Group Of Native Speakers Research Articles

Investigating the apology strategies of Saudi learners of English

Abstract The present study examines the apologetic behavior of Saudi learners of English in a foreign language learning context. The study also investigates the influence of language exposure, gender, distance and dominance on the learners’ apologies. To this end, a Discourse Completion Test was completed by (1) 411 Saudi learners of English, (2) 42 native speakers of Saudi Arabic and (3) 47 native speakers of English. The groups of native speakers provided the norms of apologetic behavior in the learners’ first (L1) and second (L2) languages. The results showed the Saudi participants’ preference for face-saving strategies to both the speaker and hearer, and a positive influence for increased L2 exposure on the learners’ pragmatic competence. The variables of gender, distance and dominance also proved influential but to varying degrees. The results are interpreted in light of the existing literature and theoretical models. Pedagogical implications and research directions are proposed.

Normas pedagógicas contra normas lingüísticas en la selección del modo en español como L2: interfaz morfológico-semántica

La selección del indicativo y el subjuntivo en español es una de las áreas más problemáticas para los hablantes nativos de inglés (Terrell et al., 1987; Stokes, 1988). Estas páginas presentan los resultados de un estudio piloto que examina la adquisición de la distinción de modo en español por parte de hablantes nativos de inglés, concretamente se analiza la interfaz morfo-semántica en la selección de subjuntivo. El marco teórico en el que se basa este estudio es la hipótesis de sistemas en conflicto (Rothman, 2008) analizada anteriormente con la distinción aspectual en español. La hipótesis afirma que un sistema de reglas pedagógicas entra en conflicto con la competencia lingüística subyacente del estudiante en el proceso de adquisición de la L2. Los participantes fueron divididos en cuatro grupos: (1) un grupo de estudiantes de español de nivel intermedio; (2) un grupo de estudiantes de español de nivel avanzado; (3) un grupo de hablantes de inglés con español como lengua de herencia; y (4) un grupo de control de hablantes monolingües nativos de español. Todos los participantes completaron dos tareas escritas. Los resultados aportan evidencia de la hipótesis de Rothman en otras áreas de la gramática en las que las reglas pedagógicas difieren de la gramática subyacente de la L2. Los resultados de este estudio apoyan la hipótesis de que las reglas pedagógicas interfieren en la adquisición de la producción de modo en español, pero no evitan la adquisición del rasgo morfo-semántico [± específico].

Acquisition of Finnish derivational morphology: School-age children and young adults

The current study examined how morpho-semantic processing of derivational morphology develops from later childhood through adolescence to adulthood in Finnish. Finnish is a synthetic language rich both in derivation and inflection. It has been suggested that children gradually acquire the ability to process morphologically complex word structures. However, this development could be delayed because of the complex derivational morphology in Finnish. To assess this, three age groups of Finnish native speakers participated in a priming study, in which they made a visual lexical decision for the target words. There were three types of primes: morphologically related words, pseudowords, and unrelated words. The reaction times results showed a significant difference between all the groups, which implies that the word processing is still developing in adolescence. The error rates unveiled a similar pattern to reaction times. The prime type affected the recognition: words with morphological primes were processed faster than words with pseudoword primes, which in turn were processed faster than words with unrelated primes. Moreover, males made significantly more errors than females with morphological and pseudoword prime conditions.

Addressing fluctuation in article choice by Japanese learners of L2 English through explicit instruction

This study examines the role of explicit instruction in article meanings to L1-Japanese learners of L2-English. An instruction group (n = 21), a control group (n = 16) and a native English speaker group (n = 9) participated in this study. Participants were asked to rate the acceptability of [±definite] and [±specific] sentences on a scale of 1–4 (1 = unacceptable; 4 = acceptable) in relation to a context for pre- and three post-tests. A pre-test was administered to both groups before instruction began and three post-tests were given to both groups. The instruction group received seven, sixty-minute lessons across seven weeks on instruction in the concepts of definiteness and specificity. Post-test 1 was administered to all participants at the end of the instruction period; post-test 2 was given after a twelve-week summer break; post-test 3 was one year after instruction had ended. The findings show that the instruction group made some gains in consolidating their understanding of the concepts during the instruction period, but after one year little explicit knowledge was retained.

Addressing fluctuation in article choice by Japanese learners of L2 English through explicit instruction

This study examines the role of explicit instruction in article meanings to L1-Japanese learners of L2-English. An instruction group (n = 21), a control group (n = 16) and a native English speaker group (n = 9) participated in this study. Participants were asked to rate the acceptability of [±definite] and [±specific] sentences on a scale of 1–4 (1 = unacceptable; 4 = acceptable) in relation to a context for pre- and three post-tests. A pre-test was administered to both groups before instruction began and three post-tests were given to both groups. The instruction group received seven, sixty-minute lessons across seven weeks on instruction in the concepts of definiteness and specificity. Post-test 1 was administered to all participants at the end of the instruction period; post-test 2 was given after a twelve-week summer break; post-test 3 was one year after instruction had ended. The findings show that the instruction group made some gains in consolidating their understanding of the concepts during the instruction period, but after one year little explicit knowledge was retained.

Comprehension of accented sentences by young and older listeners

Previous studies have shown that understanding accented speech requires additional cognitive support. Along this line, the current study aims to test whether the ability to understand accented speech can be influenced by aging and whether older listeners are more sensitive to accented speech. Native speakers of Southern Min from two age groups (18–35, 55 and older) are instructed to listen to sentences produced by two groups of speakers, native and nonnative speakers of Southern Min, answer questions regarding the target words in the sentences produced by these speakers, and then rate speakers' comprehensibility and accentedness. The stimuli for the listening test are produced by speakers during a delayed repetition task, where they repeat the Southern Min sentences after hearing each of them. The target words embedded in these sentences contain phonemes known to be difficult for nonnative speakers (e.g., syllable-initial voiced stops, nasalized vowels). It is hypothesized that older group, compared to younger listeners, will score lower on understanding accented speech, and tend to rate more speech accented and rate less speech comprehensible.

Investigating age differences in e-mail pragmatic performance

The present study analyzes openings and closings, requests and apologies in e-mail writing by EFL learners and English native speakers. It first aims to explore possible differences in pragmatic performance between EFL learners and English native speakers in order to identify the aspects that may lead to pragmatic inappropriateness when performing in the L2. Secondly, this study seeks to explore age effects on pragmatic competence. The participants were 40 Catalan/Spanish EFL learners and 40 English native speakers divided into two age groups (younger vs. older speakers). The participants had to write an e-mail to a teacher asking for the possibility of re-sitting an exam that they had missed. The results showed differences between younger EFL learners and younger English native speakers in all the pragmatic moves analyzed. No differences, however, were found when comparing the older groups. Further differences were identified when comparing younger and older EFL learners in their e-mail openings and their use of apologies. However, no differences could be found in the English native speaker groups. Some pedagogical implications are also suggested.

Dimension of Experience: Metadiscourse in the Texts of Novice Non-Native, Novice Native and Expert Native Speaker

Metadiscourse is essential in establishing pragmatically effective academic written communication. However, little is known about how metadiscourse is used in written texts produced by tertiary level second language learners. This corpus-based linguistic research study aims to explore the frequencies and usages of metadiscourse markers in student essays written by Turkish learners of English and investigate the divergences from native speaker norms. As reference corpora, British Academic Written English (BAWE) and British National Corpus (BNC) were used. We found that in academic discourse, regardless of experience in writing (novice or expert) and L1 language background, interpersonal metadiscourse markers are used more frequently than textual metadiscourse markers. The commonalities between novice non-native and expert native writers together with differences between two native speaker groups suggest that pragmatic competence, particularly metadiscourse use, develops by experience regardless of L1 background.

“Do I want to learn a language spoken by two million people?”

Abstract Migrants’ intended length of stay influences their choices between using a lingua franca, language technology, ad-hoc interpreters and translators, intercomprehension, or learning the host country’s dominant language. To study this influence, data were collected through a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and a focus-group discussion from 15 long-term migrants (university language teachers) and eight mid-term migrants (teachers at two international schools) working in Slovenia. The results show that the long-term migrants all learned the host language, while the most common mediation strategy of the mid-term migrants was use of a lingua franca. Ad-hoc interpreters and translators were used not only in healthcare but also for the translations of official documents. Moreover, the French-speaking mid-term migrants attempted to learn the host language and often ended up learning English, while the group of native English speakers tended to form a linguistic enclave. It is argued that the preferred mediation strategy depends not just on the intended length of stay but also on the status of the migrant’s L1 in the particular host country.

Translation, Cross-Cultural Adaptation, and Validation of the Malay Version of the System Usability Scale Questionnaire for the Assessment of Mobile Apps.

BackgroundA mobile app is a programmed system designed to be used by a target user on a mobile device. The usability of such a system refers not only to the extent to which product can be used to achieve the task that it was designed for, but also its effectiveness and efficiency, as well as user satisfaction. The System Usability Scale is one of the most commonly used questionnaires used to assess the usability of a system. The original 10-item version of System Usability Scale was developed in English and thus needs to be adapted into local languages to assess the usability of a mobile apps developed in other languages.ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to translate and validate (with cross-cultural adaptation) the English System Usability Scale questionnaire into Malay, the main language spoken in Malaysia. The development of a translated version will allow the usability of mobile apps to be assessed in Malay.MethodsForward and backward translation of the questionnaire was conducted by groups of Malay native speakers who spoke English as their second language. The final version was obtained after reconciliation and cross-cultural adaptation. The content of the Malay System Usability Scale questionnaire for mobile apps was validated by 10 experts in mobile app development. The efficacy of the questionnaire was further probed by testing the face validity on 10 mobile phone users, followed by reliability testing involving 54 mobile phone users.ResultsThe content validity index was determined to be 0.91, indicating good relevancy of the 10 items used to assess the usability of a mobile app. Calculation of the face validity index resulted in a value of 0.94, therefore indicating that the questionnaire was easily understood by the users. Reliability testing showed a Cronbach alpha value of .85 (95% CI 0.79-0.91) indicating that the translated System Usability Scale questionnaire is a reliable tool for the assessment of usability of a mobile app.ConclusionsThe Malay System Usability Scale questionnaire is a valid and reliable tool to assess the usability of mobile app in Malaysia.

Korean Learners’ L2 Performance in Syntax-Semantics interface : Chinese Wh-Words as Existential Polarity Words

Chen Hui & You, Seok-Hoon. 2018. Korean Learner’s L2 Performance in Syntax-Semantics interface: Chinese Wh-words as Existential Polarity Words. Language Information. Volume 26. 103-128. This study aims to test applicability of the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace & Tsimpli, 2006) in L2 through investigating L2 acquisition of Chinese Wh-Words as Existential Polarity Words (hence force EPWs) by L1 Korean speakers. The present study compares the results of the acceptability judgment test of Chinese EPWs between learner group and native speaker group to investigate 1. Are the interface properties concerning Chinese EPWs and their licensors acquirable by Korea-speaking learners of Chinese? 2. If not, what are the linguistic or non-linguistic effects which cause the interface breakdown? The results show that L2 Chinese learners are unable to establish a complete semantics-syntax relationship with the EPW embedded in the sentence, even at the final state of L2 acquisition. And the results also show that L2 Chinese acquisition is not linear development.

A micro process-product study of a CLIL lesson l

We begin by comparing two models for the simultaneous teaching of language and content: immersion, and content and language integrated learning (CLIL). Following a brief summary and critique of research on CLIL, we describe a micro process-product laboratory experiment with young adult native speakers of Arabic for whom English was the L2. The same fifteen-minute lesson about an amateur anthropologist’s alleged discovery of a hitherto unknown indigenous tribe in the Amazonian jungle was delivered by nine surrogate teachers to nine groups of four surrogate students in three baseline English native speaker groups, three baseline Arabic native speaker groups and three CLIL groups. Findings on language use in the nine lessons are related to content learning and vocabulary knowledge. The short-term, artificial nature of the study precludes generalisations to real CLIL programs, which was not our intention. Rather, we wish to suggest that process-product laboratory studies of larger scale and longer duration, paired with classroom studies employing a similar design and research methodology, offer a useful approach to identifying strengths and weaknesses of CLIL programs largely ignored to date.

The Role of Phonetic Similarity and Orthographic Information in Asymmetrical Lexical Encoding in Second Language.

This study examined two possible sources of asymmetrical lexical access: phonetic proximity to the nearest L1 category and orthographic information. Three groups of native Korean speakers learned Arabic non-words with sound pairs with/without an L1-dominant category (/l-r/ vs. /χ-ħ/), and then their phonetic categorization and lexical encoding abilities were evaluated. One group was presented with the same letters for the target pair (e.g., <l> for both /l/ and /r/), the second group, different letters (e.g., <l> for /l/, <r> for /r/), and the third group, auditory input only. The results of discrimination did not show any effect of these two sources, whereas in lexical encoding, (1) a pair with an L1-dominant category was more accurately encoded; and (2) orthographic information hindered the lexical encoding. In the following spelling recall task, the scores from the learners with different letters for the target pair were similar to a ceiling. Thus, orthographic information might help them to have target-like representation, despite difficulties in online processing.

English Pronunciation Errors Made by Saudi Students

Arabs often pronounce many English words wrongly which leads to spelling and writing errors. This paper deals with English pronunciation errors made by two groups of native Saudi Arab speakers. The students in the first group are of English major while the students in the second group are of Arabic major. Generally, Arabic speakers use direct transfer and interference from Arabic in addition to stress shifts in their pronunciation that are not recognized stress patterns in English. Also, there are some sounds in English that have no equivalence in Arabic, which leads to vowel and consonant errors. This study identifies the pronunciation errors made by Saudi students in pronouncing words of problematic nature to Arabs in general. The students in both groups made vowel insertion and confusion, orthography, stress, intonation, errors; but the more trained students in group 1 made less errors than the students in group 2.

Common constraints limit Korean and English character recognition in peripheral vision.

The visual span refers to the number of adjacent characters that can be recognized in a single glance. It is viewed as a sensory bottleneck in reading for both normal and clinical populations. In peripheral vision, the visual span for English characters can be enlarged after training with a letter-recognition task. Here, we examined the transfer of training from Korean to English characters for a group of bilingual Korean native speakers. In the pre- and posttests, we measured visual spans for Korean characters and English letters. Training (1.5 hours × 4 days) consisted of repetitive visual-span measurements for Korean trigrams (strings of three characters). Our training enlarged the visual spans for Korean single characters and trigrams, and the benefit transferred to untrained English symbols. The improvement was largely due to a reduction of within-character and between-character crowding in Korean recognition, as well as between-letter crowding in English recognition. We also found a negative correlation between the size of the visual span and the average pattern complexity of the symbol set. Together, our results showed that the visual span is limited by common sensory (crowding) and physical (pattern complexity) factors regardless of the language script, providing evidence that the visual span reflects a universal bottleneck for text recognition.

An Analysis of Speech Disfluencies of Turkish Speakers Based on Age Variable.

The focus of this research is to verify the influence of the age variable on fluent Turkish native speakers' production of the various types of speech disfluencies. To accomplish this, four groups of native speakers of Turkish between ages 4-8, 18-23, 33-50 years respectively and those over 50-year-olds were constructed. A total of 84 participants took part in this study. Prepared and unprepared speech samples of at least 300 words were collected from each participant via face-to-face interviews that were tape recorded and transcribed; for practical reasons, only the unprepared speech samples were collected from children. As a result, for the prepared speech situation, there was no statistically significant difference in terms of age in the production rates of filled gaps, false starts, slips of the tongue and repetitions; however, participants in the over 50-year-old group produced more hesitations and prolongations than participants in the 18-23 and 33-50-year-old groups. For the unprepared speech situation, age variable was not effective on the production rates of filled gaps. However, 4-8 and over 50-year-old participants produced more hesitations and prolongations than the 18-23 and 33-50-year-old groups. 4-8-year-old children produced more slips of the tongue than the 18-23 and 33-50-year-old groups, and more false starts and repetitions than the participants in the other three age groups (18-23, 33-50, over 50). Further analyses revealed more extensive insights related to the types of disfluencies, the position of disfluencies, and the linguistic units involved in disfluency production in Turkish speech.

Precedent toponym as a political symbol

Precedent toponyms in the political discourse often mean the symbols of the state power: the Kremlin, the White House, Wall Street, Berlin, London, etc. This article is devoted to the analysis of meanings of the precedent toponym “Red Square”. The continuous sampling from the Russian National Corpus, some text fragments from fiction, oral speech and Internet resources were used as the study material. The toponym meaning in the concrete context was determined with the help of semantic analysis aimed at defining of the main seme. The obtained meanings were classified. As a result 16 semantic meanings of the precedent toponym “Red Square” were identified. In the Russian linguistic view of the world the toponym “Red Square” has denotative, connotative, precedent meanings added by the unique associative background. The comprehension and evaluation of these meanings are different in the groups of native speakers and non-native speakers of the Russian language. This toponym has gradually formed the image that has become the marked sign of the world culture possessing its own system of notions and associations. For people studying the Russian language as a foreign language some well known precedent toponyms such as Moscow, the Kremlin, Red Square have only political meaning as the symbols of Russia and the state power. Forming the cultural competence while working with foreign students it is useful to find out the full range of meanings of the precedent toponym.

Грамматика современной русской поэзии: субъектная перспектива, предикативные категории, модусные рамки (часть 1)

The article is devoted to considering the grammatical properties of Modern Russian Poetry connected with the predicative categories, subjective perspective and modus frames typical of this kind of poetic texts. The above mentioned grammatical devices are viewed in their interconnection with the essential features of modern poetic texts: their subjectivity, multiplicity of interpretation, «modal inconclusiveness», «multiple reference», suggestiveness, double division, increased successivity, small volume and independence of motives. The results of the linguistic analysis are compared with the authors' reflections as expressed in poetic texts, interviews, critical analyses etc, which allows one to assess the value of the grammatical phenomena under study for conveying the «obligatory meanings» of a particular epoch. These results corroborate the special significance of the subject as the category of both expression and content planes, this category being the centre of the «efforts» of all the other grammatical categories under analysis (time, modality, space localization). «The grammar of poetry» is hence treated not as the grammar of «distortions», irregularities opposed to the traditional grammar of the language, but as the realization and the reconsideration of the potentialities and as filling in the lacunae found in the grammatical system of the language, which is carried out by a special group of this language's native speakers for creating new contents and forms, both «eternal» and corresponding to the spirit of the age. What receives special attention in the article is 1) the infinitive and nominative poetry displaying the creative potential of verbal forms of the infinitive and of nouns in Nominative Case correspondingly and 2) the functioning of negative sentences in poetic texts.

Грамматика современной русской поэзии: субъектная перспектива, предикативные категории, модусные рамки (часть 2)

The article is devoted to considering the grammatical properties of Modern Russian Poetry connected with the predicative categories, subjective perspective and modus frames typical of this kind of poetic texts. The above mentioned grammatical devices are viewed in their interconnection with the essential features of modern poetic texts: their subjectivity, multiplicity of interpretation, «modal inconclusiveness», «multiple reference», suggestiveness, double division, increased successivity, small volume and independence of motives. The results of the linguistic analysis are compared with the authors' reflections as expressed in poetic texts, interviews, critical analyses etc, which allows one to assess the value of the grammatical phenomena under study for conveying the «obligatory meanings» of a particular epoch. These results corroborate the special significance of the subject as the category of both expression and content planes, this category being the centre of the «efforts» of all the other grammatical categories under analysis (time, modality, space localization). «The grammar of poetry» is hence treated not as the grammar of «distortions», irregularities opposed to the traditional grammar of the language, but as the realization and the reconsideration of the potentialities and as filling in the lacunae found in the grammatical system of the language, which is carried out by a special group of this language's native speakers for creating new contents and forms, both «eternal» and corresponding to the spirit of the age. What receives special attention in the article is 1) the infinitive and nominative poetry displaying the creative potential of verbal forms of the infinitive and of nouns in Nominative Case correspondingly and 2) the functioning of negative sentences in poetic texts.

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND PROCESSING OF KOREAN LOCATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS BY CHINESE SPEAKERS

This study investigated offline and online comprehension of Korean locative alternation by Chinese-speaking second language (L2) learners of Korean. An acceptability judgment task and an online self-paced reading task were conducted with Chinese learners of Korean at higher- and lower-proficiency levels along with a control group of native Korean speakers. The outcomes of the acceptability judgment task showed that both L2 groups acquired the knowledge of Korean locative alternation. The results from the self-paced reading task demonstrated that native speakers and highly proficient L2 learners, but not learners with lower proficiency, showed sensitivity to the mismatch between case marking and verb semantics in their processing of locative constructions. These findings suggest that proficient Chinese speakers can process Korean locative constructions in a native-like manner, inconsistent with the claim that L2 processing is substantially different from native speaker processing.