Le bégaiement est un trouble de la fluence de la parole qui se caractérise, entre autres, par une présence accrue d’accidents de parole venant entraver l’intelligibilité de l’énoncé. Ce travail de doctorat a pour objectif d’étudier les disfluences catégorisées comme pathologiques produites par des locuteurs qui bégaient et ce, en tâche de lecture et en situation de parole spontanée. Plus précisément, il s’agit, d’une part, de vérifier si des éléments morphologiques et phonétiques peuvent expliquer l’apparition d’un bégayage et, d’autre part, d’observer les événements articulatoires présents avant et pendant les disfluences. Pour mener à bien les études ayant trait aux éléments linguistiques posant le plus de difficultés aux personnes qui bégaient, 10 locuteurs francophones et 10 locuteurs slovacophones, tous atteints de ce trouble, ont été enregistrés en train de lire un texte et de parler spontanément dans leur langue maternelle. Quant aux travaux portant sur les événements moteurs se déroulant avant et durant les disfluences, ils ont été réalisés grâce à des données EMA acquises auprès de 4 locuteurs francophones (2 locuteurs qui bégaient et 2 sujets normo-fluents) en tâche de lecture. Nos résultats ont montré que les consonnes non-voisées et les occlusives faisaient partie des éléments les plus problématiques à prononcer pour les personnes bègues. L’étude morphologique a révélé que plus un mot contient de morphèmes et plus le risque de voir apparaître une disfluence est accru. Ce résultat doit notamment être mis en corrélation avec le nombre de syllabes présentes dans le mot. En ce qui concerne le second couple d’études, portant sur le niveau moteur de la parole bègue, nos données montrent, en particulier, des similitudes dans les événements articulatoires se déroulant au niveau supra-glottique entre les disfluences perçues acoustiquement comme des blocages et des prolongations. Enfin, une perturbation des gestes coarticulatoires a pu être relevée lors de la production de certaines disfluences. / Stuttering is a speech fluency disorder. It can be mainly characterized by an increased presence of disfluencies that affect the speech intelligibility. The aim of this thesis is to study stuttering-like disfluencies (SLDs) produced by persons who stutter (PWS) during reading tasks and during spontaneous speech. More specifically, we propose, as our first objective, to verify if any morphological or phonetic elements can explain the presence of these disfluencies. Our second objective is to observe articulatory events before and during SLDs. For the studies dealing with the linguistic and phonetic elements that can be problematic to PWS, 10 French-speaking and 10 Slovak-speaking PWS were recorded while reading a text and while having a conversation in their mother tongue. The studies on speech motor events taking place before and during SLDs were realized by means of an EMA. 4 French-speaking subjects participated in this part of the study (2 PWS and 2 control subjects). Our results show that non-voiced consonants and stops were part of the most problematic elements to produce for PWS. The morphological study reveals that the risk of a SLD appearance was higher when the word contained more morphemes. This result should be correlated to the number of syllables that constitute the word. As for the second couple of studies, they focus on the speech motor events in stuttered speech. Our data show that similar articulatory events can take place in the supraglottic cavity during disfluencies perceived as blocks or prolongations. Furthermore, a disruption of coarticulatory gestures was observed in certain disfluencies.

This study is anchored on two premises: First, that due to cross-linguistic interaction resulting from the interconnectedness of the different language systems in the mind of the multilingual foreign language learner, cross-linguistic influence is inevitable, and, second, that if unmanaged, this interaction might lead to erroneous deviations in the language(s) of the learner. There are studies evidencing cross-linguistic influence of English and Kiswahili on German amongst the Kenyan learners of this language. The question of the learners’ awareness of this phenomenon, however, remains unanswered. In the framework of multilingual language learning awareness, and by use of an Untimed Grammaticality Judgement test consisting of grammatical errors in German arising from cross-linguistic influence of English and Kiswahili, this study constructs explicit grammatical knowledge as an aspect of metalinguistic knowledge. It further assesses the learners’ ability to apply this knowledge in the negotiation of the presented errors as evidence of awareness of cross-linguistic influence, with the ultimate aim of establishing what constitutes the learners’ awareness of multilinguality and cross-linguistic influence of the dominant English and Kiswahili on German as a foreign language.

<p>This project examined the acquisition of third person accusative clitics in Spanish by Chinese-speaking learners. Specifically, it focused on the role of cross-linguistic influence and patterns of language exposure and use in the acquisition of the syntactic and semantic properties constraining the production and intuition of overt and null clitics in Spanish. An elicited production task and an acceptability judgment task were performed on a total of 83 participants divided into four groups. A group of Chinese immigrants in Spain (n = 24), a group of classroom learners in China with study abroad experience (n = 23), and a group of learners without study abroad experience (n = 19) were compared to a group of native speakers of Spanish (n=17). The results showed that, while all the experimental groups showed knowledge of accusative clitics, their knowledge regarding the distribution of overt and null clitics was generally not related to definiteness or syntactic island. However, some participants with higher proficiency or more use of Spanish showed some sensitivity to the syntactic property of null clitics but not definiteness. Proficiency in Spanish had different effects on the immigrants and the classroom learners. Use of Spanish also played different roles between the pure classroom learners and the other two groups with naturalistic exposure. Finally, the results also showed that, while the three groups all showed influence from Chinese, the Spanish and Chinese grammars of the immigrants showed more similarity, compared to the two groups of classroom learners. Based on a proposed path of acquisition, the results were discussed in line with second language acquisition theorizing on feature accessibility and reassembly. Some implications on classroom instruction are also discussed. </p>

Persistent non-target language co-activation in spoken and visual language comprehension has been found both at the word-level and at the level of a sentence, although in the latter case, sentence bias has been observed to modulate the co-activation which can create lexical competition. In the case of trilingual speakers, both non-target languages may potentially compete with the third language (L3). The current study aimed to investigate how cross-linguistic (or interlingual) competition across three languages is modulated by sentence bias while listening to the L3. Of particular interest was whether top-down sentential information would modulate not only single but also double bottom-up driven cross-linguistic competition.  A picture-word recognition task was given to 44 L1 Russian L2 English late L3 Swedish learners, listening to Swedish sentences online while their reaction times and accuracy were collected. The results revealed shorter processing times and higher accuracy for high- compared to low-constraint sentences and overall lower accuracy (and slower reactions in high-constraint sentences) when an L1 Russian competitor’s translation phonological onset overlapped with a Swedish target word. The findings suggest that when trilinguals were processing their L3 speech, top-down information from the sentential context did not modulate the bottom-up guided L1 phonological competition. However, the effect of an L2 English L3 Swedish cognate competitor was not significant. This pattern of results is in line with BLINCS (Shook &amp; Marian, 2013), which assumes gradual co-activation decay (i.e., a strong cross-linguistic competition effect might be observed in the end-course reaction times) and a direct visual information influence on linguistic processing. It is, however, inconsistent with the BIA+ model (Dijkstra and Van Heuven, 2002), which predicts that a high-constraint sentence context can modulate cross-linguistic competition, particularly, at later processing stages. / Ihållande samaktivering av icke-målspråk i talad och visuell språkförståelse har hittats både på ordnivå och på meningsnivå, även om i det senare fallet har meningsbias observerats för att modulera samaktiveringen som kan skapa lexikal konkurrens. När det gäller trespråkiga talare kan båda icke-målspråken potentiellt konkurrera med det tredje språket (L3). Den aktuella studien syftade till att undersöka hur den tvärlingvistiska (eller interlinguala) konkurrensen mellan tre språk moduleras av meningsförspänning när man lyssnar på L3. Av särskilt intresse var huruvida top-down meningsinformation skulle modulera inte bara enstaka utan också dubbel-bottom-up-guidade tvärlingvistisk interferens.  En bild-ordsigenkänningsuppgift gavs till 44 L1 ryska L2 engelska senlärda L3 svenska talare, som lyssnade på svenska meningar online medan deras reaktionstider och noggrannhet samlades in. Resultaten avslöjade kortare bearbetningstider och högre noggrannhet för meningar med hög jämfört med meningar med låg begränsning och lägre noggrannhet (och långsammare reaktioner i meningar med hög begränsning) totalt när en L1 rysk konkurrents fonologiska översättningsstart överlappade ett svenskt målord. Resultaten tyder på att när trespråkiga bearbetade sitt L3-tal, modulerade top-down information från sententiella sammanhang inte den bottom-up guidade L1 fonologiska konkurrensen. Effekten av en L2 engelsk L3 svensk besläktad konkurrent var dock inte signifikant. Detta resultatmönster är i linje med BLINCS (Shook &amp; Marian, 2013), som förutsätter ett gradvis samaktiveringsförfall (dvs. en stark tvärlingvistisk konkurrenseffekt kan observeras i slutförloppets reaktionstid) och en direkt visuell informationsinflytande på språklig bearbetning. Det är dock oförenligt med BIA+ (Dijkstra och Van Heuven, 2002) som förutsäger att en meningskontext med hög begränsning kan modulera tvärspråklig konkurrens, särskilt i de senare bearbetningsstadierna.

[pt] Este estudo investiga os comportamentos de processamento de um grupo de Brasileiros bilíngues instrucionados de português L1 e inglês L2, (n igual a 21), e um grupo de monolíngues de inglês norte-americano (n igual a 11) durante a sua compreensão de sentenças no present perfect (vs. simple past) em uma tarefa on-line de leitura auto-monitorada (Self-Paced Reading - SPR). Uma medida off-line, Tarefa de Julgamento de Aceitabilidade (Acceptability Judgment Task - AJT) foi utilizado como uma linha de base de conhcimento explícito da estrutura. Os resultados são comparados, qualitativamente, entre o grupo do monolíngue e bilíngue para investigar a sensibilidade, de cada grupo, às manipulações experimentais em tempo/aspecto, correspondência adverbial, e telicidade. O present perfect foi usado para os estímulos, pois é um tempo verbal do inglês adquirido mais tardiamente o que permite estudar as estratégias de processamento de bilíngues de nível mais avançado. Ambos os grupos foram capazes de reconhecer incongruências na atividade off-line. No entanto, o grupo monolíngue não foi sensível à condição de incongruência adverbial em tempo real, na atividade SPR. Por outro lado, o grupo bilíngue mostrou-se mais sensível a variável da incongruência adverbial, apresentando um comportamento que indica uma facilitação (automatização) de processamento da condição. O grupo monolíngue mostrou sensibilidade significativo às manipulações de telicidade em várias regiões do sintagma verbal. Diferenças entre os dois grupos foram observadas nas suas distribuições de tempos de leitura entre as condições em várias regiões da frase e elas são discutidas em termos de estratégias de processamento. Os monolíngues apresentaram efeitos de processamento integrativo no final da frase, os quais não são observados no grupo bilíngue. Atualmente, não há estudos com condições experimentais semelhantes que investiguem como os brasileiros bilíngues, avançados em inglês comportam na compreensão on-line de sentenças em inglês no present perfect. / [en] This study investigates the processing behaviors of a group of Brazilian bilingual students, instructed, advanced English students (n equal 21), and an English monolingual control group (n equal 11) during their comprehension of Present Perfect and Simple Past sentences in an on-line, self-paced reading (SPR) task. An off-line Acceptability Judgment Task (AJT) provides a baseline measure of explicit knowledge in order to validate the on-line results. The results are compared, qualitatively, between the bilingual and monolingual groups in order to investigate their sensitivity to experimental manipulations in Tense/Aspect, adverbial (Mis)match, and Telicity. The Present Perfect was used for the stimuli as it is a late-acquired feature of English which allows for the study of processing strategy of advanced level students. While both groups were able to recognize Mismatches off-line, monolinguals were not sensitive to the Mismatch condition in the on-line experiment. Surprisingly, the bilingual group showed more sensitivity to the adverbial Match variable, showing a processing facilitation in the Match condition as well as some mismatch sensitivity as well. The monolingual group showed significant effects for Telicity at multiple sentence regions. Some qualitative differences were seen between the two groups in their reading-time contours across the verb phrase. The monolinguals show within-group consistency across multiple conditions and signs of integrative processing (wrap-up) effects in their processing patterns which are not seen among the bilingual group. There are currently no studies with similar experimental conditions which investigate the on-line comprehension of the English Present Perfect with Brazilian Portuguese-English bilinguals in comparison to American English monolinguals.

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo investigar, a partir de uma abordagem plurilíngue, a influência que a língua inglesa exerce no processo de ensino/aprendizagem de alemão como segunda língua estrangeira para aprendizes brasileiros. Os principais questionamentos da pesquisa se concentram nos processos de transferência linguística positiva e de interferência observados na aprendizagem dos alunos em nível inicial, tendo em vista que as línguas anteriormente aprendidas, principalmente a inglesa, possuem grande potencial de influenciar sua(s) língua(s) subsequente(s). A partir de pesquisas nas áreas de ensino/aprendizagem de alemão como L3 e Alemão após Inglês foi elaborado um questionário de pesquisa respondido por 50 informantes dos níveis A1 a B1 do Quadro Europeu Comum de Referência para as Línguas, alunos do curso de línguas Alemão no Campus, ministrado pela Área de Alemão da Universidade de São Paulo. O questionário foi composto de três partes, referindo-se a primeira às informações sobre o repertório linguístico dos aprendizes, a segunda às percepções e crenças sobre seu processo de aprendizagem, em especial quando da aprendizagem de línguas de parentesco comprovado e a terceira parte a uma produção textual, que teve como objetivo coletar material linguístico genuíno dos aprendizes para, posteriormente, identificar empiricamente alguns de seus desvios linguísticos. A partir da revisão da literatura e da análise dos questionários, a premissa de que o inglês exerce um papel importante na aprendizagem do alemão pôde ser confirmada, sendo o parentesco etimológico um dos mais importantes fatores na determinação da ocorrência de influência interlinguística. Ademais, os aprendizes foram capazes de identificar corretamente as áreas nas quais o conhecimento prévio do inglês funciona como um auxílio (p.ex. compreensão de vocabulário) e as áreas de dificuldade (p.ex. pronúncia), fazendo uso das estratégias de aprendizagem que envolvem a comparação de sistemas linguísticos em sua produção linguística. Entretanto, a interferência linguística advinda do emprego dessas estratégias sugere o desenvolvimento, por professores brasileiros, de uma didática plurilíngue que englobe novos métodos para o ensino de língua alemã como segunda língua estrangeira. / The present work aims at the investigation of the influence that the English language exerts on the learning/teaching process of German as a second foreign language for Brazilian learners in a plurilingual approach. The main questions of the research focus on positive transfer processes as well as linguistic interference observed in initial level learners, taking into consideration that the previously learned languages, mainly English, have a great potential to influence subsequent foreign languages. Based on studies in the areas of teaching and learning of German as an L3 and German after English, a research questionnaire was designed and subsequently responded by a group of 50 learners, levels A1 to B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, all of them students of the language course named Alemão no Campus, given by the German department at the University of São Paulo. The questionnaire was composed of three parts. The first part refers to the information about the linguistic repertoire of the investigated group; the second one investigates the perceptions and beliefs that learners have about their learning process, especially when they are learning languages of the same linguistic family; and the third part consists of a textual production, that had as its main goal collecting genuine linguistic material of these learners in a way that, later, this material could be used in order to identify, empirically, some of the linguistic deviations. From the literature review and the questionnaires analysis, the assumption that English exerts an important role in the learning process of German could be confirmed, being the etymological relationship between languages one of the most important elements in order to determine the occurrence of cross-linguistic influence. Furthermore, the learners were able to accurately identify the areas in which the previous knowledge of English operates as a helpful tool for the learners (e.g. vocabulary comprehension) and the difficulty areas (e.g. pronunciation), making use of those learning strategies that involve the comparison of linguistic systems in their production. Nevertheless, the linguistic interference that results from the employment of these strategies suggests the development, by Brazilian teachers, of a plurilingualism didactics that includes new methods for the teaching/learning of German as a second foreign language.

Behavioral perceptions and cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs) from native English (N=10) and Spanish speakers (N=10) were recorded for speech stimuli that constitute phonetically relevant categories of voicing. The stimuli were synthesized bilabial stop consonant-vowel syllables in a continuum ranging from/ba/to/pa/that varied in voice onset time (VOT) from 0 to 60ms. Different behavioral perceptions were evidenced by significantly different categorical phonetic boundaries between the two groups (p.05). Peak P1, N1, and P2 response latencies and P1–N1 and N1–P2 amplitudes increased significantly with increasing VOTs (p

<p>South Africa&rsquo / s Language-in-Education Policy is one of additive multilingualism, but in reality this policy is not adhered to, in that most black children are being educated through the medium of English from Grade 4. This type of instruction affects the development of academic language proficiency in their primary language, as these children are not engaging in cognitively demanding tasks in their primary or first language. The Woodcock Mu&ntilde / oz Language Survey (WMLS) is a test to assess academic language proficiency in Additive Bilingual Education, and is extensively used in the United States of America (USA) for this purpose. It is important to note that the proposed study is a sub-study of a larger study, in which the original WMLS (American-English version) was adapted into English and Xhosa, to be used in South Africa to assess additive bilingual programmes. For this sub-study, the researcher was interested in examining the overall equivalence of the adapted English version of the WMLS. Owing to insufficient tests evaluating academic language proficiency in the South African context, the significance, as well as the overall aim, of the study is to ensure that the issues of group difference and item bias have been assessed to ensure that the adapted English version of the WMLS is suitable to be used across English first-language and Xhosa first-language speakers. Because this is a sub-study, the researcher (of the sub-study) has conducted an exploratory quantitative study with the use of Secondary Data. The researcher has used the framework of equivalence as a theoretical framework in order to examine the research question. Given the use of existing data, the procedures of the collection of the data by the researcher of the larger study have been outlined in the Methodology section of the present study. The sample consisted of 198 English and 197 Xhosa first-language speakers...</p>

<p>South Africa&rsquo / s Language-in-Education Policy is one of additive multilingualism, but in reality this policy is not adhered to, in that most black children are being educated through the medium of English from Grade 4. This type of instruction affects the development of academic language proficiency in their primary language, as these children are not engaging in cognitively demanding tasks in their primary or first language. The Woodcock Mu&ntilde / oz Language Survey (WMLS) is a test to assess academic language proficiency in Additive Bilingual Education, and is extensively used in the United States of America (USA) for this purpose. It is important to note that the proposed study is a sub-study of a larger study, in which the original WMLS (American-English version) was adapted into English and Xhosa, to be used in South Africa to assess additive bilingual programmes. For this sub-study, the researcher was interested in examining the overall equivalence of the adapted English version of the WMLS. Owing to insufficient tests evaluating academic language proficiency in the South African context, the significance, as well as the overall aim, of the study is to ensure that the issues of group difference and item bias have been assessed to ensure that the adapted English version of the WMLS is suitable to be used across English first-language and Xhosa first-language speakers. Because this is a sub-study, the researcher (of the sub-study) has conducted an exploratory quantitative study with the use of Secondary Data. The researcher has used the framework of equivalence as a theoretical framework in order to examine the research question. Given the use of existing data, the procedures of the collection of the data by the researcher of the larger study have been outlined in the Methodology section of the present study. The sample consisted of 198 English and 197 Xhosa first-language speakers...</p>

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo investigar, a partir de uma abordagem plurilíngue, a influência que a língua inglesa exerce no processo de ensino/aprendizagem de alemão como segunda língua estrangeira para aprendizes brasileiros. Os principais questionamentos da pesquisa se concentram nos processos de transferência linguística positiva e de interferência observados na aprendizagem dos alunos em nível inicial, tendo em vista que as línguas anteriormente aprendidas, principalmente a inglesa, possuem grande potencial de influenciar sua(s) língua(s) subsequente(s). A partir de pesquisas nas áreas de ensino/aprendizagem de alemão como L3 e Alemão após Inglês foi elaborado um questionário de pesquisa respondido por 50 informantes dos níveis A1 a B1 do Quadro Europeu Comum de Referência para as Línguas, alunos do curso de línguas Alemão no Campus, ministrado pela Área de Alemão da Universidade de São Paulo. O questionário foi composto de três partes, referindo-se a primeira às informações sobre o repertório linguístico dos aprendizes, a segunda às percepções e crenças sobre seu processo de aprendizagem, em especial quando da aprendizagem de línguas de parentesco comprovado e a terceira parte a uma produção textual, que teve como objetivo coletar material linguístico genuíno dos aprendizes para, posteriormente, identificar empiricamente alguns de seus desvios linguísticos. A partir da revisão da literatura e da análise dos questionários, a premissa de que o inglês exerce um papel importante na aprendizagem do alemão pôde ser confirmada, sendo o parentesco etimológico um dos mais importantes fatores na determinação da ocorrência de influência interlinguística. Ademais, os aprendizes foram capazes de identificar corretamente as áreas nas quais o conhecimento prévio do inglês funciona como um auxílio (p.ex. compreensão de vocabulário) e as áreas de dificuldade (p.ex. pronúncia), fazendo uso das estratégias de aprendizagem que envolvem a comparação de sistemas linguísticos em sua produção linguística. Entretanto, a interferência linguística advinda do emprego dessas estratégias sugere o desenvolvimento, por professores brasileiros, de uma didática plurilíngue que englobe novos métodos para o ensino de língua alemã como segunda língua estrangeira. / The present work aims at the investigation of the influence that the English language exerts on the learning/teaching process of German as a second foreign language for Brazilian learners in a plurilingual approach. The main questions of the research focus on positive transfer processes as well as linguistic interference observed in initial level learners, taking into consideration that the previously learned languages, mainly English, have a great potential to influence subsequent foreign languages. Based on studies in the areas of teaching and learning of German as an L3 and German after English, a research questionnaire was designed and subsequently responded by a group of 50 learners, levels A1 to B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, all of them students of the language course named Alemão no Campus, given by the German department at the University of São Paulo. The questionnaire was composed of three parts. The first part refers to the information about the linguistic repertoire of the investigated group; the second one investigates the perceptions and beliefs that learners have about their learning process, especially when they are learning languages of the same linguistic family; and the third part consists of a textual production, that had as its main goal collecting genuine linguistic material of these learners in a way that, later, this material could be used in order to identify, empirically, some of the linguistic deviations. From the literature review and the questionnaires analysis, the assumption that English exerts an important role in the learning process of German could be confirmed, being the etymological relationship between languages one of the most important elements in order to determine the occurrence of cross-linguistic influence. Furthermore, the learners were able to accurately identify the areas in which the previous knowledge of English operates as a helpful tool for the learners (e.g. vocabulary comprehension) and the difficulty areas (e.g. pronunciation), making use of those learning strategies that involve the comparison of linguistic systems in their production. Nevertheless, the linguistic interference that results from the employment of these strategies suggests the development, by Brazilian teachers, of a plurilingualism didactics that includes new methods for the teaching/learning of German as a second foreign language.