scholarly journals MONOPHTHONGISATION OF ENGLISH DIPHTHONGS /aɪ/, /eɪ / and /Ͻɪ/ BY NATIVE SPEAKERS OF PASHTO

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 189-197
Author(s):  
Liaqat Iqbal ◽  
Asma Ali ◽  
Irfan Ullah ◽  
Ayaz Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Original Study ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Phonological Variation

Purpose of the study: Phonological variation in diphthongs, when spoken as a second or foreign language, is an accepted phenomenon. The diphthongs of English when pronounced by native speakers of Pashto go through certain changes and sometimes, monophthised. The purpose of the present study is to investigate phonological variation, i.e., monophthongisation of English diphthongs. Methodology: For this purpose, 20 Pashto speakers of both soft and hard dialects were taken and they were asked to pronounce the words having the target diphthongs at initial, medial and final position, followed and preceded by voiced and voiceless sounds. PRAAT was used to analyze the data to measure the possible variations in the sounds. Main Findings: The findings show that the phenomenon of monophthongisation of English diphthongs is common in the speaking of native speakers of Pashto. The study further shows that there is the lengthening of some of the sounds and deletion as well in certain contexts. This makes the variety of English spoken by the native speakers of Pashto a separate variety. Applications of this study: This study has applications for English language learners and teachers. The learners and teachers of English can benefit from this research and they can work on the problematic diphthongs that are usually monophthised. In this way, these sounds can be practised and the problems can be rectified. Novelty/Originality of this study: This is an original study where the problematic diphthongs have been considered and researched that how these English diphthongs are monophthised by the native speakers of Pashto making it a distinctive feature of the native Pashto speakers of English.

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.

Study of Consonant Pronunciations Errors Committed by EFL Learners

2019 ◽  
pp. 48-56
Author(s):  
Ali Akbar Khansir ◽  
Afsaneh Salehabadi
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Listening Skill ◽  
English Pronunciation ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Knowledge Of Language

As the topic suggests, the research paper presents Study of Consonant Pronunciations Errors Committed by EFL Learners. Error analysis always tries to resolve language learners’ problems in acquiring second or foreign language setting. Learning to English pronunciation is perhaps as important as learning listening skill, speaking, and spelling. Errors in English pronunciation create several problems for English language learners in their works. In other words, most of the English language errors of pronunciation are due to the lack of knowledge of language learners. However, all the students in our sample are of age group (16-25) at Bushehr language institute and they are all Iranian nationals. In addition, all of them were female learners. An English pronunciation (consonant) test was used to get information about the knowledge of the learners in English pronunciation. Findings of this article indicated that the first and second hypotheses of this article were accepted, but the third hypothesis was rejected. However, the findings of this paper showed that the Iranian EFL students have problem to pronounce English sounds correctly.

scholarly journals Multilingual access: Language hegemony and the need for discoverability in multiple languages

2018 ◽  
Vol 79 (11) ◽  
pp. 617
Author(s):  
Kelly McElroy ◽  
Laurie M. Bridges
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World

It is widely accepted that English is the current lingua franca, especially in the scientific community. With approximately 527 million native speakers globally, English ranks as the third most-spoken language (after Chinese and Hindu-Urdu), but there are also an estimated 1.5 billion English-language learners in the world.The preeminence of English reflects the political power of the English-speaking world, carrying privileges for those who can speak, write, and read in English, and disadvantages to those who cannot. This is also the case in scholarly communication. Linguist Nicholas Subtirelu identifies three privileges for native English speakers: 1) easier access to social, political, and educational institutions; 2) access to additional forms of capital; and 3) avoiding negative opinions of one’s speech.For example, we were both born into families that speak American English at home, we were surrounded by English books and media growing up, and our entire education was in English. Even defining who counts as a “native” speaker can be refracted through other social identities. As college-educated white Americans, our English is never questioned, but the same is not true for many equally fluent people around the world. 

The statistics of English in China

English Today ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 10-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rining Wei ◽  
Jinzhi Su
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
National Language ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
The World ◽  
Populous Country

In the mid-1980s, Crystal (1985) lamented that there were no reliable figures available for the number of learners to whom English is taught as a foreign language in many regions of the world, and that ‘China has always been excluded from the statistical reviews, because of the shortage of information from inside the country’ (Crystal, 1985: 9). More recently, Bolton (2008: 6) similarly notes that because of ‘the absence of accurate language surveys’ academics have to make educated guesses regarding the total number of those learning/knowing English. The figure of the total English learners/users in China has been estimated to be somewhere between 200 and 350 million (cf. Bolton, 2003: 48; Kachru, 1997; McArthur, 2003; Zhao & Campbell, 1995; Graddol, 2006: 95). Fortunately, a national language survey in China conducted at the turn of the century does provide some hard statistics on the number of English language learners/users in the world's most populous country, and also sheds some light on the realities of use of English and English proficiency among the Chinese people.

scholarly journals CHALLENGES AND BARRIERS IN FORMATION OF COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE AMONG ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

2018 ◽  
Vol 64 ◽  
Author(s):  
O.I. Bozhok ◽  
L.I. Bilins’ka ◽  
M.M. Gomola
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Individual Group ◽  
Common Problems

The aim of this research is to highlight some problems in teaching and learning English as a foreign language. As there exist different ways in mastering foreign languages there also exist many methods of their teaching. In the course of training many students face with spelling, inflection, pronunciation, grammar and other common problems which are constantly investigated and solved. According to the level of any individual group of students the approach of organization and conduction of the lesson should also be individual as learners make different mistakes. So teachers of any foreign language must not just get formal education but also be aware of modern techniques and approaches.

Learner-Initiated Language Learning Through Social Media Sites (SMSs)

2020 ◽  
pp. 69-88
Author(s):  
Rashad Ali Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Authentic Materials ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
New Research

Social media sites have become an essential part of communication and interaction all over the globe. They have also offered numerous opportunities to language learners across geographic borders, paralleled by a new research interest in their potential. The present study joins this relatively new line of research as it adds data from a sample of Yemeni English language learners about their uses and perceived benefits of using social media sites in English beyond formal education. The study came up with a conclusion that Yemeni EFL learners were actively participating in social media sites and were aware of their language-related benefits. The participants reported that social media sites were helpful for building various aspects of their English proficiency but found them most useful for their writing and reading skills, expanding their vocabulary, having access to authentic materials, and communicating with English speaking friends, both native and non-native speakers. They ranked their usefulness in the following order: Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter.

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