Studies Of Second Language Learning Research Articles

Investigating Syntactic Transfer from English to Korean in Neural L2 Language Models

This paper investigates how the grammatical knowledge obtained in the initial language (English) of neural language models (LMs) influences the learning of grammatical structures in their second language (Korean). To achieve this objective, we conduct the now well- established experimental procedure, including (i) pre-training transformer-based GPT-2 LMs with Korean and English datasets, (ii) further fine-tuning them with a specific set of Korean data as L1 or L2, and (iii) evaluating them with the test data of KBLiMP while analyzing their linguistic generalization in L1 or L2. We have found negative transfer effects in the comparison between English as L1 and Korean as L2. Furthermore, in the trajectory analysis, the second language-learning LM has captured linguistic features of Korean including syntax, syntax-semantics interface, and morphology during the progressive training step. Our study of second language learning in LMs contributes to predicting potential syntactic challenges arising from the interference by the L1 language during the learning of Korean as a foreign language.

Exploring Factors That Impact on Motivation in Foreign Language Learning in the Classroom

In the study of second language learning, one of the most critical components is unveiling factors that impact on motivation in the classroom. Proficiency in foreign language learning is inextricably tied to motivation, in the understanding that proficiency may not take place if the learners are not strategically motivated. The effectiveness of an L2 learners’ growth may be dependent on various factors that affect motivation in the classroom. This study is an analysis of different factors that influence motivation in foreign language classroom. The study examined how different activities and situations influence the motivation of foreign language learners in the classroom. A total of 119 persons participated in the study, including high school teachers and their students. Questionnaire was used to collect the needed data, and data was analyzed using tables and graphs to discuss the factors that affect motivation in the classroom. Teaching strategy and style of learning, feedback, reward, group, class environment, technology, and punishment are the factors measured. The findings of the study indicate that teaching strategy and learning style exert huge impact on motivation, with over 39.50% of the response rate. This is closely followed by feedback and reward with about 19.32% and 12.60% respectively. The study further revealed that group has the least influence on motivation, with 2.52% value, which is lower than the impact of class environment that stands at 7.56%. It is concluded that both learners and teachers of foreign language accept that teaching strategy and learning style is the most significant factor that impacts on motivation. It is recommended for further studies to use larger study sample from different schools to explore these factors and ascertain their degree of impact on motivation in foreign language teaching and learning.

Deployment of the formulaic utterance “how about∼” in task-based second language classroom discussions

AbstractFormulaic speech has long been of interest in studies of second language learning and pragmatic use as production and comprehension of formulaic utterances requires less processing and production effort and, therefore, allows for greater fluency. This study scrutinizes the sequential positions and actions of one formulaic utterance “how about∼” from the participants’ perspective. This conversation analytic study offers a fine-grained microanalysis of student interaction during classroom peer discussion activities. The data consist of over 54 h of video-recorded classroom interaction. Analysis revealed several positions and actions of “how about∼” as it occurs during peer discussions by Japanese learners of English. Emerging from analysis was a focus on how learners deploy this formulaic utterance to achieve various actions within sequences of interaction. Analysis revealed that participants used “how about∼” for (a) explicitly selecting next speaker, (b) shifting topics, (c) proposing a solution, and (d) suggesting alternative procedures. Although the formula was deployed to perform these four different actions, consistent throughout all instances was the disclosure of learner orientation to the progressivity of the task interaction. The findings show how language learners deploy this formulaic utterance in discussion tasks designed for language learning and highlights the pragmatic functions of this phrase.

Mechanisms for Auditory Perception: A Neurocognitive Study of Second Language Learning of Mandarin Chinese.

Speech perception is an important early skill for language learning. This study uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the relationship between auditory perception abilities and second language (L2) vocabulary learning in an effort to explore behavior-brain correlations. Twenty-one English monolinguals learned 48 auditory Chinese pseudowords over six weeks. Their pre-training abilities in non-linguistic pitch and linguistic tone perception significantly and positively predicted their novel word-learning performance, which correlated with their brain response patterns in the left Heschl’s gyrus. Analyses of regions of interest (ROIs) showed coactivation of the frontal and temporal regions during novel lexical retrieval, and the non-linguistic pitch perception ability modulated brain activations in these regions. Effective connectivity analyses further indicated a collaboration of a ventral stream for speech perception and a dorsal stream for sensory-motor mapping in the L2 network. The ventral stream, compared with the dorsal stream, played a more dominant role in auditory word learning as the L2 proficiency increased. Better pitch and tone perception abilities strengthened the ventral pathways and decreased the reliance on frontal regions. These findings are discussed in light of current models of speech processing and L2 learning.

Addressing the Problem of Negative Lexical Transfer Errors in Chilean University Students

Studies of second language learning have revealed a connection between first language transfer and errors in second language production. This paper describes an action research study carried out among Chilean university students studying English as part of their degree programmes. The study focuses on common lexical errors made by Chilean Spanish-speakers due to negative first language transfer and aims to analyse the effects of systematic instruction and practice of this problematic lexis. It is suggested that raising awareness of lexical transfer through focused attention on common transfer errors is valued by students and seems essential for learners to achieve productive mastery.

Interlanguage Verb Tense Systems of Indonesian EFL Learners

Interlanguage Verb Tense Systems of Indonesian EFL Learners Endang Fauziati, Muamaroh Maftuhin Abstract Among aspect of studies on second language acquisition, interlanguage is one of the most important one. To date research on interlanguage features has provided benefits to the study of second language learning in particular to EFL classroom. The present study explored inter language verb tense system to indicate present, past, and future events employed by Indonesian learners of English as a foreign language. Empirical data were 444 ill-formed utterances elicited through free compositions from the EFL learners. Error analysis and interlanguage analysis were used as analytical tools for data analysis. The results indicate the students have developed their own grammatical system to express present, past, and future events. Whilst their interlanguage system was typified by a number of non-targetlike variants, this study provides evidence of the systematicity of interlanguage as well as a model of particular interlanguage systems, i.e. of Indonesian EFL learners. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jflcc.v4n2a7

Lost in institution: Learning to write in Midwestern urban mainstream classrooms

How do recent immigrant students learn to write in mainstream content area classrooms? This article considers this question in the under-investigated American Midwest contexts where schooling is being reframed by rapid changing demographics. Data for this paper come from an ethnographic case study of second language learning of a Vietnamese 9th grader in an urban school setting. Grounded in a sociocultural view of learning, the author examines (1) how the student negotiated the nature and purpose of writing among inconsistent expectations, objectives and responsibilities in mainstream, and (2) how she was lost in a lack of vision in literacy and the larger institutional environment which encouraged teachers to reward formalism over substance. The author concludes with recommendations for educators in secondary schools to explicitly link pedagogical objectives to language learners literacy needs and to embedded social values of schooling.

Class and SLA: Making connections

This article explores how class might be brought to the fore as an identity inscription in studies of second language learning, alongside other identity inscriptions such as gender, ethnicity and national identity, which have been the focus of rather more research. It begins by clarifying what is meant by class through a brief discussion of the work of Karl Marx, Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu as contributors to thinking about class among social scientists. It then examines how the construct of class has been neglected in research on second language learning as well as in the related area of research on bilingualism. The article goes on to suggest how class might be central to understandings of second language identities in migrant contexts. The starting point is a conversation involving an adult migrant in London, which is then linked with the individual’s life trajectory and the micro-level intricacies of accent and discourse patterns. These and other factors contribute to an analysis of the individual’s lack of development in English in terms of his and others’ class positioning.

Holistic and analytic processing modes in non-native learners’ performance of narrative tasks

Cognitive psychology has gained currency in the study of second language learning with focus on how real-time language use proceeds through two main processing modes: an analytic processing (rule-based) mode and a holistic processing (lexically-based) mode ( Skehan, 1998). However, to date there has been little experimental evidence to document the nature of the relationship between these two processing modes. The present paper reports on a study which was designed (i) to explore how both of these modes are represented in the oral production of non-native learners of English and (ii) to determine whether language learners switch from one mode to another in the face of increasing cognitive demands during task engagement. Participants in this study were 30 Tunisian undergraduate students of English who performed three narrative tasks along three tape-recording episodes. The analysis of the transcribed findings revealed that these participants activated their holistic processing mode for lexical retrieval at the beginning of their performance when the tasks were not demanding. However, they fell back on the analytic processing mode when faced with the increasing processing load due to time pressure and lack of planning. The results not only shed empirical light on how the extent of formulaicity in learners’ language may influence their processing decisions but also have pedagogical implications for speaking skill development.

"The Days Now Is Very Hard for My Family": The Negotiation and Construction of Gendered Work Identities Among Newly Arrived Women Refugees

Recent studies of second language learning and language contact in bilingual and multilingual communities have been informed by feminist poststructuralist approaches to the study of language, gender, and identity (Cameron, 1997; Cameron, Frazer, Harvey, Rampton, & Richardson, 1992; Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 1992; Erhlich, 1997; Norton, 2000; Norton Peirce, 1995; Pavlenko & Piller, 2001). Viewing gender as a composite of social and economic relations as well as a set of discursive practices, such research focuses on the various ways that ideologies (of language and of gender) mediate those social and economic relations. I utilize such frameworks to analyze the multiple and complicated ways that identities are constructed, negotiated, and deployed within specific situations and circumstances. Examining data from long-term participant observation and recorded interviews, I ask how individual refugee women who have recently arrived in the U.S. are positioned and position themselves as language learners and as immigrants with particular gendered work identities within specific contexts.

Developmental issues in second language conversation

This article contributes to the discussion of how second language learning can be studied in a conversation analytic framework. Conversation analysis (CA) as a field has demonstrated how meticulous analysis can shed light on how talk-in-interaction works. In recent years CA has been applied to a number of areas of inquiry, including interactions in second languages. So far, CA researchers have mainly studied second language use, while a systematic approach of how to study the process of second language learning still needs to be developed. To this end, we propose methodological procedures for the study of second language learning by bringing together two frameworks: CA and the theory of situated learning. As an empirical basis, this entails a systematic gathering of longitudinal data consisting of naturally occurring interactions, and analytic procedures managing the longitudinal character of the data,in particular the issue of interactants’ change in conduct over time.

Language learning memoirs as a gendered genre

The paper argues that while the analysis of cross-cultural lifewriting may provide important insights for the study of second language acquisition and socialization, researchers should approach language learning memoirs as a genre and not simply as ethnographic data, subject to content analysis. Using gender as a case in point, the paper analyses a corpus of sixteen full-length language memoirs and seven essays within a theoretical framework, which combines sociohistoric, sociocultural, and rhetorical analyses of the narratives in the corpus. The analysis of these texts demonstrates that social, cultural, and historic conventions shape stories that are told about language learning. It is argued that treating language memoirs as a genre has a great potential for future studies of second language learning. While this approach prevents the researchers from using the narratives simplistically as an objective 'source of ethnographic data', it allows for a complex, theoretically and sociohistorically informed, investigation of social contexts of language learning and of individual learners' trajectories, as well as an insight into which learners' stories are not yet being told.

Second Language Learning Theories (review)

Reviewed by: Second language learning theories by Rosamond Mitchell, Florence Myles Marc Picard Second language learning theories. By Rosamond Mitchell and Florence Myles. London & New York: Arnold, 1998. Pp. xii, 228. An educator specializing in second language teaching (Mitchell) and a linguist with research interests in second language acquisition (Myles) have pooled their knowledge and efforts to produce a book whose ‘general aim is to provide an up-to-date, introductory overview of the current state of second language learning studies’ (ix). It contains nine chapters followed by a rather extensive bibliography, an author index, and a subject index. After a few introductory remarks, Ch. 1 opens with the authors’ definition of second language learning (SLL) as ‘the learning of any language to any level, provided only that the learning of the “second” language takes place sometime later than the acquisition of the first language’ (1). This is followed by a summary of what they deem to be the key concepts and issues of this field, viz., what makes for a valid theory, the nature of language, the language learning process and its links with social practice, and the various attitudes towards the language learner. The second chapter consists of ‘a brief narrative account of the recent history of second language learning research, plus summary descriptions of some of the more specific language learning phenomena which any theory must explain’ (21). Thus, M & M trace the development of approaches such as contrastive analysis, error analysis, and the monitor model, and they briefly discuss research-driving concepts like order of acquisition, interlanguage, and comprehensible input. In the next three chapters, the authors examine individual theoretical perspectives on second language acquisition. They start with a review of the research on the products of the acquisition process from both a descriptive and explanatory point of view with the emphasis placed on the application of the concept of universal grammar to SLL research. Then they turn to cognitive approaches to L1 and L2 acquisition, investigating three of these in particular: perceptual saliency, connectionism, and information processing. Finally, they review ‘the work of . . . researchers who adopt a functional/pragmatic approach to the study of second language learning’ (100). Chs. 6–8 are devoted to theories which view language learning in more social terms, a position which stems from an argument that was first advanced in the 1980s to the effect that ‘in order to understand more fully the nature and usefulness of input to second language learning, greater attention should be paid to the interactions in which learners were engaged’ (122). They examine the nature and scope of input and interaction research and then turn their attention to theories in which language learning is viewed in essentially sociocultural and sociolinguistic terms. The book concludes with an overview of the main achievements of recent SLL research, its future directions and its relation to language education. [End Page 178] In sum, as stated by the authors, ‘[t]his book is intended as an introduction to the field, for students without a substantial prior background in linguistics’ (x). Just as Barry McLaughlin set out in his 1987 book Theories of second language learning (London & Baltimore, MD: Arnold) to provide an introduction to the key L2 learning theories of that period, M & M have endeavored to present the major ‘theoretical orientations on language learning which seem most productive and significant from the perspective of the late 1990s’ (ix). And in that they have succeeded amazingly well. Marc Picard Concordia University Copyright © 2001 Linguistic Society of America

Access to linguistic resources

Until recently, sociolinguistic approaches to the study of second language learning focused on the role of language variation and linguistic interaction in the learning process. In the past few years, several scholars argued for the broadening of the scope of sociolinguistic inquiry in SLA. In accordance with this call and with recent developments in the field of sociolinguistics, the present paper examines the issue that remains ignored in mainstream SLA -access to linguistic resources of the second language. It is argued that the L2 learners' and users' linguistic, racial, ethnic, gender, cultural and social identities mediate access to linguistic resources and interactional opportunities in the L2.

The Acquisition of Second Language Speech

From being a relatively neglected area in the study of second language learning, the acquisition of second language speech has emerged over the last decade as an important research field with a wide range of approaches; the traditions of articulatory, acoustic, perceptual, phonetic, phonological, and psycholinguists investigation contribute a rare interdisdplinarity to this area of linguistic inquiry. Current scholarly interest augurs well for future theoretical advances.

Language use: A missing link?

Abstract Language use as a variable in studies of second language learning is discussed, and measurement of integrative and instrumental motivation as propounded by Gardner and Lambert over the years. Data collected from about 300 secondary school pupils learning Chinese (Mandarin) shows integrative and instrumental motivation to be independent and that language use explains one‐fifth of total variance in language achievement.

T-Unit Analysis in Second Language Research: Applications, Problems and Limitations

T-unit analysis has been widely applied to measure the overall syntactic complexity of speech and writing samples. It has been used both in crosssectional descriptive studies and in experimental studies to measure the effect of sentence-combining as a curricular activity designed to enhance normal developmental trends in syntactic maturity. The claim that mean T-unit length is a valid measure of overall syntactic complexity is well supported. In recent years, T-unit analysis has been applied in studies of second language learning to characterize the syntactic nature of linguistic input and to assess the syntactic maturity of learners' written production. In all studies, T-unit analysis was seen to provide an objective and reliable method of determining the overall syntactic complexity of language samples. Nevertheless, the validity of the T-unit as a measure and the significance of overall syntactic complexity as a variable have been questioned. The present paper is a critical review of arguments for and against T-unit analysis in second language research; suggestions are made about the validity, usefulness, and limitations of this and other measures of overall syntactic complexity.