scholarly journals Sincere or heart-felt?: Sincerity, convention, and bilingualism in French and Spanish letters

Multilingua ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-80
Author(s):  
Jenelle Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Frequent Users ◽  
Linguistic Repertoire ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
Emotional Openness

AbstractThe concept of sincerity has links to honesty, openness, and authenticity, including of feelings. As expressions of sincerity become formalized in epistolary practice, however, a tension arises between sincerity and the articulation of it. An examination of a corpus of private family letters in French and Spanish from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries shows that use of the word ‘sincerity’ is much more common as an epistolary formula in French, where it had a broader semantic range, while authors writing in Spanish use other methods to index truth and emotional openness. The most frequent users of this formula are shown to be less skilled writers and bilinguals writing in their second language, suggesting a greater reliance on preconstructed formulae, especially in situations of increased linguistic and social distance. Finally, some bilingual authors transfer the pattern into Spanish, indicating that fixed phrases and formulae are available in a bilingual’s linguistic repertoire for pragmatic redeployment.

Teaching Online

2010 ◽  
pp. 84-102
Author(s):  
P. Toyoko Kang
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Teaching Online ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Prosodic Phrase ◽  
Mental Language ◽  
Face To Face Learning ◽  
Audio Files

This chapter provides an argument endorsing blendedlearning and teaching for foreign language (FL)/second language (L2) courses, in lieu of total online learning andteaching or total face-to-face learning and teaching (FFLT). Two main arguments are posed, citing concrete examples. First, that in total online learning and teaching, one of the greatest challenges is to reduce the psychological and social distance between teacher and student that leads to a dysfunctional parser (a mental language processor) for FL/L2. And secondly, online learning and teachingencourage more input, hence clarify communication---by making not only currently incomprehensible input comprehensible but also hard-tobe-comprehended output easy-to-comprehend---- through “self-negotiation of form and meaning,” and the parser’s strategy of being “first (prosodic phrase) come, first interpreted/processed.” This chapter proceeds to strongly recommend that FL/L2 teachers make simple audio files to provide their students with spoken input to prevent students from employing the L1 strategy of “first come, last interpreted/ processed.” Furthermore, this chapter shows what kind of spoken input is to be recorded in audio files for students in Elementary Japanese II and Intermediate Japanese I.

scholarly journals Investigating the Sociocultural Factors That Affect Learning a Second Language (on the Example of English)

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Hatim H. Tawfiq
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Sociocultural Factors ◽  
Mean Values ◽  
The Third ◽  
Five Factors ◽  
The Social

The present study investigates the sociocultural factors that affect second language learning. The investigation is built under five factors that are presumed to affect second language learning. The first factor is related to the effects of personality traits that are linked to second language learning, such as: self-efficiency, willingness, extraversion, and introversion, etc. The second factor pertains to motivation and second language learning. The third one is stereotyping and its effects on second language learning. The fourth is about social distance as a sociocultural factor of second language learning. And the fifth factor is about attitude. The study looks for how much effects do the factors mentioned so far have got in second language learning. A questionnaire is constructed to extract perceptions about the hypothesized factors from 62 participants. Responses are analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to get statistical descriptions about the factors that mostly affect second language learning. The analytic statistics gives the following mean values for each factor: attitude = 20.58, stereotype = 20.00, motivation = 19.84, social distance = 19.74, and personality 18.85. The study concludes with the consensus belief that attitude is a crucial factor of second language learning.

Learning to Communicate in the Classroom

1992 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rod Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Classroom Context ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Language Competence ◽  
Illocutionary Act ◽  
Sociolinguistic Competence ◽  
Linguistic Repertoire ◽  
Esl Classroom

It is now generally accepted that second language (L2) acquisition can take place as a result of learning how to communicate in the L2. It is less clear, however, whether the kind of communication that occurs in a classroom is sufficient to ensure development of full target language competence. This article examines the extent to which the opportunities for communication in an English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom result in the acquisition of one particular illocutionary act—requests. A total of 410 requests produced by two child learners over 15–21 months were examined. The results suggest that although considerable development took place over this period, both learners failed to develop either the full range of request types or a broad linguistic repertoire for performing those types that they did acquire. The learners also failed to develop the sociolinguistic competence needed to vary their choice of request to take account of different addressees. One explanation for these results is that although the classroom context fostered interpersonal and expressive needs in the two learners, it did not provide the conditions for real sociolinguistic needs.

scholarly journals THE ACCULTURATION MODEL OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: INSPECTING WEAKNESSES AND STRENGTHS

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alireza Zaker
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Linguistic Competence ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Affecting Factor ◽  
Different Types ◽  
L2 Learning ◽  
Language Environment

Previous research has highlighted the significant impact of culture on learning a second language (L2). Accordingly, culture is now believed to be a major learning-affecting factor which, along with linguistic competence, facilitates the process of L2 learning. Some have proposed that being surrounded in the L2 environment gives one a better chance of learning an L2. Based on this premise, Schumann in 1978 proposed the acculturation/pidginization model as an environmental-oriented model that emphasizes identification with a community as the primary requirement of second language acquisition. This study attempts to take a closer look at different aspects of this theory. The taxonomy of factors which control social distance is presented along with the different types of acculturation and the stages/steps of acculturation in an L2 environment. The article concludes with a discussion on the advantages and shortcomings of the model.Keywords: acculturation, culture, pidginization, target language environment

Renilla Bioluminescence: A Morphologic Approach to the Location of Photocytes

1974 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 208-209
Author(s):  
Ben O. Spurlock ◽  
Milton J. Cormier
Keyword(s):  
Excited State ◽  
Ground State ◽  
Molecular Basis ◽  
Light Emission ◽  
Chemical Basis ◽  
Electronic Excited State ◽  
Colonial Form ◽  
The Common ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
Catalyzed Oxidation

The phenomenon of bioluminescence has fascinated layman and scientist alike for many centuries. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a number of observations were reported on the physiology of bioluminescence in Renilla, the common sea pansy. More recently biochemists have directed their attention to the molecular basis of luminosity in this colonial form. These studies have centered primarily on defining the chemical basis for bioluminescence and its control. It is now established that bioluminescence in Renilla arises due to the luciferase-catalyzed oxidation of luciferin. This results in the creation of a product (oxyluciferin) in an electronic excited state. The transition of oxyluciferin from its excited state to the ground state leads to light emission.

Computer Usage by Speech-Language Pathologists in Public Schools

1988 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gail Ruppert Houle
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Public School ◽  
Computer Technology ◽  
Computer Usage ◽  
Attitudes Toward Computers ◽  
Speech Language Pathologists ◽  
Frequent Users ◽  
Service Training

This study investigated factors that influence public school speech-language pathologists' acceptance and/or resistance to computer technology. Significant differences were found between speech-language pathologists who are frequent users of computers in the workplace and those who seldom or never use them. These differences were attributed to differences in attitudes toward computers, available funding for computers, in-service training, and physical facilities.

Distinctiveness and Assimilation in Vowel Perception in a Second Language

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (12) ◽  
pp. 4534-4543
Author(s):  
Wei Hu ◽  
Sha Tao ◽  
Mingshuang Li ◽  
Chang Liu
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Vowel Identification ◽  
Vowel Perception ◽  
Perceptual Distance ◽  
Vowel Space ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Chinese Counterpart ◽  
Vowel Categories

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate how the distinctive establishment of 2nd language (L2) vowel categories (e.g., how distinctively an L2 vowel is established from nearby L2 vowels and from the native language counterpart in the 1st formant [F1] × 2nd formant [F2] vowel space) affected L2 vowel perception. Method Identification of 12 natural English monophthongs, and categorization and rating of synthetic English vowels /i/ and /ɪ/ in the F1 × F2 space were measured for Chinese-native (CN) and English-native (EN) listeners. CN listeners were also examined with categorization and rating of Chinese vowels in the F1 × F2 space. Results As expected, EN listeners significantly outperformed CN listeners in English vowel identification. Whereas EN listeners showed distinctive establishment of 2 English vowels, CN listeners had multiple patterns of L2 vowel establishment: both, 1, or neither established. Moreover, CN listeners' English vowel perception was significantly related to the perceptual distance between the English vowel and its Chinese counterpart, and the perceptual distance between the adjacent English vowels. Conclusions L2 vowel perception relied on listeners' capacity to distinctively establish L2 vowel categories that were distant from the nearby L2 vowels.

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