scholarly journals Paguettes & bastries: Novice French learners show shifts in native phoneme boundaries

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisa Tice ◽  
Melinda Woodley
Keyword(s):  
First Language ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Language Immersion ◽  
Phoneme Discrimination ◽  
French And English ◽  
Language Effects ◽  
Show Evidence ◽  
Beginning Learners ◽  
Phoneme Perception ◽  
Cross Language

A cohort of five beginning learners of French (L1 English) completed perception and production tasks in French and English on a weekly basis for four to six weeks. All participants were enrolled in a French language immersion program in Paris, France for the duration of the study. As controls, we also tested nine native English speakers who were not learning an L2. Participants regularly completed two perception studies over the six week period: phoneme discrimination and semantic priming, both in English. We find that over the testing period, French and English phoneme perception appeared to be tightly linked to L1 behavior. But, in the 3-5 week L2 exposure range, participants learning French begin to show evidence of category confusion for VOT in English (their L1) due to their L2 exposure to French. These early cross-language effects corroborate recent findings of phonetic shift in speech production of VOT, but demonstrate that the shift may also occur in perception. This suggests that second language exposure may have an effect on first language perception earlier than was previously thought.

scholarly journals Relations between phonological production, grammar and the lexicon in bilingual French-English children

2021 ◽  
pp. 136700692110319
Author(s):  
Margaret Kehoe ◽  
Margaret Friend ◽  
Diane Poulin-Dubois
Keyword(s):  
Logistic Regression ◽  
Free Play ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Canadian French ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Cross Domain ◽  
French And English ◽  
Language Effects ◽  
The One ◽  
Cross Language

Aims and objectives: This study examines multiple associations between language domains in bilingual children with a focus on phonology. Previous studies indicate within- but not cross-language associations between vocabulary and grammar in bilingual children. We investigate whether the relation between phonology and other language domains differs from the one reported between vocabulary and grammar. Methodology: Canadian French-English bilingual children ( n = 31), aged 31 months, participated in 2 free-play sessions, from which lexical, grammatical and phonological information was extracted. The children’s parents completed the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Developmental Inventories and its Canadian French adaptation providing additional information on vocabulary and grammar in each of the children’s languages. They also completed a questionnaire on their children’s exposure to French and English. Data analysis: Within and cross-language relations between phonology, vocabulary and grammar were investigated using correlational analyses and mixed logistic regression. Findings: Correlational analyses did not reveal significant cross-language relations between phonology, vocabulary and grammar. However, mixed logistic regression, which controlled for language exposure effects, indicated that phonology was influenced by vocabulary and grammar both within and across languages. Originality: This study is one of the first to study cross-domain relations involving phonology in young bilingual children. Implications: Overall, the findings suggest that phonology displays a pattern of relations that is different from other language domains engendering between-language effects due to a language-general component.

Cross-Language Effects in a Picture-Word Matching Task: An ERP Investigation

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Massol ◽  
Elena Berdasco ◽  
Nicola Molinaro ◽  
Jon Andoni Dunabeitia ◽  
Manuel Carreiras
Keyword(s):  
Matching Task ◽  
Language Effects ◽  
Cross Language

Long-distance wh-movement and long-distance wh-movement avoidance in L2 English: Evidence from French and Bulgarian speakers

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolay Slavkov
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
Processing Load ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Canadian French ◽  
Equivalent Length ◽  
Show Evidence ◽  
L1 Acquisition

This article investigates spoken productions of complex questions with long-distance wh-movement in the L2 English of speakers whose first language is (Canadian) French or Bulgarian. Long-distance wh-movement is of interest as it can be argued that it poses difficulty in acquisition due to its syntactic complexity and related high processing load. Adopting the derivational complexity hypothesis, which has so far been applied to long-distance (LD) wh-movement in L1 acquisition and child second language acquisition, I argue that adult L2 learners also show evidence that questions with LD wh-movement are often replaced by alternative utterances with lower derivational complexity. I propose that such utterances, which are sometimes of equivalent length and with similar meaning to the targeted LD wh-structures, are avoidance strategies used by the learners as an intermediate acquisition resource. That is, such strategies are used as an escape-hatch from the derivational complexity of LD wh-movement. Overall, the results of this research indicate that the link between the number and complexity of derivational steps in a given structure is a fruitful area with strong potential in the second language acquisition field.

scholarly journals PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSING OF STRESS BY NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS LEARNING SPANISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Ramsés Ortín ◽  
Miquel Simonet
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Phonological Processing ◽  
First Language ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Recall Task ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Auditory Stimuli ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
L1 English ◽  
Processing Stress

Abstract One feature of Spanish that presents some difficulties to second language (L2) learners whose first language (L1) is English concerns lexical stress. This study explores one aspect of the obstacle these learners face, weak phonological processing routines concerning stress inherited from their native language. Participants were L1 English L2 learners of Spanish. The experiment was a sequence-recall task with auditory stimuli minimally contrasting in stress (target) or segmental composition (baseline). The results suggest that learners are more likely to accurately recall sequences with stimuli contrasting in segmental composition than stress, suggesting reduced phonological processing of stress relative to a processing baseline. Furthermore, an increase in proficiency—assessed by means of grammatical and lexical tests—was found to be modestly associated with an increase in the accuracy of processing stress. We conclude that the processing routines of native English speakers lead to an acquisitional obstacle when learning Spanish as a L2.

First language effects on the identification and evaluation of second language speech

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-194
Author(s):  
Anne-France Pinget
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Language Aptitude ◽  
Content Type ◽  
It Impacts ◽  
Language Effects

Abstract In Belgium, Dutch as spoken by Francophone learners is relatively frequent in political, commercial or educational contexts. While the characteristics of this second language (L2) variety have been studied extensively, there is to date no systematic report of how it is evaluated by either native speakers of Dutch or non-natives. Previous studies conducted in other language contexts have found that non-natives tend to be very critical towards L2 accents similar to their own. The main goal of the present study is to investigate the extent to which the listener’s first language (L1) impacts ratings of the fluency, accentedness and comprehensibility of L2 Dutch as spoken by Francophone learners and how it impacts the identification of the speakers’ L1. Specifically, we compared ratings by three groups of listeners: Francophone learners of Dutch, native speakers of Belgian Dutch and native speakers of Netherlandic Dutch. Moreover, the extent to which three additional cognitive and environmental factors influence L2 ratings is examined: listeners’ familiarity with the L2 variety, their language aptitude and language proficiency. The results show that the majority of native and non-native listeners recognized the speakers’ L1 (French). Non-native listeners perceived L2 speech as less fluent, less comprehensible and more accented than natives did, which corroborates the previously reported critical attitudes towards a shared L2 accent. Moreover, subtle differences in accent and fluency ratings were found between the Netherlandic Dutch and the Belgian Dutch listeners. No clear effects of other cognitive and environmental factors appeared in the ratings.

scholarly journals On Taiwanese pupils’ ability to differentiate between English /l/ and /r/: A study of L1/L2 cross-language effects

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 500-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evelyn Eika ◽  
Yining Hsieh
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
South East Asia ◽  
Discrimination Experiment ◽  
Language Effects ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
Better Than

Students in South East Asia often struggle with English /l/ and /r/. This study therefore set out to examine how Taiwanese pupils’ perception of these sounds is influenced by cross-language effects. Most Taiwanese students have Mandarin as L1 and Taiwanese as L2 or vice versa, and English as L3. A same–different discrimination experiment was conducted to measure pupils’ ability to discriminate between phonetically close English /r/ and /l/ and Mandarin /ʐ / and /l/. The results show that L1-Mandarin pupils discriminate both the English consonant contrast and the Mandarin consonant contrast better than L1-Taiwanese pupils. Discrimination difficulty may be higher if two members of a contrast are perceived as belonging to a single L1 category.

Motion in first language acquisition: Manner and Path in French and English child language*

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 705-741 ◽  
Author(s):  
MAYA HICKMANN ◽  
PIERRE TARANNE ◽  
PHILIPPE BONNET
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Child Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Cognitive Factors ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Motion Events ◽  
English Child ◽  
French And English ◽  
Adults And Children

ABSTRACTTwo experiments compared how French vs. English adults and children (three to seven years) described motion events. Given typological properties (Talmy, 2000) and previous results (Choi & Bowerman, 1991; Hickmann, 2003; Slobin, 2003), the main prediction was that Manner should be more salient and therefore more frequently combined with Path (MP) in English than in French, particularly with four types of ‘target’ events, as compared to manner-oriented ‘controls’: motion up/down (Experiment I, N=200) and across (Experiment II, N=120), arrivals and departures (both experiments). Results showed that MP-responses (a) varied with events and increased with age in both languages, but (b) were more frequent in English at all ages with all events, and (c) were age- and event-specific among French speakers, who also frequently expressed Path or Manner alone. The discussion highlights several factors accounting for responses, with particular attention to the interplay between cognitive factors that drive language acquisition and typological properties that constrain this process from early on.

scholarly journals Pussy power

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-184
Author(s):  
Kai Huang ◽  
Elena Nicoladis
Keyword(s):  
Galvanic Skin Response ◽  
Emotional Response ◽  
First Language ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Age Of Acquisition ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
Skin Response ◽  
French And English ◽  
Taboo Words

Some previous research has suggested that words in multlinguals’ first language, particularly taboo words, evoke a greater emotional response than words in any subsequent language. In the present study, we elicited French-English bilinguals’ emotional responses to words in both languages. We expected taboo words to evoke higher emotional response than positive or negative words in both languages. We tested the hypothesis that the earlier that bilinguals had acquired the language, the higher the emotional responses. French-English bilinguals with long exposure to both French and English participated. Their galvanic skin response (GSR) was measured as they processed positive (e.g., mother), negative (e.g., war) and taboo (e.g., pussy) words in both French and English. As predicted, GSR responses to taboo words were high in both languages. Surprisingly, English taboo words elicited higher GSR responses than French ones and age of acquisition was not related to GSR. We argue that these results are related to the context in which this study took place (i.e., an English majority context). If this interpretation is correct, then bilinguals’ emotional response to words could be more strongly linked to recent emotional interactions than to childhood experiences.

English and Japanese interlanguage comprehension strategies: An analysis based on the competition model

1991 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshinori Sasaki
Keyword(s):  
First Language ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Word ◽  
Competition Model ◽  
Comprehension Strategies ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
Native Japanese Speakers ◽  
Japanese Speakers ◽  
Japanese Word

ABSTRACTIn an experiment based on the competition model, 12 native Japanese speakers (J1 group) and 12 native English speakers studying Japanese (JFL group) were requested to report sentence subjects after listening to Japanese word strings which consisted of one verb and two nouns each. Similarly, 12 native English speakers (E1 group) and 12 native Japanese speakers studying English (EFL group) reported the sentence subjects of English word strings. In each word string, syntactic (word order) cues and lexical-semantic (animacy/inanimacy) cues converged or diverged as to the assignment of the sentence subjects. The results show that JFL-Ss (experimental subjects) closely approximated the response patterns of J1-Ss, while EFL-Ss showed evidence of transfer from their first language, Japanese. The results are consistent with the developmental precedence of a meaning-based comprehension strategy over a grammar-based one.

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