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

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 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. 

Whose? L2-English speakers' possessive pronoun gender errors

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 318-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
INÉS ANTÓN-MÉNDEZ
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Automatic Processes ◽  
Possessive Pronoun ◽  
Other Hand

This article reports the results of an experiment on production of his/her in English as a second language (L2) by proficient native speakers of Italian, Spanish, and Dutch. In Dutch and English, 3rd person singular possessive pronouns agree in gender with their antecedents, in Italian and Spanish possessives in general agree with the noun they accompany (possessum). However, while in Italian the 3rd person singular possessives overtly agree in gender with the possessums, in Spanish they lack overt morphological gender marking. Dutch speakers were found to make very few possessive gender errors in any condition, Spanish and Italian speakers, on the other hand, behaved like Dutch speakers when the possessum was inanimate, but made more errors when it was animate (e.g., his mother). Thus, even proficient L2 speakers are susceptible to the influence of automatic processes that should apply in their first language alone. The pattern of results has implications for pronoun production and models of bilingual language production.

scholarly journals Teaching the pronunciation of sentence final and word boundary stops to French learners of English: distracted imitation versus audio-visual explanations

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 377-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maelle Amand ◽  
Zakaria Touhami
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Phase 1 ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
The Other ◽  
Word Boundary ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Idiomatic Expressions ◽  
No Release ◽  
French And English

Studies on stop unrelease in second language acquisition have hitherto focused on the productions of Slavic learners of English (Šimačkova & Podlipsky, 2015) and experiments on Polish learners of English; the latter show the tendency to release stops on a more regular basis depending on the type of stop combinations (Rojczyk et al. 2013). In the present study, we aim to test the efficiency of audio-visual explanations as opposed to distracted imitation in pronunciation teaching amongst French learners of English. While unreleased stops are rather frequent in French and English - especially in plosives clusters (Byrd, 1993; Davidson, 2010), unreleased plosives in final positions are less common in French (Van Dommelen, 1983). During phase 1 of the experiment, three groups of 12 native French learners of English (level A1/A2, B1/B2 and C1/C2) were asked to read idiomatic expressions containing both homogeneous and heterogeneous sequences of voiceless stops straddled between words, namely, in sequences like “that cat” [dat˺ kat˺], and stops at the end of sentences like “I told him to speak” [tə spiːk˺]. In the second phase of the experiment, one half in each group was given a different task. The first group heard recorded versions of phase 1 sentences and before reading them out loud, counted up to five in their L1. Stimuli for imitation contained no release in the contexts under scrutiny. The other half had to watch a video explaining the phenomenon of unreleased stops with a production of phase-two expressions propped up by hand gestures. They were then asked to re-read the sentences given in phase 1. Based on these results the current study makes recommendations about what working environment should be prioritized in pronunciation teaching both in class and online (Kroger et al. 2010), and suggests ways to assess students and visually keep track of their progress.

scholarly journals Drifting towards Ambiguity: A Closer Look at Palatalisation in L2 Irish

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 55-69
Author(s):  
Marina Snesareva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
Good Knowledge ◽  
Front Vowel ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Everyday Communication ◽  
At Home

This article focuses on palatalisation in the Irish spoken by Dublin-based bilinguals for whom English is their first language. All informants had a good knowledge of both Irish and English; however, Irish was their second language, used less frequently in everyday communication. Most Dubliners start learning Irish at school; only a few informants had the opportunity to speak it at home, but even then the language was not used outside class on a regular basis. The study showed that most deviations in the distribution of palatalised and non-palatalised consonants in the speech of Dublin bilinguals were of the palatalisation absence type. Such deviations were especially frequent next to back and mid-back vowels. On the other hand, a palatalised consonant was often pronounced instead of a non-palatalised one next to a front vowel. Previous research suggests that these tendencies also apply in weak positions (Snesareva 2014a; 2014b). Consequently, even though in traditional Irish dialects palatalisation is not position-bound, in the speech of Dublin bilinguals there is correlation between the palatalisation of a consonant and the quality of its neighbouring vowel. However, such consonant distribution was not encountered in all contexts: even those informants whose speech had deviations used palatalisation properly in some contexts. This means that position-bound use of palatalisation is still a tendency rather than an entrenched feature of Dublin Irish.

scholarly journals Strategies of Impoliteness in Japanese Spontaneous Talks

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Calvetti
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
The Other ◽  
Japanese Language ◽  
Bulletin Board ◽  
Bulletin Board System ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Board System

If, on the one hand, Japanese language, with its richness of marked allomorphs used for honorifics, has been considered one of the most attractive languages to investigate the phenomenon of politeness, on the other hand, a very small number of studies have been devoted to Japanese impoliteness, most of them limited to BBSs’ (Bulletin Board System) chats on Internet. Interestingly, Japanese native speakers declare, in general, that their language has a very limited number of offensive expressions and that ‘impoliteness’ is not a characteristic of their mother tongue. I tried to analyse some samples of spontaneous conversations taken from YouTube and other multimedia repertoires, in order to detect the main strategies used in Japanese real conversations to cause offence or to show a threatening attitude toward the partner’s face. It seems possible to state that, notwithstanding the different ‘cultural’ peculiarities, impoliteness shows, also in Japanese, a set of strategies common to other languages and that impoliteness, in terms of morphology, is not a mirror counterpart of keigo.

Effects of Handedness and Script Types on Visual-Field Differences in the Mental Addition Task

1996 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-376
Author(s):  
Kazuhito Yoshizaki ◽  
Takeshi Hatta ◽  
Kumiko Toyama
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Right Visual Field ◽  
Cerebral Lateralization ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Mental Addition ◽  
Addition Task ◽  
Group A ◽  
The Difference

The effects of handedness and script types on the difference in performance in a mental addition task by visual field were examined. Right-handers, nonfamilial left-handers, and familial left-handers who were all native speakers of Japanese were asked to add two numbers presented in the visual half-fields tachistoscopically. The two numbers were displayed either to one visual field (left or right visual field) or to the center. The numbers were displayed in Arabic, in Kanji, or in Arabic and Kanji numerals (one in Arabic and the other in Kanji: Mixed stimuli). The subjects were asked to add the two numbers and to state the sum orally. In the righthanders group, a right visual-field advantage was found for the Arabic condition but not for the Kanji or Mixed stimuli. On the other hand, in the nonfamilial and familial left-handers group, no visual-field difference in any of the conditions was found. These findings suggest that pattern of cerebral lateralization for familial and nonfamilial left-handers is the same but it is different from that of right-handers.

Universals, innateness and explanation in second language acquisition

2004 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 682-703 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred Eckman
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
The Other ◽  
Language Typology ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Typological Approach

This paper considers the question of explanation in second language acquisition within the context of two approaches to universals, Universal Grammar and language typology. After briefly discussing the logic of explaining facts by including them under general laws (Hempel & Oppenheim 1948), the paper makes a case for the typological approach to explanation being the more fruitful, in that it allows more readily for the possibility of ‘explanatory ascent’, the ability to propose more general, higher order explanations by having lower-level generalizations follow from more general principles. The UG approach, on the other hand is less capable of such explanatory ascent because of the postulation that the innate, domain-specific principles of UG are not reducible in any interesting way to higher order principles of cognition (Chomsky 1982).

Does the presence of formulaic language help or hinder second language listeners’ lower-level processing?

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 338-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Yeldham
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Difficulty Level ◽  
Formulaic Language ◽  
Text Difficulty ◽  
Proficiency Level ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
L2 Listening ◽  
The One

This study examined the influence of formulaic language on second language (L2) listeners’ lower-level processing, in terms of their ability to accurately identify the words in texts. On the one hand, there were reasons for expecting the presence of the formulas to advantage the learners, because the learners would process these formulaic words more holistically than the surrounding non-formulaic words. On the other hand, though, because formulas are commonly uttered in more reduced fashion than their surrounding non-formulaic words – and L2 learners commonly face challenges understanding reduced speech – it was possible that the formulas would negatively impact the learners’ processing. The participants listened to four texts, which were paused intermittently for them to transcribe the final stretch of words they had heard prior to each pause. The researcher had previously categorized these words as being part of formulas or non-formulas through corpus analysis. By comparing the listeners’ identification of the formulaic and the non-formulaic language, the study found that formulaic language facilitated their lower-level listening. This degree of advantage, however, varied across text difficulty level and listener proficiency level. Based on the findings, implications for L2 listening instruction are discussed.

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.

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