L2 Production Research Articles

Challenges and Evolution of Water Level Monitoring towards a Comprehensive, World-Scale Coverage with Remote Sensing

Surface water availability is a fundamental environmental variable to implement effective climate adaptation and mitigation plans, as expressed by scientific, financial and political stakeholders. Recently published requirements urge the need for homogenised access to long historical records at a global scale, together with the standardised characterisation of the accuracy of observations. While satellite altimeters offer world coverage measurements, existing initiatives and online platforms provide derived water level data. However, these are sparse, particularly in complex topographies. This study introduces a new methodology in two steps (1) teroVIR, a virtual station extractor for a more comprehensive global and automatic monitoring of water bodies, and (2) teroWAT, a multi-mission, interoperable water level processor, for handling all terrain types. L2 and L1 altimetry products are used, with state-of-the-art retracker algorithms in the methodology. The work presents a benchmark between teroVIR and current platforms in West Africa, Kazakhastan and the Arctic: teroVIR shows an unprecedented increase from 55% to 99% in spatial coverage. A large-scale validation of teroWAT results in an average of unbiased root mean square error ubRMSE of 0.638 m on average for 36 locations in West Africa. Traditional metrics (ubRMSE, median, absolute deviation, Pearson coefficient) disclose significantly better values for teroWAT when compared with existing platforms, of the order of 8 cm and 5% improved respectively in error and correlation. teroWAT shows unprecedented excellent results in the Arctic, using an L1 products-based algorithm instead of L2, reducing the error by almost 4 m on average. To further compare teroWAT with existing methods, a new scoring option, teroSCO, is presented, measuring the quality of the validation of time series transversally and objectively across different strategies. Finally, teroVIR and teroWAT are implemented as platform-agnostic modules and used by flood forecasting and river discharge methods as relevant examples. A review of various applications for miscellaneous end-users is given, tackling the educational challenge raised by the community.

Prosodic Structural Effects on Non-Contrastive Coarticulatory Vowel Nasalization in L2 English by Korean Learners.

This acoustic study explores how Korean learners produce coarticulatory vowel nasalization in English that varies with prosodic structural factors of focus-induced prominence and boundary. N-duration and A1-P0 (degree of V-nasalization) are measured in consonant-vowel-nasal (CVN) and nasal-vowel-consonant (NVC) words in various prosodic structural conditions (phrase-final vs. phrase-medial; focused vs. unfocused). Korean learners show a systematic fine-tuning of the non-contrastive V-nasalization in second language (L2) English in relation to prosodic structure, although it does not pertain to learning new L2 sound categories (i.e., L2 English nasal consonants are directly mapped onto Korean nasal consonants). The prosodic structurally conditioned phonetic detail in English appears to be accessible in most part to Korean learners and was therefore reflected in their production of L2 English. Their L2 production, however, is also found to be constrained by their first language (L1-Korean) to some extent, resulting in some phonetic effects that deviate from both L1 and L2. The results suggest that the seemingly low-level coarticulatory process is indeed under the speaker's control in L2, which reflects interactions of the specificities of the phonetics-prosody interface in L1 and L2. The results are also discussed in terms of their implications for theories of L2 phonetics.

Structural Priming and Inverse Preference Effects in L2 Grammaticality Judgment and Production of English Relative Clauses.

This study investigated inverse preference effects in L2 structural priming of English relative clauses and their potential influences on subsequent learning of target structures. One hundred fourteen Chinese learners of English at a low-to-intermediate proficiency level participated in a structural priming experiment with a pretest-posttest design. The experimental group underwent a priming task in which they orally produced syntactic structures immediately after viewing English object or passive relative clauses as primes, whereas the control group only read sentences unrelated to English relative clauses. A grammaticality judgment task and a sentence completion task were used to measure the inverse preference effect and its subsequent effects on L2 learning. The results showed the presence of structural priming and inverse preference effects in immediate production, which extended to subsequent learning of L2. In subsequent grammaticality judgments and production, L2 learners performed better with English object relative clauses than with English passive relative clauses in comparison with the pretest. The results are discussed in terms of the structural frequency in both L1 and L2 as well as the implicit learning mechanisms of structural priming.

The relative balance between languages predicts the degree of engagement of global language control

After naming pictures in their second language (L2), bilinguals experience difficulty in naming pictures in their native language (L1). This phenomenon, the “L2 after-effect”, is a lingering consequence of language control mechanisms regulating the activation of L1 and L2 to facilitate L2 production. Building on the Inhibitory Control model proposed by Green (1998), we propose that how much language control is applied depends on the relative balance between the current activation of L1 and L2. In two experiments, Polish-English bilinguals immersed in their L1 performed a blocked picture-naming task. This paradigm provided a continuous measure of the relative balance between the two languages and made it possible to index engagement of control by measuring the L2 after-effect. The results indicate that the higher the activation level of L1 and the lower the activation level of L2, the bigger the L2 after-effect. The results also revealed an enduring down-regulation of L1 activation level in more language-balanced speakers.

Immunomodulatory components of Trichinella spiralis excretory-secretory products with lactose-binding specificity.

The immunomodulatory potential of Trichinella spiralis muscle larvae excretory-secretory products (ES L1) has been well documented in vitro on dendritic cells (DCs) and in animal models of autoimmune diseases. ES L1 products possess the potential to induce tolerogenic DCs and consequently trigger regulatory mechanisms that maintain immune homeostasis. The use of ES L1 as a potential treatment for various inflammatory disorders proved to be beneficial in animal models, although the precise immunomodulatory factors have not yet been identified. This study aimed at the isolation and characterization of ES L1 components that possess galectin family member properties. Galectin-1-like proteins (TsGal-1-like) were isolated from ES L1 based on the assumption of the existence of a lactose-specific carbohydrate-recognition domain and were recognized by anti-galectin-1 antibodies in Western blot. This TsGal-1-like isolate, similar to galectin-1, induced DCs with tolerogenic properties and hence, the capacity to polarize T cell response towards a regulatory type. This was reflected by a significantly increased percentage of CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ regulatory T cells and significantly increased expression of IL-10 and TGF-β within this cell population. Proteomic analysis of TsGal-1-like isolate by mass spectrometry identified nineteen proteins, seven with annotated function after blast analysis against a database for T. spiralis and the UniProt database. To our surprise, none of the identified proteins possesses homology with known galectin family members. Nevertheless, the isolated components of ES L1 possess certain galectin-1 properties, such as specific lactose binding and the potential to elicit a regulatory immune response, so it would be worth further investigating the structure of sugar binding within isolated proteins and its biological significance.

이해와 산출 기반 형태 초점 교수법이 중국인 영어 학습자의 문법 정확성과 복잡성 향상에 미치는 영향

This study investigated the effectiveness of comprehension-based processing instruction (PI) and the production-oriented approach (POA) on Chinese L1 learners’ acquisition of complex structures in L2 English. Two groups of first-year college students (n = 94) participated in an intensive skill-integrated course for two months. They were randomly assigned to either a processing instruction or a POA class. Their recognition and production of six target forms (present/past perfect, temporal adverbial clauses, indicative/subjunctive conditionals, and oblique relative clauses) were assessed in a pre-, post-, and delayed-test design. Overall, the POA group made greater progress than the PI group in both receptive and productive tasks, suggesting that POA can be a viable instructional strategy to facilitate L2 learners’ acquisition of complex grammatical features. POA was also found to be effective in fostering learners’ self-efficacy beliefs in L2 production. However, it did not induce them to apply those structures in spontaneous production contexts. PI was not as effective as POA in improving the students’ grammatical accuracy, while it nevertheless enhanced their intake of the target forms to a considerable degree.

PRISMA L1 and L2 Performances within the PRISCAV Project: The Pignola Test Site in Southern Italy

In March 2019, the PRISMA (PRecursore IperSpettrale della Missione Applicativa) hyperspectral satellite was launched by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), and it is currently operational on a global basis. The mission includes the hyperspectral imager PRISMA working in the 400–2500 nm spectral range with 237 bands and a panchromatic (PAN) camera (400–750 nm). This paper presents an evaluation of the PRISMA top-of-atmosphere (TOA) L1 products using different in situ measurements acquired over a fragmented rural area in Southern Italy (Pignola) between October 2019 and July 2021. L1 radiance values were compared with the TOA radiances simulated with a radiative transfer code configured using measurements of the atmospheric profile and the surface spectral characteristics. The L2 reflectance products were also compared with the data obtained by using the ImACor code atmospheric correction tool. A preliminary assessment to identify PRISMA noise characteristics was also conducted. The results showed that: (i) the PRISMA performance, as measured at the Pignola site over different seasons, is characterized by relative mean absolute differences (RMAD) of about 5–7% up to 1800 nm, while a decrease in accuracy was observed in the SWIR; (ii) a coherent noise could be observed in all the analyzed images below the 630th scan line, with a frequency of about 0.3–0.4 cycles/pixel; (iii) the most recent version of the standard reflectance L2 product (i.e., Version 2.05) matched well the reflectance values obtained by using the ImACor atmospheric correction tool. All these preliminary results confirm that PRISMA imagery is suitable for an accurate retrieval of the bio-geochemical variables pertaining to a complex fragmented ecosystem such as that of the Southern Apennines. Further studies are needed to confirm and monitor PRISMA data performance on different land-cover areas and on the Radiometric Calibration Network (RadCalNet) targets.

Heterologous Production of Human Papillomavirus L1 Capsid Protein: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

The coverage of HPV vaccination in Indonesia remains low due to the high-cost vaccination. The vaccine prices were affected by the production rate of L1, the active substance of HPV vaccines. L1 has been produced using various organisms with varying L1 production rates and immunogenicity. A systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted to determine the organism producing L1 with the highest production, treatments affecting the L1 expression rate, and immunogenicity (represented by anti-L1 IgG titer in mice). The data of L1 titer, induction period, and IgG titer were extracted from 19 articles that have passed the articles screening. The L1 titer and induction period data were used to calculate the L1 production rate, while the IgG titer was used in the immunogenicity analysis. On a 95% confidence level, the meta-analysis revealed weak evidence that E. coli produced L1 at the highest rate. The highest IgG titer was induced using L1 expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, albeit insufficient evidence on 95% confidence level. Pearson’s correlation analysis showed that the concentration of glucose, IPTG, NH4+, K+, Ca2+, Mn2+, Fe2+, Zn2+, B4O72−, H2PO4−, HPO42−, Mo7O246−, and citric acid had a positive correlation with L1 production rate in E. coli. The treatment injection doses positively correlated with IgG titer in S. cerevisiae. This study reveals the mineral salts as the potential treatments to increase L1 production rates.

The Effect of Language Contact on /tʃ/ Deaffrication in Spanish from the US–Mexico Borderland

This study examines the sociophonetic variation in the L1 speech of Spanish–English bilingual speakers living in the Ciudad Juárez, Mexico–El Paso, TX border metropolis. The purpose of this research is to analyze the sociolinguistic production of /ʧ/ deaffrication in U.S. Spanish, particularly, in simultaneous and sequential bilinguals. Based on the Revised Speech Learning Model (SLM-r), it was hypothesized that L1 production of /ʧ/ deaffrication can be significantly affected by the establishment of a new L2 phonetic category /ʃ/ in bilinguals. Interviews with forty-four adult participants, including fourteen first generation simultaneous bilinguals, twelve sequential bilinguals, and eighteen monolingual Spanish speakers were acoustically and auditorily analyzed. Participants were recorded while they performed two types of tasks: a formal (reading) and two semi-informal speech production tasks. Results showed that simultaneous and sequential bilinguals had a significantly lower realization of [ʃ] than monolinguals, suggesting that L1 sociolinguistic variability is influenced by contact with English. Results also indicate the significance of the preceding segment on the realization of the variable under study in monolingual speech, with preceding /a, n, r, l/ favoring the variation and preceding /s, e, i, o, u/ disfavoring it. Comparisons of the variation in monolingual and bilingual speech show that the sociolinguistic factors (preceding segment, sex, and age) that influence the variation in monolingual controls do not influence the variation in bilingual speech.

The relationship between the perception and production of L2 and L3 rhotics in young multilinguals; an exploratory cross-linguistic study

ABSTRACT There is a scarcity of research into the relationship between speech perception and production from a multilingual perspective. The present exploratory study investigates longitudinally the acquisition of rhotic sounds in 24 adolescent learners who have the same language repertoires (English, German, Polish), with English being their L2, and German and Polish their L1 or L3. The design involved a forced-choice goodness task (for perception) and a delayed repetition task (for production) administered in both L2 and L3 at two testing times. The overall results show better performance in perception than production of L2/L3 rhotics at both testing points, although the relationship between the two domains was modulated by the L1 background and universal learnability of the target rhotics. A major effect of language proficiency was found, as overall a stronger link between the two modalities was found for the L2 than the L3 of the learner groups. However, detailed analyses demonstrate different types of perception-production link for individual learners over time.

Compliment patterns in English: L1 and L2 production in the virtual exchange environment

Virtual exchanges offer affordances for the learning of L2 pragmatics as they allow participants to engage in authentic social interactions with expert L2 speakers. As such they constitute a valuable environment for L2 acquisition, especially in cases where study abroad is not feasible. Although there has been some interest in exploring the influence of virtual exchanges on L2 learners’ use of speech acts, compliment formulation has yet to be extensively explored. The virtual exchange discussed in this study involved L2 learners of English from Poland who interacted for six weeks, via video conferencing, with TESOL teacher trainees at a university in the USA. Before and after the project, the participants completed tasks to elicit their production of compliments. The significance of the study is twofold. Firstly, the L1 speakers’ responses to the task revealed more frequent use of certain syntactic patterns in complimenting behaviours (e.g. the increased use of informal ellipsis) in comparison to previous studies. Secondly, the compliments produced by the advanced L2 learners of English were seen to develop so as to resemble those of their L1 peers, contributing to a growing body of evidence suggesting that virtual exchange is a useful tool for fostering the enhancement of L2 speakers’ pragmatic skills. Interestingly, this development was seen to regard syntactic, but not lexical, features.

Dynamic targets in second language vowel articulations

This study examines L1 English-L2 French vowel productions, with the goal of exploring whether representing vowel targets as dynamic rather than “steady-state” better predict L2 production patterns. It is hypothesized that learners will transfer L1 vowel dynamic information to produce L2 vowels if the two are perceived as “similar,” but it is unclear whether learners will transfer dynamic vowel information to “new” L2. As such, six L1 English-L2 French learners completed production tasks in English and French with the target vowels /i, u, e, o/ and /y, ø/ in real words. Participants were recorded using a stabilization headset attached to an ultrasound probe and microphone. F1 and F2 measurements and tongue contours were extracted at three timepoints throughout the vowel duration. Results shows that while learners produce L2 French vowels /i, e, u, o/ with a similar amount of formant and gestural movement to L1 vowels, they do not transfer midpoint F1-F2 values. Learners do produce new L2 vowels /y, ø/ with similar formant and gestural movements to English vowels. The results of this study indicate that learners transfer dynamic acoustic information and articulatory gestures from their L1 to produce L2 vowels, which has implications for the representation of vowels.

The effect of customized L1 translation on L2 production: Cognitive pathes of L2 processing in bilingual mental lexicon

Considering that L1 translation in L2 lexical encoding is commonplace in vocabulary learning in Korea, the study sought the type of L1 translation that can efficiently promote the target L2 processing. For this, 77 English majors at a university participated in two vocabulary learning conditions using ‘L1α’ (dictionary L1) and ‘L1β’ (individual learner’s own L1 reflecting his/her own speech style in actual communication) and were tested in a vocabulary production test reflecting L2 communication. Using a paired-samples t-test in a within-subjects design, the effects of the two L1 translation types were compared in the immediate and delayed posttests. The results suggested that the advantage of ‘L1β’ over ‘L1 α’ in L2 production was evident both for single-word and multi-word lexical items. The effect of ‘L1β’ was also confirmed in long-term memory. In the frame of computational models of lexical processing, the study suggested that the cognitive path ‘Concept-L1β-L2’ is more efficient than ‘Concept-L1β-L1α-L2’. Consequently, in the learning process, encoding new L2 lexical items through ‘L1 β’ rather than ‘L1α’ may be more effective to retrieve the target L2 in production. Pedagogical suggestions are discussed based on this model.

Analysing the relationship between L2 production and different stages of L2 processing: Eye-tracking and acoustic evidence for a novel contrast

This study analyses the relationship between native English speakers’ perception and production of the novel French /y/–/u/ contrast. Acoustic data were extracted from the learners’ production of French minimal pairs contrasting these French vowels and compared with their processing of the same items in a Visual World eye-tracking task. Results reveal that the vowel most acoustically similar to the learners’ native English /u/ vowel, French /y/, is both easier to identify at early processing stages and more acoustically similar to a native French control group in production, indicating a perception-production relationship. Furthermore, analyses of individual variation reveal that the learners who process both /y/ and /u/ more successfully at later processing stages are also more likely to mark a greater distinction between these phonemes in production. Together, these results indicate a relationship between L2 processing and L2 production at multiple levels. Implications for current L2 speech models are discussed.

Challenges in the creation of the multilingual corpus-based lexicographic resource CombiDigiLex

The paper presents the methodological and technological challenges in the creation of the multilingual, corpus-based lexicographic resource CombiDigiLex (https://combidigilex.wixsite.com/deutsch), with three main aims. First, the application-oriented research context and grounds for the development of the multilingual lexico-grammatical information system CombiDigiLex, which is intended to provide information for the languages German, Spanish and Portuguese, for its use in the L2 production and translation process, are presented. Furthermore, the most relevant features of the mentioned resource in its current version (v.1.0.6) are presented. Finally, the methodological and technical difficulties of data gathering as well as lexicographic data displaying, that not only had to be overcome during the official project period, but which even at the time of writing this paper are still partly open fronts, are outlined.

Cross-Language Transfer and Attentional Control in Early Bilingual Speech.

This study investigated the roles of cross-language transfer of first language (L1) and attentional control in second-language (L2) speech perception and production of sequential bilinguals, taking phonological overlap into account. Twenty-five monolingual Dutch-speaking and 25 sequential bilingual Turkish-Dutch-speaking 3- and 4-year-olds were tested using picture identification tasks for speech perception in L1 Turkish and L2 Dutch, single-word tasks for speech production in L1 and L2, and a visual search task for attentional control. Phonological overlap was manipulated by dividing the speech tasks into subsets of phonemes that were either shared or unshared between languages. In Dutch speech perception and production, monolingual children obtained higher accuracies than bilingual peers. Bilinguals showed equal performance in L1 and L2 perception but scored higher on L1 than on L2 production. For speech perception of shared phonemes, linear regression analyses revealed no direct effects of attention and L1 on L2. For speech production of shared phonemes, attention and L1 directly affected L2. When exploring unshared phonemes, direct effects of attentional control on L2 were demonstrated not only for speech production but also for speech perception. The roles of attentional control and cross-language transfer on L2 speech are different for shared and unshared phonemes. Whereas L2 speech production of shared phonemes is also supported by cross-language transfer of L1, L2 speech perception and production of unshared phonemes benefit from attentional control only. This underscores the clinical importance of considering phonological overlap and supporting attentional control when assisting young sequential bilinguals' L2 development.

Attitudes to the use of Google Translate for L2 production: analysis of chatroom discussions among UK secondary school students

ABSTRACT This paper presents the findings of a research project on UK school students’ attitudes to the use of Free Online Machine Translation for L2 production and more specifically in preparing for assessment. Data were collected from a publicly available online forum to analyse students’ spontaneous discussion of the use of Free Online Machine Translation, predominantly Google Translate. The majority of relevant comments were posted by secondary school students in the UK, regarding the use of Google Translate for GCSE examinations. The findings reveal that use of Google Translate for assignments was accepted practice among secondary school students in the UK over the last decade. However, they show mixed attitudes to this usage, and the nature of the discussion changed over the decade as a result of the evolution of Google Translate and changes to UK examination requirements. This study is original in its use of netnography, the study of online communities, to analyse students’ comments to each other about their use of Google Translate in preparing for modern foreign languages (MFL) coursework. These findings, therefore, serve to inform the debate on how schools and universities should respond to student Google Translate usage for language learning and assignments.

L2 vocabulary learning with animated aids -Do learner factors affect L2 production with figurative expressions?

This study examines the effectiveness of animated aids for the production of English figurative expressions and the influence of learner factors. While previous studies illustrate that motion animations do not always enhance L2 learning, this study suggests that theoretically-grounded animations with learners' individual factors benefit L2 vocabulary learning. With animated aids for three spatial prepositions based on image schema theory and consideration of learners’ information processing styles and first language, our empirical research was conducted to examine the condition under which the efficacy of animated aids was optimized. The research with 152 participants from Taiwan and Japan demonstrated the effectiveness of animated aids in facilitating the production of figurative L2 expressions. Our ANCOVA analyses revealed that the animation effect was observed to be more significant for the Taiwanese participants than for the Japanese participants. It was also found that for the Japanese participants, the imagers obtained more benefits from the animated aids than the verbalizers.

Quantitative analysis of fundamental frequency in Spanish (L2) and Brazilian Portuguese (L1)

This paper analyzes the intonation of Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese (BP) produced by monolingual speakers of both languages and bilingual BP speakers that lived in Spain on average for 6 years. Bilinguals produced data in both Spanish L2 (BL2) and BP L1 (BL1). Speech materials are sentences in different modalities (declaratives, yes-no and wh-questions) and reading styles (isolated sentences and storytelling). Fundamental frequency (f0) contours were analyzed to assess learning in Spanish L2 and language attrition in the L1 production of bilinguals. Variability in the f0 contours of the four language conditions was gauged by means of three indices (peak rate, peak range and global standard deviation). Dynamic time warping (DTW) distances between pairs of f0 contours were also measured as a way to measure within- and between-language differences in intonation patterns. The main results are: 1) BL2 and BL1 contours are significantly more variable than the monolingual ones both quantitatively and qualitatively; 2) BL2 contours partially converge towards the patterns of Spanish monolinguals, showing that there is learning; 3) there is evidence for language attrition in the form of transfer of Spanish patterns to BP contours produced by bilinguals; 4) Learning and attrition levels are different depending on sentence modality, such that learning is greater in modalities that differ less between BP and Spanish and attrition is greater in modalities that differ the most.

The Effects of Age, Dosage, and Poverty on Second Language Learning through SparkLingTM in Infant Education Centers in Madrid, Spain.

The first 1000 days represent a unique window of opportunity for second language learning. In two recent studies we demonstrated that Spanish infants’ use of second-language (L2) English productive vocabulary and early utterances rapidly increased through the play-based, interactive and highly social SparkLingTM Intervention, which consists of an evidence-based method and curriculum stemming from decades of research on infant language development. Analyzing an expanded and more diverse sample of Spanish infants (n = 414; age 9–33 months) who received the SparkLingTM Intervention, this study examines the variability in L2 production, which was assessed via first-person LENA audio recordings. Infants’ age significantly and positively correlated with L2 production, demonstrating an advantage for older infants in the sample. While overall socioeconomic status (SES) was not related to L2 production, very young infants (under two years) who lived in high poverty homes showed faster increases in English production compared to peers who lived in moderate poverty homes. Infants’ attendance in the program (“dosage”) was also predictive of their L2 production outcomes. Infants across SES have the capacity to begin acquiring two languages in early education classrooms with SparkLingTM through one-hour/day sessions in social environments that engages them through frequent high-quality language input.