Grammatical Research Articles

Does interlanguage grammar project intermediate categories? Evidence of partial representation from one‐substitution by Chinese learners of English

AbstractThis study investigates how prepositional phrases within English noun phrases (e.g., the student of physics from Italy) are represented and processed by advanced Chinese‐speaking learners of English (henceforth L2ers). Using grammaticality judgment tasks and self‐paced reading tasks, we aim to examine the offline performance and the real‐time processing of English NP‐internal PPs in relation to the head nouns. To this end, two groups of participants were instructed to provide judgments of testing materials and to respond on‐line to experimental stimuli containing the proform one. Results indicate that highly proficient L2ers processed English NP‐internal PPs utterly differently from English controls in that they demonstrated almost no sensitivity to the existence of PPs as complements following one, mostly without consciously distinguishing them from PP adjuncts. To account for L2ers’ response patterns, we propose a partial representation hypothesis (PRH), claiming that L2ers tend to disregard intermediate categories containing PP‐complements in English NPs, thus only partially representing syntactic constituents of the target language. As a structural explanation, PRH awaits further corroboration and/or falsification from more empirical studies.

Neurophysiological markers of printed word processing and reading fluency in adolescence

ABSTRACT Reading fluency is one of key facets of reading performance. At the neurophysiological level, as reading skills improve, latencies of P100 and N170 shorten, and the functional role of these ERPs components is expanding. While in primary schoolchildren, only orthographic N170 effects are observed, lexical and grammatical N170 effects are traceable in adulthood. However, previous studies neglect the adolescent sample. The goal of this study was to determine whether adolescents exhibit lexical and grammatical N170 effects and explore the link between reading fluency and P100 and N170 components. We assessed 32 adolescents in the context of a grammaticality judgment ERP experiment and estimated reading fluency. We registered lexical N170 effects indicative of the presence of an adult-like lexical representation system. Moreover, we observed negative correlations between reading fluency and P100 and N170 latencies, which suggest that reading fluency is affected by the speed of visual processing captured by these latencies.

The Effect of Different Planning Conditions versus Explicit Grammar Instruction on Young EFL Learners’ Oral Production of a Picture Promoted Task and Grammar Gain

This study examined the effects of three task conditions on young EFL learners’ oral performance of a picture prompted task and their grammatical knowledge gain. To this end, 34 EFL learners were randomly assigned into three experimental groups, namely online planning, pre-planning, and explicit instruction, and one control group. Pictures were employed as prompts to implement the tasks in all groups. A Grammatical Judgment Test was used to compare students’ knowledge of simple present passive structure before and after the treatment. Learners’ oral task performance was measured in terms of Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency (CAF). The findings demonstrated significant differences among groups as for CAF measures. However, no significant differences were spotted in GJT posttest scores. The paper calls for the incorporation of diverse prompt-based planning conditions in task-oriented teaching practices in order to target learners' higher levels of oral competence.

Exploring the Effects of Written Corrective Feedback Types on Grammatical Accuracy in L2 Writing: Evidence From Ethiopian High School Students

Although, written corrective feedback (hereafter referred to as CF) is applauded in many writing courses for fostering students’ quality writing, its impact on grammatical accuracy in L2 students’ writing remains a debated topic. Thus, this study looked into the effect of CF types on L2 students’ grammatical accuracy in writing. To achieve this objective, the design of this study was quasi-experiment. During the intervention of the study three groups: two experimental groups and one control group were participated with a total of 150 students. Over the intervention of 8 weeks, the students received pretest, immediate post-test and a delayed post-test was given. The data collected through the writing tests was analyzed using one-way ANOVA and Scheffe post hoc tests. The findings indicated that although CF types have positive effects during the immediate posttest scores, they did not have any positive effect on L2 students’ grammatical accuracy in writing context in the delayed posttest scores. This implies that CF alone is not sufficient for improving the grammatical accuracy of high school students in Ethiopia. Although the CF literature discussed its importance in the language acquisition, teachers are advised to focus on students’ additional exposures in writing accuracy rather than grammatical correction in their writing classes and use longer treatment to allow language learners’ engagement with the CF types provided.

L’intuition dans l’apprentissage et l’emploi d’une langue étrangère : pourquoi la notion est-elle importante ?

The article discusses properties and the role of intuition in learning and using a foreign language. While intuition plays a crucial role in various cognitive processes, its specific implications in linguistics and foreign language pedagogy remain incompletely understood. The first part presents the main theses and research findings on intuition in linguistics (Chomsky, Guillaume, Benveniste, Langacker) and foreign language didactics (Krashen, Ellis, Oxford, DeKeyser, etc.). The second part outlines an empirical study of linguistic behaviours based on intuition. The study focuses on the evaluative function of intuition linked to the rapid judgment of the grammatical correctness of sentences and the compensation function, which involves the immediate inference of the meaning of unknown lexical units from the context. The study results, conducted with 102 students of French as a foreign language, show that at the level of intuitive behaviours concerning the morphological and syntactic subsystems, their linguistic reactions, fast and unconscious behaviours, are characterised by more significant correction than conscious behaviours. On the other hand, as far as the intuitive behaviour related to the lexical-semantic subsystem is concerned, better results are generated by longer reaction times. The study also demonstrated that intuition supports not only native users, but also foreign langue learners at intermediate level of proficiency.

AI 기반 피드백의 교육적 활용 가능성 탐색

This study examines the potential of utilizing natural language processing technology to provide objective and efficient feedback in Korean language classrooms through an automated feedback system. To validate the effectiveness of AI-based automated feedback, the study compared corrections made by human annotators with those generated by the AI model, GPT4, using a corpus of beginner Korean language learners. The results indicated high concordance rates between human and GPT4 corrections, with Level 1 accuracy at 85.71% and Level 2 accuracy at 84.07%. Corrections primarily focused on grammatical corrections, averaging 61%, while lexical corrections comprised about 39%. Corrections across various parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, and adjectives, were performed at similar rates by both humans and GPT4. However, GPT4 showed limitations in appropriately correcting errors that required contextual understanding. Despite these limitations, the AI-based feedback system can be an effective supplementary tool in educational settings. Teachers can reduce their workload and focus more on content and structural feedback, while learners benefit from real-time, personalized feedback that encourages self-review and improves language proficiency. This study underscores the importance of AI-based educational tools and emphasizes the need for an integrated approach involving teacher collaboration to continually enhance the AI-based feedback system.

Detection of English Grammatical Errors and Correction using Graph Dual Encoder Decoder with Pyramid Attention Network

Detection of English Grammatical Errors and Correction using Graph Dual Encoder Decoder with Pyramid Attention Network

Rhythmic priming of syntactic processing in Jabberwocky: a short-lived effect

ABSTRACT Converging evidence points towards a link between musical rhythm and linguistic syntax processing. Several potentially shared cognitive mechanisms and overlapping brain regions have been proposed to account for these findings. The present study explores the hypothesis that a domain-general cognitive system responsible for hierarchical structure building constitutes one such component. In two experiments, French-speaking adults listened to rhythmically regular, irregular or silent primes before completing a grammaticality judgement task on Jabberwocky sentences. Both experiments showed a priming effect only in the first three sentences after priming. Experiment 1 (block design) showed a disadvantage of the irregular condition compared to both other conditions. Experiment 2 (mixed design) showed an advantage in the regular condition compared to the irregular condition. Across the two experiments, grammaticality judgement performance correlated with rhythm discrimination. These findings provide evidence for a domain-general cognitive network responsible for hierarchical structure building in rhythm and language processing.

Erratological approach to teaching complex sentences to a foreign audience

Importance. Teaching foreign students of engineering and technical profile to complex specific text-forming structures of scientific style of speech is a laborious process. The identification of the causes and mechanisms of the occurrence of the errors noted in the structure of a complex sentence, their analysis (identification, elimination, correction) facilitates the process of studying these important grammatical units. The purpose of the research is to develop a new approach (erratological) to the study of a complex sentence based on error analysis. Its structural and meaningful description is proposed. Materials and methods. The study is conducted on the basis of the Military Institute (Engineering and Technical) Military Academy of Logistics named after Army General A.V. Khrulev. The research material шs a corpus of “negative material” obtained as a result of an experimental study of the speech of engineering students. The corpus of violations in a complex sentence formed the basis of the approach we developed, called the “erratological approach”. This study is also based on the analysis and generalization of scientific works on erratology.Results and Discussion. An erratological approach to the study of complex structures of the scientific style of speech has been developed, including six main interrelated stages – the selection of grammatical material, the organization of grammatical material (its logical arrangement), the introduction of grammatical material (presentation in classes in the language of the specialty), training, practice, control, which allow you to form not only Russian-speaking professional competencies, but also skills for all types of speech activity.Conclusion. The use of an erratological approach, namely complex work with one’s own mistakes in the classroom, will ensure the student’s undoubted interest in learning a new language, will contribute to the intensification of the educational process, enrich it with new technologies, teaching methods, a new system of tasks, will form both linguistic and professional competence.

Dynamics of Multimodal Components in English Educational Discourse: the Case of “English Grammar in Use” by Raymond Murphy

This article aims to identify the linguistic features of English-language educational discourse in terms of structural, descriptive, semantic, and cognitive-pragmatic analyses. The relevance of the study stems from the need to identify trends in the representation of language components in modern grammar textbooks within the communicative-pragmatic paradigm of educational discourse. The authors focus on the linguosynergetic potential of the English grammar textbook “English Grammar in Use” by Raymond Murphy, manifested in changes of certain discourse markers in all five editions. Employing a multimodal discourse analysis methodology, this research scrutinizes the verbal and visual disparities—encompassing graphic elements, letter capitalization, italics, font, and color—that hold pragmatic value and fulfill various roles, from engagement to information conveyance. The authors also investigate the interference of advertising and educational discourses and the small-format nature of texts in this self-study textbook, whose hypertext structure and internal navigational system serve as a surrogate for teacher guidance, thereby performing a directive function. A diachronic analysis of communicative scenarios within the textbook’s exercises reveals the dynamic utilization of interjections, underscoring their importance in creating an emotive-expressive backdrop that facilitates the acquisition of grammatical phenomena, reflective of their real-world application. Thus, in an attempt to represent the features of natural communication and to avoid the use of linguistic terms, the author of the textbook presents complex grammatical material in the most accessible form for a wide audience. Consequently, the study highlights the textbook’s increasing emphasis on the personality-bound component, complementing the traditionally dominant status-oriented approach in educational discourse.

Psycholinguistics Study on the Interplay of Bilingualism on Selected Cognitive Functions Based on Threshold Hypotheses among Saudi International School Students

This study investigates the threshold hypothesis in Saudi international school students. While this hypothesis has been extensively researched in the West, its application in Arabic-speaking regions, particularly Saudi Arabia, remains unexplored. This paper compares the executive function (metalinguistic awareness, inhibitory control, attentional control, and working memory) differences between the three levels of bilinguals (balanced, dominant, and semi) in male secondary school students in Saudi Arabia. Participants took language tests (TOEFL for English, GCSE for Arabic) and four cognitive tasks (grammatical judgment task, Stroop Task, semantic and phonemic fluency task, and Backward-digit-recall task). A quantitative causal-comparative analysis concluded that there was no significant difference between the performance of balanced, dominant, and semi-bilinguals on executive function tasks, except for the phonemic task. However, the study showed that semi-bilinguals performed poorly in all cognitive tasks. Thus, balanced and dominant bilinguals perform equally in inhibitory control, mental flexibility, and metalinguistic and semantic tasks.

HYPERTEXT AS A MEANS OF DEVELOPING FOREIGN LANGUAGE READING COMPETENCE IN STUDENTS OF POSTGRADUATE MILITARY COURSES AT EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS OF RUSSIA’S MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS

The issue of developing foreign-language reading competence stems from the need for domestic education in the effective training of highly qualified scientific personnel. The author reveals the importance of using hypertexts in teaching foreign languages as part of postgraduate military courses. The reader’s diary is considered as a tool for achieving an educational goal, contributing to the development of independent thinking and expanding knowledge of lexical and grammatical material. The article presents the techniques and methods of organizing the learning process, describes the levels of formation of the reader’s competence.

L2 cognitive construal and morphosyntactic acquisition of pseudo-passive constructions

Abstract Discussion of the theoretical underpinning of pseudo-passive constructions abounds in generative linguistics and comparative typology. However, the cognitive construal of and morphosyntactic acquisition of (un)grammatical English pseudo-passive constructions by Chinese-speaking L2-English users with different proficiency levels have never been investigated. It is worth examining whether proficiency level modulates constructional acceptability and cognitive construal, which would allow us to infer L2-English users’ morphosyntactic acquisition stages of pseudo-passive constructions. To fill this research gap, the study recruited 120 L2-English speakers with different levels of proficiency and 40 native English speakers to complete a grammaticality judgment test with an acceptance judgment scale from −2 to 2 for 40 ungrammatical pseudo-passive sentences and 40 fillers. Proficiency level significantly correlates with a firmer rejection of ungrammatical pseudo-passive sentences and cognitive construal which is more target-like. Significantly asymmetrical acceptance levels between two types of target ungrammatical constructions are also revealed for low (p = 0.002) and medium proficiency (p = 0.000) groups, demonstrating the type effect on grammaticality judgment and morphosyntactic acquisition.

Performance of ChatGPT and Google Translate for Pediatric Discharge Instruction Translation

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Patients who speak languages other than English face barriers to equitable healthcare delivery. Machine translation systems, including emerging large language models, have the potential to expand access to translation services, but their merits and limitations in clinical practice remain poorly defined. We aimed to assess the performance of Google Translate and ChatGPT for multilingual translation of pediatric discharge instructions. METHODS Twenty standardized discharge instructions for pediatric conditions were translated into Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Haitian Creole by professional translation services, Google Translate and ChatGPT-4.0, and evaluated for adequacy (preserved information), fluency (grammatical correctness), meaning (preserved connotation), and severity (clinical harm), along with assessment of overall preference. Domain-level ratings and preferred translation source were summarized with descriptive statistics and compared with professional translations. RESULTS Google Translate and ChatGPT demonstrated similar domain-level ratings to professional translations for Spanish and Portuguese. For Haitian Creole, compared with both Google Translate and ChatGPT, professional translations demonstrated significantly greater adequacy, fluency meaning, and severity scores. ChatGPT (33.3%, P < .001) and Google Translate (23.3%, P = .024) contained more potentially clinically significant errors (severity score ≤3) for Haitian Creole than professional translations (8.3%). Professional Haitian Creole (48.3%) and Portuguese (43.3%), but not Spanish (15%), translations were most frequently preferred among translation sources. CONCLUSIONS Machine translation platforms have comparable performance to professional translations for Spanish and Portuguese but shortcomings in quality, accuracy, and preference persist for Haitian Creole. Diverse multilingual training data are needed, along with regulations ensuring safe and equitable applications of machine translation in clinical practice.

O modlitwach w Podróży do Świętych miejsc w 1830 roku Andrzeja Murawjowa

Conversation with God accompanied people of various times, nations and religions, because of a universal dimension of the desire for dialogue with the Absolute. The article attempts to analyze those of the prayers which Andrey Muravyev, a Russian writer, poet, state and church activist, practiced during his first pilgrimage to Palestine. Texts of the prayers were from The journey to Holy Places in 1830 (2 vols), which is a record of the author’s experiences and impressions from his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. As an epigraph to both parts of this Muravyev’s work, the words from Ps 135(134) – a hymn of praise to the Lord who works miracles – were served. Attention of the article is paid to: the sense of the prayers, their biographical and literary context, the lexical and partly grammatical material, which Muravyev used (making necessary reference to the Greek and (or) Hebrew sources of Church Slavonic translations of the prayers) and their theological message as well.

Unlocking Writing Potential: Assessing the Impact of Grammarly on Jordanian EFL Students' Writing Proficiency

This quantitative research examines Grammarly's impact on 60 Jordanian EFL students' writing. 60 students are enough to derive statistically significant conclusions about Grammarly's effects on writing. An experimental group of 30 students uses Grammarly while writing, whereas a control group of 30 students does not. Both groups write the identical assignments and are assessed using specified criteria. A pre-test compares both groups' grammatical correctness, vocabulary, and writing quality. After the pre-test, the experimental group uses Grammarly, while the control group does not. Students' writing skills are retested following the intervention. Grammarly's impact on EFL Jordanian students' writing is quantified by analyzing pre- and post-test results. T-tests or ANOVA are used to compare experimental and control group mean scores. Grammar, vocabulary, and writing quality are compared between the two groups. This study adds to the quantitative research on EFL online grammar correction tools. Grammarly's effects on EFL Jordanian students' writing abilities would assist educators and practitioners to decide whether to use such technologies in language training.

The relative effects of direct and indirect written corrective feedback on L2 learning: The moderating role of field dependence/independence

The current study investigated the relative effects of direct and indirect written corrective feedback (WCF) on the learning of regular past tense, and the extent to which learning outcomes were related to individual variation in field dependence/independence (FDI). Fifty-nine Chinese intermediate second language (L2) learners of English were randomly assigned to two treatment groups and a control group. The two treatment groups carried out three written dictogloss tasks and received direct WCF and indirect WCF, respectively, on their erroneous use of regular past tense. The control group performed the same writing tasks but received feedback on the content of their writing. To evaluate the effect of treatment, a grammaticality judgement task and a picture description task were administered as the pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest. The Group Embedded Figures Test was used to measure learners’ FDI orientation. The results showed that both treatment groups outperformed the control group on the posttests, but no significant differences were observed between the two treatment groups. In addition, the results suggested that FDI was related to learning outcomes as measured by the picture description task. Field independent learners had an overall advantage over field dependent learners, especially where indirect WCF was provided.

Grammatical correction and morphological productivity tasks as potential identifiers of developmental language disorder in Spanish-Catalan bilingual children: a pilot study

ABSTRACT A critical problem for Catalan-Spanish bilinguals is the lack of assessment tools to conduct valid and accurate oral language evaluations. The purpose of this preliminary study was to provide pilot data for a new potential assessment tool in Catalan. We examined the possibility that two novel tasks, a grammatical correction (GramCorr) and morphological productivity (MP; nonword and word subtasks), could differentiate between Catalan-speaking children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD) with good diagnostic accuracy. Twenty-seven school-aged children with DLD (M age = 9;1 years) and twenty-seven age/sex-matched typically developing (TD) children (M age = 9;0 years) participated in the study. Group differences and diagnostic accuracy analyses (sensitivity and specificity and likelihood ratios) were conducted. Results showed that the overall accuracy of children with DLD was significantly poorer than that of the TD controls in the two tasks. The preliminary diagnostic accuracy results suggested that the overall test (GramCorr+MP) could be useful in identifying children with DLD (cut-off point 62.1%; sensitivity (.929)/specificity (.893); +LH (8.67)/-LH (0.80). Moreover, the overall MP task (nonword + word subtasks; cut-off point 60%; sensitivity (.897)/specificity (.931), +LH (13.00)/-LH (0.111)) appears to provide adequate information to help in detecting DLD. The nature of both tasks, their usefulness for practitioners and future steps in the design of valid tools for the identification of Catalan speaking children with DLD are discussed.

The associations between individual differences in language aptitude and working memory, and the effectiveness of input and output based instruction

Despite previous research having demonstrated the comparative effects of processing instruction and output-based instruction, further investigation is required to examine the relationships between individual differences in cognitive abilities and these instructional types. This study investigated the associations among three instructional approaches and learners’ language aptitude and working memory in acquiring four Chinese classifiers. Eighty-six second language (L2) Chinese learners from one Chinese university were divided into three experimental groups – processing instruction (PI), meaning-based output instruction (MOI), combined instruction (CI) – and a control group. Tests measuring treatment effects included an untimed grammatical judgment test and an oral elicited imitation test. The LLAMA test and a counting span task were employed to assess learners’ language aptitude and working memory respectively. Multiple regression analysis suggested that phonetic coding ability was significantly predictive of the effects of PI and CI groups. Language analytic ability and working memory were not predictive of the effects of any experimental groups. The findings suggest that providing metalinguistic explanations followed by output-based language activities may mitigate learners’ cognitive differences in language analytic ability and working memory.

Инфографика как средство оптимизации обучения русскому языку китайских студентов

The aim of this paper is to study the key features of infographic texts and the stages of working with them when working with Chinese students, as well as the justification for the use of infographics as a way of optimizing the educational process while teaching Russian as a foreign language to Chinese students. The article deals with the special characteristics and specifics of working with infographics in the Russian language lessons. The article gives examples of work-organizing process, analyzes basic infographic components, and describes the process of their creation. “Self-made” infographics are to be used by students and teachers during the lesson to actualize the topic, to study lexical and grammatical material, and facilitate its quick assimilation. The scientific novelty of the research consists in the development of the methods of teaching Russian as a foreign language to Chinese students on the basis of infographical texts. As the result of the study, the author highlights the specific features of infographical text in connection with the specifics of character based cultural type perception and advantages of using infographics while teaching Russian as a foreign language to Chinese students. The study highlights that infographics are considered to be graphical data carriers and can become an effective educational tool for all language activities. Thus, the author also provides a step-by-step methodical approach to teaching Russian as a foreign language to Chinese students on the basis of infographical text.