L1 English Speakers Research Articles

Hedges and Boosters in Research Article Abstracts of Turkish and Chinese Scholars

In the reviewed literature, many studies have compared the research articles written by L1 and L2 speakers of English. In this regard, comparing L2 speakers of English from two different linguistic backgrounds distinguishes this study from similar studies. While writing research article abstract, writers need to calculate what weight to give to their arguments while showing credibility and authority at the same time. Given these reasons, the use of hedges and boosters in RA abstract is a worthwhile topic to be searched. The goal of this study is to investigate the hedging and boosting strategies in research article abstracts of Turkish and Chinese scholars. They were identified and analyzed in accordance with Hyland’s (2000) hedging and boosting list. The results of this study showed that Turkish and Chinese academics didn’t show much statistical difference in their frequency of hedges, but they preferred to choose different hedging strategies in some instances.

Null subject acquisition in L2 Chinese speakers: a case study on English L1 speakers

AbstractThis article investigates the acquisition of null subjects (henceforth NSs) in (radical pro-drop) Chinese by learners whose native language is (non-pro-drop) English – henceforth ELs – working within the ‘topic chain’ information-structural approach. Our main goal is to verify whether a learner’s proficiency level can have an impact on the interpretation and acceptability of embedded NSs when more than one head is proposed for the relevant topic chain in different structural contexts (i.e., complements of bridge and factive verbs). The results of a pilot experimental test suggest that the requirement for a minimal overt link (MOLC) in the relevant chain plays an important role for ELs with a lower proficiency level. Conversely, MOLC restrictions do not affect ELs with a higher proficiency. Furthermore, the results show that ELs can correctly distinguish between complements of bridge and factive verbs already at an HSK 3 level. As for interpretation, results suggest that contextual information cannot supersede structural constraints for ELs. However, since a clash with contextual information seems to not affect acceptability for ELs, contrary to Chinese Native Speakers, we propose that even HSK 5 students have not fully acquired the competence for managing NSs in a radical language such as Chinese.

Pronunciation in EMI

The consolidation of English as a global language has brought with it the need to reconceptualise aspects such as English pronunciation, which seems to be experiencing a detachment from the native norm and the integration of multicultural identities. EMI students have been reported to favour intelligibility over accurate pronunciation, as they represent a community of learners for whom English is a tool rather than a target. As previous research has reported that pronunciation may be an anxiety factor for students in speaking exchanges, this study explored how 126 EMI students envision the learning of pronunciation, their attitudes towards EMI teachers’ pronunciation and their pronunciation anxiety upon interaction with different interlocutors in their EMI context: teachers, local peers, L1 English international peers and L2 English international peers. The data from a questionnaire and focus groups revealed that these EMI learners conceptualize pronunciation as a communication tool rather than a subject to be learnt; they revealed that they do not experience uneasiness during lessons owing to their lecturers’ pronunciation, expressing that fluency is more important than pronunciation accuracy. Finally, they showed more pronunciation anxiety if the interlocutor was the teacher or an L1 English speaker than if it was a local peer or L2 English speaker.

English pre-fortis clipping by L2 Saudi speakers

The current study is a partial replication of Flege and Port (Language Speech 24(2):125–146, 1981), which examined the production of pre-fortis clipping (i.e., vowel shortening before voiceless obstruents) by Saudi L2 English speakers. In addition, it examined whether language experience operationalized as the length of residence in an English-speaking country, had any positive effect on the production of the pre-fortis clipping by the Saudi L2 English speakers. 16 Saudi L2 English speakers were requested to produce the English vowels /æ/, /ɪ/ and /i:/ in a carrier word, once before the voiceless stop /t/ and once before the voiced stop /d/. The same vowels in the same context were also elicited from a reference group of native English speakers. Similar vowels in a similar context were also obtained in Arabic from Saudi native speakers. A durational ratio of each vowel before /t/ to the same vowel before /d/ was calculated for each speaker in the native and nonnative groups. Similar to the findings of Flege and Port (1981), both the Saudi native Arabic and L2 English speakers showed broadly less durational contrast between the vowels in the two contexts than did the native English speakers. However, the results varied across the three examined vowels. In addition, no significant correlation was found between the length of residence and the L2 speakers’ production.

Intonation in L2 Discourse: Research Insights: Book Review

This book originates exactly from the interest in the discourse functions of intonation. It investigates the phonetic, phonological, and pragmatic functions of L2 English intonation in spoken discourse, grounded in Halliday’s systemic functional linguistic theories and taking advantage of a contrastive inter-language corpus approach. Structurally comprised of ten chapters, the compelling volume is split into two parts. The first part of the volume consists of the theoretical framework and the empirical methodology on which the present research is founded. The second part of the volume includes the findings from contrastive inter-language corpora analysis of Spanish L2 learners and English L1 intonation, analyzing and depicting the intonation patterns used by English L2 and L1 speakers. Surely, this well-organized book is worth reading, especially for researchers and graduate students in applied linguistics and English language teaching.

The effect of word transpositions on grammaticality judgements in first and second language sentence reading.

This study investigated the cross-language influence of a reader's first language (L1, German) grammar knowledge on the syntactic processing of sentences in their second language (L2, English), using a grammaticality judgement task and comparing results with monolingual L1 English-speakers. In Experiment 1, unbalanced bilinguals (N = 82) read sentences in their L1 German and L2 English that were either grammatical in German but not English, grammatical in English but not German, or ungrammatical in both languages. Sentences were presented in mixed-language blocks. Grammaticality judgements were less accurate and slower for ungrammatical L2 sentences that were grammatical in their literal L1 translation, compared with sentences that were ungrammatical in both languages. Experiment 2 replicated these findings with an independent German-English bilingual sample (N = 78), using monolingual language blocks. In Experiment 3, effects were absent in decision accuracy and weaker in decision latency for monolingual English readers (N = 54). A post hoc validation study with an independent sample of L1 English-speakers (n = 21) provided further evidence that the ungrammatical English sentences with German word order were indeed less natural and grammatically acceptable to L1 English-speakers than the grammatical English sentences. These findings suggest that, consistent with competition models of language comprehension, multiple languages are simultaneously active and can compete during syntactic processing. However, due to the complex nature of cross-language comparisons, the cross-language transfer effects are likely to be driven by multiple interacting factors, of which one is cross-language transfer.

The acquisition of L3 French present simple and present progressive by adult L1 Chinese speakers of L2 English

AbstractThe study examines the acquisition of L3 French present form by advanced L2 English learners of L1 Chinese within the framework of theTypological Primacy Model(TPM) of Rothman (2011) and theInterpretability Hypothesisof Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou (Tsimpli, Ianthi-maria & Maria Dimitrakopoulou. 2007. The Interpretability Hypothesis: Evidence from wh-interrogatives in second language acquisition.Second Language Research23. 215–242. The meaning-form distinction of the present form in relation to habitual and event-in-progress interpretations varies between French, English, and Chinese, but is constrained by the presence/absence of tense and agreement features. Thirty-two adult L1 Chinese speakers of high proficiency L2 English/low proficiency L3 French and thirty adult L1 Chinese speakers of low proficiency L2 English together with a native English control group and a French control group were invited to take part in an acceptability judgement test. The results provide partial support to the TPM, which posits that the perceived typological similarity between L3 and the previously acquired languages conditions transfer in L3 initial state. The findings are, instead, more consistent with theInterpretability Hypothesis, which assumes the inaccessibility of uninterpretable syntactic features in subsequent language acquisition. What remain available in adult multilingual acquisition are interpretable syntactic features, computational devices, and other aspects of Universal Grammar (UG).

The Interaction Effect of Pronunciation and Lexicogrammar on Comprehensibility: A Case of Mandarin-Accented English.

Scholars have argued that comprehensibility (i.e., ease of understanding), not nativelike performance, should be prioritized in second language learning, which inspired numerous studies to explore factors affecting comprehensibility. However, most of these studies did not consider potential interaction effects of these factors, resulting in a limited understanding of comprehensibility and less precise implications. This study investigates how pronunciation and lexicogrammar influences the comprehensibility of Mandarin-accented English. A total of 687 listeners were randomly allocated into six groups and rated (a) one baseline and (b) one of six experimental recordings for comprehensibility on a 9-point scale. The baseline recording, a 60 s spontaneous speech by an L1 English speaker with an American accent, was the same across groups. The six 75-s experimental recordings were the same in content but differed in (a) speakers' degree of foreign accent (American, moderate Mandarin, and heavy Mandarin) and (b) lexicogrammar (with errors vs. without errors). The study found that pronunciation and lexicogrammar interacted to influence comprehensibility. That is, whether pronunciation affected comprehensibility depended on speakers' lexicogrammar, and vice versa. The results have implications for theory-building to refine comprehensibility, as well as for pedagogy and testing priorities.

Assessing the challenge of accented speech using effort discounting

The subjective ease of understanding accents that differ from a listener’s has typically been assessed using self-reports. This approach, however, relies on metacognitive judgments that are difficult to interpret and may not converge with objective measures of effort. To address this challenge, this study utilizes effort discounting, a paradigm borrowed from behavioral economics. In the experiment, participants are familiarized with one L1 English speaker and three L2-accented speakers. During the task, participants choose between listening to the L1-accented speaker for a smaller monetary reward or to one of the L2-accented speakers for a larger reward. By varying the reward offered for the easier option based on previous choices, the subjective value of the effort expended for each L2 speaker can be determined. Data collection is ongoing. We expect participants will remain willing to listen to highly intelligible L2-accented speakers. However, as speakers become less intelligible, participants will be less willing to expend the required additional effort and will choose the easier speaker. We also predict that participants who rate L2-accented speakers lower on an affect and attitudes questionnaire will be more likely to discount their reward to avoid the effort required by the L2-accented speech.

Speech intelligibility and listening effort: A dual-task paradigm for accented speech perception

Unfamiliar accents can make speech communication difficult, both by reducing speech intelligibility and by increasing the effort listeners must put forth to understand speech. In general, intelligibility refers to the proportion of words that a listener can correctly identify (100%, 50%, etc.), while listening effort refers to the cognitive resources that must be devoted to a difficult listening task. Generally, lower intelligibility is related to higher effort. However, it is now apparent that these two constructs, while related, are independent: for example, two 100% intelligible speakers may elicit different amounts of effort. To better characterize the relationship between intelligibility and effort, this study presents speakers of four intelligibility levels (one L1 English speaker, and three Mandarin-accented English speakers) within a dual-task paradigm (featuring a vibrotactile secondary task) to measure listening effort. We hypothesize an inverse relationship between intelligibility and effort, but the shape and slope of this relationship are of primary interest. These results will begin to illuminate the relationship between intelligibility and effort across a more continuous range of accent intelligibility. Data collection is ongoing. Results for the Mandarin Chinese accent will be presented. Preliminary results for the study’s second iteration (using a Korean accent) will also be presented.

The perception of acoustically distorted speech produced with face masks in multilingual multi-talker environments

This paper examines the perception of speech produced with face masks in multilingual multi-talker environments. Three groups of participants varying in language background listened to and reported English target sentences produced with or without a face mask in the presence of a competing English or Lithuanian talker. Listeners were monolingual native speakers of English, second language (L2) English speakers with Lithuanian as first language (L1), and L2 English speakers with L1 Mandarin Chinese. In addition, Lithuanian speakers also completed the same experiment but with Lithuanian targets. Results indicate that participants were more accurate with perceiving target sentences in their L1. Targets produced with a face mask were less accurately perceived across all groups regardless of listening in L1 or L2. In general, a competing talker in a language which matches the target (English distractor on English target) had a more detrimental effect on perception accuracy than a mismatched one (Lithuanian distractor on English target). Exceptionally, only when Lithuanian participants—with both English and Lithuanian knowledge – listened in their L1 was there no added challenge from matching distractor and target language. We conclude that acoustic distortions from face masks present an across-the-board difficulty while linguistic knowledge can reduce distraction from competing talkers.

Concerning the different pronunciations of “our,” how does the pronunciation affect people of generational and foreign language background differences?

The younger generation’s dialect has changed rapidly due to the increased consumption of media from different backgrounds. Changing dialect affects the way we communicate with each other. The research question I curated concerned the different pronunciations of “our,” and how the difference in pronunciation affects people of generational and foreign language backgrounds. The methods of the study included a short sequence of questionnaires to provide interest, statistical information, as well as availability information for myself (the interviewer) to find a time at which I may interview the participant. The takeaway from the research was originally to research more on the topic of the generational differences of dialects. However, upon further inspection of my participant pool, another observation of the variables was needed to encompass the entire population. Thus, it can be concluded that dialect changes among people with the competing dialects of the older and younger generations affect the non-native population. The hypothesis suggests there is a relationship between dialect used by both younger and older generations, which impacts L2 English speakers and their pronunciation of “our.” The results were calculated by hand from data collected on Google Sheets. It can be assumed that the [‘aʊɚ] to [‘ar] pronunciation dialect change affected most of the older and younger populations. 42.86% of the total participants used the pronunciation of “our” as [‘aʊɚ], meaning that less than half of the population used the “proper” pronunciation of “our.” The following results are deemed inconclusive due to the number of variables that were present.

Experience of Japanese exchange students in EMI programmes: benefits and issues of translanguaging

ABSTRACT With the internationalisation of higher education, many universities in non-English-speaking countries have started offering English-medium instruction (EMI) courses. In Asia, in addition to the challenges caused by instructors and local students not being L1 speakers of English, the recent study-abroad trend has added more complexity to linguistic diversity in the classroom. This study investigates the experiences of three Japanese university students who took EMI courses in Taiwan and South Korea. Using a qualitative research method based on an open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, the study explores the following research questions: (1) how do multilingual university students use translanguaging to conduct their academic learning in EMI courses? 2) how are multilingual exchange students perceived by their peers and instructors? 3) how do peers and instructors’ perceptions of exchange students affect their learning in their EMI courses? By applying the concepts of translanguaging and social categorisation to analyse the data, the study offers three main findings: (1) translanguaging is an essential tool for learning; (2) translanguaging is a potential cause for marginalisation; and (3) categorising exchange students can be a potential negative influence on students’ perceived success. Ideally, pedagogical translanguaging in EMI courses should involve careful consideration of students’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

Investigating the relation between L2 pauses, syntactic complexity, and pause location: Longitudinal data from L2-Spanish study-abroad learners

Inverse relations, or ‘trade-off effects’, are a common outcome of interlanguage development: a learner may increase performance in one linguistic domain while simultaneously decreasing performance in another. In this study, we investigate the relationships between one aspect of fluency (pause usage) and two aspects of syntactic complexity (utterance length and subordination) in relation to the location of pauses (between-clause or within-clause) in second-language (L2) oral narratives. The longitudinal analysis is based on monologic data produced by 16 English-speaking L2 learners of Spanish who participated in a seven-week study-abroad program in Spain. Overall, the learners decreased their silent-pause rate over the course of the program while concurrently increasing their number of syntactically complex clauses. Notably, the data suggest a systematic trade-off between pausing and complexity: the learners consistently produced more pauses (i.e. decreased fluency performance) during the elocution of the most complex clauses involving clausal subordination (i.e. increased complexity performance) in comparison to utterances lacking such subordination. We contextualize the findings within models of oral production and discuss how this research generates new insight into the processing factors that modulate pause usage in L2 speech.

“She’s Like Why You Speak English While Dreaming?”: A Corpus-Based Study of Quotative Markers Used by Chinese Speakers of L2 English

Based on sociolinguistic data collected from 29 Chinese L1 speakers of English in the US, this article investigated the quotative markers used by non-native speakers in their direct speech reporting. By conducting regression analysis, both linguistic factors (the tense of the verb, the subject pronouns, the mimetic status of the quotation, the content of the quotation, and the presence of discourse markers) and extralinguistic factors (gender, extracurricular contact with native speakers, and length of stay in the target country) were examined and further discussed. Our results revealed that factors such as the content of the quotation, the tense of the verb, and the presence of other discourse markers significantly influence the choice of quotative markers in non-native speech. We demonstrated that non-native speakers use a variety of quotative verbs in their direct speech reporting. Nonetheless, because of L1 impact, they rely primarily on the dominant form say. We also noticed that while non-native speakers might not be accurate in their words when reporting direct speech, they use prosodic cues to make their storytelling more convincing and authentic.

The effects of input mode in learning declarative and nondeclarative knowledge of L2 collocations

This study compared the effects of reading, listening, and reading while listening in developing declarative and nondeclarative knowledge of L2 collocations. Fifty L2 English speakers were randomly assigned to a treatment or a control group. During a two-day treatment session, the treatment group read and/or listened to nine texts. Each text contained 15 English medical collocations which were repeated nine times. Declarative and nondeclarative knowledge of the target collocations were measured using, respectively, one primed lexical decision task and three untimed vocabulary tests. Reading was found to be more effective than listening in form recall and meaning recall tests; there were no significant differences between reading and reading while listening. Three input modes resulted in similar accuracy rates in the form recognition test. Regarding nondeclarative knowledge, in all conditions, the development was small and statistically insignificant. The results highlight the importance of written input in learning L2 collocations.

The Influence of Emotions and Word Frequency in First and Second Language Processing: Evidence From the Emotional Stroop Task

First (L1) and second (L2) language speakers process information differently. The current study explores whether L1 and L2 English language speakers process the emotional connotations of high and low-frequency words using the emotional Stroop task. With this task, we measure the reaction time required to name the color of words with positive, neutral, and negative valence. The sample was 100 participants, 50 L1 English speakers and 50 L2 English speakers. Our results show that L2 English speakers process words slower than L1 English speakers do. L1 English speakers processed positive words faster than negative words, but L2 English speakers displayed a reversed pattern, which indicates L2 emotional attenuation for negative words.

Fluctuations in Japanese English majors’ capacity to speak before, during and after studying abroad

Mixed results in target language oral proficiency gains during study abroad (SA) have provided an impetus for further research into factors affecting L2 speech, such as the situated willingness to communicate (WTC) of individual learners. However, it is essential to address changes longitudinally to understand learners’ speaking experiences before SA and whether the sojourn has lasting effects. Using retrospective timeline graphs, focused essay journals and exploratory interviews, we investigated the fluctuations in the capacity to speak (CTS) for two Japanese learners of English from their pre-tertiary education through to 12 months after their academic year abroad as undergraduate university students. Results indicated that participants struggled initially with spontaneous conversations and incomprehension, but their sensitivity to interlocutors became the strongest influence as proficiency improved. During SA, they tended to have a high CTS when speaking with other L2 English speakers but struggled with local anglophones. After SA, they preferred speaking to international students (including L1 English users) in social rather than classroom contexts. We outline the psychological and situational influences and suggest ways to support learners before and after their sojourn.

Phonetic and Phono-Lexical Accuracy of Non-Native Tone Production by English-L1 and Mandarin-L1 Speakers.

Lexical tones are known to be a challenging aspect of speech to acquire in a second language, but several factors are known to affect tone learning facility, such as L1 tonal status (whether a learner's L1 is tonal or not), tone type (the shape of the tones to be acquired), and individual extralinguistic factors (such as musicianship, pitch aptitude, and working memory). Crucially, most of our knowledge of the effect of these factors is based on evidence from perception. The production side of tone learning and the origins of individual variability in learning facility remain relatively understudied. To this end, this study investigated non-native tone production-both in terms of phonetic accuracy in a pseudoword imitation task and in terms of phono-lexical accuracy in a picture-naming task-by English-L1 and Mandarin-L1 speakers. Results show that L1 tonal status and tone type dynamically affected both imitation and picture-naming accuracy, as there were specific accuracy patterns for the English and Mandarin groups. Production accuracy was further facilitated by individual musical experience, working memory, and pitch aptitude. This study's findings add to the currently limited literature on how both language-specific and individual extralinguistic factors modulate non-native tone processing in the speaking modality.

The interface of explicit and implicit second-language knowledge: A longitudinal study

AbstractThe aim of our study was to examine the longitudinal associations between two forms of second language (L2) knowledge (i.e., explicit and implicit knowledge) and the activity types that facilitate different processing mechanisms (i.e., form- and meaning-focused processing). L2 English speakers completed two tests of explicit knowledge (untimed written grammaticality judgment test and metalinguistic knowledge test) and three tests of implicit knowledge (timed written grammaticality judgment test, oral production, and elicited imitation) at the beginning and the end of a semester of university-level study. To track engagement in the activity types, participants completed self-reported language exposure logs across five days throughout the semester. The results from an autoregressive cross-lag analysis suggest L2 explicit and implicit knowledge influenced each other reciprocally over time. Neither activity type predicted knowledge development. We conclude that language acquisition is a developmental process typified by a dynamic, synergistic interface between explicit and implicit knowledge.