This thesis presents empirical research which investigates diverse vocal effort levels in anechoic conditions from a large number of British English speakers. Five vocal effort labels were stipulated: hushed, normal, raised, loud and shout. New results show similar averages to previous work, but lower standard deviations which are attributed to the more descriptive vocal effort labels used in this study. Building on this data, a phonetic investigation into vocal effort was carried out, taking its inspiration from the natural segmental variation in speech which occurs at different vocal efforts. Speech was split into voiced and unvoiced components which allowed for a more phonetically motivated profile of vocal effort. In a bid to mirror analysis with the speech communication chain of talker to listener, listening tests were conducted where subjects rated the perceived vocal effort level of isolated words. Listeners also rated perceived clarity of articulation, taking the assumption that different degrees of clarity are an inherent feature of different speech levels. Multiple regression analysis revealed that listeners exploit the voiced-unvoiced distinction in their perception of vocal effort and clarity of articulation. The resulting validation equation from the multiple regression model showed that vocal effort levels can be reliably predicted.

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The current classroom experiments examined the effects of two types of oral corrective feedback (CF), recast and metalinguistic information, during oral production tasks on the learning of English modals (will, can and must). These techniques were compared to an intervention with identical oral production tasks but in which CF was not provided. The study also investigated the extent to which instructional setting (EFL in Saudi Arabia and ESL in the United Kingdom) and learners' attitudes towards CF mediated the effect of CF on learning. Pre-intermediate adult learners of English as a second language (ESL) in the United Kingdom (UK; n=36) and of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Saudi Arabia (SA; n=64) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: metalinguistic information; recast, or task only (no CF). Participants had four sessions within these conditions, over four consecutive weeks, delivered by a trained and experienced EFL teacher (the author). In the UK context, learners’ knowledge was measured, in pre, post and delayed posttests, using a free oral picture description, a timed grammaticality judgment and a written gap fill. In the SA context knowledge was measured by similar written gap fill and the same picture description, but also an elicited imitation, and un-timed grammaticality judgment with explicit knowledge probes. In both contexts, an exit questionnaire (similar to Sheen’s, 2006) was administered after each test to check awareness of the target feature being tested. In addition, an attitudinal questionnaire was used to measure the possible role of participants’ attitude towards error correction and grammatical accuracy. Tests of normality were used to decide whether parametric or non-parametric statistical tests were required. Equivalence between groups at pre-test was checked to determine whether actual scores or gain scores (or ANCOVAs, if parametric tests) should be analysed. The results suggested that both metalinguistic information and recasts can be beneficial for the development of English modals, though effectiveness was influenced by the outcome measures used, the length of time between intervention and test, and the context (UK and SA). Recast and metalinguistic information were generally found to be beneficial in most measures regardless of contexts. In most measures, task only group in the UK had no significant gains but in SA had significant gains. The study indicated that learners had an equal preference for recast and metalinguistic information CF in the EFL context but preference for recast was pronounced in the ESL context.

This study investigates the effectiveness of conversational shadowing and washback in a TOEFL iBT preparation course for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. An experimental design was proposed with 52 EFL learners from a TOEFL iBT preparation course at an educational institute in Taiwan who were further divided into the control and experimental groups for 12 weeks based on the learning of conversational shadowing through the teaching-to-the-test approach. During this time, the experimental group received the intervention of conversational shadowing while the control group did not. To further assess learners’ progress, the pre- and post-tests based on the institutional TOEFL iBT listening and speaking assessments were administered and analyzed quantitatively along with the pre- and post-questionnaires before and after this study, followed by a series of semi-structured interviews along with the researcher’s field notes for more qualitative data that added more depth to this investigation pertaining to learners’ confidence, learning motivation, and attitudes based on the instruction of conversational shadowing. This study concludes with several essential pedagogical implications from the data collected and analyzed. The results indicated that conversational shadowing not merely improved EFL learners’ English listening and speaking competence, but also strengthened their confidence, learning motivation, and attitudes based on the pre- and post-tests as well as pre- and post-questionnaires. Several salient reasons were further identified by the participants that facilitated their English learning based on such a learning approach. While learners’ valued the instruction of conversational shadowing, the teaching-to-the-test approach used in this study was deemed ineffective with regard to their English learning nowadays. The existence of a negative washback effect in class was also found to undermine students’ L2 development with a few reasons identified at the same time that highlighted the needs for more communicative language learning in an EFL context.

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The present thesis examines the time course of two semantic variables, contextual predictability and word imageability. Both variables can be said to reflect semantic aspects of meaning. For example the contextual predictability of a given target indicates the semantic context within which the target word occurs. The imageability of a given word reflects the meaning aspects of the word itself (Whaley, 1978). The word frequency effect (the faster response to commonly used high frequency words compared to low frequency words which occur less often) was taken to index the moment of lexical access (Balota, 1990; Pollatsek & Rayner, 1990; Sereno & Rayner, 2003) and by applying the logic of additive factors method (Sternberg, 1969a, 1969b), we determined whether the combined effect of each respective semantic variable was additive or interactive. This allowed us to examine whether there are semantic influences on lexical access. Previous research has been undecided and the question remains as to whether semantic variables operate during the lexical access processing stage, or alternatively after lexical access, for example in the post-lexical stage (e.g., Hand, Miellet, Sereno & O’Donnell, 2010; Sereno, O’Donnell & Rayner, 2006). Another aim of the thesis was to address the issue concerning the information presented to participants in the condition of ‘invalid parafoveal preview of a target’ (e.g., Sereno & Rayner, 2000). Several criteria were identified as being important in order to make the assumption that parafoveal processing was successfully inhibited on the pre-target fixation. Another aim of the thesis was to investigate whether word frequency and contextual predictability of the parafoveal word affected parafoveal preview benefit. Preview benefit was calculated by subtracting fixation durations in a condition of ‘valid’ preview of the target with an ‘invalid’ preview of the target. Experiment 1 utilised a lexical decision task to investigate the relationship between word frequency and the imageability of the word. Experiment 2 investigated whether the orthogonal manipulation of word frequency and contextual predictability led to an additive or interactive relationship between these two variables. Two pre-tests, the rating and Cloze tasks, were used to determine the predictability of the target. Experiment 3 and a further cross comparison of Experiments 2 and 3 replicated and extended Experiment 2 by additionally using an eye movement-contingent boundary change paradigm (Rayner, 1975). Experiment 4 examined the joint and combined effects of frequency, predictability and preview in a within-subjects design. A separate pre-test Cloze task was used to determine predictability of targets in their low and high predictable contexts. This experiment used a larger set of materials than in the previous experiments to examine these variables. Finally Chapter 6 was an overall discussion of the thesis. It was concluded that display screen presentations in our eye tracking experiments led to very fast reading times (as well as more skipping) compared to past studies which have used dot-matrix display presentations. It is possible that faster fixation durations led to floor effects in conditions where reading times are already fast because of preferential circumstances of high frequency targets, high predictable contexts and being given a parafoveal preview of the target. Possible ways to counteract this floor effect as well as alternative experimental methods of investigation were discussed.