Increasing Access to and Success in Higher Education and the Role of Ethical Leadership

2021 ◽  
pp. 151-169
Author(s):  
Sharada Neupane Lohani
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Educational Policy ◽  
Ethical Leadership ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Student Population ◽  
Assessment Criteria ◽  
Success In Higher Education ◽  
Fair Inclusion ◽  
Native Speakers Of English

This chapter discusses the importance of access and success in U.S. higher education, particularly positing how marginalized students still, in some ways, fail to both access higher education and succeed in it and stresses the need for the fair inclusion of marginalized student population into higher education, giving them fair chances to succeed. The chapter holds culturally irrelevant pedagogy, educational policy handicaps, income inequities, dwindling education funds, and biased assessment criteria which favor native speakers of English over others responsible for this state and that these should be addressed immediately. The chapter, leaning on scholars like R.W. Rebore, also emphasizes the role of ethical leadership as indispensable to ensure the execution of different policies and actions that align with notions of equity and justice. This will, the chapter argues, help ensure that the disadvantaged student population gets to enjoy the rewards of higher education as much as their white colleagues do.

scholarly journals Linguistic Markers and Stylistic Attributes of Hedging in English Academic Papers Written by Native and Non-Native Speakers of English

MANUSYA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Amara Prasithrathsint
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Linguistic Markers ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
English Academic Writing ◽  
The Impact

Hedging means mitigating words so as to lessen the impact of an utterance. It may cause uncertainty in language but is regarded as an important feature in English academic writing. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the style of academic writing in English with particular reference to the significant role of hedging and the linguistic features that mark it. The data was taken from academic articles in the humanities written by native speakers of English, Filipino speakers of English, and Thai speakers of English. It is hypothesized that speakers of English as a foreign language use fewer and different hedging devices than native speakers of English. The result of the analysis shows that the prominent linguistic markers of hedging are the auxiliaries may, might, could, the verbs suggest, appear, seem, and the adverbs perhaps and often. They are divided into three groups according to their stylistic attributes of hedging; namely, probability, indetermination, and approximation. The use of hedging found in the data confirms what Hyman (1994) says; i.e., that hedging allows writers to express their uncertainty about the truth of their statements. It is also found that English native speakers use hedges most frequently. The Filipino speakers of English are the second, and the Thai speakers of English use hedges the least frequency. This implies that hedging is likely to be related to the level of competence in English including knowledge of stylistic variation, and that it needs to be formally taught to those who speak English as a second or foreign language.

Learning English as a Foreign / Second Language: A Critique

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Dr. M. Jyothi
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Second Language ◽  
English Language ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Standard English ◽  
Back Ground ◽  
Native Speakers Of English

A knowledge of the English Language has become an object of importance in relation to its application in various walks of life. A complete command over the language could be possible where the varied meanings of usage of words, idioms and phrases according to the changing circumstances and situations are comprehensively elucidated to learners. In the twentieth century there is the phenomenon of the native speakers of English being outnumbered by the non-native speakers considerably. There are as many as 1500 millions users of English as a second language. Of these, an estimated 18 million users are in India. The Indian users of English are spread all over India. Though the users of English are spread all over India. English in India has a pan-Indian character. Though the users of English in India make use of the charastic role of English, yet there is no complete homogeneity. The variation in the use of English is partly due to the vast linguistic diversity in the country. It is estimated that there are as many as fifteen major languages and 1652 languages and dialects spoken in India. The ethnic variety of proficiency tend to contribute to the lack of homogeneity in Indians’ use of English. Against this back ground, Indian users of English language, lack intelligibility in communicating English language as it ought to be communicated like native speakers of English. This kind of situations often noticed by the native speakers who claim that they use only Standard English. Standard English is defined by H.C.Wyld as a certain vareity of English “spoken within certain social boundaries, with an extraordinary degree of uniformity, all over the country”. It is neither a regional nor social dialect, but its use confers a social change on the speakers. Every educated Englishmen speak it as it is the widely accepted dialect. It is the English spoken in southern England and it remains to be the language of the cultured and educated people living in south of the River Thames. It is the speech heard among men who have bee

scholarly journals Intelligibility: The Goal of Language Learning and Teaching

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Sayyed Rashid Shah ◽  
Abdullah Al-Bargi
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Post Intervention ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
The Impact

<p>This action research study investigates the intelligibility of Saudi EFL learners’ speeches in relation to the Lingua Franca Core (LFC). This study is carried out in an EFL class of 15 Saudi learners. One native and four non-native speakers of English performed the role of evaluators. A mixed-method approach was adopted to collect and analyze quantitative and qualitative data. The learners’ scores in their pre and post-intervention speeches led to the understanding of the impact of LFC on leaders’ speeches. The scores were awarded by five evaluators responding to a five-point Likert scale questionnaire while judging learners’ intelligibility. The results showed moderate improvement in the learners’ post-intervention speeches in terms of intelligibility. This procedure was followed by semi-structured interviews conducted with individual evaluators/listeners who rated post-intervention speeches as well-organized, lengthier and planned, delivered fluently and confidently in spite of insignificant improvement in the production of LFC features. Based on the findings, it can be recommended that LFC can have little or no impact on the learners’ pronunciation, thus intelligibility should be the goal of language teaching and learning in EFL settings.</p>

Effects of speech rate, phonetic background and gender on vowel reduction in the speech of nonnative speakers of English

2014 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bogna Brzezicha ◽  
Małgorzata Kul
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Nonnative Speakers Of English ◽  
And Gender

AbstractThe paper reports the results of a study investigating vowel reduction in the speech of non-native speakers of English. The aim was to unravel the links between reduction and speech rate, phonetic training and gender. We hypothesized that (i) Polish speakers of English reduce vowels; (ii) they speak slower than native speakers; (iii) the higher the rate, the higher the reduction degree; (iv) speakers with phonetic training reduce less than those lacking it; (v) male subjects reduce more than the female ones. In order to realize these aims, an acoustic analysis of vowels was performed on 2 hrs 42 mins of speech produced by 12 Polish speakers of English. The subjects were di-vided into an experimental group consisting of 6 students of English and a control group with 6 speakers who had no phonetic training. The obtained results positively verify that non-native speakers reduce vowels and cast some doubts on whether they speak slower than native speakers. The role of rate and gender could not be established due to statistical and methodological issues. The group with no phonetic training outperformed the group which underwent phonetic training, pointing instead to the role of exposure and perhaps music training in acquiring native-like reduction patterns.

scholarly journals The Double-Edged Sword of RP: the Contrasting Roles of a Pronunciation Model in both Native and Non-native Environments

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miroslav Ježek
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Received Pronunciation ◽  
The Given

Received Pronunciation (RP) is often studied as the pronunciation model in Great Britain and non-English-speaking countries separately. What my paper focuses on is the duality with which RP is essentially endowed: the role(s) in which it has to satisfy the needs of both native and non-native speakers of English. Whilst the claim that RP has changed recently goes unchallenged, the issue of reflecting these changes in the preferred transcription models is hotly debated. Upton’s model of RP is one that does include several new symbols, motivated by an attempt to ‘ensure that the description of a late twentieth century version the accent […] looks forward to the new millennium rather than back at increasingly outmoded forms’ (2001:352). I discuss the feasibility of adopting Upton’s model of RP as the pronunciation model in non-English speaking countries, where it is desirable to resolve the paradox that ‘most of our teaching is aimed at young people, but the model we provide is that of middle-aged or old speakers’ (Roach 2005: 394). The observations I make are largely based on my MA research, which is now being modified for the purposes of my Ph.D. I asked undergraduate students of English in England and the Czech Republic to evaluate seven voices ranging from the clearly regional to the unquestionably RP. The objective was to discover which sounds are considered to fall within the scope of RP by students in both countries, which approach avoids treating RP as though it were to include only the sounds ‘allowed by a preconceived model’ (Upton 2000: 78). Further, the respondents were asked to comment on the most salient features in the recordings: what they opted to comment on reveals a marked difference in the role of RP as a model accent in the given countries. Societies which lack a prestigious non-regional accent are often oblivious to the social connotations RP carries. Whilst it seems technically impossible to replace the model accent in all teaching materials all over the world, creating awareness of the fact that a rather outmoded model of RP found in many textbooks may not always be the best option is a necessary step towards ensuring that non-English speaking students are not only understood but that their speech will attract no adverse judgements.

Smiling synchronicity and gaze patterns in dyadic humorous conversations

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Gironzetti ◽  
Lucy Pickering ◽  
Meichan Huang ◽  
Ying Zhang ◽  
Shigehito Menjo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Gaze Patterns ◽  
Computer Mediated ◽  
Humor Studies ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Video And Audio

AbstractThis present article is part of a larger study on speaker-hearer allocation of attentional resources in face-to-face interactions. The goal of the paper is twofold: first, we present results concerning the degree of correlation, in computer-mediated conversation, between speaker’s timing and intensity of smiling when humor is either present or absent in the conversation. The results were obtained from the analysis of five dyadic interactions between English speakers that were video and audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed to establish a baseline of synchronicity of smiling among participants. From the study it emerged that conversational partners engaged in humorous conversations not only reciprocate each other’s smiling, but also match each other’s smiling intensity. Our data led to the identification of different smiling and non-smiling synchronic behaviors that point to the existence of a synchronous multimodal relationship between humorous events and smiling intensity for conversational partners. Second, in the last part of the paper, we argue for the need of a multimodal conversational corpus in humor studies and present the corpus that is being collected, annotated, and analyzed at Texas A&M University–Commerce. The corpus consists of humorous interactions among dyads of native speakers of English, Spanish, and Chinese for which video, audio, and eye-tracking data have been recorded. As part of this section of the paper, we also present some preliminary results based on the analysis of one English conversation, and some exploratory analysis of Chinese data, that show that greater attention is paid to facial areas involved in smiling when humor is present. This study sheds light on the role of smiling as a discourse marker (Attardo, S., L. Pickering, F. Lomotey & S. Menjo. 2013. Multimodality in Conversational Humor.

Development of interactional competence

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Machiko Achiba
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Zone Of Proximal Development ◽  
Proximal Development ◽  
Interactional Competence ◽  
Old Japanese ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Over Time

This study explores the development of the interactional competence of an 8-year-old, Japanese learner of English over three cooking sessions with native speakers of English at her home during her period of residence in Australia. The study draws upon Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development in order to elucidate the L2 child’s process of acquiring interactional competence in this unfamiliar social practice (i.e., cooking-relevant talk). The analysis reveals marked changes in the child’s participation pattern over time, moving from making relevant minimal responses to more initiated, and autonomous participation. The child recycled some of the interlocutors’ utterances from the previous sessions, showing that the earlier cooking sessions provided her with a linguistic challenge and became a resource of language learning for her. She also made use of a textual resource (i.e., the recipe) as a scaffold to move toward more autonomous participation. In addition, the role of the recipe became less central as her participation became increasingly more independent.

scholarly journals First language polysemy affects second language meaning interpretation: evidence for activation of first language concepts during second language reading

2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerrie E. Elston-Güttler ◽  
John N. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Critical Condition ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Response Times ◽  
First Language ◽  
Word Type ◽  
Second Language Reading ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Meaning Interpretation

The present study investigates the influence of first language (L1) lexicalization patterns on the processing of second language (L2) words in sentential contexts by advanced German learners of English. The focus was on cases where a polysemous word in the L1 is realized by independent words in the L2, e.g. German Blase realized by English bubble and blister. An anomaly detection task was used in which participants had to indicate whether a target word formed an acceptable completion to a sentence. The critical condition was where the other sense ( blister) of the translation equivalent Blase was appropriate, but the word ( bubble) did not complete the sentence meaningfully, e.g. 'His shoes were uncomfortable due to a bubble.' This was compared to a control condition in which neither sense of the L1 translation made sense, e.g. 'She was very hungry because of a bubble.' Factors of word type (noun vs. verb) and degree of relatedness of L1 senses (high vs. moderate) were also manipulated. Relative to native speakers of English, advanced German learners made more errors and displayed longer correct response times in the critical condition compared to the control condition. An effect of meaning relatedness was obtained for nouns but not verbs. The results are discussed in terms of the role of lexical-level translation connections in activating L1 concepts from L2 words, even in highly proficient learners and in all-L2 tasks.

scholarly journals Story Genres in SFL: A More Flexible Taxonomy. Extrapolating a Taxonomy of Story Genres in Spanish to Story Genres in English

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-22
Author(s):  
Grisel Salmaso
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Age And Gender ◽  
Generic Structure ◽  
Educational Backgrounds ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender Groups

The purpose of this article is: (i) to highlight the importance of makingthe generic structure of the story genres proposed by Plum (2004) and Martin and Rose (2008) more flexible within the Systemic Functional Framework (SFL); (ii) to take up a taxonomy proposed for story genres in Spanish (Salmaso 2009, 2010 a, 2010 b, 2012 a , 2014) which grants more flexibility to the generic structure of the five genres of the narrative family (‘recounts’, ‘narratives’, ‘anecdotes’, ‘exempla’ and ‘observations’) (Plum 2004, Martin and Rose 2008); (iii) to engage in a comparative study of the generic structure of one of the story genres: ‘anecdote’.To this end, nine instances of ‘anecdotes’ wereanalyzed. All of the ‘anecdotes’ are written by native speakers of English belonging to different age and gender groups but with similar educational backgrounds (higher education). The examples are analyzed following Salmaso (2010, 2014) and comparisons are drawn between some aspects of the analysis presented herein withthe analyses done following Plum’s (2004) and Martin and Rose’s (2008) taxonomies. Results show that it is possible to extrapolate the taxonomy of story genres in Spanish to English, in particular with respect to the genre ‘anecdote’ which is the focus of this article. Furthermore, this taxonomy enriches the analysis of ‘anecdotes’ andmay be simpler and clearer for applied purposes, such as teaching.

scholarly journals The medium of instruction in Ethiopian Higher Education Institutions: Kotebe Metropolitan University Case study.

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bekau Atnafu Taye
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Negative Attitude ◽  
Medium Of Instruction ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Lingua Franca

The aim of this article is to examine the medium of instruction in Ethiopian higher education institutions and the perceived consequences of the failure to learn a lingua franca. The study was qualitative and it used interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs). Five teachers and five students took part in the interviews and six teachers and six students participated in the FGDs. The findings of the study showed that the role of Amharic as a working language has not been given recognition despite the fact that Amharic was constitutionally granted to be a working language. Due to language barriers, students who are speakers of Oromipha and other languages from the Eastern and Western parts of Ethiopia suffer passivity in the classroom because they do not speak Amharic although Amharic has been taught as a subject in all regional states of the country. Increased identity politics seems to have generated a negative attitude towards Amharic, Ethiopia's former official lingua franca. Non-Amharic native speakers appeared to lose interest in learning Amharic while they were in primary and secondary schools. The absence of an official, common language which could be used for wider communication in higher education has resulted in having challenges among the student population.

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