English Sentences Research Articles

Production and Interpretation of Accentual Intonation Tunes in L2 Acquisition

Intonation is one of the most problematic aspects of the English prosody for L2 speakers. Studies on Nigerian English (NigE) intonation have claimed that Standard English intonation differs significantly from native Englishes but studies on the interpretation and production of accentual intonation tunes of L2 acquisition have been rare. Fifty final-year university undergraduates from Nigeria (25 males and 25 females) were purposively sampled. Each of the respondents was given 10 English sentences to produce and interpret. Interpretations of each of the respondents was captured and converted to simple percentages while the voice production of each of the respondents was elicited from a Speech Filing System (SFS) installed on Hp250 laptop. Respondents' frequency of occurrence at production level showed appropriate use of 134 (26.8%) while inappropriate use amounted to 366 (73.2%) out of 500 expected results of accentual tunes. Production on gender basis revealed males and females appropriate use at 67 (13.4%) each and inappropriate use was 183 (36.6%) respectively, both sexes showing no difference in accentual tunes use. Findings revealed that out of the 500 expected results for interpretation of accentual tunes, respondents appropriately interpreted the English sentences in 360 (72%) instances while 140 (28%) respondents misinterpreted the English sentences. Though, results of respondents revealed competence in the interpretation of accentual tunes (72%) but at the production level, respondents did not apply accentual tunes (26.8%) on English expressions. This study concludes that Nigerian spoken English accent differs significantly from native Englishes and should be described as an outer circle English.

LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE PORTRAYED IN INDONESIAN EFL TEXTBOOKS: A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY

This research examines the linguistic landscape within 4 (four) English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks in Indonesia, employing Cenoz and Gorter's theoretical framework. The primary objectives of this study are to categorize the various linguistic landscape elements present in Indonesian EFL textbooks and provide a comprehensive description of the characteristics of these linguistic landscapes. The analysis was conducted through a descriptive qualitative methodology, focusing on linguistic landscape items within EFL textbooks used in Grades I, II, IV, and V, comprising a total of 116 images. These items encompassed monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual components. Specifically, 100 images featured English-only elements, establishing English as the dominant language in these instances, while 3 images were exclusively in Bahasa Indonesia, 1 in Arabic, and 12 incorporated both English and Indonesian. Including these linguistic elements is intended to familiarize students with English sentence structures in the textbooks, as English holds a prominent status as an international language.

FOSTERING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS IN EFL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS DURING LISTENING COMPREHENSION USING DIGITAL TEACHING-MATERIALS: A CASE STUDY

Understanding listening materials is perceived as the most challenging aspect of language learning by many EFL University students. They face difficulties in recognizing English words, phrases, pronunciation, vocabulary, and sentence complexity, compounded by the rapid speech rate of native speakers. Addressing these challenges, this study explores the use of digital materials that require students to analyse, evaluate and make informed judgments based on listening content, thereby nurturing higher order thinking skills. A qualitative case study was conducted, involving the collection of comprehensive data from course syllabi, lecturers and students. A total of sixty-one university students enrolled intermediate listening course, along with two listening lecturers, were actively engaged to enrich the data. The results shows that the use of digital materials, particularly the e-module, has proven to be effective. Students’ responses indicate that the e-module effectively facilitates critical thinking, improves reflective ability, and encourages motivation. Moreover, the e-module features, including well-defined learning outcomes, authentic materials, scaffolded learning activities, engaging multimedia elements, collaborative features, and opportunities for reflection and self-assessment, collectively contribute to foster critical thinking skills and motivation among students.

The roles of prosody in Chinese-English reading comprehension

BackgroundDespite being an essential component of children's oral reading fluency, prosodic reading, which involves expressive changes in pitch patterns and pause durations, has not been explored in Cantonese-English bilingual children, whose first language (L1) is tonal, non-alphabetic, and whose second language (L2) is non-tonal, alphabetic. AimsThis study examined the development of prosodic reading and its within- and cross-language associations with reading comprehension among Cantonese-English bilingual children from second to third grade. SampleOne hundred and twenty-one 7-to 8-year-old Cantonese-English bilingual children completed initial testing in grade 2, with 52 tested in grade 3. MethodsProsodic reading was assessed using one Chinese and one English passage, each comprising six types of syntactic structures: declaratives, clause-final commas, yes-no questions, wh-questions, complex adjectival phrases, and quotatives. Word-reading efficiency, oral passage-reading fluency, and reading comprehension in Chinese and English were also measured. ResultsSpectrographic analyses revealed that these children were aware of language-independent functions and language-specific manifestations of pitch and pause cues within and across their L1 Chinese and L2 English. Wh question pitch contours emerged as the most robust link to reading comprehension across both languages, while a crossover effect occurred from Cantonese pitch to English reading comprehension. Shorter pauses for English declarative quotative sentences and phrase-final commas were concurrently associated with greater English reading comprehension. ConclusionsThese findings are interpreted within a new reading framework, the Prosodic Catalysing Hypothesis (PCH), which proposes that pitch and pause production can bridge prosody and syntax to facilitate reading comprehension.

Language Model for Translating the English Language to Garhwali Language

The main aim of this paper is to develop a language model for translating the English language to Garhwali, a language spoken in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand, India. The model will use state-of-the-art natural language processing techniques, including machine learning and neural networks, to enable accurate and efficient translation of English sentences into Garhwali and vice versa. The model will be trained on a large dataset of parallel English-Garhwali text to ensure high accuracy and fluency of the translations. The successful development of this language model will help bridge the language barrier between English speakers and Garhwali speakers, facilitate communication and exchange of ideas, and promote cultural exchange and understanding. Local language conversion system can help to improve the user experience by providing content in the language that the user is most comfortable with. It can help to reduce confusion and frustration, and make the user experience more enjoyable. Keywords: Statistical Machine Translation, Mathematical model, English-Garhwali, Evaluation.

Students’ perception of teacher in using bilingual in EFL classroom: Indonesian context

The objective of this research is the importance of use bilinguals to improve the students’ ability in English, the use of the both of languages is very important to help students to understand the English material delivered by the teacher. Besides that, it makes it easy for them to understand the meaning of vocabulary and English sentences and also make them feel comfortable in taking English lessons. To explore students’ knowledge about the effect of using bilingual the use of English and Indonesia to improve their ability in English learning, the researcher conducts a study of “Students’ Perception of the Importance of Using Bilingual in English Learning Ability. The result of this study was the students had positive perception toward the importance of using bilingual (Bahasa Indonesia and English) in English learning process. The data analysis of the information obtained from the questionnaire and the interview confirmed these results. The questionnaire data showed that from 10 statements, there are 9 statements had the “Strongly Agree” response of the students. It was proven by the central tendency of each statements got the average above “80%” which is based on assessment interval on Likert Scale where index 80%-100% means “Strongly Agree”.

Identifying Links Between Latent Memory and Speech Recognition Factors.

The link between memory ability and speech recognition accuracy is often examined by correlating summary measures of performance across various tasks, but interpretation of such correlations critically depends on assumptions about how these measures map onto underlying factors of interest. The present work presents an alternative approach, wherein latent factor models are fit to trial-level data from multiple tasks to directly test hypotheses about the underlying structure of memory and the extent to which latent memory factors are associated with individual differences in speech recognition accuracy. Latent factor models with different numbers of factors were fit to the data and compared to one another to select the structures which best explained vocoded sentence recognition in a two-talker masker across a range of target-to-masker ratios, performance on three memory tasks, and the link between sentence recognition and memory. Young adults with normal hearing (N = 52 for the memory tasks, of which 21 participants also completed the sentence recognition task) completed three memory tasks and one sentence recognition task: reading span, auditory digit span, visual free recall of words, and recognition of 16-channel vocoded Perceptually Robust English Sentence Test Open-set sentences in the presence of a two-talker masker at target-to-masker ratios between +10 and 0 dB. Correlations between summary measures of memory task performance and sentence recognition accuracy were calculated for comparison to prior work, and latent factor models were fit to trial-level data and compared against one another to identify the number of latent factors which best explains the data. Models with one or two latent factors were fit to the sentence recognition data and models with one, two, or three latent factors were fit to the memory task data. Based on findings with these models, full models that linked one speech factor to one, two, or three memory factors were fit to the full data set. Models were compared via Expected Log pointwise Predictive Density and post hoc inspection of model parameters. Summary measures were positively correlated across memory tasks and sentence recognition. Latent factor models revealed that sentence recognition accuracy was best explained by a single factor that varied across participants. Memory task performance was best explained by two latent factors, of which one was generally associated with performance on all three tasks and the other was specific to digit span recall accuracy at lists of six digits or more. When these models were combined, the general memory factor was closely related to the sentence recognition factor, whereas the factor specific to digit span had no apparent association with sentence recognition. Comparison of latent factor models enables testing hypotheses about the underlying structure linking cognition and speech recognition. This approach showed that multiple memory tasks assess a common latent factor that is related to individual differences in sentence recognition, although performance on some tasks was associated with multiple factors. Thus, while these tasks provide some convergent assessment of common latent factors, caution is needed when interpreting what they tell us about speech recognition.

Cloze probability, predictability ratings, and computational estimates for 205 English sentences, aligned with existing EEG and reading time data

We release a database of cloze probability values, predictability ratings, and computational estimates for a sample of 205 English sentences (1726 words), aligned with previously released word-by-word reading time data (both self-paced reading and eye-movement records; Frank et al., Behavior Research Methods, 45(4), 1182–1190. 2013) and EEG responses (Frank et al., Brain and Language, 140, 1–11. 2015). Our analyses show that predictability ratings are the best predictors of the EEG signal (N400, P600, LAN) self-paced reading times, and eye movement patterns, when spillover effects are taken into account. The computational estimates are particularly effective at explaining variance in the eye-tracking data without spillover. Cloze probability estimates have decent overall psychometric accuracy and are the best predictors of early fixation patterns (first fixation duration). Our results indicate that the choice of the best measurement of word predictability in context critically depends on the processing index being considered.

Attention modulates perceptual learning of non-native-accented speech.

Listeners readily adapt to variation in non-native-accented speech, learning to disambiguate between talker-specific and accent-based variation. We asked (1) which linguistic and indexical features of the spoken utterance are relevant for this learning to occur and (2) whether task-driven attention to these features affects the extent to which learning generalizes to novel utterances and voices. In two experiments, listeners heard English sentences (Experiment 1) or words (Experiment 2) produced by Spanish-accented talkers during an exposure phase. Listeners' attention was directed to lexical content (transcription), indexical cues (talker identification), or both (transcription + talker identification). In Experiment 1, listeners' test transcription of novel English sentences spoken by Spanish-accented talkers showed generalized perceptual learning to previously unheard voices and utterances for all training conditions. In Experiment 2, generalized learning occurred only in the transcription + talker identification condition, suggesting that attention to both linguistic and indexical cues optimizes listeners' ability to distinguish between individual talker- and group-based variation, especially with the reduced availability of sentence-length prosodic information. Collectively, these findings highlight the role of attentional processes in the encoding of speech input and underscore the interdependency of indexical and lexical characteristics in spoken language processing.

CONcreTEXT norms: Concreteness ratings for Italian and English words in context.

Concreteness is a fundamental dimension of word semantic representation that has attracted more and more interest to become one of the most studied variables in the psycholinguistic and cognitive neuroscience literature in the last decade. Concreteness effects have been found at both the brain and the behavioral levels, but they may vary depending on the constraints of the context and task demands. In this study, we collected concreteness norms for English and Italian words presented in different context sentences to allow better control and manipulation of concreteness in future psycholinguistic research. First, we observed high split-half correlations and Cronbach's alpha coefficients, suggesting that our ratings were highly reliable and can be used in Italian- and English-speaking populations. Second, our data indicate that the concreteness ratings are related to the lexical density and accessibility of the sentence in both English and Italian. We also found that the concreteness of words in isolation was highly correlated with that of words in context. Finally, we analyzed differences between nouns and verbs in concreteness ratings without significant effects. Our new concreteness norms of words in context are a valuable source of information for future research in both the English and Italian language. The complete database is available on the Open Science Framework (doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/U3PC4).

ANALYSIS OF VIEWERS' COMMENTS ON A VIRAL VIDEO ON YOUTUBE

YouTube is a medium for two-way communication, where a variety of videos are shared on social media every day. Viewers are making various videos viral by sharing on social media and those videos are also becoming the focus of discussion at the national and international levels. In this study, the comments on YouTube have been investigated to understand the viewer’s opinion, ideology and their thinking. Active audience theory has been used as the theoretical framework of the study. The study has been conducted by the discourse analysis method. As a sample of the qualitative research, a viral video is selected by purposive sampling from YouTube and all comments (N=365) of the viewers have been analyzed from the YouTube comment box. The results of the study show that viewers have responded extensively to the viral video and the issues. Some comments are very informative which create a huge meaning for thinking and learning and show many unknown and hidden issues which are not directly available in the video. In the comment box, viewers post some data visual evidence to prove their argument and sometimes share an information source. Most of the comments are in Bangla, but there are also comments in English sentences using English words. There are memes, photos, data visual, screenshots, other video links, and Emoji which shows emotion like anger, and sarcasm in the comments. The average word count of the comment is one to three words. But the word count of the meaningful comment is 10-20 words. Viewers provide comments on the entire video, focus on specific parts and related issues, or sometimes even comment on irrelevant matters using slang and meaningless words; considering those issues, commenters are divided into three categories. Below the video, the light and deep natures of comments have been found in the comment box. It is essential to understand the natures of comments and viewers in order to prevent disinformation and misinformation. Recently, social media has witnessed an increase in rumors, hatred, and bullying through comments, and such comments should be minimized to promote a decent and more positive society.

An AI-Based Framework for Translating American Sign Language to English and Vice Versa

In this paper, we propose a framework to convert American Sign Language (ASL) to English and English to ASL. Within this framework, we use a deep learning model along with the rolling average prediction that captures image frames from videos and classifies the signs from the image frames. The classified frames are then used to construct ASL words and sentences to support people with hearing impairments. We also use the same deep learning model to capture signs from the people with deaf symptoms and convert them into ASL words and English sentences. Based on this framework, we developed a web-based tool to use in real-life application and we also present the tool as a proof of concept. With the evaluation, we found that the deep learning model converts the image signs into ASL words and sentences with high accuracy. The tool was also found to be very useful for people with hearing impairment and deaf symptoms. The main contribution of this work is the design of a system to convert ASL to English and vice versa.

Translation of Substitution and Ellipsis by Professional Translators and Translators in Training: A Contrastive Study

Creating a coherent and logically connected text requires the effective use of cohesive devices. Accurate translation of cohesive devices is essential to preserve the intended meaning of the original text. The present study investigates errors made by professional translators and novice translators when translating substitution and ellipsis from English into Arabic. Specifically, the study aims to answer the research question: What are the errors made by professional translators and translators in training when translating substitution and ellipsis? To gather data, the researcher conducted a survey and included a sample of both professional translators and translators in training. The results show that both groups had difficulty accurately translating substitution and ellipsis. The most prevalent errors included preserving the English sentence structure, omitting the cohesive device entirely, and modifying the meaning of the original text. Notably, both groups found identifying and translating ellipses particularly challenging, which led to errors in the final translation. Experienced translators produced higher quality translations than novice translators, indicating the significant impact of experience on the translation process. Based on the findings, the study recommends providing targeted training on cohesive devices through practical exercises to improve accuracy and offer more opportunities for practice in a supportive environment. Addressing these challenges can enhance the quality of translations and preserve the meaning of the original text.

The effect of musical training and language background on vocal imitation of pitch in speech and song.

Vocal imitation plays a critical function in the development and use of both language and music. Previous studies have reported more accurate imitation for sung pitch than spoken pitch, which might be attributed to the structural differences in acoustic signals and/or the distinct mental representations of pitch patterns across speech and music. The current study investigates the interaction between bottom-up (i.e., acoustic structure) and top-down (i.e., participants' language and musical background) factors on pitch imitation by comparing speech and song imitation accuracy across four groups: English and Mandarin speakers with or without musical training. Participants imitated pitch sequences that were characteristic of either song or speech, derived from pitch patterns in English and Mandarin spoken sentences. Overall, song imitation was more accurate than speech imitation, and this advantage was larger for English than Mandarin pitch sequences, regardless of participants' musical and language experiences. This effect likely reflects the perceptual salience of linguistic tones in Mandarin relative to English speech. Music and language knowledge were associated with optimal imitation of different acoustic features. Musicians were more accurate in matching absolute pitch across syllables and musical notes compared to nonmusicians. By contrast, Mandarin speakers were more accurate at imitating fine-grained changes within and across pitch events compared to English speakers. These results suggest that different top-down factors (i.e., language and musical background) influence pitch imitation ability for different dimensions of bottom-up features (i.e., absolute pitch and relative pitch patterns). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Cross-language semantic parafoveal preview benefits in bilinguals.

The aim of this project was to identify factors contributing to cross-language semantic preview benefits. In Experiment 1, Russian-English bilinguals read English sentences with Russian words presented as parafoveal previews. The gaze-contingent boundary paradigm was used to present sentences. Critical previews were cognate translations of the target word (CTAPT-START), noncognate translations (CPOK-TERM), or interlingual homograph translations (MOPE-SEA). A semantic preview benefit (i.e., shorter fixation durations for related than unrelated previews) was observed for cognate and interlingual homograph translations, but not for noncognate translations. In Experiment 2, English-French bilinguals read English sentences with French words used as parafoveal previews. Critical previews were interlingual homograph translations of the target word (PAIN-BREAD) or interlingual homograph translations with a diacritic added (PÁIN-BREAD). A robust semantic preview benefit was found only for interlingual homographs without diacritics, although both preview types produced a semantic preview benefit in the total fixation duration. Our findings suggest that semantically related previews need to have substantial orthographic overlap with words in the target language to produce cross-language semantic preview benefits in early eye fixation measures. In terms of the Bilingual Interactive Activation+ model, the preview word may need to activate the language node for the target language before its meaning is integrated with that of the target word. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Barriers to English Listening Comprehension for Indonesian University Students: Implications for Listening Curriculum Development

English has been considered an important means of international communication not only for education but also for career advancement. In general, students find it difficult to understand expressions or sentences in English. The same thing occurs when learning listening comprehension for EFL students in Indonesia. Listening is one of the most difficult skills experienced by students in learning English. The research in this paper aims to investigate the barriers to English listening comprehension of university students in Indonesia and their implications for listening curriculum development. Data were garnered through semi-structured interviews with eight Indonesian higher-education students. The results depict that the barriers experienced by students in listening comprehension include a lack of pronunciation understanding and different accents, a lack of English vocabulary, a lack of voice clarity quality, and difficulty in understanding the speed of pronunciation. To improve listening comprehension, students need to practice listening to audio from native speakers repeatedly, English podcasts, speeches, and inspiring videos via YouTube, English songs, and watching movies. The implications for listening curriculum development were discussed in this paper.

SENTENCE STRUCTURES IN LEARNING ENGLISH

Learning sentence structure is an important element in mastering English, as it allows learners to convey thoughts and ideas in a meaningful way. However, mastering sentence structure in English can be difficult for English learners, as English has a unique sentence structure system that is different from other languages. This research aims to explore the role of sentence structure in learning English, the challenges that English learners face when mastering sentence structure and strategies to help English learners overcome these challenges. The research will focus on the challenges that English learners face when mastering sentence structure, such as the influence of native language, the complexity of English sentence structure and the impact of English proficiency. The results of this research will contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of sentence structure in English language learning and provide information for the development of more effective language teaching methods and strategies. The results of this research may be useful to English language lecturers and curriculum developers interested in improving the quality of English language education for English learners. The findings of this study will contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of sentence structures in learning English and inform the development of more effective language teaching methods and strategies. The results of this research can be useful for English language instructors and curriculum developers who are interested in improving the quality of English language education for ELLs. The study highlights the importance of sentence structures in learning English and offers insights into how ELLs can be supported in acquiring this crucial aspect of the English language.

Assessment of High-variability Speech Recognition in Adult Cochlear Implant Users using PRESTO.

Speech recognition in adult cochlear implant (CI) users is typically assessed using sentence materials with low talker variability. Little is known about the effects of talker variability on speech recognition in adult CI users, the factors underlying individual differences in speech recognition with high talker variability, or how sentence materials with high talker variability could be utilized clinically. To examine the effects of talker variability on sentence recognition in adult CI users, using sentences from the Perceptually Robust English Sentence Test Open-Set (PRESTO), and to examine the relation between working memory capacity and high-variability speech recognition. Postlingually deafened adult CI users and normal-hearing (NH) listeners under CI simulation completed sentence recognition tests that contained varying levels of talker variability, including HINT (low-variability), AzBio (moderate-variability), and PRESTO sentences (high-variability). The tasks were completed in both quiet and multi-talker babble (MTB). For the adult CI users only, the relation between sentence recognition accuracy and working memory capacity was assessed. Twenty postlingually deafened adult CI users and 35 NH adults under 8-channel acoustic noise-vocoder simulations of CI hearing. In both CI and NH groups, performance decreased as a function of increased talker variability, with the best scores obtained on HINT (low-variability), then AzBio (moderate-variability), followed by PRESTO (high-variability) in quiet. In MTB, performance was significantly lower on PRESTO sentences, compared to HINT and AzBio sentences, which were not significantly different. Working memory capacity in the CI users was related to sentence recognition accuracy across all materials and conditions. Findings from the current study suggest that the increased talker variability in the PRESTO sentence materials has a detrimental effect on speech recognition in both adult CI users and NH listeners under CI simulation, particularly when speech is further degraded by MTB. For adult CI users, working memory capacity contributes to speech recognition abilities. Sentence recognition testing with high-variability, multi-talker materials, as in PRESTO, provides robust assessment of speech recognition abilities for research and clinical application, generating a wide range of scores for evaluating individual differences without ceiling effects when compared to conventional low-variability sentences.

A novel algorithm for the construction of fast English sentence retrieval model using a combination of ontology and advanced machine learning techniques

A novel algorithm for the construction of fast English sentence retrieval model using a combination of ontology and advanced machine learning techniques

How and why can explicit instruction about L1 reduce the negative effects of crosslinguistic influence? Evidence from accuracy and reaction time signatures in L1 comprehension

This study revisits and extends McManus and Marsden (2019a) to better understand how and why providing additional explicit information (EI) about learners’ first language (L1) alongside EI and comprehension practice in the second language (L2) improved the accuracy, speed, and stability of L2 comprehension of the French Imparfait, a functionally complex and late-acquired target feature. Building on previous L2 research that has provided instruction about L1 without analyzing L1 knowledge/use, the current study examines learners’ item-by-item comprehension of L1 sentences that was completed during the L2 instruction to better understand the learning mechanisms at play in McManus and Marsden’s (2019a) findings. Two groups of English-speaking learners (L2+L1, L2+L1prac; N = 36) received the same EI about aspect in French, followed by comprehension practice of French and English sentences. The L2+L1 group received additional EI about aspect in English. Results showed no impact of the instruction on L1 accuracy in either group, but the speed of L1 comprehension changed over time in the L2+L1 group. It is argued that the L2+L1 instruction directed attention to and clarified crosslinguistic differences in how L2 and L1 express the same meanings, which rendered the L2 practice more effective for noticing Imparfait and developing appropriate strategies for processing L2 forms. Implications for theory-building and instructional design are discussed.