scholarly journals Descriptions of Difficult Conversations between Native and Non-Native English Speakers: In-group Membership and Helping Behaviors

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ray Young ◽  
William Faux
Keyword(s):  
Group Membership ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Helping Behavior ◽  
Role Expectations ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
State University ◽  
Difficult Conversations ◽  
Group Member

This study illustrated the perceptions of native English speakers about difficult conversations with non-native English speakers. A total of 114 native English speakers enrolled in undergraduate communication courses at a regional state university answered a questionnaire about a recent difficult conversation the respondent had with a non-native English speaker. A thematic analysis of their responses revealed that helping occurred when the non-native speaker was considered to be a customer, in-group member, or "fellow human being." Helping behavior was characterized by actions that fostered understanding between the interactants and aided the non-native speaker in completion of a task or goal. Non-helping occurred when the non-native speaker was considered to be an out-group member violating role expectations or cultural norms.

Listening with an attitude: A model of native-speaker comprehension of non-native speakers in the United States

2002 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 419-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEPHANIE LINDEMANN
Keyword(s):  
Direct Relationship ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
The United States ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
English Speaker ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Poor Comprehension ◽  
The Relationship

This study investigates whether there is a relationship between negative attitudes toward non-native speakers and poor comprehension of those speakers. Twelve native English speakers whose attitudes toward Koreans had been assessed were asked to complete an interactional map task paired with native Korean speakers. In the task, some but not all of those who had been assessed as having negative attitudes toward Koreans were found to use either strategies that were described as problematizing their partners' utterances, or strategies that were described as avoidance. All participants completed the map task reasonably successfully except where the native English speaker used avoidance strategies, suggesting that the relationship between attitude and comprehension is mediated by the native speaker's choice of strategies. However, there appeared to be a direct relationship between attitude and perceived success of interactions, which may ultimately have the same consequences for interactants as if the relationship were between attitude and actual success.

scholarly journals The expression and conceptualization of motion through space and manner of motion in Arabic and English: A comparative analysis

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 57-76
Author(s):  
Ghadah AlMurshidi
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Analytic Approach ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Arabic Speakers ◽  
Arabic And English ◽  
Typical Satellite ◽  
Manner Verbs

This paper is a comparative analysis of English and Arabic expressions of motion events using narratives of Chafe’s (1980) Pear Story elicited from native speakers of both languages. The native‐speaker English narratives were elicited by Feiz (2007). A discourse analytic approach is used to examine how speakers of Arabic and English indicate motion through path, manner, and ground. The data consist of 45 elicited oral narratives. The narratives are all based on Chafe’s (1990) Pear Film, which is a 6‐minute film with many characters, but no dialogue. Fifteen of these are in Arabic, fifteen in English by Arabic speakers, and fifteen in English by native English speakers. The findings of this study indicate that Arabic is a verb‐framed language (Talmy, 2007). It has a variety of path verbs such as yadheh “fall,” yamer “pass,” and yenzel “descend.” Furthermore, the stative verb is used frequently in Arabic by all the Arabic speakers to describe a static location (Feiz, 2007). The total number of uses of the stative verb in Arabic is 71 tokens. In addition, the verb yati “come” is used in Arabic to introduce newcomers, as it is in English (Feiz, 2007). However, the use of the manner verbs in Arabic, such as etkhardhaf “tumbles,” is rare. English is considered a typical satellite‐framed language. It has a large number of manner verbs (Slobin, 2003). Some deictic verbs are used with path satellites (e.g., comes along). Manner verbs are also used with path satellites (e.g., climb down and walk back). Multiple path satellites also appear in English (e.g., came down off and climbed back up in).

scholarly journals Native and non-native speaker processing and production of contrastive focus prosody

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chikako Takahashi ◽  
Sophia Kao ◽  
Hyunah Baek ◽  
Alex HL Yeung ◽  
Jiwon Hwang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Strong Correlations ◽  
Contrastive Focus ◽  
Prosodic Cues ◽  
The Us ◽  
Mandarin Speakers ◽  
Comparison Of The Results

Several studies have found that the presence of L+H* accent on a contrastive adjective assists native-speaking listeners in narrowing the referent of the noun following the adjective (e.g., Ito & Speer 2008, Weber et al. 2006). Our study addresses two questions: whether non-native speakers use prosodic cues in processing, as previous studies have shown for native speakers, and whether there is a relationship between the use of prosodic cues in processing and in production. Twenty-one Mandarin speakers living in the US and twenty-one native English speakers participated in two tasks investigating their processing and production of prosodic cues to contrastive focus. In the processing task, participants responded to the same recorded instruction containing an accented adjective in different contexts, in which the adjective was either contrastive (and therefore appropriately accented) or was repeated and followed by a contrasting noun, making focus accent on the adjective inappropriate. In the production task, participants guided an experimenter to place colored objects on a whiteboard, with some contexts designed to elicit contrastive focus. Overall results indicate that the Mandarin speakers made use of prosodic cues in both processing and production, although their focus prosody production differed from that of native speakers in several respects. Comparison of the results in the two experiments did not find strong correlations between processing and production. These results suggest that there is considerable heterogeneity even among native speakers in the use of prosodic cues in processing and production, and even those who do not use prosodic cues in processing may use them in production.

The endonormative standards of European English

2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rias van den Doel ◽  
Hugo Quené
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Internet Survey ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
European Continent ◽  
Global Ratings ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Inner Circle

It has been asserted that a common European variety of English is currently emerging. This so-called “European English” is claimed to be the result of convergence among non-native English speakers, and to reflect a gradual abandonment of Inner Circle norms, which are deemed to be increasingly irrelevant to non-native speakers’ communicative needs. Evidence is so far lacking that Europeans judge each other’s proficiency in English by anything other than native-speaker standards — particularly as regards pronunciation. Nonetheless, it would be interesting to establish whether European non-native speakers of English demonstrated convergence when evaluating the pronunciation of fellow Europeans, and in this respect deviated significantly not only from Inner Circle English native speakers but also from non-European judges. To investigate this possibility, a large-scale Internet survey was carried out in which different groups of users of English (native and non-native, European and non-European, N = 373) evaluated the pronunciation features of five European accents of English, by means of global ratings and detailed responses. The observed convergence of native and non-native judges’ responses does not correspond with emerging endonormative pronunciation standards on the European continent. Hence these findings fail to support the claims about an emerging European English variety.

scholarly journals Perceived Phonological Overlap in Second-Language Categories: The Acquisition of English /r/ and /l/ by Japanese Native Listeners

Languages ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 4
Author(s):  
Michael D. Tyler
Keyword(s):  
Goodness Of Fit ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Discrimination Accuracy ◽  
Japanese Learners Of English ◽  
Immersion Experience ◽  
Phonological Categories ◽  
Japanese Learners ◽  
The Continuum

Japanese learners of English can acquire /r/ and /l/, but discrimination accuracy rarely reaches native speaker levels. How do L2 learners develop phonological categories to acquire a vocabulary when they cannot reliably tell them apart? This study aimed to test the possibility that learners establish new L2 categories but perceive phonological overlap between them when they perceive an L2 phone. That is, they perceive it to be an instance of more than one of their L2 phonological categories. If so, improvements in discrimination accuracy with L2 experience should correspond to a reduction in overlap. Japanese native speakers differing in English L2 immersion, and native English speakers, completed a forced category goodness rating task, where they rated the goodness of fit of an auditory stimulus to an English phonological category label. The auditory stimuli were 10 steps of a synthetic /r/–/l/ continuum, plus /w/ and /j/, and the category labels were L, R, W, and Y. Less experienced Japanese participants rated steps at the /l/-end of the continuum as equally good versions of /l/ and /r/, but steps at the /r/-end were rated as better versions of /r/ than /l/. For those with more than 2 years of immersion, there was a separation of goodness ratings at both ends of the continuum, but the separation was smaller than it was for the native English speakers. Thus, L2 listeners appear to perceive a phonological overlap between /r/ and /l/. Their performance on the task also accounted for their responses on /r/–/l/ identification and AXB discrimination tasks. As perceived phonological overlap appears to improve with immersion experience, assessing category overlap may be useful for tracking L2 phonological development.

scholarly journals ‘The moustache’ returns: referential metonymy acquisition in adult learners of English as an additional language (EAL)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
JOSEPHINE BOWERMAN ◽  
INGRID LOSSIUS FALKUM ◽  
NAUSICAA POUSCOULOUS
Keyword(s):  
Adult Learners ◽  
Time Pressure ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
Time Constraints ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Japanese Adult ◽  
L1 Acquisition

abstract Referential metonymy, e.g. ‘the moustache (= man with a moustache) sits down first’, appears early in L1 acquisition (Falkum, Recasens & Clark, 2017). Yet how does it emerge in pragmatically mature but linguistically developing adult L2 learners? We used one comprehension and two production tasks, based on Falkum and colleagues (2017), to investigate metonymy abilities in 34 Japanese adult learners of English as an additional language (EAL) and a control group of 31 native English speakers. We also examined how time constraints and exposure to examples of referential metonymy affected production. In the comprehension task, both EAL-learner and native-speaker participants chose metonymic readings at above chance levels. In both production tasks, all participants produced innovative metonyms. Additionally, the findings indicate that, in L2, exposure to examples dramatically increases metonymy production, while time pressure decreases it. The results suggest that participants can both comprehend and produce novel metonyms in L2, with a possible explicitness vs. production costs trade-off.

An analysis of business English coursebooks from an ELF perspective

ELT Journal ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-165
Author(s):  
Jinghui Si
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Business Community ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Business English ◽  
Global Business ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Language Exposure

Abstract This study analysed a series of business English coursebooks published and used in the Chinese context from an English as a lingua franca (ELF) perspective. The analysis was conducted from four aspects: language ownership, language exposure, language activities, and cultural representations. These address four key issues in the debate over the practicality of ELF-informed materials. The findings show an orientation towards native English speakers as representatives of English users, a dominance of native-speaker Standard English in language exposure, a lack of ELF-informed activities, and a limited representation of Chinese culture. This article concludes that the coursebooks merely introduce ELF as a cultural and linguistic phenomenon. Despite some attempts to present the role of ELF in the global business community, there is a paucity of ELF exposure and ELF-informed activities. The implications of these findings for the selection and evaluation of ELF-informed materials are discussed.

scholarly journals Native Speakers as Teachers in Turkey: Non - native Pre - service English Teachers’ Reactions to a Nation - wide Project

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdullah Coşkun
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Awareness ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Teachers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Native English Speaking Teachers

Although English is now a recognized international language and the concept of native speaker is becoming more doubtful every day, the empowerment of the native speakers of English as language teaching professionals is still continuing (McKay, 2002), especially in Asian countries like China and Japan. One of the latest examples showing the empowerment of the native English speakers comes from Turkey planning to embark on a project to hire 40.000 native English - speaking teachers (NESTs) to collaborate with the local non - native English teachers (NNESTs) in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes in Turkey. This study tries to reveal the preliminary reactions of pre - service NNESTs about this project through data obtained from open - ended surveys. The content analysis of the data showed that even before the project was initiated, most of the participants objected to it. Although some of the participants favored the project as they believed that the NESTs might be more helpful for students to improve speaking skills and to increase their cultural awareness, the majority of the participants held negative attitudes towards the project mainly because of employment and pedagogical concerns.

scholarly journals NATIVE VS NON-NATIVE ENGLISH TEACHERS

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Masrizal Masrizal
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Short Article ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Native Teachers ◽  
English Language Teachers

Although the majority of English language teachers worldwide are non-native English speakers (NNS), no research was conducted on these teachers until recently. A pioneer research by Peter Medgyes in 1994 took quite a long time until the other researchers found their interests in this issue. There is a widespread stereotype that a native speaker (NS) is by nature the best person to teach his/her foreign language. In regard to this assumption, we then see a very limited room and opportunities for a non native teacher to teach language that is not his/hers. The aim of this article is to analyze the differences among these teachers in order to prove that non-native teachers have equal advantages that should be taken into account. The writer expects that the result of this short article could be a valuable input to the area of teaching English as a foreign language in Indonesia.

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