Learning Complex Features: A Morphological Account of L2 Learnability

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Job Schepens ◽  
Frans van der Slik ◽  
Roeland van Hout
Keyword(s):  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Morphological Features ◽  
Morphological Similarity ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Morphological Complexity ◽  
First Languages ◽  
Morphological Differences ◽  
Complex Features ◽  
Degree Of Similarity

Certain first languages (L1) seem to impede the acquisition of a specific L2 more than other L1s do. This study investigates to what extent different L1s have an impact on the proficiency levels attained in L2 Dutch (Dutch L2 learnability). Our hypothesis is that the varying effects across the L1s are explainable by morphological similarity patterns between the L1s and L2 Dutch. Correlational analyses on typologically defined morphological differences between 49 L1s and L2 Dutch show that L2 learnability co-varies systematically with similarities in morphological features. We investigate a set of 28 morphological features, looking both at individual features and the total set of features. We then divide the differences in features into a class of increasing and a class of decreasing morphological complexity. It turns out that observed Dutch L2 proficiency correlates more strongly with features based on increasing morphological complexity (r = -.67, p < .0001) than with features based on decreasing morphological complexity (r = -.45, p < .005). Degree of similarity matters (r = -.77, p < .0001), but increasing complexity seems to be the decisive property in establishing L2 learnability. Our findings may offer a better understanding of L2 learnability and of the different proficiency levels of L2 speakers. L2 learnability and L2 proficiency co-vary in terms of the morphological make-up of the mother tongue and the second language to be learned.

ELICITED IMITATION AS A MEASURE OF L2 PROFICIENCY

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Shu-Ling Wu ◽  
Yee Pin Tio ◽  
Lourdes Ortega
Keyword(s):  
High Reliability ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Oral Narrative ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Elicited Imitation ◽  
External Criterion ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
The Third ◽  
Communicative Abilities

Abstract Elicited imitation (EI), a short-cut measure of global proficiency in second language (L2) research, requires participants to listen to sentences and repeat them as closely as possible. To support instrument sharing and assessment of L2 proficiency for longitudinal and crosslinguistic research, we created a parallel form of an EI task (EIT) for L2 English originally developed by the third author and colleagues and investigated the reliability and validity of the original and new forms. Eighty-two participants completed the two EITs, an oral narrative task, and a self-diagnostic survey. Both forms exhibited high reliability and good alignment with external criterion measures. Both distinguished well among four proficiency levels in the sample. Further, participants’ perception of EI difficulty aligned well with their EI scores. We suggest some improvements to boost forms equivalence and discuss new insights about the nature of EI as reconstructive, integrative, modality independent, and with indirect links to communicative abilities. Our study seeks to make this English EIT instrument widely useful to the L2 research community.

scholarly journals Lexical correlates of comprehensibility versus accentedness in second language speech

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 597-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
KAZUYA SAITO ◽  
STUART WEBB ◽  
PAVEL TROFIMOVICH ◽  
TALIA ISAACS
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Surface Level ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Lexical Content ◽  
Lexical Factors

The current project investigated the extent to which several lexical aspects of second language (L2) speech – appropriateness, fluency, variation, sophistication, abstractness, sense relations – interact to influence native speakers’ judgements of comprehensibility (ease of understanding) and accentedness (linguistic nativelikeness). Extemporaneous speech elicited from 40 French speakers of English with varied L2 proficiency levels was first evaluated by 10 native-speaking raters for comprehensibility and accentedness. Subsequently, the dataset was transcribed and analyzed for 12 lexical factors. Various lexical properties of L2 speech were found to be associated with L2 comprehensibility, and especially lexical accuracy (lemma appropriateness) and complexity (polysemy), indicating that these lexical variables are associated with successful L2 communication. In contrast, native speakers’ accent judgements seemed to be linked to surface-level details of lexical content (abstractness) and form (variation, morphological accuracy) rather than to its conceptual and contextual details (e.g., lemma appropriateness, polysemy).

Taxonomic Re-Examination of the Late Cretaceous Planktonic Foraminiferal Species Archaeoglobigerina Cretacea (d'Orbigny, 1840) and Constraints on Its Morphologic Variability and Stratigraphic Distribution in One of The Type Localities (Kent, SE England)

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-63
Author(s):  
Francesca Falzoni ◽  
Annachiara Bartolini
Keyword(s):  
Late Cretaceous ◽  
Species Concept ◽  
Morphological Features ◽  
Single Individual ◽  
Type Specimens ◽  
Foraminiferal Species ◽  
Morphological Differences ◽  
Lower Campanian ◽  
Original Drawings

ABSTRACT Distinctive and taxonomically relevant morphological differences exist between the original drawings of Archaeoglobigerina cretacea illustrated by d'Orbigny (1840) and the lectotype designated by Banner & Blow (1960), particularly regarding the equatorial periphery, which is rounded in the former and double-keeled in the latter specimen. Such differences would suggest that they are not conspecific, but this hypothesis cannot be easily tested because d'Orbigny's drawings likely represent a synthesis of observations on several specimens rather than a single individual and the slide intended to contain the lectotype is empty. In this study, we have re-examined the A. cretacea type specimens deposited in the d'Orbigny collection at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris and samples from one of the type localities (Kent, SE England) with the aim to reconstruct d'Orbigny's species concept, clarify its morphological features, and better constrain its stratigraphic distribution. Our study suggests that d'Orbigny's concept for A. cretacea was broad and included unkeeled as well as double-keeled morphotypes. However, assemblages from Kent yield common and large-sized specimens conspecific with the lectotype in the middle Santonian-lower Campanian, while morphotypes resembling the drawings of d'Orbigny are absent. Accordingly, five topotype specimens from the lower Campanian of Kent are herein illustrated in order to stabilize the species concept adopted over the last 60 years on the basis of the lectotype drawing and description. All topotypes possess a wide imperforate peripheral band and a moderately to weakly developed double-keeled periphery. Finally, the description of A. cretacea is emended to exclude specimens that do not possess an imperforate peripheral band and to include those that show curved and weakly beaded spiral sutures.

Some analogical methods of teaching English as a second foreign language

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Vincent Mirabile
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Morphological Features ◽  
Teaching English ◽  
Pedagogical Approach ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
French And English ◽  
The University

Abstract To teach English as a second foreign language at university levels provides the educator or professor an excellent occasion to compare the first and second languages by a series of analogical activities that not only highlight the similar forms and structures of them, but more important still, oblige students to comprehend these forms and structures without having either to rely on or depend upon their mother tongue or apprehend them through the prism of their own. In this article are compared Turkish, French and Chinese forms and structures with English through sets of analogical activities that I prepared and applied in classrooms with my Russian students studying the aforesaid languages at the University of Academgorodok near Novosibirsk in Siberia. It was my methodical experiment to bring together English/Turkish, English/French and English/Chinese as interrelated objects of study; to put into relief the interpenetrating analogical elements that these languages possess as a pedagogical approach to them in spite of their very different language families and distinctive structural and morphological features.

A Corpus-Based Exploration of the Discourse Marker Well in Spoken Interlanguage

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 570-593
Author(s):  
Lan-fen Huang
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Intermediate Level ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
First Languages

This corpus-based study examines the widely-used discourse marker well in Chinese-speaking learners’ speech and compares its frequencies in native speaker data and Swedish learners. While Swedish learners overuse well, Chinese-speaking learners (predominantly at the upper-intermediate level) significantly underuse it. The positions and functions of well are further examined using a functional framework. One-fourth of the Chinese-speaking learners who use well manipulate its positions in utterances in a similar way to native speakers. In terms of functions, well is employed for speech management much more frequently than for attitudinal purposes. The greater use of the former does not generally create negative effects, but the under-representation of the latter may suggest that Chinese-speaking learners sound too direct in certain contexts. The paper concludes by considering pedagogical implications for different first languages and proficiency levels and their possible applications to the instruction of well.

scholarly journals An Optimality Analysis of the Morphophonemic Development of Triconsonantal Verbs of Normal Jordanian Speaking Children

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 92
Author(s):  
Majd S. Abushunar ◽  
Radwan S. Mahadin
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Jordanian Arabic ◽  
Morphological Complexity ◽  
Action Naming

This study carries out an analysis using the framework of Optimality Theory to investigate the acquisition of the morphophonemics of JA triconsonantal verbs. The analyzed data consist of speech samples obtained from a picture/action naming task as well as spontaneous speech collection. The sample of the study consists of 64 normally developing children who are acquiring spoken Jordanian Arabic as their mother tongue. The participants whose ages range from 2;1 to 6 years are selected randomly from different preschools in two Jordanian cities. The major findings of the study suggest that children overcome the morphological complexity of Arabic verbs by applying a number of processes, including: cluster simplification, glottalization, and truncation. The OT analysis indicates that these processes are associated with highly-ranked markedness constraints and lower-ranked faithfulness constraints in child grammar. In addition, the root/affix asymmetry triggers unmarked patterns to emerge in the affix. Finally, the results display that children’s morphophonological abilities improve with age and that the majority of children’s morphophonological processes disappear at age six years.

scholarly journals The Emergence of Second Language Categorisation of the English Article Construction

Languages ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
Helen Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Functional Categories ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Form Function ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
Increased Sensitivity ◽  
English Articles

This study examines the emergent cognitive categorisation of the English article construction among second language (L2) learners. One hundred and fourteen Mandarin-L1 learners of English, divided into two L2 proficiency levels (low-to-intermediate and advanced), were measured by a computer-based cloze test for the accuracy and response time of appropriate use of English articles in sentential contexts. Results showed that when learners acquired the polysemous English article construction they demonstrated stronger competence in differentiating individual form-function mappings in the article construction. L2 learners’ patterns of article construction usage were shaped by semantic functions. Learners performed better on the definiteness category than on the non-definiteness categories, suggesting that learners were sensitive to the prototypicality of nominal grounding. Advanced learners demonstrated an increased sensitivity to semantic idiosyncrasy, but they lacked contextualised constructional knowledge. Competition among the functional categories and restructuring of functional categories are important ways of regularization that learners go through to acquire semantically complex systems such as articles.

Referring In a Second Language

1985 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 15-25
Author(s):  
Andy Bentlage
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
Secondary School Students ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Referential Communication ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
School Students ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Data Analyses

Naming and describing are important aspects of referential communication (RC). In an investigation of RC in a second language (L2), 36 secondary school students, divided into three groups of 12 with different proficiency levels, had to work in pairs on a description/identification task involving twelve nonrepresentative shapes. One task session consisted of six trials which were performed in English. The results of three different data analyses (numbers of words, naming and describing, and referential strategies) showed that RC in L2 differs from RC in L1 in three aspects: nonnative speakers (NNS) need longer references for the shapes; NNS' final references are structurally more complex; NNS with a lower L2 proficiency use their L1 more often than NNS with a higher L2 proficiency.

Analysis of appropriateness in a speech act of request in L2 English

Pragmatics ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-533 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naoko Taguchi
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Rating Scale ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Role Play ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Point Scale ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Role Play Task

Fifty-nine Japanese college students of English at two different proficiency levels were evaluated for their ability to produce a speech act of request in a spoken role play task. Learners’ production was analyzed quantitatively by rating performance on a six-point scale for overall appropriateness, as well as qualitatively by identifying the directness levels of the linguistic expressions used to produce requests. Results revealed a significant L2 proficiency influence on overall appropriateness, but only a marginal difference in the types of linguistic expressions used between the two proficiency groups. Moreover, grammatical and discourse control encoded in the rating scale seemed to have affected the quality of speech acts.

scholarly journals Living in several languages: Language, gender and identities

2011 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Burck
Keyword(s):  
Family Relationships ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
First Language ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Language Differences ◽  
Discursive Analysis ◽  
First Languages ◽  
Research Interviews

Living in several languages encompasses experiencing and constructing oneself differently in each language. The research study on which this article is based takes an intersectional approach to explore insider accounts of the place of language speaking in individuals’ constructions of self, family relationships and the wider context. Twenty-four research interviews and five published autobiographies were analysed using grounded theory, narrative and discursive analysis. A major finding was that learning a new language inducted individuals into somewhat ‘stereotyped’ gendered discourses and power relations within the new language, while also enabling them to view themselves differently in the context of their first language. This embodied process could be challenging and often required reflection and discursive work to negotiate the dissimilarities, discontinuities and contradictions between languages and cultures. However, the participants generally claimed that their linguistic multiplicity generated creativity. Women and men used their language differences differently to ‘perform their gender’. This was particularly evident in language use within families, which involved gendered differences in the choice of language for parenting – despite the fact that both men and women experience their first languages as conveying intimacy in their relationships with their children. The article argues that the notion of ‘mother tongue’ (rather than ‘first language’) is unhelpful in this process as well as in considering the implications of living in several languages for systemic therapy.

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