Second Language Speakers Of English Research Articles

Cognitive causes of ‘like me’ race and gender biases in human language production

Natural language contains and communicates social biases, often reflecting attitudes, prejudices and stereotypes. Here we provide evidence for a novel psychological pathway for the expression of such biases, in which they arise as a consequence of the automatized mechanisms by which humans retrieve words to produce sentences. Four experiments show that, when describing events, speakers tend to mention people who are more like them first and, thus, tend to highlight the perspectives of their own social groups. This ‘like me’ effect was seen in speakers from multiple demographic groups, in both English and Chinese speakers and in both first- and second-language English speakers. Psycholinguistic manipulations pinpoint that the bias is caused by greater accessibility in memory of words that refer to in-group than out-group members. These data provide a new cognitive explanation for why people produce biased language and highlight how detailed cognitive theories can have social implications.

Overcoming Emotional and Communication Barriers With Performing Arts Strategies: The Case of Puerto Rican Business Students

This article discusses interdisciplinary approaches to help students overcome communication barriers by integrating performing arts in Business Communication courses. Companies emphasize a workforce with solid soft skills to succeed. International Business employs English; thus, practical communication skills in English provide access to jobs in international scenarios. However, in Puerto Rico, second-language speakers of English feel intimidated when speaking it. The emotional barriers students endure while developing intercultural and communication skills in English is a topic worth researching. Performing arts provide strategies to raise body awareness and increase self-confidence. These elements will lead to a confident and effective communicator.

Affective and sensory–motor norms for idioms by L1 and L2 English speakers

AbstractIn the present study, we developed affective (valence and arousal) and sensory–motor (concreteness and imageability) norms for 210 English idioms rated by native English speakers (L1) and English second-language speakers (L2). Based on internal consistency analyses, the ratings were found to be highly reliable. Furthermore, we explored various relations within the collected measures (valence, arousal, concreteness, and imageability) and between these measures and some available psycholinguistic norms (familiarity, literal plausibility, and decomposability) for the same set of idioms. The primary findings were that (i) valence and arousal showed the typical U-shape relation, for both L1 and L2 data; (ii) idioms with more negative valence were rated as more arousing; (iii) the majority of idioms were rated as either positive or negative with only 4 being rated as neutral; (iv) familiarity correlated positively with valence and arousal; (v) concreteness and imageability showed a strong positive correlation; and (vi) the ratings of L1 and L2 speakers significantly differed for arousal and concreteness, but not for valence and imageability. We discuss our interpretation of these observations with reference to the literature on figurative language processing (both single words and idioms).

Technical single and multiword unit vocabulary in spoken rugby discourse

Rugby union is played by first and second language speakers of English in many countries. Rugby has its own technical vocabulary (e.g., ruck, inside pass) and its knowledge is crucial for joining the rugby community. This article reports on a study into the nature and knowledge of technical vocabulary in spoken rugby discourse through identifying technical vocabulary and developing both single and multiword word lists. This study involved the creation of a spoken rugby corpus (61,295 running words) and a vocabulary load analysis using Nation's (2012) BNC/COCA frequency and supplementary lists. The results found learners need over 4,000 word families plus supplementary lists to reach 98% comprehension. The corpus analysis resulted in a list of 252 technical single words which covers over 12% of the spoken corpus. A pedagogically oriented multi-word unit list of 267 items was also created. A receptive knowledge task using a sample of the rugby lexis and general English words was administered to 77 (29 English L1; 48 L2 speakers of English) participants. The results highlighted differing levels of technical rugby vocabulary knowledge between first and second language speakers of English. This article concludes with implications for ESP rugby courses and suggestions for possible future research.

Automated accent rating using deep neural networks

Automated accentedness rating has the potential to improve many human-computer interactions involving speech, including the adaptation of automatic speech recognition or other artificial intelligence models to the speaker's accent. Accent ratings may also be used as a metric by which language learners can quantify their progress. This study employs bidirectional long short-term memory layers in a neural network to predict human ratings of the accentedness of recorded speech. Speech data are extracted in 5-s segments from over 2000 first- and second-language English speakers from multiple corpora. Human ratings are obtained in an online experiment where participants rate the accentedness of a given speech recording on a 9-point Likert scale. Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients and mel-filterbank energy features are tested as speech input representations for the neural network. When inference is tested using 10-fold cross validation, the mean correlation between the model’s predictions and human ratings is high (r = 0.74). While previous methods attained a similar correlation by automatically comparing speech that has been transcribed [Wieling et al., Lang. Dyn. Chang. 4, 253–269 (2014)] or by making accent-specific Gaussian mixture models [Cheng et al., Interspeech 2013 (2013), pp. 2574–2578], the present model requires no transcription and can perform accent-general inference.

Accentedness and personality evaluation of Asian and Caucasian second language speakers of English by Asian second language English listeners

ABSTRACT Previous research that explores the effect of ethnicity in the perception of speaker accentedness and personality traits often finds that Asian appearance contributes to a more accented and less competent impression. Importantly, most of the work done to date employed only Caucasian first language-speaking listeners; moreover, ethnicity and gender were not considered together. This study describes a series of evaluations of nine Korean (Asian) and nine German (Caucasian) second language English speakers by 41 Chinese listeners. The participants were asked to rate each speaker on an accentedness and 12 personality scales under two conditions: audio-only and audiovisual. The accentedness result indicates that with the availability of visual information, Korean speakers were rated significantly more accented than German speakers and male speakers were rated less accented than females. As for personality evaluation, the result suggests that power and competence traits share a similar trend, with Korean and female speakers being rated lower when listeners can see them, but solidarity traits show a slightly different trend. In general, Chinese listeners’ bias in relation to speaker ethnicity and gender in both accentedness and personality evaluation was highlighted by the use of visual information, and a relationship between linguistic and social information was demonstrated.

Individual Differences in Lexical Repetition Priming.

The current research investigated whether individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) and affective states have differential effects on lexical-semantic repetition priming outcomes based on whether participants were first- or second-language English speakers. Individual differences in priming effects have often been overlooked in the priming literature. Using logistic mixed-effects models to account for within-subject variation, the current paper investigated a three-way interaction between WMC, negative affect (NA) score, and language primacy on lexical-semantic repetition priming outcomes. The results indicate that a statistically significant three-way interaction exists between language primacy, WMC, and NA scores. No significant interaction effect was found for positive affect scores. We present an argument which posits that an individual's primary language and subsequent familiarity with the primed concepts, in conjunction with individual differences in WMC and mood, plays an important role in determining the most effective strategy used to complete a word-stem completion task. The implications of the findings presented highlight that second-language English speakers are more susceptible to priming effects when prime-inducing stimuli are constructed using English lexicon; however, larger WMC and heighted negative affective states help to mitigate these priming effects.

Effects of Classroom Noise on Learning: Perceptions of Grade 10–12 Girl Learners

Noise disturbance has been recognised as a problem in schools, affecting the intelligibility of speech, and consequently, educational outcomes. Whilst research has explained various effects of noise on learning, less is known about specific learner populations’ perceptions of the effects of noise on their learning. This article reports on a study that compared the noise perceptions of learners at two all-girls high schools (one comprising mostly English home-language speakers; the other English second-language speakers) in Johannesburg, South Africa. The findings of the purposive questionnaire survey that was administered to girls aged 15–18 are presented. Sound measurements are considered alongside questionnaire data and published standards for acceptable classroom noise. Higher levels of noise interference were reported by second-language speakers, which suggest that increased language processing demands make these learners more susceptible to the negative effects of noise. Thus, the implications point to the need for schools to recognise and minimise the negative effects of noise particularly when learners are engaged in tasks of higher order cognitive demand or when teachers are verbally presenting new or complex concepts. This is particularly true for girls for whom English is their second language.

Epenthetic Vowels and Phonemic Vowels: Same or Different?

PurposeThis study was designed to further investigate epenthetic vowels produced by Persian second language speakers of English. Specifically, the purpose was to compare epenthetic and phonemic vowels to determine if acoustic differences existed or if the epenthetic vowels were quantitative “copies” of their phonemic counterparts.MethodTwenty Persian speakers each produced 120 target words. The target words were composed of two different double cluster compositions (obstruent + glide and obstruent + liquid) as well as obstruent + liquid triple clusters and obstruent + glide triple cluster combinations. The target words occurred in a phonetic environment that was either preceded by a consonant /t/ or occurred in isolation. This resulted in 2400 tokens. The tokens underwent Linear Predictive Coding to determine the F1 and F2 formant measurements as well as the durations of the epenthetic and phonemic vowels. Formants are the resonance of the vocal tract. F1 is the lowest-frequency formant while F2 is the next highest (Kent & Read, 2002). Linear Predictive Coding allows for the acoustic signal to be represented spectrally for analysis.ResultsA total of 236 epenthetic voamp'wels and their phonemic counterparts were acoustically analyzed. The phonemic vowels were found to be significantly longer than the epenthetic vowels. The epenthetic vowels were also found to have significantly lower F1 values. As a group, the mean F2 values were not significantly different from the F2 values of the phonemic vowels. However, significant differences in F2 values were found when specific vowel comparisons were made.ConclusionsThe data indicate that prothetic epenthetic vowels are not copies of the phonemic vowels that they precede. They differ quantitatively in terms of durations, F1, and F2 values. The findings of this study coincide with the findings of other researchers concerning the acoustic characteristics of anaptyctic epenthetic vowels. These results indicate similarities between prothetic and anaptyctic epenthetic vowels.

The Effect of Motor Learning Theory to Speech of an ESL Student: A Single-Subject Study

Purpose : The purpose of the current research was to explore whether a motor learning theory-based protocol that emphasized specific practice structures and feedback schedules would be more effective in improving English pronunciation of a nonnative English speaker.<BR>Methods : The protocol consisted of six sessions over a five-week period and trained eight sets of stimuli that included 10 items for each set.<BR>Results : Results revealed improvement in the participant’s English pronunciation abilities. The one-way repeated analysis of variance showed statistically significant mean differences among pre-treatment, treatment, and post-treatment. Both intelligibility and naturalness during pre-treatment to treatment and pre-treatment to post-treatment measures was significant. Treatment to post-treatment scores were not significant for both intelligibility and naturalness. The participant yielded better intelligibility and naturalness scores after the treatment and once treatment was removed, suggesting that the use of motor learning principles may be a possible intervention method for managing or improving an accent in nonnative speakers.<BR>Conclusions : The study indicated significant differences between the three treatment groups in speech intelligibility and speech naturalness, but not substantial enough to reach a generalization effect as there was a small sample size. Further research is needed to examine significant differences. Given the single-subject design, the findings are unable to reach a generalization effect. Future investigations in a broad-spectrum of nonnative English-Second language speakers are needed to further validate these findings.

Lexical Access Patterns of Second Language Speakers of English

Vocabulary plays a major role in concept formation, acculturation, articulation, and all aspects of learning. Unfortunately, although learners may have internalized complex vocabulary through formal learning, they may not have the ability to retrieve known words and concepts or have access to the right words, or lexical access, effectively. This study explores the lexical access patterns of second language speakers of English (ESL). Fifty students from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, participated in this research. Twenty-five represented the more proficient ESL speakers whereas the other 25 represented the less proficient ESL speakers. Four pieces of paper, each with a high-frequency word (i.e., “man”, “people”, “time”, “day”) printed at the centre of the paper, were distributed to the participants as stimuli for them to create four sets of semantic maps. This paper thus presents a qualitative analysis of the semantic mapping of the word “man” and results show that English language proficiency does affect the way participants activate the words from their mental lexicon. The frequency of the words that were activated from the word “man” in the participants’ environment also affects the mapping. The semantic maps produced by the participants reflect ESL speakers’ pattern of lexical access, particularly in the manner the words are categorised in their mental lexicon. This study proposes that semantic mapping activity can be used to reflect and analyse ESL speakers’ vocabulary development, as well as to reflect ESL speakers’ weaknesses in accessing words and their thought patterns in the English language.

Exploring the Lombard Effect in first language Japanese speakers of English

Speakers adjust pronunciations in noise to make communication more effective. This phenomenon, known as the Lombard Effect after Etienne Lombard who first described it in 1911, is characterized by increased intensity, elongation of vowels, emphasis on stress syllables, increased pitch range, and changes to the vowel space (see Brum and Zollinger, 2011). Because the Lombard Effect interacts with linguistic factors (e.g., Wassink et al., 2006 and Patel and Schell, 2008) we hypothesize that a speaker’s native language will interact with the Lombard Effect and that second language speakers of English will carryover these effects. To test this prediction, we recorded native speakers of North American English and L1 Japanese speakers of L2 English participating in a modified map task to illicit natural communication between the speakers and the experimenter, in two conditions: noisy and quiet (presented over headphones). Measurements of vowel duration, vowel quality, and intensity were extracted from key words representing monosyllabic and trochaic words with six vowel qualities: /i ɪ a ae u ʊ/. Preliminary results indicate some language specific differences, but also unexpectedly that vowel space is more compressed in the Lombard condition than in quiet, which has connections to findings of Zhao and Jurafsky (2009) for Mandarin.

Phonological Differences and the Phonological Problems of Meranaw Second Language Speakers of English

English language teaching and learning is vital for the development of a country and its people especially in the Philippines where English is used as a second language and is the medium of instruction used in the country's educational system. Meranaws, an ethnic group in the southern Philippines, speaking English can be both challenging and useful. Meranaw language is especially interesting from a phonetic perspective because it includes four "heavy”consonants /p' t' k' s'/ which have peculiar effects of raising and tensing vowel sounds. This can have an effect on how Meranaws would use such sound in the English language especially the fricatives /f / and / v /. Having this as a prelude to this research, this study therefore would like to present and investigate Phonological differences and the phonological problems of Meranaw second language speakers of English. Specifically, this aims to present the phonological differences of English and Meranaw languages with ample PhonologicalProduction of Meranaw users/ speakers of the English language through contrastive analysis applied to Meranaw and English languages; and to preliminarily investigate the problems arising from the phonological production of sounds based on few recorded production ofEnglish sounds by Meranaw speakers of English. This study found out that misformations of sounds in English are largely due to the high number of phonemes and possibility for reduction and replacements of certain sounds. This study opens more possibilities for the strengthening of the Meranaw language because of the timely implementation of the mother-tongue based education in the Philippines.

Motion Lexicalization in Chinese among Heritage Language Children in Canada

Heritage language speaking children often show signs of attrition, particularly as they get older and are educated in the majority language of the society where they live. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that simplification is one process of attrition for heritage language speakers. We tested this hypothesis on the expression of motion events among children who are first language speakers of Mandarin Chinese and early second language speakers of English, the majority language in this community. We compared their motion expressions to those of monolingual Mandarin-speaking children living in mainland China. Two age groups were included: younger children (4-6 years, not yet in school) and older children (8-10 years; in school for two to five years). The children watched a cartoon and recounted the story. We coded the motion expressions used in their retellings. The results showed that the older bilingual children showed clear signs of attrition, particularly simplification, but also some signs of cross-linguistic influence from English. These results suggest that attrition in a heritage language can quickly follow the onset of schooling in the majority language.

Feasibility of utilizing autism navigator® for primary care in South Africa.

There is a significant research-to-practice gap in early detection of young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) worldwide but particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where expertise is limited and high-quality training is difficult to access. Autism Navigator® for Primary Care is a web-based course designed to increase awareness of red flags of ASD in the second year of life and thus promote earlier detection and referral for intervention. It contains extensive video illustrations that offer rapid access to multiple exemplars of ASD red flags. This study examined aspects of feasibility of the Autism Navigator® for Primary Care in one LMIC, South Africa. A mixed-methods quasi-experimental design was used to examine relevant professionals' implementation of the course and measure changes in their knowledge of red flags after training. Perceptions of the acceptability, demand, and practicality of the course were explored in focus groups. Sixty-two providers completed the course online with a 94% completion rate. Built-in learner assessment pass rates ranged from 88% to 100%. Second-language English speakers took longer to complete the learner assessments, and professionals with less access to the Internet spent less time in the course. Participants' perceptions of the acceptability, demand, and practicality of the course were mostly positive with some suggestions made for local conditions. Results supported the feasibility of the course in this LMIC with some supports required pertaining to language and Internet access. We propose that this training has the potential to lower the age of detection of ASD in South Africa and other LMICs. Autism Research 2018, 11: 1511-1521. © 2018 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Professionals in low- and middle-income countries urgently need training to recognize red flags of autism in very young children. The feasibility of utilizing the Autism Navigator® for Primary Care course for this training was explored with 62 South African professionals. After training, professionals' knowledge of early red flags improved, and most reported the course important and needed in South Africa. They found the web-based design mostly acceptable, practical, and culturally applicable. The course could help lower the age of autism detection.

Did he understand his rights? Assessing the comprehensibility of police cautions in New Zealand

The authors' experience in conducting English language proficiency tests for second language speakers of English facing police charges has shown that some have limited understanding of their legal rights. The research study reported here comments on the complexity of the rights information presented by police to a range of participants. It investigates comprehension of that information by performing listening and reading comprehension tests with the participants. The results indicate a number of difficulties and a significant difference in the scores of first and second language speakers of English. This article outlines the tests performed and the results for both first and second language speakers, as well as discussing the complexity of the questions found difficult by participants. The results reinforce the need to ask whether people are being given their rights if they cannot understand them.

English As an International Language: What It Is and What It Means For Pedagogy

A great deal has been written about what English as an International Language (EIL) actually is (e.g. Alsagoff et al., 2012; Matsuda, 2012; McKay and Brown, 2016; Sharifian, 2009), ranging from a view of EIL as the many varieties of English that are spoken today to the use of English by second language speakers of English. Thus, EIL is viewed both as a type of English and as a way of using English. The purpose of this article is to (1) grapple with defining the construct of EIL and (2) elaborate on what this construct means for pedagogy. The article begins by discussing various terms and definitions associated with EIL and positing an alternative definition. Following this, the majority of the article will be devoted to elaborating on what such a definition suggests for a sensitive and effective EIL pedagogy.

A Model of Underspecified Recognition for Phonological Integration: English Loan Vowels in American Norwegian

Using loanword data from Haugen (1953), this paper investigates variation in vowel integrations of English loanwords in the Norwegian among 19th century Norwegian immigrants to the United States, as first-language Norwegian and second-language English speakers. Previous research, most notably Flege (1995), has argued that speakers make use of L1 categories that are the most similar to the integrated L2 sound. In contrast, this research argues that the “most similar,” as well as less similar but attested, L1 integrated phonemes can be understood through the Lahiri and Reetz (2002) Underspecified Recognition model, where phonetic features of L2 input sounds are mapped onto hierarchically organized L1 distinctive features (i.e., Dresher, 2009).

Making sense of polysemy relations in first and second language speakers of English

The aim of this study is to compare priming effects for polysemous word senses among English first language (L1) and advanced second language (L2) speakers in order to better understand the development of the mental lexicon. Using polysemy values from WordNet, a lexical decision task was designed with three different target word conditions: dominant polysemy (i.e., closely related senses), subordinate polysemy (i.e., distantly related senses), and unrelated words. Participants first saw a prime word and then selected whether a subsequent target word was a valid English word or not. For example, SURVEY was followed by STUDY (dominant polsysemy) or VIEW (subordinate polysemy) or FLASH (unrelated) or SMOO (nonword). Forty-one L1 speakers and 45 advanced L2 speakers each completed 120 decisions. Results from linear mixed effects models suggest dominant senses were responded to significantly faster than unrelated senses ( t = −3.119, p = .002, marginal R2 = .066) for L1 participants, but there were no other significant differences among word conditions. No significant priming effects were found for L2 participants. These results suggest that, unlike other lexical relations, advanced L2 speakers do not form similar connections in the bilingual lexicon when compared to L1 speakers.

Error Analysis of Students Essays: A Case of First Year Students of the University of Health and Allied Sciences

Writing is considered as a daunting task in second language learning. It is argued by most scholars that this challenge is not only limited to second language speakers of English but even to those who speak English as their first language. Thus, the ability to communicate effectively in English by both native and non-native speakers requires intensive and specialized instruction. Due to the integral role that writing plays in students’ academic life, academic literacy has garnered considerable attention in several English-medium universities in which Ghanaian universities are no exception. It is therefore surprising that prominence is not given to Academic Writing and Communicative Skills at the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS). In this paper, I argue for much time and space to be given to Academic Writing and Communicative Skills, a programme that seeks to train students to acquire the needed skills and competence in English for their academic and professional development. This argument is based on the findings that came out after I explored the errors in a corpus of 50 essays written by first year students of UHAS. The findings revealed that after going through the Communicative Skills programme for two semesters, students still have serious challenges of writing error-free texts. Out of the 50 scripts that were analyzed, 1,050 errors were detected. The study further revealed that 584 (55.6%) of these errors were related to grammatical errors, 442 (42.1%) were mechanical errors and 24 (2.3%) of the errors detected were linked to the poor structuring of sentences. Based on these findings, recommendations and implications which are significant to educators, policy makers and curriculum developers are provided. This study has implications for pedagogy and further research in error analysis.