Cut-offs and co-occurring gestures: Similarities between speakers’ first and second languages

2019 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Renia Lopez-Ozieblo
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Cognitive Factors ◽  
Multimodal Approach ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
L1 And L2

Abstract This paper explores cut-offs in the oral narrations of Spanish native speakers in their mother tongue (L1), and in their language-under-study, English (L2). Fluency in the L2 varies with proficiency, and so cut-offs offer a possible means of evaluating this. However, there are certain aspects of fluency which might be common to the L1 and the L2, suggesting that the L1 and L2 share cognitive factors that lead to similar disfluency patterns. To determine if cut-offs are reliable markers of L2 fluency, independent of those occurring in the L1, we assessed the cut-off patterns in the L1 and L2 narrations of this group of speakers, following a multimodal approach. We observed similarities in both languages, potentially indicating that speakers use comparable cut-off-gesture patterns in the L1 and L2. We conclude that using speakers’ cut-offs in an L2 to gauge proficiency is meaningful only if the L1 cut-off behaviour is known.

scholarly journals Speech rhythm of english as L2

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-57
Author(s):  
Leônidas José da Silva Junior ◽  
Plínio Almeida Barbosa
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Variable Degree ◽  
Speech Rhythm ◽  
Acoustic Correlates ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
L2 Production ◽  
L1 And L2

When speaking a foreign language (L2), non-native speakers’ (NNS) speech contains some variable degree of foreign accent (FA) that is perceivable by the native speakers (NS) of that language based on the production of phonetic gestures characteristic of their mother tongue (L1), and that differ from those of the foreign language (L2) in terms of the segmental (vowels and consonants) and prosodic (stress, rhythm and intonation) features. Causes such as neuro-plasticity and length of residence, for example, are claimed to interfere in L2 production. This work aims to analyze how L2 speech rhythm of English is produced by Brazilian Portuguese (BP) speakers and how prosodic variables such as, metric and acoustic correlates, influence FA. This research is based on Barbosa (2006) for the dynamic determination of speech rhythm in addition to Ramus et. al. (1999) and so, on the choice of metrics and segmentation procedures. As for the methods of analysis, phonetic data from twenty BP and four American speakers were collected. Next, the data were segmented into different unit procedures for the purpose of carrying out acoustic and statistical analysis. Results pointed out to a significant difference between L1 and L2 rhythms.

The Language of Economic Growth:A New Measure of Linguistic Heterogeneity

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 953-980 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy H. Liu ◽  
Elise Pizzi
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
Large Populations ◽  
Official Languages ◽  
Language Boundaries ◽  
Cross National

Conventional wisdom holds that languages, as ethnic markers, build communities with shared preferences and strong social networks. Consequently, ethnolinguistic homogeneity can facilitate growth. This article challenges this conception of language as a cultural marker. It argues that language is also a practical vehicle of communication; people can be multilingual, and second languages can be learned. Hence language boundaries are neither (1) congruent with ethnic boundaries nor (2) static. If true, the purported advantages of ethnolinguistic homogeneity should also be evident in countries with large populations of non-native speakers conversant in official languages. The study tests this hypothesis using an original cross-national and time-variant measure that captures both mother-tongue speakers and second-language learners. The empirical results are consistent with the understanding of language as an efficiency-enhancing instrument: countries with exogenously high levels of heterogeneity can avoid the ‘growth tragedy’1by endogenously teaching the official language in schools.

scholarly journals Using Rational Cloze for Diagnostic Testing in L1 and L2 Reading

1984 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret MacLean
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Test Scores ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Diagnostic Testing ◽  
Second Language Reading ◽  
L2 Reading ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
L1 And L2

Although both first and second language reading have been frequently explored, much of the research has tended to be product oriented and comparative in nature. That is, researchers have tended to focus on quantitative differences in reading comprehension test scores between groups of native and non-native speakers. Very few studies have examined how readers understand text in both their first and second languages. This paper presents results from a case study of a bilingual reader (French Ll/English L2) who read both easy and hard texts in her first and second language. Rational doze and introspection tasks were used to examine quantitative and qualitative differences in comprehension across languages. Results indicated that there were differences in the extent to which this reader successfully manipulated meaning especially at the whole text level. Implications of the rational doze procedure for diagnostic testing and teaching are discussed.

A CASE STUDY OF NL INFLUENCE IN UNIS FKIP ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS' INTERLANGUAGE

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-54
Author(s):  
Irmala Sukendra ◽  
Agus Mulyana ◽  
Imam Sudarmaji
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Similar System ◽  
The One ◽  
L1 Acquisition

Regardless to the facts that English is being taught to Indonesian students starting from early age, many Indonesian thrive in learning English. They find it quite troublesome for some to acquire the language especially to the level of communicative competence. Although Krashen (1982:10) states that “language acquirers are not usually aware of the fact that they are acquiring language, but are only aware of the fact that they are using the language for communication”, second language acquisition has several obstacles for learners to face and yet the successfulness of mastering the language never surmounts to the one of the native speakers. Learners have never been able to acquire the language as any native speakers do. Mistakes are made and inter-language is unavoidable. McNeili in Ellis (1985, p. 44) mentions that “the mentalist views of L1 acquisition hypothesizes the process of acquisition consists of hypothesis-testing, by which means the grammar of the learner’s mother tongue is related to the principles of the ‘universal grammar’.” Thus this study intends to find out whether the students go through the phase of interlanguage in their attempt to acquire second language and whether their interlanguage forms similar system as postulated by linguists (Krashen).

Salvaging the Mother Tongue in Exile

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 187-204
Author(s):  
Tomás Espino Barrera
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
First Language ◽  
Language Attrition ◽  
The Past ◽  
Progressive Loss ◽  
First Language Attrition ◽  
Lost In Translation ◽  
Deliberate Effort ◽  
Deep Sense

The dramatic increase in the number of exiles and refugees in the past 100 years has generated a substantial amount of literature written in a second language as well as a heightened sensibility towards the progressive loss of fluency in the mother tongue. Confronted by what modern linguistics has termed ‘first-language attrition’, the writings of numerous exilic translingual authors exhibit a deep sense of trauma which is often expressed through metaphors of illness and death. At the same time, most of these writers make a deliberate effort to preserve what is left from the mother tongue by attempting to increase their exposure to poems, dictionaries or native speakers of the ‘dying’ language. The present paper examines a range of attitudes towards translingualism and first language attrition through the testimonies of several exilic authors and thinkers from different countries (Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory, Hannah Arendt's interviews, Jorge Semprún's Quel beau dimanche! and Autobiografía de Federico Sánchez, and Eva Hoffman's Lost in Translation, among others). Special attention will be paid to the historical frameworks that encourage most of their salvaging operations by infusing the mother tongue with categories of affect and kinship.

The role of cross-linguistic stress pattern frequency and word similarity on the acquisition of English stress pattern by native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Post Silveira
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
American English ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Stress Pattern ◽  
Target Language ◽  
English As Second Language ◽  
Word Similarity ◽  
L1 Transfer

This is a preliminary study in which we investigate the acquisition of English as second language (L2[1]) word stress by native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (BP, L1[2]). In this paper, we show results of a multiple choice forced choice perception test in which native speakers of American English and native speakers of Dutch judged the production of English words bearing pre-final stress that were both cognates and non-cognates with BP words. The tokens were produced by native speakers of American English and by Brazilians that speak English as a second language. The results have shown that American and Dutch listeners were consistent in their judgments on native and non-native stress productions and both speakers' groups produced variation in stress in relation to the canonical pattern. However, the variability found in American English points to the prosodic patterns of English and the variability found in Brazilian English points to the stress patterns of Portuguese. It occurs especially in words whose forms activate neighboring similar words in the L1. Transfer from the L1 appears both at segmental and prosodic levels in BP English. [1] L2 stands for second language, foreign language, target language. [2] L1 stands for first language, mother tongue, source language.

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.

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.

scholarly journals Theory of mind and preschoolers' understanding of implicit causality in verbs: A comparison between Serbian and Hungarian children

Psihologija ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agota Major ◽  
Fabia Franco ◽  
Marija Zotovic
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Implicit Causality ◽  
Mind Task

This study aims to investigate the effect of theory of mind, age and mother tongue on the implicit causality effect in preschoolers from two different language backgrounds. Serbian and Hungarian native speakers aged 3-7 years participated in the study. After taking part in a Theory of Mind task, children were presented verbs in simple 'Subject verb Object' sentences describing interactions between two participants, with the interactions being based on emotional, mental or visual experiences. Children were asked 'Why does S verb O?' and their responses were categorized as containing an inference about the sentence-S or the sentence-O. The results show that Theory of Mind is a significant factor in the emergence of implicit causality, with age of participants and mother tongue being also contributing to explaining patterns of implicit causality.

scholarly journals Reading Accuracy in EFL Students with a Transparent L1 Background – a Case Study from Poland

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-40
Author(s):  
Monika Łodej
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Reading Ability ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Regular Instruction ◽  
Language Competence ◽  
L2 Reading ◽  
Reading Accuracy ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
L1 And L2

Research indicates that L2 reading competence is influenced by L1 reading ability, L2 proficiency, and L2 decoding competence. The present study investigates the significance of two variables, regularity and frequency, in relation to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) reading accuracy in students with a transparent L1. Fifteen 6th grade students in their sixth year of regular instruction in English took part in this study. Their mother tongue is Polish whereas English is their foreign language; thus, their language competence in L1 and L2 differs substantially. The research design followed Glusko (1979), Plaut (1996), and Wang and Koda (2007). There are four sets of real words. Two features of real words are manipulated for regularity and frequency. The study reveals that both conditions of script, regularity and transparency, affect reading accuracy in EFL students. However, the dimension of regularity is a stronger predicator of accuracy than the frequency with which the students encounter a word. From the pedagogical perspective, the collected data supports the use of structured reading instructions in the EFL classroom in order to restrain negative transfer of L1 to L2 reading strategies.

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