The selection of intonation contours by Chinese L2 speakers of Dutch: Orthographic closure vs. prosodic knowledge

2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuliang He ◽  
Vincent J. van Heuven ◽  
Carlos Gussenhoven
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Systematic Investigation ◽  
Linguistic Competence ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Question Mark ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
Independent Test ◽  
Pitch Contours ◽  
Forced Choice Task ◽  
Selection Of

Chinese learners of Dutch and a control group of native speakers of Dutch were presented with 26 sentences in the order they come in a story, visually as well as auditorily as spoken with four intonation contours. Participants were instructed to select the most appropriate intonation contour for each sentence in a forced choice task. Chinese participants selected the most appropriate version less often than the native speakers, and their selections from the three less appropriate competitors were more chaotic than those of the control group. The performance of the more proficient Chinese participants (as established in an independent test) was closer to that of the native speakers than the performance by the less proficient participants. Chinese participants employed a policy to assign rising contours to orthographic sentences closed by a question mark and falling contours to other sentences. In addition, they avoided choosing intonation contours ending in downstepped falling pitch and falling–rising pitch, pitch contours that are uncommon in their native language. The general acquisition profile follows findings in other areas of linguistic competence in that their performance correlated with age of arrival, not with either age or length of time they had been exposed to Dutch. As far as we are aware, this is the first systematic investigation of second language (L2) learners’ competence in melody selection.

scholarly journals Aquisição de pronomes clíticos de português europeu por falantes de chinês: dados sobre a colocação

2019 ◽  
pp. 190-206
Author(s):  
Wenjun Gu
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Chinese Students ◽  
The Other ◽  
Control Group ◽  
European Portuguese ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
Similar Path ◽  
The One

This paper presents a pilot-study of a research which aims to investigate the acquisition of the clitic pronouns in European Portuguese (EP) by Chinese learners. Based on an acceptability judgement task, conducted with 20 Chinese students and a control group of 26 native speakers of EP, we would like, on the one hand, to make a better characterization of the development of placement properties of clitic pronouns in Chinese learners’ interlanguage grammars; on the other hand, to contribute to a better understanding of the theoretical proposals on the learnability problems regarding uninterpretable features not available in the first language (L1). Our preliminary results suggest that, as shown in previous works on L1 EP and L2 EP, the conditions which determine proclisis seem to be more difficult to acquire than those for enclisis and the different contexts of proclisis seem to develop gradually, following a similar path to that previously described for L1 EP.

An exploratory study on pro-drop in a written description task in L2 Spanish

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
An Vande Casteele ◽  
Alejandro Palomares Ortiz
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
L2 Spanish ◽  
Spanish Language Learners ◽  
Description Task ◽  
Experimental Group ◽  
Written Description

Abstract The present article aims at investigating the pro-drop phenomenon in L2 Spanish. The phenomenon of pro-drop or null subject is a typological feature of some languages, which are characterized by an implicit subject in cases of topic continuity. More specifically, behaviour regarding subject (dis)continuity in Spanish differs from French. This paper will offer a contrastive analysis on subject realisation by French learners of L2 Spanish compared to L1 Spanish speakers. So, the goal of this pilot study is to see if a different functioning in pro-drop in the mother tongue also influences the L2. The study is based upon a written description task presented to the two groups of participants: the experimental group of French mother tongue L2 Spanish language learners and the control group of Spanish native speakers.

Why is this happened? Passive morphology and unaccusativity

1997 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Balcom
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Syntactic Rule ◽  
English Writing ◽  
The Past ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
Unaccusative Verbs

Zobl discussed inappropriate passive morphology (‘be’ and the past participle) in the English writing of L2 learners, linking its occurrence to the class of unaccusative verbs and proposing that learners subsume unaccusatives under the syntactic rule for passive formation. The research reported here supports and amplifies Zobl' proposal, based on a grammaticality judgement task and a controlled production task containing verbs from a variety of subclasses of unaccusatives. The tasks were administered to Chinese L1 learners of English and a control group of English native speakers. Results show that subjects both used and judged as grammatical inappropriate passive morphology with all verbs falling under the rubric of unaccusativity. The article concludes with linguistic representations which maintain Zobl’s insights but are consistent with current theories of argument structure.

scholarly journals Didactic Model: Teaching the English Temporal System to Arabic Freshman Learners of English

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (_sup1) ◽  
pp. 81-97
Author(s):  
Thana Hmidani
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Competence ◽  
First Year ◽  
Language Awareness ◽  
Intensive English ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Medical College ◽  
Temporal System ◽  
Post Test ◽  
And Control ◽  
Selection Of

This study took place at a medical college with 57 Arabic first-year students taking an intensive English course. The aim was to address the problems that learners experience when using the English tenses properly. The didactic model was developed and implemented in the study group only (27 students). Pre, mid-, and post-tests were administered to study and control groups at three points in time. The model is a selection of aspects from different methods combined aiming to lead participants to a higher level of linguistic competence in terms of language awareness, reading and writing skills, and vocubulary building. The results indicated statistically significant differences in the post-test between the two groups over time regarding the level of linguistic competence.

Examining individual variation in learner production data: A few programmatic pointers for corpus-based analyses using the example of adverbial clause ordering

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Stefan Th. Gries ◽  
Stefanie Wulff
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Adverbial Clause ◽  
Temporal Adverbial

ABSTRACT This study examines the variable positioning of a finite adverbial subordinate clause and its main clause with the subordinate clause either preceding or following the main clause in native versus nonnative English. Specifically, we contrast causal, concessive, conditional, and temporal adverbial clauses produced by German and Chinese learners of English with those produced by native speakers. We examined 2,362 attestations from the Chinese and German subsections of the International Corpus of Learner English (Granger, Dagneaux, Meunier, & Paquot, 2009) and from the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (Granger, 1998). All instances were annotated for the ordering, the subordinate clause type, the lengths of the main and subordinate clauses, the first language of the speakers, the conjunction used, and the file it originated from (as a proxy for the speaker producing the sentence so as to be able to study individual and lexical variation). The results of a two-step regression modeling protocol suggest that learners behave most nativelike with causal clauses and struggle most with conditional and concessive clauses; in addition, learners make more non-nativelike choices when the main and subordinate clause are of about equal length.

The use of premix in feeding of young pigs on fattening

2020 ◽  
pp. 54-59
Author(s):  
A. S. Ivanova ◽  
N. V. Dunaeva
Keyword(s):  
Positive Impact ◽  
Live Weight ◽  
Feed Additives ◽  
Correct Selection ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Pork Meat ◽  
Large White ◽  
Young Pigs ◽  
Experimental Group ◽  
Selection Of

Increasing the production of pork meat requires careful work not only in terms of breeding, but also in the organization of complete feeding of animals, the correct selection of feed and feed additives containing the necessary nutrients. The purpose of the work was to analyze the use of premix in feeding young pigs on fattening. Two groups of fattening young pigs (Large White×Landrace) have been selected for the researches using the method of analogous groups, taking into account the breed, age, and live weight per 20 heads in each group with a live weight of 35 kg. Pigs of the control group have received the main economic diet, and animals of the experimental group have received an additional premix Khutorok at the rate of 10 g of premix per 1 kg of feed. The results have shown that the best age to reach 100 kg was in the experimental group of pigs – 215,8 days, which received premix with feed that characterizes their higher precocity by 36,3 days (P < 0,001) than in the control group of animals. The use of this premix had a positive impact on the livability of young animals, in the experimental group it was by 9,3 abs.% more than in the control group of animals. Thus, the best fattening traits have been possessed by young pigl of the experimental group have been received the premix Khutorok in their diet at the rate of 10 g of premix per 1 kg of feed. The obtained data indicate the feasibility of using the premix Khutorok in the feeding pigs for fattening.

Construction of online practice tests to check the acquisition of idiomatic expressions with colours

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanya Ivanova ◽  
◽  
Gergana Petkova
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Test Construction ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Test Items ◽  
Practice Tests ◽  
Idiomatic Expressions ◽  
Long Term Retention ◽  
Knowledge Of Learners ◽  
Selection Of

Idioms are metaphorical expressions that cannot be translated literally. They are widely used in English because they make everyday speech more interesting and entertaining for native speakers. It is assumed that there are about twenty-five thousand idiomatic expressions in English and one of the most common thematic areas for idioms is colour. Idiomatic expressions are a fun way to enhance the vocabulary and cultural knowledge of learners of English. However, mastering these expressions cause difficulties for students not only because their meaning is not deductible from the meanings of the words comprising it, but also due to the different meaning of colours in the cultures around the world. For instance, purple is usually connected with aristocracy, affluence, and piousness across the globe but in Thailand and Brazil it is the colour of bereavement. In this article we have described an approach to check the acquisition of idiomatic expressions and facilitate their long-term retention by using online practice tests. These tests are designed by the teacher and taken by students on their personal computers or mobile phones at their own convenience. Furthermore, specifically developed criteria for test construction are listed together with typical test questions based on them. Examples of test items are presented to illustrate the process of test creation. Finally, an appendix of a selection of the most widely used idiomatic expressions with colours is compiled.

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