scholarly journals Les apprenants prennent la parole : analyse des procedes de cohesion utilises dans le cadre d’une interview avec des locuteurs natifs

Neofilolog ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 91-105
Author(s):  
Freiderikos Valetopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Professional Field ◽  
The Common

The aim of this paper is to explore the strategies used by B1 learners of French as a Foreign Language to construct their discourse and achieve cohesion during an interview with native speakers. The results of this analysis will highlight the characteristics of the development of oral competences. According to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, B1 learners can communicate with some confidence on familiar routine and non-routine matters related to their interests and professional field. In an interview task, learners are able to take some initiatives but are very dependent on the interviewer in the interaction. Learners should also be able to use a prepared questionnaire to carry out a structured interview, with some spontaneous follow up questions. The corpus analysis indicated certain strategies expressing inter-sentential and inter-sequential cohesion, such as use of discourse markers (et, donc) or markers of agreement (d’accord).

scholarly journals Japanese Language and "Characters": From the Perspective of Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-68
Author(s):  
Yukiko SHUKURI
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Proficiency Test ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Japanese Language ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Test Results ◽  
Textbook Research ◽  
Language Proficiency Test

This paper introduces current status of "role language" and the "speaker's character" and their applications in Japanese teaching materials. Besides it studies the knowledge of Russian learners of Japanese and carefully examines their knowledge of four typical kinds of "role language" in Japanese anime and manga by using a questionnaire and follow-up interviews. From the results of the textbook research, the following two things are revealed; (a) first person pronouns except for watashi are rarely used, (b) there is not enough explanations about different "speaker's characters" in detail. Furthermore, findings of the questionnaire show that some of the learners who have the same impression of the characters as Japanese native speakers, wrongly connect a certain "role language" to illustrations of a character, and results of as much as three kinds of "role language" have a low positive correlation with the learners' results of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. Results also reveal that all four kinds of "role language" have no correlation with other factors, such as student's duration of learning Japanese, or frequency of the use of Japanese outside the classroom.

scholarly journals Corpus analysis of phraseology in an A1 level textbook of German as a foreign language

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (22) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Maria Rosario Bautista Zambrana
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
German Language ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
Productive Activities ◽  
Written Texts ◽  
The Common ◽  
Lexical Competence ◽  
Level Student

This paper aims to analyse the extent to which the textbook for German as a foreign language DaF kompakt A1 (Sander et al., 2011) complies with the recommendations of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe, 2001) (hereafter CEFR) in respect to lexical competence and sociolinguistic competence in receptive and productive activities, specifically with regard to phraseological units. In this respect, we have focused on sentential formulae and fixed frames present in a corpus containing the textbook materials, and we have checked whether those fixed expressions correspond to the phraseological and sociolinguistic compe-tences that are expected in the Framework for an A1 level student of German language. To this end, we have compiled a corpus of the textbook receptive and productive materials, made up by three subcorpora: one for the written texts, one for the oral texts, and a third subcorpus containing exercises. We have performed a quantitative analysis (by means of AntConc 3.4.4 [Anthony, 2016] and kfNgram [Fletcher, 2007]), and a qualitative one. Our results suggest that the textbook complies with the recommendations of the CEFR.

The Business of Pragmatics. The Case of Discourse Markers in The Speech of Students of Business English and English Linguistics

2011 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 10-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lieven Buysse
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Foreign Language Learning ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Business English ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Native Speech

Abstract This paper investigates how foreign language learners use discourse markers (such as so, well, you know, I mean) in English speech. These small words that do not contribute much, if anything at all, to the propositional content of a message but modify it in subtle ways, are often considered among the last elements acquired in a foreign language. This contribution reports on close scrutiny of a corpus of English-spoken interviews with Belgian native speakers of Dutch, half of whom are undergraduates majoring in Commercial Sciences and half of whom are majoring in English Linguistics, and sets it off against a comparable native speaker corpus. The investigation shows that the language learners exhibit a clear preference for “operative discourse markers” and neglect or avoid “involvement discourse markers”. It is argued that in learner speech the former take on functions typically fulfilled by the latter to a greater extent than in native speech, and that in some cases the learners revert to a code-switching strategy to cater for their pragmatic needs, bringing markers from Dutch into their English speech. Finally, questions are raised as to the place of such pragmatic devices in foreign language learning.

scholarly journals Culture and the Common European Framework for Languages: A Comparative Corpus Analysis of 2001, 2018 and 2020 Texts

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 15-27
Author(s):  
Mustafa Dolmaci ◽  
Hatice Sezgin
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Foreign Language Education ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Common Basis ◽  
Curriculum Guidelines ◽  
The Common ◽  
N Gram

In order to provide “a common basis for the elaboration of language syllabuses, curriculum guidelines, examinations, textbooks, etc. across Europe”, The Common European Framework for Languages (CEFR) was published in 2001 by the Council of Europe. It has affected the way languages are taught, learnt and assessed and also how foreign language proficiency levels are defined all around the world. The CEFR adopts an intercultural approach to foreign language, and the main purpose is to protect cultural diversity and to give importance to cultural activities rather than being a part of foreign language education. For this reason, culture is at the very core of the CEFR. In 2018 and 2020, two Companion Volumes were published to complement the CEFR. The present paper offers a comparative corpus analysis of these three texts focusing on the occurrences of culture-related items using n-gram tool of Sketch Engine (Lexical Computing, n. d.), which creates frequency lists of sequences of tokens. Based on the findings, it is suggested according to the CEFR that rather than focusing on the national culture of the native speakers of the target language, foreign language education should focus more on the “new culture” formed by the encounters of people coming from different cultures.

scholarly journals Cross-cultural Study of Perception of Humor by English Native Speakers and Iranian EFL Learners

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 166
Author(s):  
Maryam Farnia ◽  
Atena Farhangi ◽  
Masoud Saeedi
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Morphological Type ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
The Body ◽  
Efl Learners

As an instance of foreign language comprehension, L2 humor perception is proved to be challenging for the foreign language learners. However, the body of literature is heavier on the side of humor production than humor perception. The current study explores the extent to which Iranian English as foreign language (EFL) learners perceive different types of English humor in comparison with the English native speakers. The participants were 153 Iranian EFL learners at intermediate level of language proficiency who were randomly selected from English language learners from several English language institutes in Shiraz, Iran, and 30 American English native speakers who voluntarily participated in this study. A questionnaire consisting of six contextualized jokes of three major types of universal, cultural and linguistic (with morphological, phonological, lexical and syntactic subcategories)was developed based on Schmitz's classification of verbal humor to obtain the quantitative data. Moreover, a semi-structured interview was conducted to elicit the perception of those participants who did not find the jokes humorous. The results showed that the majority of Iranian EFL participants did not realize the humor in the jokes. Also, the findings revealed that generally speaking, Iranian EFL learners' perception of humor is significantly lower in all types of jokes examined. The best perceived type of humor was found to be the linguistic humor of morphological type for the Iranian EFL learners and the lexical type for English native speakers. It was also discovered that the phonological humor was the least perceived type of humor for both Iranian EFL learners and English native speakers.

scholarly journals Contrastive Corpus Analysis: Investigating the Use of Opinion Verbs in Italian by Greek Learners

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. p1
Author(s):  
Katerina Florou
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Learner Corpus ◽  
Lack Of Knowledge

In this paper, we investigate the usage of opinion verbs in Italian as a foreign language and any errors this usage may cause, taking into account intralanguage and interlanguage factors. First of all, we analyze the frequency of opinion verb types, in a Greek corpus of native speakers and we investigate the frequency of the same type of verbs in an Italian Translator Learner Corpus compiled by the same learners. Secondly, we explore to what extent there are errors regarding the use of opinion verbs. The data will show that learners, in some cases, commit errors because of their mother tongue influence while in others they avoid using opinion verbs because of this particular lack of knowledge.

scholarly journals DISCOURSE MARKERS IN AN ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (EFL) CLASSROOM SETTING: A REFLEXIVE STUDY ON TEACHING DISCOURSE

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 723-742
Author(s):  
Alan Tocantins Fernandes
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Quantitative Study ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Classroom Interaction ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Classroom Setting ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Pragmatic Awareness ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative Study

This paper is a reflexive teaching study to investigate the use of discourse markers (DMs) in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom setting with non-native speakers. It is a qualitative and quantitative study that focuses on the teacher’s discourse by analysing the occurrences and frequencies in the use of DMs during interaction in class. The corpus was extracted from recordings made during four classes, and later documented through transcriptions. With items selected and categorized in an inventory, it was possible to explain the main functions of the markers used. With the aid of the AntConc© software, it was possible to visualize how the words and phrases of interest appeared in the corpus, in addition to their frequencies. The analysis reveals pragmatic awareness and the use, however restricted, of DMs in the building and organization of classroom interaction by teacher, which contributes to the coherence of his discourse.

scholarly journals Discourse marking in spoken intercultural communication between British and Taiwanese adolescent learners

Pragmatics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yen-Liang Lin
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Analytical Approach ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Functional Categories ◽  
Exchange Students ◽  
Intercultural Exchange

This study investigates and compares the use of discourse markers (DMs) by native speakers and learners of English based on a corpus of adolescent intercultural exchange students. Thestudy employs a discourse analytical approach, in whichFung and Carter’s (2007)multi-category framework is appliedwith a view to examiningDMs used bya group of Taiwanese and British adolescentsin an intercultural setting.The analytical frameworkcontains four main functional categories: Interpersonal, referential, structural and cognitive DMs. Each DM was analysed qualitatively and quantitatively in order to identifythe functions it serves in its original contextandtofurther reveal the different uses of DMs between Taiwanese and British participants. The findings demonstrate that the DMs used by both groups of participants serve the fourcentral functions,andin particularTaiwanese participants display a significant use of interpersonal (e.g., yeah, oh) and structural DMs (e.g., so, okay), while British participants have a significantly higher usage of referential (e.g., coz/because, and) and cognitive DMs (e.g., like, well). The results of this study have direct pedagogical implications that can enhance the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL)to better prepare learners for real life communication scenarios.

Modulation of carotid strain by statin therapy in atherosclerosis patients

VASA ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Alexander Schaefer ◽  
Anna Katharina Blatzheim ◽  
Sebastian Gorgonius Passon ◽  
Kristin Solveig Pausewang ◽  
Nadjib Schahab ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Statin Therapy ◽  
Pulse Wave ◽  
Ultrasound Examination ◽  
Ankle Brachial Index ◽  
Radial Strain ◽  
Strain Analysis ◽  
Duplex Ultrasound ◽  
Strain Imaging ◽  
The Common

Abstract. Background: The beneficial effect of statin therapy on the progress of atherosclerotic disease has been demonstrated by numerous studies. Vascular strain imaging is an arising method to evaluate arterial stiffness. Our study examined whether an influence of statin therapy on the vessel wall could be detected by vascular strain imaging. Patients and methods: 88 patients with recently detected atherosclerosis underwent an angiological examination including ankle-brachial index (ABI), pulse wave index (PWI), central puls ewave velocity and duplex ultrasound. Captures for vascular strain analysis were taken in B-mode during ultrasound examination of the common carotid artery and evaluated using a workstation equipped with a speckle tracking based software. A statin therapy was recommended and after six months a follow-up examination took place. Meanwhile, the non-adherence of a group of patients (N = 18) lead to a possibility to observe statin effects on the vascular strain. Results: In the statin non-adherent group the ABI decreased significantly to a still non-pathological level (1.2 ± 0.2 vs. 1.0 ± 0.2; p = 0.016) whereas it stagnated in the adherent group (1.0 ± 0.2 vs. 1.0 ± 0.2; p = 0.383). The PWI did not differ in the non-adherent group (180.5 ± 71.9 vs. 164.4 ± 75.8; p = 0.436) but under statin therapy it decreased significantly (261.8 ± 238.6 vs. 196.4 ± 137.4; p = 0.016). In comparison to the adherent group (4.2 ± 2.0 vs. 4.0 ± 1.8; p = 0.548) under statin therapy the radial strain decreased significantly in the non-adherent group (4.7 ± 2.0 vs. 3.3 ± 1.1; p = 0.014). Conclusions: Our findings reveal a beneficial influence of statin therapy on the arterial wall detected by vascular strain analysis.

Can-Do descriptors – Realigning English Language Curriculum at Higher Education Institution to CEFR

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Erda Wati Bakar
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
English Language ◽  
Education Institution ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Language Curriculum ◽  
English Curriculum ◽  
The Common ◽  
The University

The Common European Framework of Reference for Language (CEFR) has become the standard used to describe and evaluate students’ command of a second or foreign language. It is an internationally acknowledged standard language proficiency framework which many countries have adopted such as China, Thailand, Japan and Taiwan. Malaysia Ministry of Education is aware and realise the need for the current English language curriculum to be validated as to reach the international standard as prescribed by the CEFR. The implementation of CEFR has begun at primary and secondary level since 2017 and now higher education institutions are urged to align their English Language Curriculum to CEFR as part of preparation in receiving students who have been taught using CEFR-aligned curriculum at schools by year 2022. This critical reflection article elucidates the meticulous processes that we have embarked on in re-aligning our English Language Curriculum to the standard and requirements of CEFR. The paper concludes with a remark that the alignment of the English curriculum at the university needs full support from the management in ensuring that all the stakeholders are fully prepared, informed and familiar with the framework.

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