scholarly journals Learning aspect in Italian as additional language. The role of second languages

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Vallerossa ◽  
Anna Gudmundson ◽  
Anna Bergström ◽  
Camilla Bardel
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Romance Language ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
Lexical Aspect ◽  
Grammatical Aspect ◽  
Differential Learning

Abstract The study examines the role played by English and Romance languages (L2s) when learning grammatical aspect in Italian as additional language (Ln). Swedish university students of Italian (n = 34), divided according to knowledge of a Romance L2 and English aspectual knowledge, completed an interpretation task of aspectual contrast in Italian. Eight native speakers served as a control group. The findings showed that knowledge of a Romance language as L2 and high English aspectual knowledge exerted a differential influence on learning aspect in Italian. This outcome is discussed in the light of a consistent form-meaning relationship between the L2s and Italian. Yet, with a mismatch between grammatical and lexical aspect, the learners’ judgments differed from the native speakers’ judgments. Thus, our findings also support the idea of the existence of differential learning paths sustained by the L2s when learning complex aspectual configurations.

scholarly journals Speaking about the past from different perspectives: the acquisition of Italian L2 by Norwegian and Russian learners

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizaveta Khachaturyan
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Text Structure ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Grammatical Aspect ◽  
The Past ◽  
Correct Form ◽  
Textual Features ◽  
Past Tenses

This study investigates the influence of L1 language-specific patterns on the acquisition of L2 structures. The lack of certain grammatical categories is often compensated for at another level of linguistic structure. This study analyses how Italian past tenses (connected with the category of aspect) are acquired by Russian and Norwegian learners. In Norwegian, in contrast to Russian and Italian, there is no grammatical aspect. The data analyzed contain a written narration of a short story presented through four pictures and were collected from several groups of informants: Russian and Norwegian native speakers, learners of Italian (levels B1 and C1), and Italian native speakers (the control group). The results obtained show that Norwegian learners, independently of their level, use more temporal connectors in their narratives. However, verbal semantics or temporal connectors (usually considered to be triggers of Italian past tenses) do not help them use the correct form. Russian learners performed better on the test. Their errors show that the textual function of the verb is more important for them than its semantics. However, they overuse coordinative connectors (e ‘and’ and ma ‘but’) at the beginning of sentences. These results lead to further discussion of textual features in the three languages and the role of the tense-aspect category in text structure.

scholarly journals REFLEXIVE TECHNIQUES AS A WAY TO CHANGE THE EDUCATIONAL MOTIVATION OF MEDICAL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-131
Author(s):  
I.G. Zhukovskaya ◽  
I.N. Leonov ◽  
T.F. Vostroknutova
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Educational Activity ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Activity Regulation ◽  
Educational Motivation ◽  
Group A ◽  
Medical University ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Experimental Group

The paper presents the results of a study of reflexive techniques impact on the educational motivation of medical university students. In the context of the implementation of the humanistic paradigm in pedagogy, the role of motivation in educational activity regulation is analyzed. Reflexion is considered by the subjects of pedagogical process as a factor of facilitation of "objectification" of needs in the context of educational activity and construction of its subjective sense. It was found that for ISMA students professional motives are dominant in educational motivation and avoidance motives are the least declared. As a result of a quasi-experiment with two non-randomized groups, the impact of reflexive techniques on educational motivation was assessed. The techniques made it possible to keep the structure of educational motivation unchanged in the experimental group, while in the control group a decrease in professional motives and an increase in communicative motives were found.

scholarly journals THE ROLE OF PRAGMATIC MARKERS IN ACADEMIC SPOKEN INTERLANGUAGE: A CORPUS-BASED STUDY OF A GROUP OF BRAZILIAN EFL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Diacrítica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-226
Author(s):  
Bárbara Malveira Orfanò ◽  
Ana Larissa Adorno Marciotto Oliveira ◽  
Spencer Barbosa da Silva
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Pragmatic Markers ◽  
Initial Hypothesis ◽  
Varied Range ◽  
Brazilian Students ◽  
The Uk

!e present work addresses a group of university students of EFL (English as aForeign Language) on how they use pragmatic markers in their oral productions.!e initial hypothesis was that there would be di"erences both in usage and formin comparison to native speakers. In order to verify our claim, we set o" to investigatetwo corpora: a learner oral corpus being compiled at the Federal University ofMinas Gerais/Brazil and a sub-corpus from the British Academic Spoken English(BASE). While Brazilian students overuse items such as maybe and just, the datarecorded in the UK displayed a more varied range of markers and multiword forms.Overall, the #ndings reinforce the importance of analyzing empirical data for abroader understanding of how native speakers and learners can di"er in their oralacademic production. !e paper also sheds light on language teaching and learningin the academic setting from a pragmatic viewpoint.

EFFECTS OF LISTENERS' EXPECTATIONS OF SPEAKERS' NATIVENESS: IDENTIFICATION OF PHONEMIC VOWEL LENGTH

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 1106-1115
Author(s):  
Wael Zuraiq ◽  
Moh'd Al-Omari ◽  
Sabri Al Shboul ◽  
Anas Al Huneety ◽  
Bassil Mashaqba
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Test Group ◽  
Speaking Rate ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Arabic Speakers ◽  
Minimal Pairs ◽  
Native Arabic Speakers

Purpose of the study: This study is to describe an experiment in which native Arabic listeners identified phonemic vowels in Arabic words. Native Arabic speakers from a variety of dialects and non-native Arabic speakers spoke the words. The main objective of the present study is to understand the neglected role of the native listeners in making communication successful or impeded when native listeners lack adequate information about the non-native speaker and when the top-down processing is absent. Methodology: The present study examined real Arabic minimal pairs (short versus long vowels) uttered at a regular speaking rate by both native speakers of Arabic (NSA) as a control group and non-native speakers of Arabic (NNSA) as a test group. First, we told the listeners that they would hear speakers from various countries, and we did not tell them that the stimuli had non-native words. In the subsequent part of the experiment, we told native listeners that they would hear both native speakers and non-native intermediate speakers. Main Findings: The major outcome of the present study is that listeners made slower and less correct identifications when they knew that some of the speakers were non-native. The finding of the experiment confirms the hypothesis that the processing of non-native productions is influenced by native listeners' negative expectations about non-native speakers with the absence of adequate facilitating details. Applications of this study: The study contributes to the psycholinguistic understanding of the role of the native listeners' expectations and attitudes towards non-native speakers and contributes to the understanding of the interaction between native listeners and non-native speakers. The study can help linguists in understanding the role of listeners in communication impediments within the top-down approach. Novelty/Originality of this study: This work adopts a new approach where we tested the same listeners twice, first with no information about non-native speakers and second with information that they will hear non-native speakers in the stimuli. Such an approach intends to improve our perception towards language communication within listeners' attitudes as associated with foreign speakers when information about the context of stimuli is inadequate.

Effects of corrective feedback on L2 acquisition of tense-aspect verbal morphology

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Mifka-Profozic
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Corrective Feedback ◽  
Control Group ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Verbal Morphology ◽  
Aspect Hypothesis ◽  
Lexical Aspect ◽  
Improving Accuracy ◽  
Passe Compose

In this study, the effectiveness of implicit corrective feedback was examined with a group of 30 sixteen-year-old English native speakers learning French, who received either recasts or clarification requests on errors they made with the passé composé and the imparfait. The control group did not receive any feedback. Overall, the results indicate that recasts were more effective in improving accuracy of form and use for both the passé composé and the imparfait. However, an examination of language development with reference to the Aspect Hypothesis and the inherent lexical aspect of verbs showed that no change occurred between the pretest and the posttests. The passé composé was associated exclusively with achievement verbs, whereas the imparfait was limited to several frequent irregular stative verbs and a few activity verbs.

Latin and English as world languages

English Today ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Wright
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modern View ◽  
World Languages ◽  
Internal Variation

Can we learn from what happened to Latin, in terms of its native speakers and foreign users? Comparisons are often made between the role of Latin during and after the Roman Empire and the role of English in the present. These can often be illuminating, particularly for the student of the sociolinguistics of the Late Latin-speaking world, where a generous application of the uniformitarian principle allows us to avoid now some of the misunderstandings that were common in the past: for example, the realization that linguistic change is inevitable and in itself neither good nor bad, and that language-internal variation is not pathological, and need not necessarily in itself lead to fragmentation, has been salutary. As a result, the modern view of the development of Latin into Romance, and of Romance into the separate Romance languages, is almost certainly more plausible now than it used to be. We have a more nuanced account to present, even though there is a great deal we do not and perhaps cannot know, including in particular an inability to be sure about the dating of developments which we can be sure occurred at some point.

Perspective discursive et influence translinguistique

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Benazzo ◽  
Cecilia Andorno ◽  
Grazia Interlandi ◽  
Cédric Patin
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Information Unit ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Discourse Organization ◽  
Grammatical Structures ◽  
Selection Of

This paper aims to study perspective-taking in L2 discourse at the level of utterance information structure. Many studies have shown how principles of discourse organization partly reflect lexico-grammatical structures available in a given language, and how difficult it is to reorganize L1 discursive habits when acquiring an L2 in adulthood. In this study we compare how L2 learners of Romance languages (French, Italian), with either a Romance or a Germanic language as an L1, organize the information structure of utterances relating contrasting events. Native speakers of Germanic and Romance languages show systematic differences in the selection of the information unit — referential entities or predicate polarity — on which the contrast is highlighted (Dimroth et al. 2010) ; moreover, they differ in the lexical, prosodic and morpho-syntactic means used to achieve this goal. Our data show that L2 learners can adopt the target language perspective in the selection of the information unit to contrast, when the input offers clear evidence for it. However, their choice of linguistic means reveals both the influence of the L1 and the role of more general acquisitional principles, which are still active at the advanced level.

Effects of speech rate, phonetic background and gender on vowel reduction in the speech of nonnative speakers of English

2014 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bogna Brzezicha ◽  
Małgorzata Kul
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Nonnative Speakers Of English ◽  
And Gender

AbstractThe paper reports the results of a study investigating vowel reduction in the speech of non-native speakers of English. The aim was to unravel the links between reduction and speech rate, phonetic training and gender. We hypothesized that (i) Polish speakers of English reduce vowels; (ii) they speak slower than native speakers; (iii) the higher the rate, the higher the reduction degree; (iv) speakers with phonetic training reduce less than those lacking it; (v) male subjects reduce more than the female ones. In order to realize these aims, an acoustic analysis of vowels was performed on 2 hrs 42 mins of speech produced by 12 Polish speakers of English. The subjects were di-vided into an experimental group consisting of 6 students of English and a control group with 6 speakers who had no phonetic training. The obtained results positively verify that non-native speakers reduce vowels and cast some doubts on whether they speak slower than native speakers. The role of rate and gender could not be established due to statistical and methodological issues. The group with no phonetic training outperformed the group which underwent phonetic training, pointing instead to the role of exposure and perhaps music training in acquiring native-like reduction patterns.

scholarly journals THE USE OF PRESENT PERFECT IN THE EXPRESSION OF PAST TEMPORALITY IN L2 SPANISH AND CATALAN BY CHILDREN OF MOROCCAN ORIGIN

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-149
Author(s):  
Eulàlia Canals
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
Functional Feature ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
Story Retell ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Right

This study examines the acquisition of Catalan and Spanish past-tense verbs (Preterite, Present Perfect, and Imperfect) by children of Moroccan origin in three schools in the Barcelona metropo1itan area. It presents data that allow us to study which of the three tenses poses the most problems for the second language (L2) speakers as compared to the native speakers in a control group. The data were obtained using elicited story-retell tasks and oral narratives. The results show that in both languages acquiring the accurate functional use of verbs is more difficult than making the right lexical or morphological choices. The greatest functional difficulty lies in the acquisition of the Preterite vis-à-vis the Present Perfect. These results provide additional evidence that form precedes function. However, they challenge an established position on the acquisition of tense and aspect in Romance languages, which holds that the most difficult functional feature to acquire for L2 learners of these languages is the difference between perfective and imperfective tenses.

Interpretation of NPs in generic and existential contexts in L3 Brazilian Portuguese

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania Ionin ◽  
Elaine Grolla ◽  
Hélade Santos ◽  
Silvina A. Montrul
Keyword(s):  
English Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Romance Language ◽  
Third Language ◽  
L3 Acquisition ◽  
L1 English

This paper examines the interpretation of NPs in generic and existential contexts in the acquisition of Brazilian Portuguese (BrP) as a third language (L3) by learners who speak English and a Romance language (Spanish, French or Italian). The paper examines whether transfer / cross-linguistic influence is from English, Spanish/French/Italian, or both, and whether it matters which language is the learners’ first language (L1) vs. their second language (L2). An Acceptability Judgment Task of NP interpretation in BrP is administered to L1-English L2-Spanish/French/Italian and L1-Spanish L2-English learners of BrP as an L3, as well as to a control group of native speakers of BrP. The findings point to a nuanced picture of transfer in L3 acquisition, in which both languages can serve as the source of transfer, but transfer from a previously learned Romance language is more pronounced than transfer from English, both for L1-English L2-Romance and L1-Spanish L2-English L3-learners of BrP.

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