Competent Language Users Research Articles

Is There a Domain of Linguistic Competence AI Cannot Grasp?

Abstract Linguistic competence is, among other things, the cognitive ability of using words appropriately. Following this notion, being a competent language user cannot be merely simulated because pretending to use words appropriately already is using words appropriately. Since current AI already can use words appropriately it may be that AI already has linguistic competence instead of merely simulating it. However, in this article I argue that there is at least one domain of linguistic competence that can be simulated: grasping lexical effects. Since grasping lexical effects presupposes an ability which AI lacks, namely feeling emotions, I argue that AI can only grasp the cognitive part of words but not their lexical effects. AI can only simulate to grasp lexical effects. Hence, lexical effects are a domain of linguistic competence AI cannot grasp.

Exploring the interplay between enjoyment, anxiety, ideal self, and willingness to communicate in EMI higher education

AbstractLearning academic disciplinary knowledge through English as a medium of instruction (EMI) in higher education can be emotionally taxing. However, compared to the bulk of studies investigating the role of emotions in language learning, research that explores students’ emotional experiences in EMI contexts remains scarce. Drawing on a sample of 746 undergraduate students at an EMI university in China, the present study disentangles how two heavily researched emotions (i.e., enjoyment and anxiety) affect students’ learning motivation and willingness to communicate (WTC) inside and outside of EMI classrooms. Students’ motivation is conceptualized through the notion of ideal self to represent their aspired future self‐image as competent language users (ideal L2 self) and subject experts in the field (ideal disciplinary self). Results from structural equation modeling analyses highlighted enjoyment as a strong positive predictor for both ideal selves and WTC. In contrast, anxiety failed to predict neither ideal L2 self nor ideal disciplinary self but had a negative effect on WTC. The two types of ideal selves were found to differ in their respective impact on students’ WTC inside of EMI classrooms yet neither predicted WTC outside of classrooms. Pedagogical implications for EMI teaching and learning are provided.

Islamic Boarding Schools' Foreign Language Goals: A Dual-Language Sinking Model

<p>This study was motivated by the failure of language learning from traditional methods. This method does not provide a chance for students to practice the language that makes the alinated from the target language. On this basis, Dual-Language Sinking model was developed for language learning which will bridge learning with the daily lives of students to achieve the expected language competencies.This literature review will try to explore what language competencies are needed by students to be said as language competent users and what are the ideal patterns of language learning to develop their language competencies. Finally, the Dual-Language Sinking model will be explained as a offered model to develope language competencies and how to implement the model. The results of this study indicate that competent language users are those who are able to function their language skills and knowledge in their daily activities. To develop students who are competent in language, the learning conditions must be designed as naturally as possible as students' first language environment. This can be achieved by implementing a dual-language sinking as bilingual program. This model uses the target language as the language of instruction in learning and students' daily lives, so that students will develop their language competence through their daily habits.</p>

International E-Tandems: A Tool for Increasing Student Motivation in the Foreign Language Classroom

This study presents findings from an online collaborative project involving students learning English at the University of Paris Nanterre (France) and students learning French at Cornell University (USA). Our main goal was to determine the impact of e-tandems on language learner motivation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly all courses at these two institutions were offered online, a move that greatly complicated the use of interactive group activities. This change represented a major threat to learner motivation and the development of communication skills in the target language. To counteract these effects, language teachers from the two universities organized an online e-tandem program; pairs of students composed of one American learner of French and one French learner of English had three virtual meetings to complete activities relevant to their studies. During these meetings, they were to alternate between speaking English and French. Following each exchange, students completed journal entries about their experience using the target language. Results indicated that the e-tandem program was a positive experience for students, with many reporting higher levels of intended learning effort and being able to see themselves as competent language users. These findings highlight the didactic potential of virtual exchanges.

Echoing Retorts in Hárbarðsljóð and Lokasenna

Echoing Retorts in <i>Hárbarðsljóð</i> and <i>Lokasenna</i>

Moral Rightness Comes in Degrees

AbstractThis article questions the traditional view that moral rightness and wrongness are discrete predicates with sharp boundaries. I contend that moral rightness and wrongness come in degrees: Some acts are somewhat rightandsomewhat wrong. My argument is based on the assumption that meaning tracks use. If an overwhelming majority of competent language users frequently say that some acts are a bit right and a bit wrong, this indicates that rightness and wrongnessaregradable concepts. To support the empirical part of the argument I use the tools of experimental philosophy. Results from three surveys (n= 715, 578, and 182) indicate that respondents userightandwrongas gradable terms to approximately the same extent as color terms, meaning that rightness and wrongness come in degrees roughly as much as colors do. In the largest study, only 4 percent persistently usedrightandwrongas non-gradable terms.

Sharing Our Concepts with Machines

As AI systems become increasingly competent language users, it is an apt moment to consider what it would take for machines to understand human languages. This paper considers whether either language models such as GPT-3 or chatbots might be able to understand language, focusing on the question of whether they could possess the relevant concepts. A significant obstacle is that systems of both kinds interact with the world only through text, and thus seem ill-suited to understanding utterances concerning the concrete objects and properties which human language often describes. Language models cannot understand human languages because they perform only linguistic tasks, and therefore cannot represent such objects and properties. However, chatbots may perform tasks concerning the non-linguistic world, so they are better candidates for understanding. Chatbots can also possess the concepts necessary to understand human languages, despite their lack of perceptual contact with the world, due to the language-mediated concept-sharing described by social externalism about mental content.

Experiences of linguistic understanding as epistemic feelings

Language understanding comes with a particular kind of phenomenology. It is often observed that when listening to utterances in a familiar language, competent language users can have experiences of understanding the meanings of these utterances. The nature of such experiences is a much debated topic. In this paper, I develop a new proposal according to which experiences of understanding are a particular kind ofepistemic feelings of fluencythat result from evaluative monitoring processes. The perceptual experience that accompanies linguistic comprehension results from the deployment of early stage auditory processes of speech perception that lead to the recognition of words.

A dose of reality for moral twin earth

ABSTRACT Nearly 30 years ago, Terry Horgan and Mark Timmons published a now- popular article that combines Hilary Putnam’s Twin Earth scenario with G.E. Moore’s open question argument in an effort to show that moral naturalism – the view that moral facts are at bottom ordinary, natural facts of some sort – is probably false. Responses to Horgan and Timmons’s “revised open question argument” have been legion, but surprisingly, no one has attempted to test the core assumption upon which the argument is based; namely, that competent language users univocally treat natural kind-terms as rigid designators. Here, I present evidence that the intuitions of competent English speakers are not as univocal as Horgan and Timmons need them to be to ground their argument against moral naturalism. I also briefly sketch a way that the moral naturalist can respond even if competent language speakers do treat natural-kind terms in the way that Horgan and Timmons suggest.

A corpus-driven analysis of phrase frames in research articles on business management

With emerging developments in the use of computer and corpus-linguistic software to analyse language features and linguistic patterns, competent language users frequently rely on a stock of semi-automatic, prefabricated word chunks, rather than constantly creating new combinations of individual words. This has illuminated ways to improve academic writing among novice writers and students. Researchers have begun compiling academic expressions by deriving pedagogically useful lists of phraseological expressions, such as collocations (e.g. dark night), lexical bundles (e.g. the importance of) and phrase frames (e.g. the * of). These studies have widely advocated the use of a wide-angle approach in compiling academic phraseological expressions by focusing on language forms common in all disciplines. In the current corpus-driven study, we expand this line of research by arguing that discipline-specific academic phraseological expressions should be explored further by focusing on phrase frames that have so far received little attention from scholars. Findings from the study will help novice writers and students by providing them a repository of phrase frames that are pedagogically useful.

ORALIDADE E ENSINO

Considerando a necessidade de pesquisas sobre ensino da oralidade (SILVA; LUNA, 2014), este estudo tem como objetivo analisar as propostas de trabalho a partir dos textos orais presentes nos livros didáticos de língua portuguesa. Para isso, utilizamos como corpus uma das coleções didáticas do Ensino Fundamental aprovada pelo PNLD 2017. A fim de embasar o estudo, foram consideradas contribuições teóricas de Marcuschi (2001a; 2001b), Dolz, Schneuwly e Haller (2004), dentre outros. A metodologia é de caráter quanti-qualitativo, uma vez que à análise detalhada das atividades quanto a suas contribuições para a formação do usuário competente de língua foi associado o número dessas propostas distribuídas em quatro categorias de análise. Os resultados apontaram que a coleção destina um espaço bastante reduzido à oralidade; entretanto, ao passo que algumas atividades apresentam lacunas, outras são satisfatórias.

Rethinking Probability of Eclectic Approach in the Post-Method Era: A Study for Making English Teaching-Learning Effective in Bangladesh

For effective English teaching and learning in Bangladesh probability of Eclecticism can be rethought. To do so, the concept of the post-method era is to be implemented. Both Eclecticism and post-method pedagogy put much emphasis on the effectiveness of pedagogy. For a context like Bangladesh, it is very important to formulate culture and context-sensitive need-based pedagogy as there is a lack of effective pedagogy. As the earlier pedagogy failed to produce competent English language users in Bangladesh, it is time to formulate need-based appropriate pedagogy. The present study has been undertaken to consider the existing teaching-learning realities of Bangladesh in the post-method era and suggest effective pedagogy based on the concept of Eclectic Approach.

Perennial Language Learners or Competent Language Users: An Investigation of International Students’ Attitudes towards Their Own and Native English Accents

English is widely used as a global language. The traditional monolithic model of English has been challenged as the development of World Englishes (WE) and English as a lingua franca (ELF) paradigms challenge the ownership of English. With this newly emerging status quo, English language teaching (ELT) should also recognize the diversity and dynamism of English. This article discusses students’ attitudes towards their own and native English accents, and describes the influence of English accents in ELT. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with nine international students from Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka who were studying at a university in Southern Thailand. The derived data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The findings revealed that most students still perceived their accents as being deficient, and they believed that native speakers’ English accents were the norm of English use and the ultimate learning goal. Thus, entrenched native ideology was still persistent among these students. The article also provides some implications for pronunciation teaching from a WE and ELF framework with the Teaching of Pronunciation for Intercultural Communication (ToPIC). It is hoped that an awareness of English as a global language could be recognized, and ToPIC could be applied to ELT in more contexts to reflect the global status of English.

Conceptual control: on the feasibility of conceptual engineering

ABSTRACT This paper empirically raises and examines the question of ‘conceptual control’: To what extent are competent thinkers able to reason properly with new senses of words? This question is crucial for conceptual engineering. This prominently discussed philosophical project seeks to improve our representational devices to help us reason better. It frequently involves giving new senses to familiar words, through normative explanations. Such efforts enhance, rather than reduce, our ability to reason properly, only if competent language users are able to abide by the relevant explanations, in language comprehension and verbal reasoning. This paper examines to what extent we have such ‘conceptual control’ in reasoning with new senses. The paper draws on psycholinguistic findings about polysemy processing to render this question empirically tractable and builds on recent findings from experimental philosophy to address it. The paper identifies a philosophically important gap in thinkers’ control over the key process of stereotypical enrichment and discusses how conceptual engineers can use empirical methods to work around this gap in conceptual control. The paper thus empirically demonstrates the urgency of the question of conceptual control and explains how experimental philosophy can empirically address the question, to render conceptual engineering feasible as an ameliorative enterprise.

Developing intercultural communicative competence – the two sides of the coin

Effective intercultural communicative competence goes beyond a good command of the foreign language and an insight into the foreign culture. What real-life intercultural communication often calls for is an ability to present one's own cultural identity in the foreign tongue. Are our learners empowered to face this challenge and how can the foreign language teacher cater for this need? The aim of this paper, which was developed on the basis of the author's presentation at the 4th conference of the Educational Role of Language network "From theory to practice, from practice to theory", is to outline the contemporary understanding of the essence of intercultural communicative competence underpinning the need for language teachers to devote equal attention to both the target and the local culture and language in order to prepare competent language users who can function as efficient mediators in the process of intercultural communication. In an answer to some of the deficiencies identified in educational practice, some practical ideas are also shared on how to exploit the rich affordance of language classes to enhance both the language command and the intercultural communicative competence of the learners. / Keywords: intercultural communicative competence, foreign language education

When Beautiful Thai Smiles do not Count: CLT for Receiving Compliments in English

Differences in how one says the same thing in two distinct languages often give rise to challenges for second language learners, which when addressed, allow them to become more competent language users. The present study investigates the use of communicative language teaching (CLT) on compliment responses in Standard American English for English major students at a university in Northeast Thailand. Results from analysis of the data from the pretest, posttest and questionnaires indicate that not only do the CLT lessons designed with blended mechanical, meaningful, and communicative activities help students improve skills in responding to compliments in Standard American English, but these activities together with peer teaching also provide them with plenty of opportunities to practice other skills in English which they previously acquired. The discussion of these findings offers practical suggestions for optimal use of CLT in Thai EFL teaching contexts.

HOW GROUP DISCUSSION AND CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE INCREASE STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION IN ENGLISH LITERATURE SUBJECTS: A CASE STUDY AT 4TH SEMESTER STUDENTS OF STIKUBANK UNIVERSITY IN 2017/2018 ACADEMIC YEAR

Foreign language teachers need to motivate their students to learn English. Literature can be a good means to achieve motivation in literature classes. There has recently been a revival of interest in literature as a practical, motivating and an effective resource available for language learning. Therefore, we can assume that literature and authentic literary materials, especially short stories can enhance students’ motivations. This study focuses on how students’ motivation can be lifted through the use of group discussion as class activities and contemporary literature as learning material. This study is a descriptive qualitative which used questionnaire as main instrument to find out how college students rate English Literature Course and how students can be motivated with certain group activities with certain learning material. The result of this study shows that students rated 82 out of 100 for English Literature Course using group discussion as class activity and contemporary literature as learning material. From this study, there is an obvious implication that college students may enjoy learning English Literature through the utilization of contemporary literature and group discussion. This study found that instead of reading short extracts presented in course books, or any classical short stories, contemporary literature were more suitable complete texts for students to become fluent and competent language users. By learning English through literature, the students’ knowledge and competence are enhanced not only through formal English lessons, but rather through informal cognitive ways, in where the students are invited to examine and analyze how human’s life are portrayed through vocabularies, grammatical structures, and sociocultural dimensions of language.

Being ‘a competent language user’ in a world of Others – Adult migrants’ perceptions and constructions of communicative competence

This article investigates the lived experience of language (Busch, 2017) in relation to perceptions of what it means to be ‘a competent language user’. How to define language competence is an ongoing discussion in applied linguistics. However, relatively little attention has been given to the lived experiences of adult migrants with respect to their perceptions of competence. Drawing on an analysis of focus group discussions with adult migrants enrolled in a language program in basic Swedish, this article builds on understandings of communicative competence as a relational construct shaped by intersubjective processes. Corroborating the relational view of competence is the importance given to emotional perspectives on competence and the role played by assessments, both those made by others and internalized self-assessments. Meanwhile, discourses on the language competence of adult migrants often frame successful language learning as an individual responsibility and achievement, obscuring the relational process underlying the perceptions and constructions of communicative competence.

Pragmatic Competence Injustice

When engaging in verbal communication, we do not simply use language to dispense information, but also to perform a plethora of actions, some of which depend on conventionalised, recurrent linguistic structures. Additionally, we must be skilled enough to arrive at the speaker’s intended meaning. However, speakers’ performance may deviate from certain habits and expectations concerning the way(s) of speaking or accomplishing actions, while various factors may hinder comprehension, which may give rise to misappraisals of their respective abilities and capacities as competent language users. This paper discusses whether such misappraisals may be subsumed by any of the already identified types of epistemic injustice and proposes a new label for them. It also describes the consequences of those misappraisals and approaches their origins from a cognitive perspective.

Textisms, texting, and spelling in Spanish

This study examines undergraduates’ perception of usage in smartphone text message and their relationship with the process of learning Spanish spelling. The aim is to establish whether subjects who have become competent language users in a digital environment accept the use of textisms and whether these textisms are perceived differently depending on their phonetic, lexical, and multimodal features. A total of 388 undergraduates from the Faculty of Education Science of the University of Seville participated in a non-experimental study of a descriptive type based on surveys. The data showed that both standard Spanish writing and digital usage coexisted harmoniously in participants’ texts. However, a clear difference was established between textisms that modified Spanish writing rules and those that incorporated new elements not included in standard writing. Whereas textisms which modified the relationship between phonemes and graphemes were considered a challenge to standard writing as well as to academic literacy among young students (12–16), lexical textisms, emoticons, images, and videos were not considered harmful to standard Spanish. The study suggested that evolution of the writing rules set by the Spanish Academy could be influenced by the digital writing habits of young students.