scholarly journals Probing rhythmic patterns in english-L2

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-58
Author(s):  
Ronaldo Mangueira Lima Junior ◽  
Guilherme Duarte Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
The Other ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Categorical Classification

Languages are traditionally classified as mora-timed, syllable-timed or stress-timed in relation to their rhythmic patterns. The distinction between syllable-timed and stress-timed languages, however, lacks solid evidence in the literature. Syllable-timed languages typically have similar duration across unstressed and stressed syllables, whereas stress-timed languages tend to have similar inter-stress intervals, and unstressed syllables are shorter than stressed syllables. According to this categorical classification, English is a stress-timed language, thus having more reduction in unstressed vowels. Brazilian Portuguese, on the other hand, is typically classified as syllable-timed, and thus has little reduction of unstressed vowels. If these categorical rhythmic differences are correct, then acquiring the rhythmic patterns of English should be a challenging task to Brazilian learners, who are not expected to produce unstressed vowels with as much reduction as English native speakers. However, recent studies have found that the typology of rhythm is best understood as not categorical, but rather gradient, and that Brazilian Portuguese has a mixed classification, with more stress timing than would be expected from a traditional and categorical perspective. We therefore hypothesize that Brazilian learners of English should not have major difficulties reducing unstressed vowels, even when exposed to the second language later in life. To test this hypothesis, we analyze production data of native speakers of English (control group) and of Brazilian advanced learners of English. 

scholarly journals Probing rhythmic patterns in English-L2: a preliminary study on vowel reduction by Brazilian learners at different ages

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronaldo Mangueira Lima Jr ◽  
Guilherme Duarte Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Initial Exposure ◽  
Formal Instruction ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Categorical Classification ◽  
Preliminary Study

Languages are traditionally classified as mora-timed, syllable-timed or stress-timed in relation to their rhythmic patterns. The distinction between syllable-timed and stress-timed languages, however, lacks solid evidence in the literature. Syllable-timed languages typically have similar duration across unstressed and stressed syllables, whereas stress-timed languages tend to have similar inter-stress intervals, and unstressed syllables are shorter than stressed syllables. According to this categorical classification, English is a stress-timed language, thus having more reduction in unstressed vowels. Brazilian Portuguese, on the other hand, is typically classified as syllable-timed, and thus has little reduction of unstressed vowels. If these categorical rhythmic differences are correct, then acquiring the rhythmic patterns of English should be a challenging task to Brazilian learners, who are not expected to produce unstressed vowels with asmuch reduction as English native speakers. However, recent studies have found that the typology of rhythm is best understood as not categorical, but rather gradient, and that Brazilian Portuguese has a mixed classification, with more stress timing than would be expected from a traditional and categorical perspective. We therefore hypothesize that Brazilian learners of English should not have major difficulties reducing unstressed vowels, even when exposed to the second language later in life. To test this hypothesis, we analyze production data of native speakers of English (control group) and two groups of Brazilian advanced learners of English who differ in their age of initial exposure to formal instruction. The results show that neither group of learners is credibly different from the control group, which is consistent with the hypothesis that the mixed rhythm present in Brazilian Portuguese in fact facilitates the acquisition of the rhythmic patterns of English, a stress-timed language, at least in terms of unstressed vowel reduction.

scholarly journals A influência da idade na inteligibilidade e no grau de sotaque estrangeiro de alunos brasileiros de inglês de nível avançado

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronaldo Mangueira Lima Jr
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Foreign Accent ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Phonological Acquisition ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Exceptional Learners

Resumo Este estudo investigou a influência que a idade com a qual brasileiros começam a estudar inglês no Brasil pode ter na sua pronúncia ao final do curso avançado de inglês, mais especificamente na inteligibilidade e no grau de sotaque estrangeiro. Alunos que estavam cursando o último semestre de seus cursos e haviam começado o curso em diferentes idades foram gravados lendo um parágrafo e falando espontaneamente. Um grupo controle de falantes nativos de inglês também foi gravado desempenhando as mesmas tarefas. Os níveis de inteligibilidade e de grau de sotaque estrangeiro dos participantes foram avaliados por um painel de nove juízes, e os resultados mostram uma tendência de declínio na pronúncia com o aumento da idade de início do curso, com um grande declínio mesmo entre o grupo controle e os aprendizes mais novos. Alguns aprendizes excepcionais, com níveis de inteligibilidade e de grau de sotaque estrangeiro próximos aos dos falantes nativos, foram encontrados. Os resultados estão alinhados ao conceito de aquisição de segunda língua como sistema dinâmico, sob a qual os dados foram analisados. Palavras-chave: Aquisição de segunda língua. Aquisição fonológica. Pronúncia. Inglês-L2. Inteligibilidade.   The influence of age on intelligibility and rate of foreign accent of Brazilian advanced learners of English  Abstract This study has investigated the influence that the age in which Brazilian learners begin to study English in Brazil may have on their pronunciation at the end of their advanced English courses, especially on their intelligibility and rate of foreign accent. Learners who were in the last semester of their courses and who had begun studying at different ages were recorded reading a paragraph and speaking spontaneously. A control group of native speakers of English was also recorded performing the same tasks. Participants’ levels of intelligibility and of rate of foreign accent were assessed by a panel of nine judges and the results show a tendency of decline in their pronunciation as the age in which they began studying increases; with a sharp decline even between the control group and the earliest starters. A few exceptional learners, with intelligibility and rate of foreign accent levels close to those of the native speakers, were found. The results are aligned with the concept of second language acquisition as a dynamic system, under which the data were analyzed. Keywords: Second language acquisition. Phonological acquisition. Pronunciation. English as a foreign language. Intelligibility.

How native and non-native English speakers adapt to humor in intercultural interaction

2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy D Bell
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
The Other ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Intercultural Interaction ◽  
Second Language Speakers ◽  
Negative Message ◽  
Native Speakers Of English

AbstractHumor can often carry an implicit negative message and thus be potentially dangerous to use. In addition, it is culturally and linguistically complex and sophisticated. Because of these things, it poses a challenge for L2 (second language) speakers and we might expect to see attempts at humor failing and causing offense in intercultural interaction. This paper reports on a study that examined humor in interaction between native and non-native speakers of English and found that humor did not seem to be a cause of conflict because of adjustments speakers made to their speech and their situated interpretations of meaning. In general, taboo topics and potentially dangerous forms of humor were avoided and humor was carefully contextualized. Native speakers reported being careful about the vocabulary they used in creating humor and both sides appeared to approach humor in intercultural communication prepared to accommodate the other and with an attitude of leniency.

Wie Zijn 'Onze' Leerders?

1999 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 87-97
Author(s):  
Anne-Mieke Janssen-van Dieten
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
The One

There is an increasing awareness that the number of non-native speakers in the category of 'adult, highly educated, advanced L2-learners' is rapidly increasing. This paper presents an analysis of what it means to teach them a second language - whether it is Dutch or any other second language. It is argued that, on the one hand, conceptions about language learning and teaching are insufficiendy known, and that, on the other hand, there are many widespread misconceptions that prevent language teachers from catering adequately for people's actual communicative needs, and from providing tailor-made solutions to these problems.

scholarly journals Immediate and Distracted Imitation in Second-Language Speech: Unreleased Plosives In English

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arkadiusz Rojczyk ◽  
Andrzej Porzuczek ◽  
Marcin Bergier
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Word Boundary ◽  
Linguistic Difference ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Significant Rate ◽  
No Release

The paper investigates immediate and distracted imitation in second-language speech using unreleased plosives. Unreleased plosives are fairly frequently found in English sequences of two stops. Polish, on the other hand, is characterised by a significant rate of releases in such sequences. This cross-linguistic difference served as material to look into how and to what extent non-native properties of sounds can be produced in immediate and distracted imitation. Thirteen native speakers of Polish first read and then imitated sequences of words with two stops straddling the word boundary. Stimuli for imitation had no release of the first stop. The results revealed that (1) a non-native feature such as the lack of the release burst can be imitated; (2) distracting imitation impedes imitative performance; (3) the type of a sequence interacts with the magnitude of an imitative effect

Lexical and discourse factors in the second language acquisition of Spanish word order

2003 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 273-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tammy Jandrey Hertel
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Order Effects ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Spanish Word ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Beginning Learners

This study investigates the acquisition of Spanish word order by native speakers of English. Specifically, it considers the development of sensitivity to the distinct interpretations of subject-verb (SV) vs. verb-subject (VS) order, as determined by lexical verb class (unaccusative and unergative verbs) and discourse structure.Participants included a native speaker control group and learners at four proficiency levels. Results from a contextualized production task indicate that beginning learners transferred the SV order of English for all structures. Intermediate learners showed a gradual increase in the production of lexically and discourse-determined inversion, although their data was also characterized by indeterminacy and variability. The advanced learners demonstrated a sensitivity to the word order effects of unaccusativity and discourse factors, but also tended to overgeneralize inversion to unergative verbs in a neutral discourse context.

scholarly journals Phrase frequency, proficiency and grammaticality interact in non-native processing: Implications for theories of SLA

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kailen Shantz
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Grammatical Development ◽  
Developmental Shift ◽  
Reading Experiment ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Linguistic Input

This study reports on a self-paced reading experiment in which native and non-native speakers of English read sentences designed to evaluate the predictions of usage-based and rule-based approaches to second language acquisition (SLA). Critical stimuli were four-word sequences embedded into sentences in which phrase frequency and grammaticality were crossed in order to examine whether grammatical processing is modulated by phrase frequency. The magnitude of grammaticality effects for native speakers did not differ by phrase frequency, indicating that phrase frequency does not modulate native grammatical processing. Phrase frequency did, however, modulate the magnitude of non-native grammaticality effects. This modulating effect of phrase frequency on grammatical processing for non-native speakers depended on proficiency, showing a u-shaped change in the size of grammaticality effects relative to speaker proficiency. The overall pattern of change in grammaticality effects suggests a gradual developmental shift in grammatical processing from an initial reliance on phrase frequency to an eventual abstraction of generalizable rules from the linguistic input once sufficient experience has accumulated. Results suggest that second language (L2) grammatical development relies on a combination of both usage-based and rule-based knowledge and processing, rather than exclusive reliance on one or the other.

Morphosyntactic processing in advanced second language (L2) learners: An event-related potential investigation of the effects of L1–L2 similarity and structural distance

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Alemán Bañón ◽  
Robert Fiorentino ◽  
Alison Gabriele
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Structural Distance ◽  
Morphological Differences ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Syntactic Dependencies

Different theoretical accounts of second language (L2) acquisition differ with respect to whether or not advanced learners are predicted to show native-like processing for features not instantiated in the native language (L1). We examined how native speakers of English, a language with number but not gender agreement, process number and gender agreement in Spanish. We compare agreement within a determiner phrase ( órgano muy complejo ‘[DP organ-MASC-SG very complex-MASC-SG]’) and across a verb phrase ( cuadro es auténtico ‘painting-MASC-SG [VP is authentic-MASC-SG]’) in order to investigate whether native-like processing is limited to local domains (e.g. within the phrase), in line with Clahsen and Felser (2006). We also examine whether morphological differences in how the L1 and L2 realize a shared feature impact processing by comparing number agreement between nouns and adjectives, where only Spanish instantiates agreement, and between demonstratives and nouns, where English also instantiates agreement. Similar to Spanish natives, advanced learners showed a P600 for both number and gender violations overall, in line with the Full Transfer / Full Access Hypothesis (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1996), which predicts that learners can show native-like processing for novel features. Results also show that learners can establish syntactic dependencies outside of local domains, as suggested by the presence of a P600 for both within and across-phrase violations. Moreover, similar to native speakers, learners were impacted by the structural distance (number of intervening phrases) between the agreeing elements, as suggested by the more positive waveforms for within-phrase than across-phrase agreement overall. These results are consistent with the proposal that learners are sensitive to hierarchical structure.

scholarly journals O parâmetro do sujeito nulo na Aquisição do Português L2 (Null subject parameter in L2 Portuguese Acquisition)

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 133
Author(s):  
Gildete Rocha Xavier
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Null Subject Parameter ◽  
Native Speakers Of English

Este artigo tem como objetivo investigar como se dá a aquisição do sujeito nulo do Português Brasileiro L2 por falantes nativos de Inglês e Italiano em situação de imersão. A pesquisa desenvolve-se no âmbito da gramática gerativa, (CHOMSKY, 1981, 1986, 1993, 1995, 2000). As questões da pesquisa estão relacionadas à questão do acesso à Gramática Universal.PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Gramática gerativa. Princípios e parâmetros. Aquisição de segunda língua. Sujeito nulo. ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to investigate the acquisition of the null subject in Brazilian Portuguese as a second language by native speakers of English and Italian. The research was developed within the framework of Generative Grammar (CHOMSKY, 1981, 1986, 1993, 1995, 2000). This research attempted to investigate whether the L2 learners have access to the Universal Grammar.KEYWORDS: Generative grammar. Principles and parameters. Second language acquisition. Null subject.

scholarly journals The intelligibility of English verbs in the simple past tense

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-77
Author(s):  
Fernanda Delatorre ◽  
Rosane Silveira ◽  
Alison Roberto Gonçalves
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Native Speakers Of English

This study investigated the intelligibility of English verbs in the simple past inserted in sentences. The verbs were produced by two adult native speakers of English and six adult nonnative speakers, and they were transcribedby 13 adult Brazilian listeners. Results indicated that the intelligibility rate of regular verbs was similar to the irregular ones, and that the intelligibility of verbs produced by BP talkers was similar to the Spanish talkers. The intelligibility rate of German talkers, on the other hand, was lower than the intelligibility of BP and Spanish talkers but higher than the intelligibility of verbs produced by native speakers.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document