A Contrastive Study of Boosters in a Corpus of Academic Spoken English

The suggestion speech act has not been as widely studied as other speech acts such as requests and apologies, and fewer studies of suggestions have focused on Chinese EFL learners as a target group. This study, based on the spoken data of the Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners (SWECCL) and the online Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE), aims to investigate how Chinese EFL (English as a foreign language) learners make suggestions in English, through comparing the linguistic features of suggestion speech act as well as suggestion strategies used by Chinese EFL learners and native English speakers. Results show that (1) Chinese learners used significantly more modal verbs, explicit performatives and conditional structures than native English speakers, whereas native English speakers used more Wh-questions and Let’s structures than Chinese learners, and (2) in terms of suggestion strategies, the Chinese EFL learners resembled native English speakers in the use of direct suggestion strategies, but the Chinese EFL learners used significantly more conventionalized indirect suggestion strategies than native English speakers.

As the user of communication especially in English, the speaker has to consider the interlocutor’s position in order to achieve good communication. Here, the speakers which include native and non-native English speakers must choose an appropriate language style for the different interlocutors to avoid social consequences. The purposes of this research were to analyze the use of language style of those speakers in The Ellen Show. Also, it focused on the differences and the similarities between those speakers. Last, it focused on the factors influencing the use of language style. The research used the qualitative method which focuses on content analysis. Here, it focused on three native speakers and three non-native speakers of English as the guests in The Ellen Show. The Ellen Show is a talk show program with a casual discussion that talks about a particular topic or issue which consists of a host, the guest(s) being interviewed, the home audience, and the studio audience from which the host might get some responses from.The findings revealed that the native English speakers used all types of language styles. Meanwhile, the non-native speakers used three types of language styles. Then, the similarities were that both speakers applied formal style, consultative style, and casual style in their utterances. However, the difference was the non-native English speakers did not apply frozen style and intimate style. Furthermore, those speakers used language style because it influenced the participant, the setting, the topic, and the function. Therefore, it is concluded that language styles were useful in English utterances either by native speakers or non-native English speakers.
 
 The speaker has to consider the interlocutor’s position in order to achieve good communication. Here, the speakers which include native and non-native English speakers must choose an appropriate language style for the different interlocutors to avoid social consequences. The purposes of this research were to analyze the use of language style of those speakers in The Ellen Show. Also, it focused on the differences and the similarities between those speakers. Last, it focused on the factors influencing the use of language style. The research used the qualitative method which focuses on content analysis. Here, it focused on three native speakers and three non-native speakers of English as the guests in The Ellen Show. The findings revealed that the native English speakers used all types of language styles. Meanwhile, the non-native speakers used three types of language styles. Then, the similarities were that both speakers applied formal style, consultative style, and casual style in their utterances. However, the difference was the non-native English speakers did not apply frozen style and intimate style. Furthermore, those speakers used language style because it influenced the participant, the setting, the topic, and the function. Therefore, it is concluded that language styles were useful in English utterances either by native speakers or non-native English speakers.

This study investigates the use of idiomatic expressions in academic writing by Ukrainian university students learning English as a foreign language. The research analyzes the frequency of idiom use in essays written by two groups of students: one group explicitly taught academic English idioms and a control group. Findings reveal that Ukrainian students employ idiomatic expressions more frequently than native English speakers, as evidenced by comparisons with the British Academic Spoken English (BASE) corpus and the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE). Notably, even the control group exhibited higher idiomaticity than their native-speaker counterparts. These results highlight the importance of addressing idiomatic language in academic English instruction for non-native speakers. The study discusses the potential benefits and challenges of incorporating idioms into teaching materials and provides insights for educators aiming to improve the phraseological competence of their students.

Over time, second language (L2) speech production changes as the learner gains more experience with the language. Factors such as interaction with native speakers of the learner’s L2 are known to play an important role. It is less clear to what extent, if at all, aspects of social identity influence the development of the L2 (Hansen Edwards 2008:372– 373). This longitudinal study examines the development of the actor Jackie Chan’s L2 (English) phonology. His speech production in two time periods 9 years apart is contrasted: in 1998, before he gained success in the English-speaking world; and in 2007, after he had released multiple Hollywood blockbusters.To check that factors such as age of acquisition were not the only reason for a lack of alignment over time towards English native-speaker norms, another context was taken from 2007, namely, an interview with a French native speaker. In foreigner-directed speech, there exists a pressure to produce more standard variants (Zuengler 1991:234). If Chan uses fewer non-standard variants with a non-native English speaker than with a native English speaker, it would imply that there is some degree of intent in his usage of non-standard forms and that his development, or lack thereof, is not only due to uncontrollable factors of second language acquisition.Two variables are examined: his production of stops in word-final codas containing a single stop and in wordfinal consonant clusters containing a stop as the final consonant. Native speakers of English generally pronounce these stops, whereas native speakers of Chinese often simplify them by deleting or glottalising them (Setter et al. 2010:15, Hansen 2001:340).In 2007, Chan is found to use a greater rate of the standard non-simplified variant than previously; however, he also simplifies his pronunciation by deleting the stop in the codas more often than in 1998. He uses standard forms that align with English native speakers to a greater extent when talking to non-native speakers. After 9 years of working in Hollywood, he would have gained more experience with English due to his social network consisting of more English native speakers, resulting in the expected increased alignment with native-speaker norms. However, his English has developed so that the non-standard variant of deletion is also used to a greater extent; the usage of this variant emphasises Chan’s identity as a Chinese native speaker. This emphasis is possible because of his success in between the two time periods: not only does he no longer have to align as much as possible with English native speakers so as to appeal to the English-speaking market, his success as a specifically Chinese martial artist means that highlighting his identity as a Chinese native speaker has more linguistic capital. Thus, it seems that factors of an L2 learner’s social identity do indeed influence the acquisition and development of their L2.

The cognitive interview is a widely recommended forensic interviewing strategy which elicits more details than comparison interviews. However, little research has attended to which of its component mnemonics drive the overall effect. Furthermore, some mnemonics—like asking witnesses to recall in reverse order—are cognitively demanding. Responding to cognitively demanding interview mnemonics may be challenging for witnesses who are already under heavy cognitive load, such as non-native English speakers. Speaking a second language is a cognitively difficult task that may leave non-native English speakers with limited cognitive resources to devote to complex interviewing mnemonics. Other mnemonics, though, may be particularly beneficial for non-native English speakers. For example, a transfer of control instruction, emphasizing that the witness has critical knowledge the interviewer needs to know, may help non-native English speakers overcome social barriers to reporting details in forensic interviews. The present study tests the effectiveness of the reverse order mnemonic and the transfer of control instruction compared to control interviews among native and non-native English speakers. Native speakers (N = 64) and non-native English speakers (N = vii 34) watched a mock crime video, completed a language history questionnaire, and were interviewed about the crime video using either a control (free recall + second recall attempt), reverse order (free recall + reverse order recall attempt), or transfer of control (instruction + free recall) protocol. Native English speakers provided more correct units than non-native English speakers, especially in the control condition’s second recall attempt (compared to the reverse order recall attempt). The transfer of control instruction had no effect on number of correct units provided in the first recall attempt of each condition. Accuracy rates were unaffected by language or interview condition, but non-native English speakers, particularly in the transfer of control condition, provided somewhat higher proportions of subjective details than native English speakers. These results suggest that non-native English speakers provide fewer details than native English speakers when interviewed in English, and the two mnemonics tested have little influence on speakers’ output. Future research should develop an interviewing protocol that is sensitive to the challenges faced by non-native speakers.

This article explores the use of vague expressions in English spoken as a lingua franca in academic settings. The main focus is on the frequencies of general extenders (e.g. and so on), vague classifiers (e.g. some sort of), metadiscourse particles (e.g. so to say), and indefinite prepositional phrases (e.g. in a way). The aim of the study is to investigate how non-native speakers using English as a lingua franca employ and modify their repertoire of lexical vagueness in accordance with the speech event type and academic domain. Furthermore, the study also presents comparisons between the frequencies of vague expressions in lingua franca and native speaker data. The main sample is drawn from the English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings (ELFA) corpus and the findings are contrasted with a comparable data from the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE). The findings show that, on the whole, lingua franca speakers employ vague expressions almost twice as frequently as native speakers, although the range of different expressions was found to be narrower in the lingua franca data. Vague expressions were most commonly found in dialogic speech events such as doctoral defense and seminar discussions. As regards academic domains, vague expressions were most often used in technology, while in humanities and social sciences their frequencies were lower.

To determine whether patients who are English proficient become aware of e-cigarettes through different marketing tactics and have dissimilar patterns of use than patients who are non-English speaking. This was a cross-sectional study surveying adult English- and Spanish-speaking patients. ANOVA and chi-squared tests were used to examine differences between groups. A large public, safety-net hospital in Los Angeles County, California. Respondents (N=1899) were predominately Hispanic (78%), foreign-born (68%), and reported Spanish as a primary language (64%). Native English speakers reported the highest use of e-cigarettes (26%), followed by non-native (13%) and non-English speakers (2%) (P<.001). In terms of marketing, native and non-native English speakers were more likely to have friends and family as sources of e-cigarette information (P<.001). Native speakers were more likely to see advertisements for e-cigarettes on storefronts (P=.004) and on billboards (P<.001). Non-English speakers were most likely to learn about e-cigarettes on the news (P<.001) and in advertisements on the television and radio (P=.002). Differences in reasons for use were not significant between the three groups. Native and non-native English speakers become aware of e-cigarettes through different mechanisms and use e-cigarettes at a significantly higher rate than non-English speakers. These results highlight an opportunity for public health programs to concentrate on specific channels of communication that introduce patient populations to e-cigarettes to slow the spread of e-cigarette usage.

Clear speech is a style that speakers adopt when talking with listeners whom these speakers anticipate may have a problem understanding speech. This study examines whether native English speakers use clear speech in conversations with non-native English speakers when native speakers are not explicitly asked to use clear speech (i.e., clear speech elicited with naturalistic methods). The results of the study suggest that native English speakers use clear speech in conversations with non-native English speakers even when native speakers are not explicitly asked to. Native English speakers' speech is more intelligible in the early portions of the conversations than in the late portions of each conversation. Further, the speakers "reset" to clearer speech at the start of each Diapix picture. Additionally, acoustic properties of the speech are examined to complement the intelligibility results. These findings suggest the instigation of clear speech may be listener-driven but the maintenance of clear speech is likely more speaker-driven.

Previous studies have shown that native English speakers outperformed non-native English speakers in perceiving English speech under quiet and noisy listening conditions. The purpose of this study is to investigate the difference between native English speakers and native Chinese speakers on using contextual cues to perceive speech in quiet and multi-talker babble. Three types of sentences served as the speech stimuli in this study: sentences with high predictability (including both semantic cues and syntactic cues), sentences with low predictability (including syntactic cues), and sentences with zero predictability (consisting random sequences of words). These sentences were presented to native-English and native-Chinese listeners in quiet and four-talker babble with the signal-to-noise ratio at 0 and -5 dB. Preliminary results suggested that native Chinese speakers primarily rely on semantic information when perceiving speech in quiet, whereas native English speakers showed greater reliance on syntactic cues when perceiving speech in noisy situations. The difference between native English speaker and native Chinese speakers on syntactic, and semantic information utilization in various listening conditions will be discussed. [Work supported by The University of Texas at Austin, Undergraduate Research Fellowship and China National Natural Science Foundation 31628009]

In opaque languages, like English, spelling is probabilistic and influenced by several factors, that together guide the spelling of new or unknown words. To determine whether a consonant should be doubled, native English speakers use information about the vowel—whether it is long or short and how many characters it is spelled with. When it comes to L2 speakers, the picture becomes more complex as the overlap between their L1 and L2 can affect their performance. The current study focuses on two languages that overlap in writing system—English and Spanish—but not in transparency—the first being opaque while the other transparent. Using the same English pseudoword spelling task as prior studies, we tested whether Spanish speakers’ consonant doubling patterns matched those of native English speakers. We then compared the data to that of native English, Chinese, and Korean speakers to investigate how the L1 background influences these consonant doubling decisions. We found that, unlike native English speakers, L1 Spanish speakers only use graphotactic regularities to determine consonant doubling, but not the phonological context. In contrast, L1 Chinese and L1 Korean speakers—with no writing system overlap with English—behave like native speakers, using both cues. These results suggest that orthography in English—an opaque language—is affected by L1 background. We discuss possible reasons for these differences as well as implications for foreign language teaching and future directions.

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.

ABSTRACTWe explore how native and non-native English speakers interpret cues of emotional expression in native English speakers, text-only messages in two studies. In Experiment 1, 28 native English speakers and 28 Japanese non-native English speakers rated the emotional valence of 98 public Facebook status updates written by native English-speaking authors. We found that non-native speakers were less accurate at detecting the emotional valence and perceived messages more neutral or intensely negative than native speakers. In Experiment 2 we found that non-native speakers’ cultural background and lack of confidence in second-language ability may influence how they adjust their perceptions on a message based on subsequent replies. Our results contribute to theoretical development in multilingual socioemotional communication in computer-mediated environments and have implications for design of technologies to support socioemotional text-based communication between native and non-native speakers.

Vietnamese American Experiences of English Language Learning: Ethnic Acceptance and Prejudice

This research decolonises the concept of new native speakers to mean “those who are born in the inner circle” and establishes that, there are native speakers of English in Nigeria. More recently, a group of speakers has been identified known as; the English New Native Speakers. These speakers are mostly monolinguals, who have a good command of the English Language. They are without or with the bit of ability to speak or comprehend the local language(s) used around them. The new native speaker is a 21st-century phenomenon because these speakers have not been in existence in Nigeria before this time. This paper establishes the emergence of the New English Native Speakers in Nigeria and calls for the addition of new native speakers of English in the taxonomy of the existing classification of the speakers of English in Nigeria. This paper, therefore, advocates for the re-classification of the English speakers in Nigeria to include these new speakers. I postulate that the new taxonomy of the speakers in Nigeria should be grouped thus: English new native speakers (speakers with little or no indigenous language), English as a second language (those who developed English as a second language, English as the first language (those who speak English as the first language and later developed an indigenous language).

It is common practice in speech research to only sample participants who self-report being "native English speakers." Although there is research on differences in language processing between native and nonnative listeners (see Lecumberri et al., 2010, for a review), the majority of speech research that aims to establish general findings (e.g., testing models of spoken word recognition) only includes native speakers in their sample. Not only is the "native English speaker" criterion poorly defined, but it also excludes historically underrepresented groups from speech perception research, often without attention to whether this exclusion is likely to affect study outcomes. The purpose of this study is to empirically test whether and how using different inclusion criteria ("native English speakers" vs. "nonnative English speakers") affects several well-known phenomena in speech perception research. Five hundred participants completed word (N = 200) and sentence (N = 300) identification tasks in quiet and in moderate levels of background noise. Results indicate that multiple classic findings in speech perception research-including the effects of noise level, lexical density, and semantic context on speech intelligibility-persist regardless of "native English" speaking status. However, the magnitude of some of these effects differed across participant groups. Taken together, these results suggest that researchers should carefully consider whether native speaker status is likely to affect outcomes and make decisions about inclusion criteria on a study-by-study basis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).