scholarly journals Relevance and L2 Learners’ Interpretation of Reflexive Anaphora in VP-Ellipsis: An Exploration of the Relationship between Relevance Theory and Typological Universals

2005 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-194
Author(s):  
Hongguang Ying
Keyword(s):  
Relevance Theory ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Vp Ellipsis ◽  
The Relationship

Interpretation of reflexive anaphora in second language VP-ellipsis: Relevance Theory and paradigms of explanation

2004 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 256-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xosé Rosales Sequeiros
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Comprehension Strategies ◽  
Processing Cost ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Vp Ellipsis ◽  
Processing Effort ◽  
Maximal Relevance ◽  
The Impact

This article explores second language (L2) learners’ interpretation of reflexive anaphora in VP-Ellipsis by critiquing the work of Ying (2003), who applies Relevance Theory to explain elliptical anaphora. It argues against four claims made in his analysis: that L2 learners apply maximal relevance in anaphoric interpretation; that a procedural account of the impact of referential sentences on VP-ellipsis disambiguation is appropriate; that an account of anaphoric interpretation preferences should be based on processing cost; and that differences in experimental results between intermediate and advanced L2 learners are due to the use of different comprehension strategies (see Sperber, 1994). Instead, it argues: that it is not maximal but rather optimal relevance that is at work; that the key in disambiguating anaphora in VP-elliptical sentences is the achievement of an optimally relevant interpretation; that the role of contextual assumptions in anaphora resolution is to enable L2 learners to derive enough contextual effects to make it worth their effort and, in doing so, identifying (as a side effect) what they take to have been the intended referent; and that what is crucial in the use of comprehension strategies is not processing effort, but rather consistency with the second principle of relevance. Overall, all these factors provide the basis for an alternative and more comprehensive explanation of the experimental results discussed by Ying.

scholarly journals SPOKEN AND WRITTEN REPRESENTATION OF NUMBER IN L2 CATALAN INDEFINITE DETERMINER PHRASES

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 321-350
Author(s):  
Liliana Tolchinski ◽  
Naymé Salas ◽  
Joan Perera
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Literacy Instruction ◽  
First Language ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Similar Time ◽  
Language Background ◽  
Indefinite Article ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
L1 Influence ◽  
The Relationship

The study explores the relationship that second language (L2) learners of Catalan establish between the spoken and the written representation of number inflection within an indefinite-article Determiner Phrase (DP); and it also addresses first language (L1) influence in this processo Five- to eight-year-olds, speakers of varieties of Chinese and Moroccan Arabic, with differing degrees of literacy instruction in their home countries —but similar time of residence in Catalonia— participated in the study. The children carried out individual semi-structured tasks designed to evaluate comprehension and production of changes in number inflections (un cotxe ‘a car’; uns cotxes ‘a-pl cars ’). Results showed that, irrespective of children’s language background, comprehension preceded production of singular and plural indefinite-article DPs; spoken representation was easier than written representation of number changes; and production of plural indefinite-article DPs was more difficult than its singular counterpart. Despite typological differences between the languages compared, both groups of L2 learners, even the Catalan control group, underwent similar processes.

scholarly journals On the Relationship between Iranian L2 Teachers’ Pedagogical Beliefs and L2 Learners’ Attitudes

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 56
Author(s):  
Maryam Sharajabian ◽  
Mahmood Hashemian
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Survey Design ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Pedagogical Beliefs ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Teachers Beliefs ◽  
Efl Teachers ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Language Schools ◽  
The Relationship

<p>The present study employed a descriptive survey design to investigate L2 learners’ attitudes towards language learning, and the possible effects of teachers’ beliefs on learners’ attitudes. Participants were chosen from among 2 groups: Twenty EFL teachers were asked to take part in this study and 80 from a pool of 213 learners at 2 language schools who were chosen to fill out the learners’ attitude questionnaire. The teachers were subsequently placed at/in 3 groups of high-opinion group (HOG), moderate group (MG), and low-opinion group (LG), and the attitudes of the learners of these 3 groups of teachers were compared to uncover the possible impact of teacher beliefs on learner attitudes. The relationship between the teachers’ beliefs and the learners’ attitudes was analyzed, and it that showed there was a statistically significant difference in the learners’ attitude scores for HOG, MG, and LOG. Analysis of the data showed that the learners of the HOG teachers gained significantly higher attitude scores than the learners of the MG teachers. Simply put, it was found that EFL teachers’ beliefs can influence their learners’ attitudes about language learning. Language teachers should learn about the effect of their beliefs and experience it and become more aware of practicing them.</p>

Language learning strategy and language learning achievement

2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-171
Author(s):  
Jia Lin
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Strategy Use ◽  
Learning Achievement ◽  
Behavioral Predictors ◽  
Language Learning Strategy ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Post Hoc ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
One Way Anova

Abstract This study investigates the relationship between language learning achievement and the use of language learning strategy among intermediate Chinese as a second language (L2) learners. A total of 62 students from an intermediate Chinese course participated in this study. Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) (Oxford, 1989) was used to assess participants’ strategy use frequency. Correlation, one-way ANOVA, and ANOVA post hoc tests were performed for data analysis. Key findings suggest that: (1) initiative, communicative orientation, and risk taking are good behavioral predictors of Chinese L2 achievement; (2) medium-achieving learners are more active in using strategies, especially cognitive and memory strategies. These investigations of strategy use within and across achievement groups revealed both Chinese L2 learners’ characteristics in strategy use, and also the problems and challenges that learners with different achievement levels encounter. Multiple pedagogical implications are provided at the end of this article.

Developmental stages in receptive grammar acquisition: A Processability Theory account

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aafke Buyl ◽  
Alex Housen
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Developmental Stages ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
Grammar Acquisition ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Processability Theory ◽  
Grammar Knowledge ◽  
The Relationship

This study takes a new look at the topic of developmental stages in the second language (L2) acquisition of morphosyntax by analysing receptive learner data, a language mode that has hitherto received very little attention within this strand of research (for a recent and rare study, see Spinner, 2013). Looking at both the receptive and productive side of grammar acquisition, however, is necessary for a better understanding of developmental systematicity and of the relationship between receptive and productive grammar acquisition more widely, as well as for the construction of a comprehensive theory of second language acquisition (SLA). In the present exploratory study, the receptive acquisition of L2 English grammar knowledge is studied cross-sectionally within a Processability Theory (PT) framework (Pienemann, 1998, 2005b), a theory of L2 grammar acquisition which makes explicit predictions about the order in which L2 learners learn to productively process different morphosyntactic phenomena. Participants are 72 francophone beginning child L2 learners (age 6–9) acquiring English in an immersion program. The learners’ ability to process six morphosyntactic phenomena situated at extreme ends of the developmental hierarchy proposed by PT was tested by means of the ELIAS Grammar Test, a picture selection task. Overall, the developmental orders obtained through implicational scaling for the six target phenomena agreed with PT’s predictions, suggesting that similar mechanisms underlie the acquisition of receptive and productive L2 grammar processing skills.

scholarly journals FRAME MARKERS AND COHERENCE IN L2 ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 46-71
Author(s):  
Višnja Pavičić Takač ◽  
Sanja Vakanjac Ivezić
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Academic Literacy ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Language Knowledge ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
The Relationship

Academic literacy includes the learners’ ability to use their language knowledge to form articulate texts. In communicative competence models this ability is subsumed under the notion of discourse competence which includes the concepts of cohesion and coherence. Starting from the premise that constructing a coherent text entails efficient use of metadiscourse (i.e. means of explicit text organisation) this study focuses on elements referring to discourse acts, text sequences or stages called frame markers, i.e. items providing framing information about elements of the discourse and functioning to sequence, label, predict and shift arguments, making the discourse clear to readers or listeners (Hyland 2005). It analyses patterns of L2 learners’ use of frame markers, compares them to English native speakers’, and explores the relationship between frame markers and coherence. The corpus includes 80 argumentative essays written by early undergraduate Croatian L2 learners of English at B2 level. The results indicate that foreign language learners’ argumentative essays are characterized by an overuse of a limited set of frame markers. Finally, implications are drawn for teaching and further research.

scholarly journals Nested presuppositions: A manipulative type of informative presupposition

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-44
Author(s):  
Mohyi Eldeen Maziad
Keyword(s):  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Cognitive Conflict ◽  
Information Structures ◽  
Cognitive Dynamics ◽  
Strategic Goals ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Processing Mechanisms ◽  
Theoretical Foundations ◽  
Pragmatic Presupposition

This paper introduces the new pragmatic concept of Nested Presuppositions (NestPs) and develops a relevance- theoretic account that explains its cognitive dynamics and manipulative mechanisms. The first section lays necessary theoretical foundations, by defining pragmatic presupposition, compiling a taxonomy of the types of presupposition and their triggers, identifying and critiquing research gaps in eight of the most relevant studies and drawing the conclusion that none of the existing definitions or accounts of pragmatic presupposition can adequately capture the manipulative characteristics and mechanisms of the instances of informative presupposition at issue. In section two, I shall introduce the concept of NestPs as the filler of those gaps, grounding it in Textual Rhetoric and Relevance Theory and highlighting its defining characteristic of information structures, i.e. how the message is segmented and its degrees of prominence and suppression are assigned in order to achieve strategic goals. I further problematize the relationship between NestPs, on the one hand, and informativeness and manipulation, on the other, in light of Gricean and Relevance-Theoretic linguistics, establishing that NestPs are inherently manipulative. I finally expound the manipulative dynamics of NestPs, in terms of the information processing mechanisms they employ, by capitalizing on the concepts of Ostensive Stimulus, Cognitive Principle of Relevance, Principle of Optimal Relevance and Comprehension Procedure, and suggesting the two new mechanisms of Cognitive Underpassing and Structure-Content Cognitive Conflict.

scholarly journals Amount of Vocabulary Required to Grasp Comprehension in a Text

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 33-42
Author(s):  
Jalal H. Albaqshi
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Intensive English ◽  
Sample Group ◽  
Correlation Test ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
The Relationship

This study addresses the relationship between vocabulary and reading comprehension and Showing some other factors which affect the comprehension beside vocabulary. A descriptive analysis and correlation test were applied to show why some L2 learners cannot understand a gist of a text though they are familiar to many vocabulary. The sample group in this study consisted of 64 male Saudi learners. They were between the ages of 18 to 22 years old and had been studying English in formal settings for six years in the form of moderate doses of input but not intensive English. This study highlights the percentage coverage of vocabulary in a text rather than the whole learners ‘reservoir of vocabulary in order to understand the general ideas of a text. Results show that L2 learners need to be familiar at least with 62% to 71% of vocabulary in a text to grasp the gist of whole passage. This result helps to write down several implications for researchers and teachers of English as a second and foreign language.       

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