Performance Of Non-native Speakers Research Articles

The Relationship Between Receptive and Expressive Subskills of Academic L2 Proficiency in Nonnative Speakers of English: A Multigroup Approach

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between receptive and expressive language skills characterized by the performance of nonnative speakers (NNSs) of English in the academic context. Test scores of 585 adult NNSs were selected from Form 2 of the Pearson Test of English Academic's field-test database. A correlated two-factor model was chosen as a baseline model and was tested for multigroup invariance. The results of this study suggest that a similar factor structure underpins adult NNSs' receptive and expressive linguistic performance across gender, but a different factor structure exists for high- and low-ability groups. Limitations and implications are discussed.

The Availability of Universal Grammar to Second Language Learners: A Case of Wh-movement

In this experimental study, the researcher examined the accessibility of Universal Grammar to adult Persian learners of English with respect to the Empty Category Principle and the Subjacency. These principles are not operative in Persian as it is a Wh-in situ language. A 5-point Likert scale acceptability judgment task, which included both grammatical and ungrammatical extractions, was given to a group of 35 advanced Iranian EFL learners. The control group consisted of 30 adult native speakers of English. Their responses provided the baseline against which we measured the performance of non-native speakers. The categorical performance of natives and non-natives on both types of grammatical and ungrammatical extractions was revealed through within-group comparisons. Similarly, between-group comparisons displayed that the performance of Iranian EFL learners did not differ significantly from that of the natives in the ungrammatical constructions. In general, the findings of this study led the researcher to conclude that Universal Grammar constrains adult EFL learners’ competence.

Discourse marker use across speech contexts: A comparison of native and non-native speaker performance

This research analyzes the discourse marker (DM) use of native speakers and non-native speakers in two speech contexts, interviews and conversations. The findings indicate that native speakers use oh and well more in the conversation data, a difference which is also found in the non-native speaker data. The native speakers use like and y’know more frequently in the interview data, but the non-native speakers do not show a difference in the use of these markers across contexts. Instead, non-native speaker discourse is characterized by formulaic use of some DMs and an overall lower rate of DM occurrence.

ULTIMATE ATTAINMENT IN L2 PHONOLOGY

Within both first and second language acquisition research, a critical or sensitive period for complete attainment has largely been substantiated in phonological studies, although it is questionable whether age should be examined in isolation from sociopsychological influences and the extent of exposure to the second language. This study sets out to challenge the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) by examining phonological performance among highly motivated subjects who use German daily as graduate student instructors and who have been immersed in the language through in-country residence, augmented by years of instruction in both language- and content-based courses. The methodology developed seeks to expand the realm of factors that are potentially conflated with age, such as instruction, motivation, suprasegmental training, and self-perception of productive accuracy, and other factors that have not been addressed in previous studies on ultimate attainment. Production tasks target sounds difficult for nonnative speakers (NNSs) according to contrastive analysis, and task types range in complexity from isolated words to sentences, paragraphs, and free speech. A mean rating was computed for each speaker, including native speaker controls, according to native speaker judgments. When averaged across all tasks, nonnative speaker performance did not overlap with native performance. However, several variables correlated significantly with outcome, including suprasegmental training, which indicated performance closer to native level.

Sources of Linguistic Knowledge and Uniformity of Nonnative Performance

Tacit linguistic knowledge derives from experience of the input data or from domain-specific principles without the interaction of experience. Recognition of constraint violations is generally deemed to call upon the second kind of knowledge source. This paper proposes that this epistemological distinction should be reflected in native speaker and nonnative speaker performance. More precisely, performance should be more uniform across the species where it engages knowledge without the interaction of experience. A review of six studies investigating nonnative speaker acceptability judgments supports the predicted asymmetry. The paper concludes that the observed asymmetry supports the modular position on nonnative linguistic knowledge.

Issues in L2: Theory as Practice/Practice as Theory

Preface Roles in Foreign Language Classroom The Importance of Native Language in Light of Second-Language Studies PART I. TEXT COMPREHENSION A Model of L2 Text Reconstruction: The Recall of Literary Text by Learners of German The Effect of Instruction on ESL Speakers' Control of the {Z} and {D} Morphemes On Pseudodiscrimination. Reading, Cognitive Style, and Culture: A Look at Some Relationships in Second-Language Acquisition The Role of Universal Knowledge Versus Culture Specific Knowledge for Comprehending Text The Acquisition of Restrictions on Backward Pronominalization by Adult ESL Learners Learning from the Speech Errors of Near-Native Speakers PART II. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MATHEMATICAL AND LINGUISTIC ABILITY The Language of Mathematics: The English Barrier. Processing Mathematics in a Second Language: Problems for LEP Children PART III. LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY Administering a Spanish Proficiency Test in the Montana de Guerrero, Mexico Analysis of Cooperation in a Spanish NS-NNS Interview Situation The Performance of Nonnative Speakers of American Sign Language: A Question of Proficiency The Other Side of Classroom Discourse: What Happens When the Students are Native Speakers and the Teacher Uses L2? Investigating Advanced L2 Competence PART IV. TEACHING AND CURRICULUM The Role of an Anthropologist in L2 Teaching Narrowing the Gap Between Written and Spoken Arabic in Teaching Conversation for Speakers of Other Languages Language Attrition in Secondary School Students of Spanish Author Index Subject Index

Perception of Synthetic Speech by Nonnative Speakers of English

Nonnative speakers of English listened to natural and synthetic speech materials. All natural speech material was spoken by a native male speaker of American English. The synthetic speech was produced by the MITalk-79 system for the first experiment and by the Prose 2000 V2.1 text-to-speech system for the second experiment. Results from Experiment 1 indicated that nonnative speakers show higher levels of performance when listening to natural speech than when listening to synthetic speech. However, nonnative speakers did not reach the level of performance of native speakers for either natural or synthetic speech. Experiment 2 provided further evidence that nonnative speakers fail to reach the same level of performance when listening to synthetic speech as native speakers. Performance of nonnative speakers on a dictation task showed high positive correlations with their general English language ability as measured by two standardized tests. Results indicate the importance of language background and experience in the perception of speech, particularly synthetic and digitally encoded speech.