Non-native Input Research Articles

Effects of directionality on consecutive interpreting between English and Persian

The present study investigates the effect of directionality on the quality of consecutive interpreting between English and Persian by interpreting trainees. Two experiments were run in which 62 participants were recruited in two experiments at Arak University, Iran. In the first experiment, the participants (N = 30) interpreted from non-native English into native Persian (‘recto’). In the second experiment, different participants (N = 32) interpreted from native Persian into non-native English (‘verso’). The results showed better overall scores when interpreting was done into the mother tongue of the trainees. In each of the two experiments, the experimental group that had received prosody training outperformed the control group, especially on prosody-related rating scales such as pace (fluency). Finally, the performance by the experimental groups was better (relative to the control group) when the training and testing was done in the recto direction than when done verso. We conclude that the prosodic awareness training helps the interpreters to better decode the non-native input rather than to produce prosodically correct non-native output. The pedagogical implications of the present study may pertain to interpreting programs (at least in Iran). Prosody awareness training should be part of the teaching of listening comprehension in the interpreters’ curriculum.

Predicting bilingual preschoolers’ patterns of language development: Degree of non-native input matters

AbstractWhile numerous studies have recently shown that variation in input quantity predicts children’s rate of acquisition across a range of language skills, comparatively little is known about the impact of variation in inputqualityon (bilingual) children’s language development. This study investigated the relation between specific quality-oriented properties of bilingual children’s input and measures of children’s language development across a number of skills while at the same time taking family constellation into account. Participants were bilingual preschoolers (n= 50) acquiring Dutch alongside another language. Preschoolers’ receptive and productive vocabulary and morphosyntax in Dutch were assessed. Parental questionnaires were used to derive estimates of input quality. Family constellation was first operationalized as presence of a native-speaker parent and subsequently in terms of patterns of parental language use. Results showed that proportion of native input and having a native-speaker parent were never significant predictors of children’s language skills, whereas the degree of non-nativeness in the input, family constellation in terms of parental language use, and language richness were. This study shows that what matters is not how much exposure bilingual children have to native rather than non-native speakers, but how proficient any non-native speakers are.

In Search of New Benchmarks: Using L2 Lexical Frequency and Contextual Diversity Indices to Assess Second Language Writing

Abstract Lexical items that are encountered more frequently and in varying contexts have important effects on second language (L2) development because frequent and contextually diverse words are learned faster and become more entrenched in a learner’s lexicon (Ellis 2002a, b). Despite evidence that L2 learners are generally exposed to non-native input, most frequency and contextual diversity metrics used in L2 research represent what is produced by native speakers of English. This study develops and tests indices of lexical frequency and contextual diversity based on L2 output. The L2 indices were derived from an L2 English learner adult corpus that contained three sub-corpora based on language levels (i.e. low, medium, and high). These indices were used to predict human scores of 480 independent essays from the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). First language (L1) indices reported by the Tool for the Automatic Analysis of Lexical Sophistication (TAALES) were also calculated. Three regression analyses were run to predict human scores using L2 indices, L1 indices, and combined indices. The results suggested that the L2 model explained a greater amount of variance in the writing scores and that the L2 model was statistically superior to the L1 model. The findings also suggested that contextual diversity indices are better predictors of writing proficiency than lexical frequency for both the L2 and the L1 models. Finally, an index from the lower level learner sub-corpus was found to be the strongest predictor. The findings have important implications for the analysis of L2 writing in that the L2 benchmarks are more predictive than the L1 benchmarks. These findings could extend human and machine scoring approaches as well as help explain L2 writing quality.

The Effect of Real-Time Haptic Feedback on Kinesthetic Awareness and Motor Skill Performance

PURPOSE: Kinesthetic awareness is an individuals’ knowledge of their own body position and movements in space. Sensory integration is the process of combining inputs from proprioceptive receptors in muscles, mechanoreceptors in skin, and visual motor/visual spatial systems is critical to motor skill acquisition. We proposed that kinesthetic awareness training (KAT): the addition of haptic feedback in real time, to introduce secondary discriminatory system information into kinesthetic processing. We hypothesized that input will reinforce proprioceptive skills by merging a non-native input with native proprioceptive and visual system information, and subsequently cause an increase in accuracy in a single session of motor skill practice. METHODS: We assessed torso angle, a crucial control element that are common to many multi-joint, complex actions. Three subjects (19.7 ± 0.58 yrs) performed static and dynamic torso control movements with and without real-time haptic feedback. A wearable mini motion-capture-feedback device with embedded accelerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope and proximity sensors recorded continual positional data in 8 axes. The device provided haptic feedback (vibrations via tiny motor ) when the target parameters were achieved. After 5 repetitions of practice, alternating sets with and without real-time haptic feedback were measured, (2 sets of 5 and 10 repetitions). RESULTS: We analyzed posture control in 2 conditions in the beginning and end of a training session. An ANOVA was performed on normalized differences from the target means was significant in the initial training sets, (p &lt 0.01, F=4.2), and not significant in the final sets, (p = 0.09, 4.00). The results suggest a significant learning effect with KAT training after 30 repetitions. CONCLUSION: The results of this study suggests KAT training with haptic feedback could be a valuable teaching tool for improving somatosensory proprioception and kinesthetic awareness. Further investigations should examine if the KAT training leads to neural adaption and improved motor performance.

The effect of input source (Native vs. Non- native) and EFL learners’ perceptions towards it, on their listening performances, across gender

The issue of the “native/non-native speaker’s input source” occupies an important place in any EFL listening comprehension test. This study is meant to unveil whether listening to a native or non-native speaker (i.e., input source) and students’ perceptions towards it affect the performance of upper-intermediate EFL learners in a listening test. For this purpose, an experimental design was used to compare the performance of two groups of learners on an EFL listening test. A test of 20 multiple choice items was administered to 66 EFL learners (31 male and 35 female), half of whom listened to a native speaker’s voice while the other 33 test takers listened to a non-native speaker’s voice. Moreover, a perception questionnaire considering students’ perceptions towards using native or non-native input source in listening tests was utilized. The results of the study highlighted that the overall performance of the two groups differed significantly. That is, the listeners to the non-native input outperformed those who listened to a native speaker. Also, the results of the questionnaire revealed some noteworthy findings which indicate that students preferred the use of non-native input in listening tests. Moreover, considering gender as a moderator variable, a statistically significant main effect was found for gender; that is, gender does play a significant role as a moderator variable. In other words, female test takers performed better than males in both conditions. Further findings and implications are discussed in the paper.

Warfare in Chinese History (review)

Reviewed by: Warfare in Chinese History Joanna Waley-Cohen (bio) Hans van de Ven , editor. Warfare in Chinese History. Sinica Leidensia 47. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2000. 456 pp. $118.00, ISBN 9004117741. A conventional disparagement of China as a military force to be reckoned with, produced by Westerners at the dawn of nineteenth-century imperialism, has for some time prevailed in academic circles without much serious interrogation. Recently, however, a small but persistent group of scholars has been working to overcome the old assumptions about China's perennial reluctance to wage war and its inability to do so effectively. As Jeremy Black points out in his cogent conclusion to this essay collection, even a cursory examination of Chinese history demonstrates the fallacy of the first premise, while the second is the result of "reading back from 1860" and from a perspective that privileges technology and Western modes of warfare (p. 440). In a similar vein, Hans van de Ven's able introduction also points out the need to move beyond many current assumptions about Chinese military history, notably the notion of a sharp separation between the civil and military spheres. This collection, the result of a conference held at Cambridge University in December 1997 that itself forms part of a multi-year series on different aspects of Chinese military history, aims expressly to take its place beside Kierman and Fairbank's Chinese Ways in Warfare, the classic collection of essays published over a quarter century ago.1 While it matches the earlier volume in terms of the span of time and the range of topics covered, the work under review has the added advantage that the authors have been able to consult an enormous amount of archival and newly published material that was simply unavailable to researchers in the 1970s. The quality of the essays and the research upon which they are based is uniformly high, despite a degree of unevenness usual in all anthologies. Some common themes include the relevance of nonnative input, including that of the Tang ruling house; the significance of naval warfare; the interrelated roles of both foreign and economic policy; the part played in Chinese strategic thinking by Mongols and others located along China's internal borders; the important strategic juxtaposition of frontier and interior; and the symbolic and practical significance of the notion of "national" unity. Below I briefly summarize each essay in turn. The volume opens with a piece by Mark Lewis, "The Han Abolition of Universal Military Service" (pp. 33-76), which sets the tone. After the abolition of universal military service, a consequence of sustained unity, the Han used three main expedients to maintain their capacity to employ military force: the use of barbarians and convicts as primary sources of recruitment, the relative demilitarization of the interior (for the risks inherent in an armed peasantry were insupportable) [End Page 557] and concentration of armed forces on the frontiers, and the formation of professional armies in standing commands (p. 75). The recurrence of these expedients throughout later Chinese history prompts Lewis to observe that "in military affairs as in so many other aspects of government, the Han dynasty established a pattern . . . for later dynasties" (p. 76). Lewis makes the important point that demilitarization of the population was a necessary concomitant of the abolition of universal military service because otherwise emperors would lose a major source of their own power and lay themselves open to challenges from local power (p. 49). The title of David Graff's essay, "Dou Jiande's Dilemma: Logistics, Strategy, and State Formation in Seventh-Century China" (pp. 77-105), understates its rich content. As part of a detailed discussion of the strategic considerations underlying a number of confrontations in the early Tang, he analyzes the relationship of military power to state formation under the Tang, noting in particular the persuasive authority of the mantra of unity, which in practical terms meant that contenders for power tended to surrender or to join the victor after a single defeat. The key to state formation, in other words, was the building of coalitions. Perhaps the most fascinating part of this essay is Graff's discussion of the leading role played...

Help or hindrance: how violation of different assimilation rules affects spoken-language processing.

Four phoneme-detection studies tested the conclusion from recent research that spoken-language processing is inhibited by violation of obligatory assimilation processes in the listeners' native language. In Experiment 1, native listeners of German detected a target fricative in monosyllabic Dutch nonwords, half of which violated progressive German fricative place assimilation. In contrast to the earlier findings, listeners detected the fricative more quickly when assimilation was violated than when no violation occurred. This difference was not due to purely acoustic factors, since in Experiment 2 native Dutch listeners, presented with the same materials, showed no such effect. In Experiment 3, German listeners again detected the fricative more quickly when violation occurred in both monosyllabic and bisyllabic native nonwords, further ruling out explanations based on non-native input or on syllable structure. Finally Experiment 4 tested whether the direction in which the rule operates (progressive or regressive) controls the direction of the effect on phoneme detection responses. When regressive German place assimilation for nasals was violated, German listeners detected stops more slowly, exactly as had been observed in previous studies of regressive assimilation. It is argued that a combination of low expectations in progressive assimilation and novel popout causes facilitation of processing, whereas not fulfilling high expectations in regressive assimilation causes inhibition.

Language-specific listening

Languages differ in their phonological structure and physcholinguists have begun to explore the conseqence, of this fact for speech perception. We review research documenting that listeners attune their perceptual processes finaly to exploit the phonological regularities of their nativ language. As a consequence, these perceptual process are fill-adapted to listening to languages that do not display such, regularities. Thus, not only do late language-learners have trouble speaking a second language, also they do not hear it as native speakers do; worse, they apply their native language listening prosedures which may actually interfere with successful processing of the non-native input. We also present data from studies on infants showing that the initial attuning occurs early in life; very yong infants are sensitive to the relevant phonological regularities which distinguish different languages, and quickly distinguish the native language of their environment from languages with different regularities.