The Effects of L2 Experience and Vowel Context on the Perceptual Assimilation of English Fricatives by L2 Thai Learners

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of vowel context and language experience in the perceived similarity between L2 English fricatives and Thai sounds. The target English sounds being investigated were the sounds /v, f, w, θ, tʰ, s, ð, d, z, ʃ, t͡ʃ/. These sounds were elicited from four native English speakers in words in onset position and followed by three vowel contexts: high, low and back. Subjects were 54 Thai students divided into two groups: English-major and non-English-major. These Thai learners were asked to identify the sounds they heard with the Thai sounds that were closest in their perception. The findings showed that 1) all shared sounds were matched with the same L1 categories, suggesting that the existence of L2 sounds in the L1 sound system supports the perception; 2) most non-shared sounds, except English /θ/ were matched to Thai sounds that were suggested in previous literature; 3) the perceived similarity of English /θ/ and the L1 Thai sounds showed the effect of the vowel context in that this sound was mostly matched with Thai /f/ in the high and low vowel contexts whereas in the back vowel context, it was matched with Thai /s/; 4) the perceived similarities of both shared and non-shared sounds were affected by vowel context and language experience. The findings of this study shed light on the importance exploring perceived similarities and differences in the phonetic level rather than the phonological one.

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Where the action could be: Speakers look at graspable objects and meaningful scene regions when describing potential actions

10.31234/osf.io/6uep5 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Gwendolyn L Rehrig ◽

Candace Elise Peacock ◽

Taylor Hayes ◽

Fernanda Ferreira ◽

John M. Henderson

Keyword(s):

Visual Attention ◽

Real World ◽

Language Production ◽

Native English Speakers ◽

English Speakers ◽

Linguistic Processing ◽

General Meaning ◽

New Evidence ◽

Shed Light ◽

Better Than

The world is visually complex, yet we can efficiently describe it by extracting the information that is most relevant to convey. How do the properties of real-world scenes help us decide where to look and what to say? Image salience has been the dominant explanation for what drives visual attention and production as we describe displays, but new evidence shows scene meaning predicts attention better than image salience. Here we investigated the relevance of one aspect of meaning, graspability (the grasping interactions objects in the scene afford), given that affordances have been implicated in both visual and linguistic processing. We quantified image salience, meaning, and graspability for real-world scenes. In three eyetracking experiments, native English speakers described possible actions that could be carried out in a scene. We hypothesized that graspability would preferentially guide attention due to its task-relevance. In two experiments using stimuli from a previous study, meaning explained visual attention better than graspability or salience did, and graspability explained attention better than salience. In a third experiment we quantified image salience, meaning, graspability, and reach-weighted graspability for scenes that depicted reachable spaces containing graspable objects. Graspability and meaning explained attention equally well in the third experiment, and both explained attention better than salience. We conclude that speakers use object graspability to allocate attention to plan descriptions when scenes depict graspable objects within reach, and otherwise rely more on general meaning. The results shed light on what aspects of meaning guide attention during scene viewing in language production tasks.

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The Production of New and Similar Vowels by Adult German Learners of English

Studies in Second Language Acquisition ◽

10.1017/s0272263100010792 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 131-158 ◽

Cited By ~ 123

Author(s):

Ocke-Schwen Bohn ◽

James Emil Flege

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

English Language ◽

First Language ◽

Native English Speakers ◽

English Speakers ◽

Control Group ◽

Language Experience ◽

English Vowels ◽

L1 English ◽

Positive Effect

The study reported in this paper examined the effect of second language (L2) experience on the production of L2 vowels for which acoustic counterparts are either present or absent in the first language (L1). The hypothesis being tested was that amount of L2 experience would not affect L1 German speakers' production of the “similar” English vowels /i, l, ∈/, whereas English language experience would enable L1 Germans to produce an English-like /æ/, which has no counterpart in German. The predictions were tested in two experiments that compared the production of English /i, l, ∈, æ/ by two groups of L1 German speakers differing in English language experience and an L1 English control group. An acoustic experiment compared the three groups for spectral and temporal characteristics of the English vowels produced in /bVt/ words. The same tokens were assessed for intelligibility in a labeling experiment. The results of both experiments were largely consistent with the hypothesis. The experienced L2 speakers did not produce the similar English vowels /i, l, ∈/ more intelligibly than the inexperienced L2 speakers, not did experience have a positive effect on approximating the English acoustic norms for these similar vowels. The intelligibility results for the new vowel /æ/ did not clearly support the model. However, the acoustic comparisons showed that the experienced but not the inexperienced L2 speakers produced the new vowel /æ/ in much the same way as the native English speakers.

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Second Language Perception of Mandarin Vowels and Tones

Language and Speech ◽

10.1177/0023830917717759 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 61 (1) ◽

pp. 135-152 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Yen-Chen Hao

Keyword(s):

Discrimination Task ◽

Native English Speakers ◽

English Speakers ◽

Language Experience ◽

Relative Difficulty ◽

Advanced Learners ◽

Tonal Language ◽

Naive Group ◽

Beginning Learners ◽

Mandarin Vowels

This study examines the discrimination of Mandarin vowels and tones by native English speakers with varying amounts of Mandarin experience, aiming to investigate the relative difficulty of these two types of sounds for English speakers at different learning stages, and the source of their difficulty. Seventeen advanced learners of Mandarin (Ex group), eighteen beginning learners (InEx group), and eighteen English speakers naïve to Mandarin (Naïve group) participated in an AXB discrimination task. The stimuli were two Mandarin vowel contrasts, /li–ly/ and /lu–ly/, and two tonal contrasts, T1–T4 and T2–T3. The predicted difficulty for each contrast was hypothesized based on the assimilation of these sounds to English reported in previous work. The results showed that the Naïve group was more accurate with vowel contrasts than with tones, suggesting that non-tonal language speakers without any Mandarin training are less sensitive to tonal distinction than to vowels. The two learner groups, on the other hand, were highly accurate with all contrasts except for the T2–T3 pair, and achieved significantly higher accuracy than the Naïve group on /li–ly/ and T1–T4. This lends support to the view that experience in Mandarin improves English speakers’ sensitivity to tonal distinction, helping them discriminate some tones as accurately as vowels. However, all three groups achieved low accuracy in discriminating T2 and T3, suggesting that this contrast may be inherently difficult and resistant to improvement. This study shows that various factors in addition to the native language experience may affect the perception of non-native vowels and tones.

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Bilinguals on the garden-path: Individual differences in syntactic ambiguity resolution

Bilingualism Language and Cognition ◽

10.1017/s1366728920000711 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-16

Author(s):

Trevor Brothers ◽

Liv J Hoversten ◽

Matthew J Traxler

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Executive Function ◽

Sentence Processing ◽

Working Memory Capacity ◽

Native English Speakers ◽

Memory Capacity ◽

English Speakers ◽

Language Experience ◽

Garden Path ◽

Verb Subcategorization

Abstract Syntactic parsing plays a central role in the interpretation of sentences, but it is unclear to what extent non-native speakers can deploy native-like grammatical knowledge during online comprehension. The current eye-tracking study investigated how Chinese–English bilinguals and native English speakers respond to syntactic category and subcategorization information while reading sentences with object-subject ambiguities. We also obtained measures of English language experience, working memory capacity, and executive function to determine how these cognitive variables influence online parsing. During reading, monolinguals and bilinguals showed similar garden-path effects related to syntactic reanalysis, but native English speakers responded more robustly to verb subcategorization cues. Readers with greater language experience and executive function showed increased sensitivity to verb subcategorization cues, but parsing was not influenced by working memory capacity. These results are consistent with exposure-based accounts of bilingual sentence processing, and they support a link between syntactic processing and domain-general cognitive control.

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The Influence of Written Stress Marks on Native English Speakers’ Acquisition of Russian Lexical Stress Contrasts

The Slavic and East European Journal ◽

10.30851/59.1.005 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 59 (1) ◽

pp. 91-109 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Rachel Hayes-Harb ◽

Jane Hacking

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Native English Speakers ◽

Russian Language ◽

Lexical Stress ◽

English Speakers ◽

Future Research ◽

College Level ◽

Language Experience ◽

Minimal Pairs ◽

Learning Conditions

Recent studies have provided evidence for a beneficial effect of orthographic input on the acquisition of second language phonological contrasts. In particular, the presentation of orthographic contrasts has been shown to improve L2 learners’ ability to differentiate newly learned words containing difficult auditory contrasts—for example, the letters ‘a’ and ‘e’ can help native Dutch speakers differentiate newly learned English words containing /æ/ and /ɛ/ (Escudero, Hayes-Harb and Mitterer). In the present research, we explored whether the diacritic marks typically used to indicate lexical stress in Russian pedagogical texts are similarly helpful to second language learners. We taught native English speakers with varying amounts of Russian language experience a set of Russian non-words containing lexical stress minimal pairs. In different word-learning conditions, we manipulated the presence of stress marks in the input to participants, and later tested participants on their ability to distinguish the newly learned lexical stress minimal pairs. We found no effect from the availability of stress marks for our participants, whose Russian language experience ranged from subjects with no exposure to Russian to students enrolled in third-year college-level Russian language courses. We conclude by discussing crucial differences between the learning conditions in the present study and real-world Russian language acquisition, and calling for future research that investigates the effect of lexical stress marks in more authentic learning conditions.

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RUSSIAN PHONO-LEXICAL ACQUISITION AND ORTHOGRAPHIC INPUT

Studies in Second Language Acquisition ◽

10.1017/s0272263119000585 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 42 (2) ◽

pp. 255-277

Author(s):

Catherine E. Showalter

Keyword(s):

Adult Learners ◽

Native English Speakers ◽

Target Language ◽

Lexical Acquisition ◽

Separate Experiment ◽

English Speakers ◽

Test Accuracy ◽

Interference Effects ◽

Language Experience ◽

Negative Effects

AbstractWe investigated how grapheme familiarity and grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC) congruence affect adult learners’ ability to make use of orthographic input (OI) during phono-lexical acquisition. Native English speakers, with no Russian experience (naïve) or learners of Russian, heard auditory forms, saw pictured meanings, and saw written input either in a No Orthography condition or an Orthography condition for words that contained unfamiliar Cyrillic graphemes, familiar graphemes and congruent GPCs, and familiar graphemes and incongruent GPCs. Naïve participants evidenced incongruent GPC interference effects. Experienced learners acquired targetlike GPCs, although beginner learners did not. In a separate experiment, naïve learners were exposed to an intervention to mitigate effects of OI; the interventions did not improve test accuracy. Results support previous findings that incongruent GPCs interfere with phono-lexical acquisition. We also found evidence that target language experience mitigates negative effects of OI, but interventions may not sufficiently aid naïve learners’ phono-lexical acquisition.

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Requests for Help in a Multilingual Professional Environment Testimonies and Actantial Models

Open Linguistics ◽

10.1515/opli-2017-0026 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Eve Lejot

Keyword(s):

Discourse Analysis ◽

Native English Speakers ◽

English Speakers ◽

Complex Situation ◽

Language Competence ◽

Multilingual Communication ◽

Professional Environment ◽

Linguistic Input ◽

Shed Light

AbstractProfessional multilingual environments using English as a lingua franca are prone to imbalances in communication, linguistic insecurity and rising tension. Non-native English speakers develop avoidance strategies in order to lessen their apprehension. To overcome these imbalances, this research aims to understand the relationships formed around languages focusing on the dynamics of integration and the requests for help. Guided by the actantial models of Greimas (1966), this qualitative study employs semiolinguistics and discourse analysis, including 19 narrative interviews with employees of Airbus and UNESCO in Hamburg, Germany in 2013. This methodology draws on actors connected through relationships of power and/or collaboration. The actantial models applied seek linguistic input through designational paradigms, shifters and modal occurrences. The actantial models illustrate how a good language competence provides a better understanding of one’s direct as well as passive environment. The learning process is shown to be a conduit to integration. The actantial model and discourse analysis shed light on the complex situation of multilingual communication settings by highlighting the influence of individuals’ linguistic skills. As a matter of fact, depending on the role of each individual in a given situation, lending a helping hand sometimes equates to upsetting the balance.

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The Low Co-occurrence of Nominalization and Hedging in Scientific Papers Written by Chinese EFL Learners

10.31235/osf.io/y4vdj ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Xiao Liu

Keyword(s):

Statistical Analysis ◽

Academic Writing ◽

Native English Speakers ◽

English Speakers ◽

Scientific Journals ◽

Efl Learners ◽

Research Results ◽

Scientific Papers ◽

The Relationship ◽

Shed Light

This article hypothesizes that one of the reasons for Chinese EFL learners’ rigid use of nominalization and insufficient use of hedging in academic writing can be attributed to the unclear understanding of the relationship between these two expressions. The aim of the research is to first prove and then explain the possible co-occurrence of nominalization and hedging in scientific papers, with the intention of deepening Chinese EFL learners’ understanding of the reasons for their possible co-occurrence. After a corpus-assisted statistical analysis of sixty abstracts selected from leading scientific journals written by native English speakers, it’s been found that there is indeed a tendency for nominalization and hedge to co-occur both at the textual-level and clause-level. Besides, a tentative analysis is conducted to explain the pattern of their co-occurrence. It has been observed that the number of nominalized expressions in clauses is inversely correlated with the probability degree of hedging, and the position of nominalization in the clause (theme or rheme) influences the generalization level of hedging. The research results could shed light on the pedagogic approach in improving Chinese EFL learners’ academic writing by making evident that the elusive Grammatical Metaphor competence could be enhanced by deepening the understanding of the inter-relationship between seemingly different in-congruent expressions like nominalization and hedges.

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The Low Co-occurrence of Nominalization and Hedging in Scientific Papers Written by Chinese EFL Learners

Arab World English Journal ◽

10.24093/awej/vol12no1.27 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 401-420

Author(s):

Xiao Liu

Keyword(s):

Statistical Analysis ◽

Academic Writing ◽

Native English Speakers ◽

English Speakers ◽

Scientific Journals ◽

Efl Learners ◽

Research Results ◽

Scientific Papers ◽

The Relationship ◽

Shed Light

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The effect of pitch interplay on English-speaking learners of Mandarin

Chinese as a Second Language (漢語教學研究—美國中文教師學會學報) ◽

10.1075/csl.52.1.02luo ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 52 (1) ◽

pp. 28-54

Author(s):

Shan Luo

Keyword(s):

Language Learning ◽

Native Language ◽

Native English Speakers ◽

English Speakers ◽

Language Experience ◽

Pitch Range ◽

English Speaking ◽

Question Intonation ◽

Pitch Movement

Abstract This study examines how native English speakers perceive and produce intonation and tone in Mandarin statements and unmarked questions. The results showed, as predicted, that English speakers had less difficulty perceiving intonation and sentence-final tone when the pitch movement of both was in the same direction than when it was not. On the production side, English speakers performed much better at producing tone than intonation. The intelligibility of their question intonation was especially compromised, likely due to their narrow pitch range. The English speakers also consistently produced more final rising pitch in Mandarin unmarked questions, suggesting phonological influence from their native language. Findings highlight the role of language experience in language learning, and the importance of pedagogical awareness.

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