scholarly journals A Corpus-based Analysis of TESOL EFL Students’ Use of Logical Connectors in Spoken English

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 625
Author(s):  
Hao Wu
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
The Past ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Logical Connectors

In the past several decades, the compilation of learner corpora and the application of corpus linguistics have been extensively employed to improve learners’ use of logical connectors. However, the use of logical connectors in EFL learners’ spoken discourse remains under-researched. To investigate this field, the researcher built an EFL TESOL student spoken English corpus consisting of 27 spoken English samples of 12,241 words in total. Then, this study adopts corpus-based contrastive analysis and computer-aided error analysis to compare the tokens and the frequencies of the logical connectors with those in the native spoken English corpus of MICASE. Finally, underuse, overuse, and misuse in the TESOL student corpus were exemplified and explained.Findings reveal that the TESOL students tended to use a smaller set of logical connectors but used them more frequently than the English native speakers. Additive coordinating conjunctions such as and, so, and but were the most overused logical connectors. Moreover, the underuse of if, when, so that, and though shows that adverbial clauses were less frequently employed in their spoken discourse. A detailed explanation and pedagogical implications are also listed to help learners understand how to contextualize logical connectors at both syntactic and discourse level.

scholarly journals Contrastive analysis of Turkish and English in Turkish EFL learners’ spoken discourse

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mustafa Yildiz
Keyword(s):  
English Proficiency ◽  
T Test ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Proficiency Level ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Grammatical Errors

<p>The present study aimed at finding whether L1 Turkish caused interference errors on Turkish EFL learners’ spoken English discourse. Whether English proficiency level had any effect on the number of errors learners made was further investigated. The participants were given the chance to choose one of the two alternative topics to speak about. The entire videotaped speaking session was further transcribed to analyze the spoken errors. The results indicated that prepositional, lexical, and grammatical errors were the most frequently encountered errors, in descending order. Also, independent samples t-test was applied to the data to determine whether English proficiency level had any effect on the number of errors made by two different English proficiency groups. It was found that there was no significant difference between two different English proficiency groups with regard to the number of errors they made.</p>

An exploration of target L2 morphemes in the oral production of young EFL learners in Croatia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelena O'Reilly ◽  
Eva Jakupčević
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Simple Construction ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Oral Production ◽  
The Past ◽  
Base Form ◽  
Production Study ◽  
Efl Students

Although the second language (L2) acquisition of morphology by late L2 learners has been a popular research area over the past decades, comparatively little is known about the acquisition and development of morphology in children who learn English as a foreign language (EFL). Therefore, the current study presents the findings from a longitudinal oral production study with 9/10-year-old L1 Croatian EFL students who were followed up at the age of 11/12. Our results are largely in line with the limited research so far in this area: young EFL learners have few issues using the be copula and, eventually, the irregular past simple forms, but had considerable problems with accurately supplying the 3rd person singular -s at both data collection points. We also observed a be + base form structure, especially at the earlier stage, which appears to be an emergent past simple construction.

An Analysis of Iranian EFL Learners’ English Written Requestive E-mails

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatemeh Zarepour ◽  
Masoumeh Imani Saidloo
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Mail ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Institutional Communication ◽  
Iranian Students ◽  
Opening And Closing ◽  
Pragmatic Knowledge ◽  
E Mail ◽  
Pattern Coding

Electronic mail is one of the widely used medium for institutional communication particularly in academic institutions. The main focus of this study was determining requesting strategies and mitigating elements used by the Iranians’ EFL learners in English written requestive e-mails to their professors. This study also determined opening and closing strategies and supportive moves. To this aim, 61 e-mail were collected using DCT and analyzed by means of CCSARP (Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Pattern) coding scheme. The results showed that Iranian students, under the effect of L1 norms, used more direct strategies and to soften the force of requests they tended to use mitigating elements and pre-request supportive moves. It had been concluded that Iranian EFL students have lack of pragmatic knowledge; therefore, it is necessary to make them aware of norms of requestive e-mails written by English native speakers.

scholarly journals Syntactic Variability in Spoken English Discourse through Age Dimensions

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (1-2 (10)) ◽  
pp. 43-48
Author(s):  
Karen Velyan
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Adverbial Clauses

The present article demonstrates certain syntactic expressions of the informal spoken English discourse among native speakers belonging to different age groups. The data of our analysis demonstrate that the frequency of the application of linguistic variables differs among different age categories of native speakers. This is particularly expressed in the frequency of the use of English conjunctions and and but in terms of the frequent use of attributive clauses and adverbial clauses with because.

scholarly journals Pedagogical Practices to Aid Korean EFL Learners with Language Anxiety

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 200-206
Author(s):  
Jan Marie Catbagan ◽  
Adam Agbunag ◽  
Ian Atijera ◽  
Alexea Apigo ◽  
Jean Alecs Banaticla ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Psychological Factors ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Language Anxiety ◽  
Special Science ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Korean Efl Learners

In current research on EFL, a great deal of effort has been devoted to establishing the role of psychological factors in the success or failure of the learners. Among these psychological factors are affective factors with “anxiety” as one of their sub-categories. EFL students often have difficulty interacting with native speakers in school. Some EFL students avoid interactions with native speakers because of their frustration or embarrassment at their poor English. Teachers are best placed to engage in effective instructional practices when they can competently select and use high-quality resources and/or approaches that have been built around a strong evidence base. Conventionally, the objective of this descriptive study is to determine the Pedagogical Practices to Aid Korean EFL Learners with Language Anxiety of LCSSHS, how and why their teaching strategies help to aid them with their studies. The researchers floated questionnaires to the Korean Students of Lorma Colleges Special Science High School from Grade 7 to 4th year High School. The questionnaire used is a standardized test by Horwitz, E. K., Horwitz, M. B., & Cope, J (1986). Results indicated that lack of sufficient input for learning FL/L2 in the environment where the target language is not the first language, and lack of opportunities to frequently process the limited (sometimes filled with errors) input, can cause language anxiety at the output (speaking) stage for ESL/EFL learners. The researchers also formulated lists of pedagogies that will serve as tools to help not only the teachers but also the Korean EFL learners in their studies.

scholarly journals Iranian EFL Learners’ Realization of Condolence Speech Act: An Interlanguage Pragmatics Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-119
Author(s):  
Maryam Sharif ◽  
Lotfollah Yarmohammadi ◽  
Firooz Sadighi ◽  
Mortaza Yamini ◽  
Mohammad Sadegh Bagheri
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Placement Test ◽  
Interlanguage Pragmatics ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Completion Test ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Addition Level

This study was an attempt to compare and contrast the realization patterns of condolence speech act in English and Persian and to examine Iranian EFL learners’ realization of this speech act in English. The study was further interested in investigating whether Iranian EFL learners’ realization of condolence speech act is associated with their level of L2 proficiency. To this end, a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) was administered to 82 undergraduate Iranian EFL students in English. The participants were divided into three levels of language proficiency (elementary level, intermediate level, and advanced level) based on their scores on the Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT). For baseline comparisons, the EFL learners also received the translated version of the same DCT in Persian, and the English DCT was administered to 20 native speakers (NSs) of American English. The data were analyzed based on Elwood’s (2004) coding scheme. The results revealed that English and Persian NSs and Iranian EFL learners had access to the same condolence strategies, yet they differed in the semantic formulas, content, or forms they adopted to formulize their condolence expressions. In addition, level of L2 proficiency was found to be associated with Iranian EFL learners’ realization of condolence speech act. 

scholarly journals The Effects of Explicit/Implicit Instructions on the Development of Advanced EFL Learners’ Pragmatic Knowledge of English: Apology Speech Act

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 76
Author(s):  
Pasand Shark
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Placement Test ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Real Life Situation ◽  
Completion Test ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Pragmatic Knowledge

The current study explored the effects of explicit and implicit instructions on the development of advanced EFL learners’ pragmatic knowledge in terms of apology speech act. A total of 10 English native speakers and 40 advanced EFL students participated in this study. The Iraqi Kurdish EFL learners were selected from grade 12 in British International School in Erbil/ Iraq and their level was determined by Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT) proficiency test. These 40 participants were divided randomly into two; explicit group (EG) and implicit group (IG) Later, they were provided a Multiple-choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT) as a pre-test, which consisted of 10 different situations of apology and were based on the participants’ real-life situation, each situation included 3 options and only one answer could be selected which considered to be the most appropriate answer to them. The aim was to show if there were any significant differences between EG and IG. The English native speakers were given the same (MDCT) and were asked to choose the most appropriate answers. After the treatment, (EG) and (IG) were provided the same MDCT as a post-test. The findings revealed that the results of EG and IG were significant and they showed improvements after the treatment, and the EG outperformed the IG in post-test and delayed-test.

scholarly journals A Corpus-based Study of Shields in Conversations of Chinese EFL Learners

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 828
Author(s):  
Hongying Liu
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Engineering Majors ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Fuzzy Language ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
Efl Students

As an important part of the fuzzy language, hedges have become a common linguistic phenomenon and frequently applied in daily spoken language. In this study, the authors investigated the shields-using frequency of Chinese EFL learners from the Multi-modal Spoken English Corpus of Chinese Learners-Science & Engineering Majors (MSECCL-SEM). In this study, the classification of Prince et al. (1982) will be adopted. Six shields that are frequently used in spoken English have been searched, namely, “I think”, “in my opinion”, “maybe”, “according to”, “as we (all) know”, “it is said that”. Data are analyzed by the application of Wordsmith 6.0 and SPSS 25.0. Through this study, we attempt to explore the characteristics of shields in spoken English of EFL learners, especially the differences in terms of gender, various language proficiency and two different kinds of shields. Through this research, the authors hope to guide second language teaching and learning by finding out the use of shields in EFL students' daily spoken language and analyzing its potential causes.

Do you hear it now? A native advantage for sarcasm processing

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 400-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
SARA PETERS ◽  
KATHRYN WILSON ◽  
TIMOTHY W. BOITEAU ◽  
CARLOS GELORMINI-LEZAMA ◽  
AMIT ALMOR
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Relative Weight ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Arabic Speakers ◽  
Prosodic Cues

Context and prosody are the main cues native-English speakers rely on to detect and interpret sarcastic irony within spoken discourse. The importance of each type of cue for detecting sarcasm has not been fully investigated in native speakers and has not been examined at all in adult English learners. Here, we compare the extent to which native-English speakers and Arabic-speaking English learners rely on contextual and prosodic cues to identify sarcasm in spoken English, situating these findings within current cross-linguistic effects literature. We show Arabic speakers utilize the cues to a different extent than native speakers: they tend not to utilize prosodic information, focusing on contextual semantic information. These results help clarify the relative weight of contextual and prosodic cues in native-English speakers and support theories that suggest that prosody and emotion could transfer separately in second language learning such that one could transfer while the other does not.

scholarly journals Corpus-based approach to forming communication skills in the use of idioms

2021 ◽  
pp. e021044
Author(s):  
Liya F. Shangaraeva ◽  
Luiza R. Zakirova ◽  
Natalya A. Deputatova ◽  
Elina K. Kuznetsova
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Communication Skills ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Opportunity To Learn ◽  
Teaching Techniques ◽  
The Past ◽  
Promising Tool ◽  
National Corpus

The paper presents a corpus-based approach to forming communication skills which has been widely accepted nowadays. The methodological apparatus of corpus linguistics is a promising tool for language learning. The purpose of the present research is to study the potential of the Tatar National Corpus in forming communication skills in the use of Tatar idioms. Corpus-based approach has many applications in language learning from extending teaching techniques to arousing learners’ curiosity and improving communication skills. Traditionally, idioms are considered to be fixed expressions, which have a meaning that is not immediately obvious from looking at the meanings of the parts. It has become evident over the past decades that all sorts of creative modifications of idioms are quite frequent and can be varied. Most idioms are not totally opaque. Thus, they are open to the corpus-based approach. Moreover, idioms are typically based on metaphors, and metaphors as mental images are easily modifiable. The native speakers adapt them, combine them and can change parts of them. Undoubtedly, a corpus presents an opportunity to learn the authenticity of the idioms, used in reality without somebody’s selection or previous interpretation. Learning a foreign language on the basis of corpus data allows students to analyze lexical, grammatical and syntactical variations of idioms, to comprehend their semantics, and explore new variants of idioms, unrecorded in dictionaries yet.

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