Monolingual English Speakers Research Articles

The divisiveness of Chinese identities in Singapore

In July 2019, the Jamestown Foundation, an American think tank, published a report accusing China of imposing a Chinese identity onto Singapore through propaganda and influence operations. In this article, I argue that the Jamestown report is factually inaccurate and is itself an influence operation aimed at engendering distrust towards China. The re-discovery of a Chinese cultural identity by some Chinese Singaporeans—from Lee Kuan Yew to Nathan Hartono—is fuelled not by China’s clandestine influence operations, but by an intrinsic desire to mend ruptures in one's cultural heritage. Historically, the Chinese in Singapore have discarded or re-adopted their Chinese cultural identities depending on the degree to which contact is kept with China. When contact with China diminishes, successive generations of Singapore Chinese inevitably cease to identify China as a cultural motherland. When contact with China resumes, the Chinese in Singapore have frequently become divided, split into those who culturally identify as Chinese and those who do not. Since the 1978 reform and opening-up of China, the restoration of contact between China and Singapore have led to a rekindling of interest amongst Chinese Singaporeans in their cultural identities. This rekindling yields three major consequences. Firstly, Chinese Singaporeans may become further divided in terms of their cultural identity, with de-Sinicised, monolingual English speakers on one extreme and re-Sinicised, cultural Chinese on the other. Secondly, successive generations of re-Sinicised Singaporeans may grow up imbibing China’s cultural exports, thereby becoming less distinct from their mainland Chinese counterparts. Thirdly, Singapore’s government will remain incentivised to continually emphasise the distinctness of the Chinese Singaporean identity from Chinese elsewhere.

Foreign-accented sentence comprehension is challenging for older adults: ERP evidence from semantic and grammar processing

Research has shown that older adults have increased difficulty comprehending foreign-accented speech. As these studies have only used behavioral measures, we exploited the fine-grained temporal resolution of EEG/ERPs to examine neural signatures of foreign- and native-accented sentence comprehension in older adults. Older adults, all normal-hearing monolingual English speakers, listened to foreign Chinese-accented and native English-accented sentences while ERPs were recorded. Foreign- and native-accented sentences contained semantic or pronoun errors, or were semantically and grammatically correct. We also gathered behavioral measures of sentence comprehension, and examined how neural activity during sentence processing relates to individual differences in listeners’ attitudes towards accented speakers, linguistic and cognitive skills, and hearing acuity. Older adults showed high comprehension accuracy of both foreign-accented and native-accented sentences. In contrast, ERP data showed different neural responses to foreign- and native-accented sentences: Semantic errors elicited an N400 effect in native-accented sentences, but not in foreign-accented sentences. Grammatical errors elicited a P600, not further qualified by accent type. Hearing acuity and individual differences in language attitudes, cognitive and linguistic variables did not systematically correlate with ERP patterns. These findings suggest that older adults are ultimately engaging in foreign-accented sentence comprehension, but non-native pre-lexical speech signals do not attain activation needed for strong lexical activation during online processing, resulting in strained and more effortful higher-level processing of semantics downstream the sentence.

Exploring motion event construal: How much attention do speakers of different languages and cultures pay to context?

Cross-cultural psychology research has consistently shown that East Asians tend to display a holistic attentional bias and attend to the background context while Westerners show a tendency to attend to focal objects in relative isolation from their context. The present study sought to expand ongoing research on motion event construal by investigating how speakers of different languages and cultures (i.e., functionally monolingual speakers of English and Korean, and Korean-speaking learners of English) construe and describe motion events in relation to focal versus peripheral information. Our results demonstrated that American English monolinguals and Korean monolinguals differed in the amount of attention they give to focal versus peripheral information in their descriptions of motion events embedded in a story. Furthermore, Korean-speaking learners of English adhered to the Korean thinking style when describing events in English. Such findings appear to show that the scope of conceptual transfer extends beyond the encoding of manner, path, ongoingness, and endpoint reference to other types of motion event construal.

Predictors of reading comprehension in deaf and hearing bilinguals

AbstractThis study investigates reading comprehension in adult deaf and hearing readers. Using correlational analysis and stepwise regression, we assess the contribution of English language variables (e.g., vocabulary comprehension, reading volume, and phonological awareness), cognitive variables (e.g., working memory (WM), nonverbal intelligence, and executive function), and language experience (e.g., language acquisition and orthographic experience) in predicting reading comprehension in deaf and hearing adult bilinguals (native American Sign Language (ASL) signers, non-native ASL signers, and Chinese–English bilinguals (CEB)), and monolingual (ML) controls. For all four groups, vocabulary knowledge was a strong contributor to reading comprehension. Monolingual English speakers and non-native deaf signers also showed contributions from WM and spoken language phonological awareness. In contrast, CEB showed contributions of lexical strategies in English reading comprehension. These cross-group comparisons demonstrate how the inclusion of multiple participant groups helps us to further refine our understanding of how language and sensory experiences influence reading comprehension.

A-120 Comparison of Baseline and Post-Concussion ImPACT Performance in Spanish-English Bilingual and English Monolingual Athletes

Abstract Objective Research comparing English and Spanish administrations of Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT) have consistently found differences in performance on various cognitive composites. Few studies have examined the effect of bilingualism on baseline and post-concussion assessments. This study examined whether monolingual English-speakers (MO) and bilingual Spanish/English speakers (BI) differed in cognitive performance at baseline (BL) and post-concussion (PC). Methods Participants were selected from a larger database of high school athletes administered ImPACT in English at BL and PC. Participants included 86 BI athletes (Mage = 14.53; 65.10% male) and 86 MO athletes matched on age, gender, sport type, and probable concussion as defined by number of PC follow-up assessments (PCF; 0 vs. ≥1). To examine group differences and changes over time in cognitive composites, a general linear modeling approach was used with language and PCF as between-subjects factors and time as a within-subjects factor. Results There was a significant Language x Time x PCF interaction for Visual Memory (VM), Visual Motor Speed (VMS), and Reaction Time (RT). On VM and RT, MO with multiple PCF performed the worst at PC, while MO with 0 PCF performed the best at PC. On VMS, BI with 0 PCF performed the worst at BL. Conclusion Visual memory and reaction time were less affected in bilingual compared to monolingual athletes with probable concussion. However, at baseline, bilingual athletes had slower visual motor speed compared to monolingual athletes. Future research should focus on how bilingualism may serve as both a protective and risk factor for cognitive functioning after probable concussion.

Cross-linguistic transfer in Turkish–English bilinguals’ descriptions of motion events

Languages differ in how they express motion: Languages like English prefer to conflate manner and path into the same clause and express both elements frequently while languages like Turkish prefer to express these elements separately, with a greater preference for the expression of path of motion. While typological patterns are well-established for monolingual speakers of a variety of languages, relatively less is known about motion expression in bilingual speakers. The current study examined the packaging (expressing each element in separate clauses or within the same clause) and lexical choices (amount and diversity of manner and path verbs) for motion expression in monolingual speakers of Turkish or English and advanced Turkish (L1)–English (L2) bilinguals in a narrative elicitation task. Bilinguals were successful in attaining many English-like patterns of expression in their L2 English but also showed some packaging and lexical choices that were intermediate between English and Turkish monolinguals—thus providing evidence of an L1-to-L2 cross-linguistic effect. Subtle effects of L2 on L1 were also found in bilinguals’ lexical choices for the expression of motion in their L1 Turkish. Altogether, our results demonstrate bi-directional transfer effects of learning a typologically distinct language in advanced Turkish–English bilinguals.

A Pilot Study on Voice-Conditioned Vowel Raising Comparison in the Hockey Community of Practice

This project investigates vowel raising in the hockey community of practice, specifically English-speaking athletes who are were born and raised in Central Canada or in the Northern Cities region of the United States. Research done on “Canadian raising” in North America looks at the type and location of use; I chose a narrow group of speakers based on the dominance of Canadian-born athletes in the community and the stereotype that they “sound Canadian.” The effect of the voicing of a post-vocalic consonant could have a deeper sociolinguistic connection regarding identity and speakers’ occupation. I compared their place of origin with their current place of residence to determine who has more contact with Canadian English speakers and would be influenced by their speech patterns to focus on the sociophonetic question. My research question is about the cross-linguistic influence of English-speaking hockey players who are, through professional contact, exposed primarily to Canadian monolingual English speakers. The present study is motivated by sociophonetic considerations, and a focus on groups of athletes for sociolinguistic reasons influenced my choice to investigate this question. Because the raising can also be found in Inland North American English, I chose to include athletes from that region in this data. I recorded and measured examples of the athletes’ connected speech from video interviews and ran t-tests comparing the Canadian-born and American-born athletes together, and then dividing them by current place of residence for additional comparison. The results show promising preliminary results in line with speakers residing in Canada “sounding more Canadian” regardless of place of origin, however the t-tests are not significant. More data being collected in an appropriate setting would enhance these results and further study of multilingual athletes would further inform the sociophonetic aspect pertaining to sense of belonging and conformity in the hockey community of practice.

Perceived foreign accent in L3 English: the effects of heritage language use

ABSTRACT Bringing to the field of third language (L3) research a new population of speakers, namely heritage speaker (HS) L3 learners, this study investigates the accents of 19 German-Italian HSs in L3 English. In an accent rating experiment, the speech samples of the HSs and three control groups (monolingual speakers of English, Italian, and German) were rated for ‘degree of foreign accent’ and ‘source of accent’. The role of ‘Italian use’ and ‘phonetic-phonological proficiency in Italian’ was also investigated for patterns of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) into English. For ‘degree of foreign accent’, the HSs were rated as moderately accented, on par with German controls, but as weaker accented than Italian controls. For ‘source of accent’, the HSs were perceived as German-sounding in most ratings (66.8%), while an Italian-sounding accent was detected in certain HSs (9.5% of ratings). Regression analyses showed CLI from Italian to be significantly predicted by the amount of ‘Italian use’, measured using a detailed background questionnaire. We conclude that, while accent in L3 English is predominantly affected by German, the typologically closer and majority language, CLI from Italian co-occurs in speakers who used their heritage language frequently.

A non-contrastive cue in spontaneous imitation: Comparing mono- and bilingual imitators

This study tests the hypothesis that imitators of different native languages imitate the same targets in distinct ways predicted by their native phonology, by investigating the role of a non-contrastive phonetic property in spontaneous imitation of English voiceless stops by English monolingual and Seoul Korean-English bilingual imitators. The primarily contrastive phonetic property for English voiceless stops is voice onset time (VOT), with the fundamental frequency (f0) of the post-stop vowel being non-contrastive but still informative for the voicing contrast. On the other hand, in Seoul Korean, stop VOT is a non-primary cue, but it is necessary to maintain the full three-way laryngeal contrast in the language. Post-stop f0 is the primary cue for the Seoul Korean aspirated stops. Seoul Korean speakers have been reported to imitate aspirated stops with longer VOT by raising their post-stop f0 (Kwon, 2019). In this study, English monolingual speakers and Seoul Korean-English bilingual speakers heard and shadowed model speech containing English voiceless stops manipulated by either raising post-stop f0 or lengthening VOT. Their imitation was assessed with two acoustic measurements, stop VOT and post-onset f0, of the voiceless stops, before and after the imitators heard the model speech with the two manipulations. A separate discrimination test confirmed that both manipulations were reliably perceived by both the monolingual and the bilingual imitators. English monolingual speakers' imitation data suggest that their shadowing productions reflect the phonological significance of the two phonetic properties, and only the imitative changes induced by a contrastive cue last beyond the immediate shadowing targets. In addition, Seoul Korean-English bilingual speakers, when performing the spontaneous imitation tasks in English, do not draw on their native (Seoul Korean) phonology. Implications of these findings on the role of phonology in the spontaneous imitation of bilingual and monolingual speakers are discussed.

Sentence Repetition Tasks to Detect and Prevent Language Difficulties: A Scoping Review.

Sentence repetition tasks (SRTs) have been widely used in language development research for decades. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in studying performance in SRTs as a clinical marker for language impairment. What are the characteristics of SRTs? For what purposes have SRTs been used? To what extent have they been used with young children, in different languages, and with different clinical populations? In order to answer these and other questions, we conducted a scoping review. Peer reviewed studies published in indexed scientific journals (2010–2021) were analyzed. A search in different databases yielded 258 studies. Research published in languages other than English or Spanish, adult samples, dissertations, case studies, artificial models, and theoretical publications were excluded. After this exclusion, 203 studies were analyzed. Our results show that most research using SRT were conducted with English monolingual speakers older than 5 years of age; studies with bilingual participants have mostly been published since 2016; and SRTs have been used with several non-typical populations. Research suggests that they are a reliable tool for identifying language difficulties and are specifically suitable for detecting developmental language disorder.

Disfluencies in English Speech Produced by Spanish-English Bilinguals

Background: Fluency and disfluency exist on a continuum of speech production.Typically fluent speakers produce varying numbers of disfluencies; this number increases in stressful or cognitively demanding situations. Prior research indicates that adult second language learners produce more disfluencies in their weaker, second language, however, this has not been explored among heritage bilinguals who developed in both languages during childhood. There is a lack of foundational knowledge regarding disfluencies among typically fluent adult bilinguals; typical fluency patterns are likely influenced by bidirectional relationships between languages. These patterns may be viewed as disfluencies by listeners who generally perceive disfluencies unfavorably. Objectives: The current study explores the quantity and types of disfluencies produced by bilinguals. Methods: Twenty Spanish-English bilinguals took part in a simulated job interview. Responses were transcribed and the total number and percent of disfluencies were calculated. Results: The findings indicated that typically fluent Spanish-English bilingual adults produce 6.99 typical (nonstuttered) disfluencies per 100 words and are therefore within the range of normative data on monolingual adults (5.1–10.99 per 100 words). The 2 most common disfluencies were superfluous verbal behaviors and pauses. Conclusions: The findings revealed that typically fluent Spanish-English bilingual adult participants produced more fixed postures than previously reported among monolingual English speakers.

Adaptive memory: Greater memory advantages in bilinguals’ first language

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions:In this study, we examined memory performance in a bilingual population, in an effort to compare depth of processing and complexity across first and second languages.Design/methodology/approach:Complexity was investigated with a pleasantness rating task and an elaborative encoding, scenario-based rating task (i.e. rating words for their survival-relevance). Previous research found word recall largely benefited from an ancestral context that primed participants to think deeply about the survival-relevance of a list of concrete, neutral words. Engaging this more elaborative processing may lead to better memory if the human memory system is particularly tuned toward remembering survival-relevant materials.Data and analysis:Participants included 127 Spanish-English bilinguals, randomly-assigned to complete survival-relevance or pleasantness ratings in either Spanish or English. Aggregated language history data self-reported by participants (e.g. language-learning environments, age of acquisition, and so on), suggested an L1 of Spanish and L2 of English. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) compared word recall across these tasks and languages.Findings/conclusions:We hypothesized better recall performance collected from bilingual participants in the survival condition using their first, more often emotional, language. Our results support this hypothesis, with bilinguals replicating the memory advantage for words rated for their survival-relevance in Spanish (their L1), but not in English (their L2).Originality:While this paradigm has largely been studied with monolingual English-speakers, or in some cases, other languages, no study has explored its replicability in a Spanish-English bilingual population’s two languages.Significance/implications:These findings speak to the on-going effort to understand word processing and memory differences—particularly with regards to processing complexity—across bilinguals’ first and second languages.

Bilingualism and Voice Production. Differences Between Bilingual Latin-American Spanish- English Female Speakers and Monolingual Spanish Female Speakers During Spanish Productions

BackgroundSpeaking a second language influences jitter and shimmer when comparing monolingual English speakers with bilingual English-Spanish speakers. However, there is little information about differences on voice acoustic parameters when comparing monolingual Spanish speakers with bilingual Spanish-English speakers during their productions in Spanish. AimDetermine differences in five voice acoustic parameters commonly used in voice assessments (fundamental frequency, jitter, shimmer, Harmonics-to-Noise Ratio and Cepstral Peak Prominence Smoothed) which may be influenced by bilingualism. MethodsExploratory cross-sectional study with two groups of female participants: monolingual Spanish speakers (n = 17), and bilingual Spanish-English speakers (n = 11). Participants filled out a questionnaire and recorded two voice samples (sustained vowel /a/ and reading). For this study, all the participants reported that their native language was Spanish. ResultsBeing a female bilingual speaker had a significant effect on Shimmer (%) with a Beta = -0.7. Similar tendency was found on harmonics-to-noise ratio (B = 0.2) and cepstral peak prominence smoothed (B = 0.2). ConclusionsOur results indicate that being a native Spanish female speaker, speaking English as a second language, has significant small effects on voice acoustic parameters, such as shimmer, harmonics-to-noise ratio and cepstral peak prominence smoothed, during their productions in Spanish. This information is of interest for assessment and intervention plans of bilingual speakers at clinical and work-related settings.

Monolingual and bilingual language networks in healthy subjects using functional MRI and graph theory

Bilingualism requires control of multiple language systems, and may lead to architectural differences in language networks obtained from clinical fMRI tasks. Emerging connectivity metrics such as k-core may capture these differences, highlighting crucial network components based on resiliency. We investigated the influence of bilingualism on clinical fMRI language tasks and characterized bilingual networks using connectivity metrics to provide a patient care benchmark. Sixteen right-handed subjects (mean age 42-years; nine males) without neurological history were included: eight native English-speaking monolinguals and eight native Spanish-speaking (L1) bilinguals with acquired English (L2). All subjects underwent fMRI with gold-standard clinical language tasks. Starting from active clusters on fMRI, we inferred the persistent functional network across subjects and ran centrality measures to characterize differences. Our results demonstrated a persistent network “core” consisting of Broca’s area, the pre-supplementary motor area, and the premotor area. K-core analysis showed that Wernicke’s area was engaged by the “core” with weaker connection in L2 than L1.

"Macho": The singularity of a mock Spanish item

This paper scrutinizes the path of the semantic extension of the originally neutral Spanish term macho ‘male animal’ to the pejorative ‘animal-like man’. Semantic pejoration belongs to one of the techniques that Hill (1995b) identifies when describing Mock Spanish, a type of racist discourse used by monolingual English speakers when using single Spanish words. Prototypically, the author of the semantic change from a positive or neutral to a negative connotation of a Spanish term is the monolingual speaker of American English. This seems not to be the case with respect to macho. In the same theoretical vein as Mock Spanish, many voices attribute the semantic pejoration of macho to the US-English discourse. The objective of this paper is to identify the origin of this pejoration. Methodologically, this is conducted by means of a lexical search of the oldest pejorated macho items in Spanish, and the semantic content of the first macho borrowings in English. For this purpose, I consulted different sources, like diachronic corpora, etymological dictionaries and specialized references on the macho concept for Spanish as well as English. My analysis leads me to conclude that the semantic shift of macho, at least in its written form, developed in both sides of the Mexican-American border at the beginning of the XX century.

Monolingual cringe and ideologies of English: Anglophone migrants to Luxembourg draw their experiences in a multilingual society

ABSTRACT This article uses reflective drawing to explore representations of multilingualism by Anglophone migrants in Luxembourg. Analysing twelve interviews in which participants drew and described their language experiences, we examine the language ideologies Anglophone migrants adopt in response to the ideologies of English they encounter. Participants adopt various ideologies, sometimes aligning with the ideology of global English, sometimes with counter-ideologies of resistance to it, and sometimes a mix of the two. Visual features indexing affective states include colour, gesture, facial expression, and composition. Monolingual cringe – expressed as shame, embarrassment and being ‘bad at languages’ – performs several functions for the participants. Sometimes it serves as an affective disclaimer, allowing them to lean on their privilege in a more socially acceptable way. Sometimes it appears to express genuine distress, in the form of searing linguistic insecurity. Sometimes it performs a distancing function, enabling them to oppose themselves to the stereotype of the monolingual English speaker. The affective intensity of the drawings suggests the ideology of global English does have costs for Anglophone migrants. Fundamentally, though, monolingual cringe reinforces privilege, allowing participants to apologise for their monolingualism even as they continue to benefit from it.

Raciolinguistic Ideologies and Second Language Spanish: Case Study of an Interracial Couple

Abstract The theoretical framework of raciolinguistics examines connections between language ideologies and racialization, but few studies have analyzed the adult learning of languages other than English. This case study is based on life history interviews with a married couple, a Black male journalist and a White female nurse, who learned Spanish as adults. Both grew up as monolingual English speakers, in multilingual US communities where Spanish was widely spoken, and both studied the language in school, but only began using it in US settings as adults in professional contexts. Their Spanish use expanded during three years of volunteer service in Bolivia, where I interviewed them twice, a year apart, as part of a larger interview study on bilingual identities. In this article, I employ a Bakhtinian lens to explore this couple’s perspectives on their encounters with raciolinguistic ideologies; the contexts in which their Spanish use was ratified or not; and their eventual establishment of (somewhat limited) Spanish-speaking voices through the affordances of their intersectional identities.

Phonetic adaptation in interlocutors with mismatched language backgrounds: A case for a phonetic synergy account

Phonetic convergence is the phenomenon that the speech of interlocutors becomes more similar during an interaction. However, in interactions involving non-native speakers, factors such as communicative needs and mismatches in interlocutors’ phonetic repertoire may inhibit phonetic convergence. In this study, we investigated how mismatches at the phonetic level affect speech adjustments in mixed versus shared language pairs. Mandarin L1 speakers speaking English as their second language played a collaborative word matching game either with another Mandarin L1–English L2 speaker (MM pair) or with a monolingual English speaker (ME pairs). Critical stimuli consisted of single-syllable words that differed on medial vowel and/or voicing of the final consonant. These phonetic dimensions were chosen because Mandarin L1–English L2 speakers differ from native English speakers in how they instantiate these distinctions. We evaluated how the different kinds of pairs completed the interactive communicative task.Our results confirmed that L2 speakers differed from L1 speakers in how they created necessary phonetic distinctions. However, these differences depended on whether they were in an MM pair or an ME pair. L2 speakers in MM pairs relied on vowel duration to indicate vowel identity more than did those in the ME pairs. Interestingly, examination of individual speakers’ data revealed different successful solutions across pairs. To explain these findings, we propose the use of phonetic synergy the idea that interlocutors’ adaptations to ensure communicative success are co-constraining and diverse. Broadly, our findings suggest that for a complete understanding of phonetic convergence, precisely manipulating communicative difficulty along specific phonetic dimensions may be crucial to tell apart social, simulative, and communicative adjustments in interaction.

An Analysis of the Spanish-Language Landscape and Hispanic Identity in Hazleton, Pennsylvania (USA)

Linguistic landscapes refer broadly to the study of perceived or actual language use in a particular environment. Such an ever-changing landscape, metaphorical or not, can be most readily identified through the visible or audible presence of language, and this frequently occurs through the analysis of signs. The present study considers the small city of Hazleton, located at the southern edge of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Although it was recognized in the early and mid-nineteenth century as a refuge for Eastern European immigrants pursuing employment in the anthracite industry, Hazleton has garnered national attention in the last decade for its increasing Latino population, the overall reduction in monolingual English speakers, and the public reactions and legislation of local government officials. In particular, this study analyzes the types of signs found along the almost two-mile length of Wyoming Street, a street that intersects multiple neighborhoods commonly associated with the reification of Hispanidad. As such, we attempt here concurrently to determine the functions for which the Spanish language is employed publicly and also to consider the extent to which these signs reflect the identity of the Spanish-speaking community more broadly.

Elicited Production of Part/Whole and General/ Specific Articles by Four- to Nine-Year-Old Afrikaans- and South African English-Speaking Monolinguals

This study sets out to investigate the use of articles, specifically the development of part/whole and general/specific article distinctions in Afrikaans- and English-speaking children. Previous studies comparing the development of these distinctions yielded conflicting results. In order to address this gap in the literature, a large-scale study was conducted on two languages. Two research questions were posed: (a) Does development in the article system take place after age four in terms of part/whole and general/specific distinctions?, and Specifically, is there a difference in children's production of part/whole and general/specific articles? An article production task was performed with 1012 Afrikaans- and 413 South African English-speaking four- to nine-year-olds. Results indicate that even the nine-year-olds had not mastered all items, and that items involving a part/whole distinction were more difficult, across age groups, than those involving a general/specific distinction.