequately. Finally, the paper argues that the distinction between native and non-native speakers needs to be re-examined. This is supported by the finding in the pilot study that there was little variation between native and non-native speakers in terms of these analyses.

Requests by Chinese EFL learners and native speakers of English

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Meng ◽  
Beatrice Szczepek Reed
Keyword(s):  
Study Abroad ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Interactional Competence ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Study Abroad Students ◽  
At Home

Language learners' requesting behaviour has been the focus of pragmatic research for some time, including that of Chinese EFL learners, who constitute a large proportion of English speakers globally. The present study replicates elements of Wang (2011), focusing on the use of formulaic expressions and exploring the differences between advanced Chinese EFL learners and native speakers of English with regard to the use of request formulae. The study also investigates whether significant exposure to the target language in country is connected to a more native-like use of request formulae. Wang's Discourse Completion Task was adopted to elicit request utterances from three groups of participants: advanced Chinese EFL learners studying in China (at home students) and in the UK (study abroad students), respectively, and native speakers of British English. The findings show that, although in some respects study abroad students in the UK employed request formulae in a more native-like manner compared to at home students in China, neither group showed close approximation to the request behaviour of the native speaker group. The findings are discussed in the context of current debates, including interlanguage variations, interactional competence, and native speaker norms and intelligibility.

Bangladeshi EFL Learners’ English Connectors: Overused or Underused?

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. 1357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Syed Md Golam Faruk ◽  
Pulak Barua
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
The Other ◽  
Final Exam ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
English Writing ◽  
English Only ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
The One

The paper investigates the answer scripts of an “English Writing” exam of 72 students in a Bangladeshi university in order to find out the nature and extent of the use of connectors in their second semester-final exam. It also tries to find out similarities and differences between the connector use of Bangladeshi non-native speakers (BNNS) and that of French, Japanese, Swedish, and Chinese non-native speakers on the one hand and between the connector use of BNNS and that of the native speakers of English (only British and American) on the other. To this end, the secondary data for other non-native and native speakers (NS) of almost the same age and level were collected from some published articles. The paper finds that in comparison to NS, BNNS, like most other non-native speakers, underuse most of the connectors.

scholarly journals Native Speaker Perceptions of Accented Speech: The English Pronunciation of Macedonian EFL Learners

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 41-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastazija Kirkova-Naskova
Keyword(s):  
Web Application ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Foreign Accent ◽  
Point Scale ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Accented Speech ◽  
English Pronunciation ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Result Analysis

The paper reports on the results of a study that aimed to describe the vocalic and consonantal features of the English pronunciation of Macedonian EFL learners as perceived by native speakers of English and to find out whether native speakers who speak different standard variants of English perceive the same segments as non-native. A specially designed computer web application was employed to gather two types of data: a) quantitative (frequency of segment variables and global foreign accent ratings on a 5-point scale), and b) qualitative (open-ended questions). The result analysis points out to three most frequent markers of foreign accent in the English speech of Macedonian EFL learners: final obstruent devoicing, vowel shortening and substitution of English dental fricatives with Macedonian dental plosives. It also reflects additional phonetic aspects poorly explained in the available reference literature such as allophonic distributional differences between the two languages and intonational mismatch.

scholarly journals An Interlanguage Study of Thai EFL Learners’ Apology

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 116
Author(s):  
Boonjeera Chiravate
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Cultural Background ◽  
Target Language ◽  
High Exposure ◽  
Pragmatic Development ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Low Exposure

Although a number of interlanguage studies on apologies have been conducted, there has been no study of apologies among Thai EFL learners that differentiates between learners with high and low levels of exposure to the target language. This study, differentiating between learners with high and low levels of exposure to the target language, addresses two research questions: (i) What are the similarities and differences between perception of offense context of Thai EFL learners and native speakers of English? (ii) What are the similarities and differences between apology strategies used by Thai EFL learners and native speakers of English? Data for the analysis came from a questionnaire consisting of 12 scenarios eliciting different offense contexts. The participants were divided into four groups: native speakers of English (NEs), native speakers of Thai (NTs), Thai EFL learners with high exposure to the target language (TEHs) and Thai EFL learners with low exposure to the target language (TELs). The results revealed that due to the influence of cultural background, the learners’ perception of offense context was dissimilar to the NEs in certain respects. However, the investigation of apology strategies showed that compared to the TELs, the TEHs’ apology strategies tended to be less influenced by their cultural background and more similar to the NEs’. Providing support for levels of exposure to the target language, as individual differences vary in L2 pragmatic development, the study sheds light on pedagogical intervention that may enhance learners’ pragmatic competence.

Grammatical gender assignment in French: dispelling the native speaker myth

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
DALILA AYOUN
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Gender Effects ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
And Gender

ABSTRACTThis study highlights the complexity of French grammatical gender as a lexical property at the interface of morpho-phonology and the lexicon. French native speakers (n = 168) completed a gender assignment task with written stimuli illustrating common versus uncommon nouns, vowel-initial versus consonant-initial nouns, compounds and grammatical homonyms; they also indicated the strategies they used to assign a gender to stimuli. The findings showed strong lexical and gender effects suggesting that grammatical gender must be acquired for individual lexical items as morpho-phonological cues alone are unreliable and vary greatly.

scholarly journals A CORPUS-BASED STUDY OF DIMINISHERS IN CHINESE EFL LEARNERS' WRITINGS

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
LING FENG
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Teaching English ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Written Corpus

This paper investigates the use of diminishers in Chinese EFL learners' written English (CLEC) and compares it with that in an English native speakers' written corpus (LOCNESS) through both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The corpus-based study reveals: (a) that there are similarities and differences in the frequency and pattern of usage of diminishers between Chinese EFL learners and English native speakers; (b) that the misuse, the overuse of some and underuse of other diminishers or patterns of diminishers indicate that Chinese learners have a different collocational range which could be affected by factors like mother tongue interference and the understanding of sematic prosody. Pedagogical implications of the study are also discussed to shed light on teaching English vocabulary and writing.LING FENG

scholarly journals The Frequently Used Discourse Markers by Saudi EFL Learners

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arab World English Journal ◽  
Maryam Alsharif
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Frequency Count ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Concordance Program ◽  
Shed Light

The paper examines the use of discourse markers by Saudi English learners who struggle to master them when they write English essays. The hypothesis is, and based on previous studies of discourse markers by English learners, Saudi English learners overuse them. English essays are collected as a corpus for analysis and a concordance program is used to shed light on how frequently key words in contexts are used by learners. The study compares between Saudi learners and native speakers in their use of discourse markers and to investigate similarities and differences between the two groups. The results support previous studies as the analysis proves that Saudi learners overuse discourse markers. They have been used unnecessarily and redundantly. The preference of types of discourse markers has been investigated to show that learners use listing and resultive discourse markers mainly. The frequency count of the discourse markers in the collected corpus indicates their preference to vary specific types to avoid repetition and not to vary the semantic functions of discourse markers..

scholarly journals BRAZILIAN EFL LEARNERS’ AWARENESS ABOUT L2 PHONES: IS MALL PRONOUNCED AS ‘MAL’?

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 235-258
Author(s):  
Hanna Kivistö-de Souza
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Phonological Awareness ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Lower Sensitivity ◽  
Classroom Context ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Pronunciation Instruction ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
Foreign Language Classroom

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper was to examine the extent of non-verbalizable knowledge L1 Brazilian Portuguese (BP) learners of English possess about the segmental inventory of the L2. The study had two aims: i) to determine to what extent L1 BP EFL learners are aware of contrastive and non-contrastive L2 segments, ii) to determine which type of segments present the lowest level of awareness. To the date, little research has been carried out about the non-verbalizable aspect of L2 phonological awareness, most studies having relied on participants’ verbalization of the acquired knowledge (e.g., KENNEDY & TROFIMOVICH, 2010; WREMBEL, 2011). Whereas language learners are frequently taught grammar explicitly, pronunciation of the L2 is rarely addressed in the foreign language classroom. Moreover, phonology is in nature less susceptible to conscious processing than other aspects of L2 learning, making the noticing, and especially the explicit explanation, of phonological aspects difficult. Nevertheless, high L2 phonological awareness is beneficial for L2 pronunciation (KIVISTÖ-DE SOUZA, 2015), making its examination a priority in the foreign language classroom context. The participants of the study were 71 advanced EFL learners and 18 native speakers of American English. Participants performed a perception test which presented English segments spoken by native and non-native speakers. The ability to identify pronunciation deviations in the non-native speaker trials was taken as a measure for phonological awareness. The results showed that the L1 BP participants manifested a significantly lower sensitivity to English segmental phonology than the native English speakers (F[1, 87] = 40.56, p <.001, η2=.31). Pronunciation deviations involving consonants were identified to the greatest extent (52%), whereas the trials involving short-lag VOTs were identified the poorest (33%). The results reveal a need for explicit pronunciation instruction and the employment of consciousness-raising activities in the Brazilian EFL classroom.

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