Elicitation Task Research Articles

Usage events and constructional knowledge: A study of two variants of the introductory-it construction

AbstractUsage-based theories hold that mental representation of language is shaped by a lifetime of usage. Both input to which first language (L1) and second language (L2) users are exposed and their own language production affect their construction learning and entrenchment. The present study investigates L2 users’ knowledge of two introductory-it variants, Adj-that (e.g., it is clear that …) and Adj-to (e.g., it is difficult to …). We probed the extent to which adjective–variant associations in an academic section of COCA and L2 users’ engagement with academic writing affected learners’ generation of adjectives distinctively attracted to the two variants. An analysis of cue-outcome contingency was conducted to establish adjective–variant associations, and an elicitation task was carried out, probing L2 users’ ability to generate adjectives when prompted with the variants (e.g., it is [blank] to). The participants were 84 graduate students in the United States, 44 from L1 English and 40 from L1 Thai backgrounds. The results indicated that the adjective–variant associations predicted L2 users’ generation of adjectives. However, academic writing engagement did not affect learners’ performance. The findings suggest that statistical information in the input affects L2 users’ constructional representation.

Violations of first-order stochastic dominance

AbstractI find necessary and sufficient conditions for first-order stochastic dominance (FOSD) violations for choices from a budget line of Arrow securities. Applying this characterization to existing data, I compare FOSD violation rates across a broad set of risk preference elicitation tasks.

“Being myself in Spanish”

AbstractThis case study examines the pragmatic development of address forms of a US-based Spanish heritage speaker of Mexican descent, Juan, during an 11-week abroad program in Argentina. Instruments included a background questionnaire, a pre/post-written elicitation task, four interviews, and 16 naturalistic recordings during host family dinners and service encounters. Findings indicate that Juan decreased his use ofvoson elicitation tasks and did not usevosat all in naturalistic recordings. There was an increase, however, in his metapragmatic awareness, or his understanding of the ways variable forms index social meaning, specifically regarding address forms. These results were related to Juan’s bicultural identity construction, investment, and evolving withdrawal from or participation in the host community. This study highlights the importance of triangulating elicited and naturalistic data with qualitative information and moving away from appropriate-based models that compare heritage speakers’ pragmatic choices to those of monolingual native speakers.

To make a long story short: A descriptive study of formulaic language use in post-stroke fluent aphasia

ABSTRACT Background Language sample analysis is a common tool for inventorying an individual’s linguistic strengths and weaknesses. Although most research has focused on quantifying propositional or novel language production, studies suggest that individuals with aphasia, specifically nonfluent aphasia, produce high percentages of formulaic language relative to healthy controls. To date, little is known about how individuals with fluent aphasia subtypes use formulaic language and how the elicitation task influences their production. Aims The purpose of this research was to comprehensively describe patterns of formulaic language use in various discourse tasks in language samples of individuals with fluent aphasia. Methods & Procedures The retrospective analysis included discourse samples from Aphasiabank from 142 individuals with anomic, conduction, and Wernicke’s aphasia across four monologic discourse tasks. After identifying and classifying formulaic items into nine types, percentages of formulaic language were calculated for each participant and discourse task. Non-parametric statistics and Pearson’s correlations were used to compare production patterns and explore relationships between language severity and formulaic item types. Outcomes & Results Unique patterns of formulaic language were observed across groups including lower proportions of fillers in individuals with Wernicke’s aphasia and higher proportions of yes/no variants and speech formulas in individuals with conduction aphasia. Production patterns were most influenced by discourse task in individuals with anomic aphasia. Formulaic language use did not correlate with aphasia severity as measured by aphasia quotient. Conclusions Findings add to the evidence base describing formulaic language usage in individuals with post-stroke aphasia, which serves as a necessary foundation for eventual clinical application.

Covert Contrast in Acquiring Fricatives by Preschool Children: Evidence From Najdi Arabic

Covert contrast is the statistically reliable distinction between target language phonemes produced in the process of language acquisition that is nevertheless not perceived by a native speaker of that language. This paper examines the acquisition of contrasts in four Najdi Arabic fricatives, /s/, /ʃ/, /θ/, and /ð/, and seeks to identify the most common substitutions in producing these sounds. Words were elicited from 25 preschool children (aged 3–5 years). The target words contained the studied fricative followed by either long /a:/ or short /a/ in the initial position. Praat software was used for acoustic analysis to extract the four acoustic cues: center of gravity, fricative noise duration, F1, and F2. Participants performed a word repetition task and a picture elicitation task. The results showed six cases of covert contrast, seven cases of no contrast, and 87 cases of accurate production (overt contrast). The results also revealed stopping, gliding, and affrication as substitutions in the manner of articulation, while replacement in place of articulation occurred in backing but most commonly in fronting (24 cases). The present study sought to determine implications for children’s linguistic performance, and, consequently, for language education and for planning treatment for children with speech disorders.

Repeated experience and consistent risk preferences

Economists have developed various methods to elicit risk preferences, which can help forecast decision-making in risky scenarios. However, risk elicitation can be complex, and there remain unresolved challenges. Our research demonstrates that repeated exposure to risk elicitation tasks, such as the Holt-Laury and Eckel-Grossman tasks, results in individuals making more consistent decisions with less noise. This suggests that measuring risk preferences after individuals have gained experience and learning can yield more consistent outcomes and provide a more accurate representation of individual risk preferences.

Heritage language use in the country of residence matters for language maintenance, but short visits to the homeland can boost heritage language outcomes

This study examined how heritage children's experiences with the heritage language (HL) in the country of residence (e.g., children's generation, their HL use and richness) and the country of origin (e.g., visits to and from the homeland) may change as a function of the migration generation heritage children belong to, and how this may in turn differentially influence HL outcomes. Fifty-eight Greek-English-speaking bilingual children of Greek heritage residing in Western Canada and New York City participated in the study. They belonged to three different generations of migration: a group of second-generation heritage speakers, which were children of first-generation parents; a group of mixed-generation heritage children of first- and second-generation parents; and of third-generation heritage children with second-generation parents. They were tested on a picture-naming task targeting HL vocabulary and on an elicitation task targeting syntax- and discourse-conditioned subject placement. Children's performance on both tasks was predicted by their generation status, with the third generation having significantly lower accuracy than the second and the mixed generations. HL use significantly predicted language outcomes across generations. However, visits to and from the country of origin also mattered. This study shows that HL use in the country of residence is important for HL development, but that it changes as a function of the child's generation. At the same time, the finding that the most vulnerable domains (vocabulary and discourse-conditioned subject placement) benefited from visits to the country of origin highlights the importance of both diversity of and exposure to a variety spoken by more speakers and in different contexts for HL maintenance.

Prosody and schizophrenia. Objective acoustic measurements of monotonous and flat intonation in young Danish people with a schizophrenia diagnosis. A pilot study

Purpose Patients with schizophrenia have a flat and monotonous intonation. The purpose of the study was to find the variables of flat speech that differed in patients from those in healthy controls in Danish. Materials and methods We compared drug-naïve schizophrenic patients 5 men, 13 women and 18 controls, aged 18–35 years, which had all grown up in Copenhagen speaking modern Danish standard (rigsdansk). We used two different tasks that lay different demands on the speaker to elicit spontaneous speech: a retelling of a film clip and telling a story from pictures in a book. A linguist used the computer program Praat to extract the phonetic linguistic parameters. Results We found different results for the two elicitation tasks (Task 1: a retelling of a film clip, task 2: telling a story from pictures in a book). There was higher intensity variation in task one in controls and higher pitch variation in task two in controls. We found a difference in intensity with higher intensity variation in the stresses in the controls in task one and fewer syllables between each stress in the controls. We also found higher F1 variation in task one and two in the patient group and higher F2 variation in the control group in both tasks. Conclusions The results varied between patients and controls, but the demands also made a difference. Further research is needed to elucidate the possibilities of acoustic measures in diagnostics or linguistic treatment related to schizophrenia.

Subject realization in Greek preschool learners of English

Languages differ in their realization of the subject argument: non-null-subject languages, like English, require subjects to be phonologically overt; rather, null-subject languages, like Greek, allow the subject to be overt or null. This cross-linguistic difference can lead to the transfer of grammatical properties across languages during bilingual language acquisition. The direction of crosslinguistic transfer is known to be affected by structural overlap and linguistic dominance. This exploratory study was conducted to establish whether structural overlap or linguistic dominance affect the production patterns of Greek children who acquire English at preschool. If structural overlap determines the direction of transfer, then children will overuse overt subjects in Greek; if dominance determines the direction of transfer, then children will overuse null subjects in English. Two groups of Greek children (between 3;6–4;5 and 4;6–5;8) attending a monolingual English immersion programme in Greece participated in a novel oral elicitation task that tested their use of null and overt subjects in both languages. Both groups produced significantly more null and fewer overt subjects in English than an English monolingual control group, but the same number of null and overt subjects in Greek as a Greek monolingual control group. This finding suggests that the preschoolers, who start learning English at 3;0 years, experience crosslinguistic transfer from Greek, their dominant language, to English – thus highlighting the role that dominance plays in determining the direction of crosslinguistic transfer among successive bilingual children.

The Students’ Development of Discourse Competence in the Elementary Chinese Courses for International Learners

Based on the theoretical approaches to interlanguage and discourse cohesiveness, this study examines international students' growth in discourse awareness and discourse competence in the teaching of elementary Chinese reading and writing, and explores a set of assessment methods for teaching discourse. The learners' knowledge and production of Chinese conjunctive words were assessed with multiple test methods, including the sentence sequencing test for testing learners' cognitive understanding of discourse cohesiveness, the elicitation tasks for assessing learners' production of conjunctive words, the tests of picture-based sentence writing and essay writing for evaluating learners' discourse awareness of the cohesiveness in form and meaning. 13 students were recruited by us to participate in these tests. A comprehensive discussion of the data supports that appropriate reading and writing instruction can develop learners' discourse competence and enhance their discourse awareness to a certain extent.

How sure are you? — the properties of self-reported conviction in the elicitation of health preferences with discrete choice experiments

Discrete choice experiments (DCE) are often used to elicit preferences, for instance, in health preference research. However, DCEs only provide binary responses, whilst real-life choices are made with varying degrees of conviction. We aimed to verify whether eliciting self-reported convictions on a 0–100 scale adds meaningful information to the binary choice. Eighty three respondents stated their preferences for health states using DCE and the time trade-off method (TTO). In TTO, utility ranges were also elicited to account for preference imprecision. We verified the properties of the conviction across three areas: (1) response to various choice task modifications (e.g. dominance, increase in complexity, distance from the status quo) and association with rationality violations (e.g. intransitivity); (2) association with test–retest results; (3) relation to the utility difference and imprecision estimated in TTO. Regarding (1), conviction increased in choice tasks with lower complexity, larger relative attractiveness, and lower distance to the status quo. Regarding (2), choices made with above-median conviction were sustained in 90% of the cases, compared to 68% for below-median conviction. Regarding (3), the conviction increases with utility difference and it decreases with utility imprecision; overconfidence seems to prevail: non-zero conviction is reported even for identical utilities. Self-reported conviction in DCE is associated in an intuitive way with the observed choices. It may, therefore, be useful in explaining or predicting behaviour or bridging the gap between the results of various elicitation tasks.

Metaphor production in the bilingual acquisition of English and Polish.

Metaphor acquisition research has focused mostly on metaphor comprehension in monolingual children. Ours is the first study to examine metaphor production in young bilinguals. A quantitative method was employed whereby sixty-two children aged three to six, with English and Polish, were tested on their ability to produce primary (e.g., a long day) and perceptual resemblance metaphors (e.g., You're my sunshine) in response to elicitation tasks. A univariate ANOVA revealed that the main factors to affect the production of conventional metaphors in bilingual children are their chronological age and their verbal skills in both English and Polish. No significant effect was found for nonverbal IQ, metaphor type, or testing language. These results are discussed in the context of both Conceptual Metaphor Theory, which has been concerned with the study of primary (and other conceptual) metaphors, and Structure Mapping Theory, which has focused on the use of perceptual resemblance metaphors. Usage-Based Theory is brought in to explain lexical effects in metaphor production.

The grammar of typically developing Oromo-speaking 3-year-olds

This study investigates the grammatical skills of typically developing Oromo-speaking preschool-age children and lays the foundation for a language assessment tool for Oromo, a Cushitic language spoken in Ethiopia. The current study used a standard picture–based elicitation task that evaluated children’s accuracy in producing grammatical utterances. Language samples were collected from 44 monolingual 3- to 4-year-old Oromo children with typical language development. The percentage of grammatical utterances (PGU) was computed and error types were analyzed. The average level of grammatical accuracy as measured by PGU was 69%, with a large amount of variability. The data for Oromo 3-year-olds showed a variety of infrequent error types. The results of the study provide crucial foundational knowledge on grammatical development in Oromo, which could form the basis of future language assessments and diagnostic materials.

Word order in simple sentences of tri-lingual tri-modal deaf students*

Abstract This study explores word order patterns produced by deaf students who use Israeli Sign Language (ISL) and Arabic. Nineteen students participated in a sentence elicitation task in which they retold events portrayed in 24 short videos in three language conditions: signed ISL, spoken Palestinian Arabic and written Modern Standard Arabic. A control group of 19 hearing students was tested in the two Arabic conditions. Results showed that SVO word order was the most frequent in both groups, and in all three languages. SOV word order, which is common in ISL but ungrammatical in Arabic, was produced only by the deaf group. Finally, unique word orders, specific to the signed modality were produced only in the ISL condition. The findings suggest that deaf students are sensitive to the syntactic structures of each language they use and show natural cross-linguistic interaction in their language use.

A Review of Pragmatics Studies Focusing on English Language Teaching in the Turkish Context

Purpose: This paper reviews the studies in English language teaching focusing on pragmatics in the Turkish context in terms of their methodological choices.
 Design/Methodology/Approach: For this purpose, 57 studies published between 2001 and 2022 were identified and coded for different methodological choices. They were then analyzed to map their methods in terms of aims, research design, sample size, research setting, participants, the type of data, data collection instruments, the methods of data analysis, pragmatic aspects investigated and the findings.
 Findings: The results of the analysis indicate that there was an overreliance on some data collection and analysis methods. Studies commonly used elicitation tasks such as discourse completion tasks to collect elicited data and analyzed them using descriptive methodologies. Furthermore, studies that are in the university context populate the list of articles and few studies were conducted in primary and secondary school settings with younger learners.
 Highlights: The findings indicate that there are several research gaps in pragmatic studies in the field of English language teaching in the Turkish context.

Definitud y especificidad en el inglés como lengua extranjera


 
 
 This article explores the application of English parameter settings to mark specificity and definiteness by Costa Rican Spanish-speaking, L2 English young adults. A Forced Elicitation Task (FET) was used to analyze the participants’ choices. The data were analyzed in comparison to native speaker responses. The results show that these EFL learners find it particularly difficult to decide on the correct articles for specific nouns, even more so if they are indefinite NPs. Indefinite and definite non- specific NPs are assigned articles with less difficulty. The results point to the consideration of spaced learning practice in the context under study.
 
 

Semantic Aspects of Verb Production in Various Discourse Tasks in People With Nonfluent Aphasia.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how people with nonfluent aphasia produce semantically weighted verbs compared to people without aphasia, as well as how a discourse elicitation task affects verb production in people with nonfluent aphasia and people without aphasia. This study included 30 people with nonfluent aphasia and 32 age-matched people without aphasia from AphasiaBank. Language samples of five different discourse tasks were obtained and coded for heavy, light, and be-copular verbs. The number of verbs per utterance and the proportion of heavy, light, and be-copular verbs were compared between groups and between tasks. People with nonfluent aphasia showed a similar proportion of heavy verbs but reduced verbs per utterance and proportion of light verbs compared to people without aphasia. With regard to discourse task effects, we found a trend for a higher proportion of heavy verbs in sequential picture descriptions, and a higher proportion of be-copular verbs and lower proportion of heavy verbs for a recount compared to other tasks in people without aphasia. The discourse task effects were minimally found in people with nonfluent aphasia. Our results suggest that people with nonfluent aphasia present with relatively preserved heavy verb production but with impaired production of light verbs in discourse. In addition, it appears that discourse tasks do not significantly influence the type of verbs produced by people with nonfluent aphasia possibly due to the floor effects and wide range of individual variability. This study is a preliminary effort to evaluate methodological factors that impact verb production; future studies are needed to develop a framework for clinical decision making when selecting a discourse elicitation task for people with aphasia.

Learning your own risk preferences

AbstractDo people know their own risk preferences, or do risk choices change with experience and observation? We provide a straightforward test in the laboratory. People make an initial decision concerning a lottery choice and then experience 24 unpaid practice periods in which they roll the dice, record the outcome, and record the would-be payoff. They then make a final decision for the lottery choice; one of the first and last periods is randomly chosen for payment. Our primary hypothesis is that people will become less risk-averse by having made and experienced the practice rolls. We do find that people are significantly more likely to become less risk-averse than more risk-averse over time. We note that this move towards assuming increased risk goes in the opposite direction from what is at least arguably predicted by loss aversion and reference dependence. We find that women’s preferences change much less during a session than men’s preferences change. We feel that our literally hands-on approach ensures a degree of engagement that helps to accelerate the learning process. We argue that measures obtained after people have had experience with a mechanism are more meaningful, and that this principle might well extend more generally to other elicitation tasks.

Morphosyntactic development in German-speaking individuals with Down syndrome-longitudinal data.

The present study provides longitudinal data on the development of receptive and expressive grammar in children and adolescents with Down syndrome and addresses the role of nonverbal cognitive abilities and verbal short-term memory for morphosyntactic development. Seventeen German-speaking individuals with Down syndrome (aged 4;6-17;1 years at first testing (T1)) were assessed twice, 4;4-6;6 years apart. For a subset of five participants, there was also a third assessment 2 years after the second. Receptive grammar, nonverbal cognition, and verbal short-term memory were tested using standardized measures. For expressive grammar, elicitation tasks were used to assess the production of subject-verb agreement and of wh-questions. At group level, the participants showed a significant increase in grammar comprehension from T1 to T2. However, progress diminished with increasing chronological age. Notable growth could not be observed beyond the age of 10 years.With respect to expressive grammatical abilities, progress was limited to those participants who had mastered verbal agreement inflection around age 10 years. Individuals who did not master verbal agreement by late childhood achieved no progress in producing wh-questions, either.There was an increase in nonverbal cognitive abilities in the majority of participants. Results for verbal short-term memory followed a similar pattern as those for grammar comprehension. Finally, neither nonverbal cognition nor verbal short-term memory were related to changes in receptive or expressive grammar. The results point to a slowdown in the acquisition of receptive grammar which starts before the teenage years. For expressive grammar, improvement in wh-question production only occurred in individuals with good performance in subject-verb agreement marking, which suggests that the latter might have a trigger function for further grammatical development in German-speaking individuals with Down syndrome. The study provides no indication that nonverbal cognitive abilities or verbal short-term memory performance determined the receptive or expressive development. The results lead to clinical implications for language therapy.

Contextual framing effects on risk aversion assessed using the bomb risk elicitation task

We examine the impact of framing on individuals’ risk-taking behavior in the context of health risks during the coronavirus outbreak. We elicit risk attitudes from a sample of 3385 individuals across seven European countries using an incentivized decision-making task. Participants are randomly assigned to one of three versions of the task: one involving the risk of a bomb explosion, one involving the risk of contracting an infectious disease, and one involving opening an empty box. We find that the framing of the task significantly affects risk-taking behavior, with participants exhibiting greater risk aversion in the health task than in the bomb or neutral task. This framing effect is observed in the majority of the countries studied.