This dissertation reports research into the problem of how to teach mastery of the English writing system (MEWS) to students of English as a second language (ESL). The problem involves the relatedness of English orthography and phonology. The research had two purposes. First was development of classroom instructional materials for improving reading proficiency in ESL students by application of generative phonological principles. Second was use of the instructional materials in a pilot study of fifty-three ESL college freshmen. A major finding was that subjects' reading proficiency was far below that of native speakers at the college level. Another was that the subjects had more difficulty with English vowels than with consonants. The subjects' scores on nonsense-word tests correlated significantly with five other criteria, including measures of ability to use ESL. A uniform disparity between ESL-student and native-speaker scores on tests of nonsense words was identified. Native-speakers generally had perfect scores, and ESL students had low scores. A chief implication is the importance of understanding orthography in reading English. Recommendations are that ESL proficiency be determined by nonsense-word tests and that the MEWS program be used by students of English as a second dialect.

Orientador: Linda Gentry El-Dash / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-05T20:14:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 SaoPedro_Joanade_M.pdf: 730843 bytes, checksum: acc76d0a4105f81c41337ac5e54adcdf (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Resumo: Este trabalho investiga as atitudes de aprendizes de Inglês face ao aprendizado da gramática. É uma pesquisa de base que focaliza uma questão relevante para os desafios atuais que vêm sendo enfrentados na área de ensino de línguas. Na tentativa de priorizar as opiniões reais dos sujeitos, fizemos entrevistas orais semi-estruturadas com grupos de universitários aprendizes de Inglês. Essas entrevistas revelaram várias idéias diferentes sobre a gramática. Tais idéias foram usadas para construir o questionário propriamente dito, o qual as apresentou numa escala tipo Likert. Os sujeitos que responderam ao questionário eram alunos de Inglês Geral ou Instrumental em uma universidade pública do estado de São Paulo. Os escores variavam de 1 (mais baixo) a 7 (mais alto) conforme o grau de concordância desses alunos com as declarações propostas. Posteriormente os resultados foram submetidos a uma análise fatorial que gerou 30 fatores independentes, os quais foram correlacionados com certas variáveis, como sexo, área de estudo (humanas, exatas e biológicas) e tipo de curso de Inglês (Geral ou Instrumental). Ao agrupar os itens que os alunos vêem como semelhantes, os fatores revelaram o que subjaz suas respostas e foram nomeados, levando em conta o tipo de concepção delineada sobre a gramática. Finalmente, apresentamos reflexões sobre o papel da gramática na esperança de poder ajudar os professores a promover uma imagem mais positiva da gramática na sala de aula / Abstract: This research investigates the attitudes of the English language learners towards the learning of grammar. It is basic research focusing on an issue relevant to the challenges that have been faced in the area of language teaching. In an attempt to give priority to the true opinions of students, we conducted semistructured interviews with groups of university students learning English. These interviews revealed numerous different ideas about grammar, and these were used to design the questionnaire, which introduced these ideas in a Likert-type format. The subjects responding the questionnaire were students either of general English or English for Specific Purposes at a Public University in São Paulo State. Scores ranged from 1(the lowest) to 7 (the highest), in relation to agreement with the proposed statements. The results were then submitted to factor analysis and generated 30 independent factors. These were correlated to certain variables, i.e., gender, area of study (humanities, sciences or biology) and type of English course (general or specific purposes). By grouping the items of the questionnaire that are considered to be similar by the students, these factors showed what underlies the responses of the learners, and they were labeled, in relation to aspect of grammar involved. Finally, we have presented some reflections about the role of grammar in the hope that this will help teachers promote a more positive image of grammar in the class / Mestrado / Ensino-Aprendizagem de Segunda Lingua e Lingua Estrangeira / Mestre em Linguística Aplicada

Orientador: Linda Gentry El-Dash / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-07T22:20:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Armentano_AnaLuizaTeixeira_M.pdf: 24731292 bytes, checksum: b14232318057e7b745682681e2635a8a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Resumo: Esta pesquisa partiu da nossa observação que muitos aprendizes apresentam fluência, mas não precisão lingüística, em seu desempenho em contexto de aula comunicativo de inglês de nível intermediário como LE. Uma alternativa encontrada na literatura de ASL para promover a precisão lingüística é o uso de tarefas que promovam o esforço cognitivo de produzir e refletir sobre a produção, estendendo e indo além do nível de competência real do aprendiz, ou seja, uma produção mais exigente (pushed output) (Swain, 1985, 1995). A reflexão sobre a produção (output) pode estimular o aprendiz a perceber (notice) formas lingüísticas e fazer uma comparação cognitiva entre as formas de sua interlíngua e as formas de L2/LE (notice the gap), o que pode facilitar a re-estruturação de interlíngua. Nosso objetivo nesta pesquisa é investigar a tarefa dictogloss pelo seu potencial em promover uma produção mais exigente. Para tal levamos em conta aspectos cognitivos e interacionais. Sob a perspectiva cognitiva, nos apoiamos nos estudos sobre tarefas de Skehan (1996, 1998), o modelo de processamento de insumo de VanPatten (1996, 2002), a Hipótese da Produção de Swain (1985) e as diferenças individuais segundo Robinson (2002, 2005). Sob a perspectiva sócio-cultural, levamos em conta o construto do diálogo colaborativo de Swain (2000) e os padrões de interação de Storch (2002). Os instrumentos de pesquisa foram um mini-questionário, uma tarefa dictogloss, cujos procedimentos foram adaptados de Wajnryb (1990), e entrevistas semi-estruturadas com os sujeitos. Cinco pares de alunos universitários do nível intermediário de um centro de línguas de uma universidade pública paulista fizeram parte da pesquisa. Sem a intervenção da pesquisadora, as duplas reconstruíram uma passagem escutada por três vezes. Após a reconstrução em pares, os sujeitos receberam o texto por escrito e compararam as suas versões com a do original. Todas a interações foram gravadas em áudio. Dentre os aspectos cognitivos, os resultados das análises apontam para a complexidade da tarefa implementada em termos do código lingüístico, processamento cognitivo e o stress comunicativo. Observa-se que alguns pares abordaram a tarefa focando mais no significado eoutros na forma, sugerindo um efeito trade-off nos recursos de atenção. Nota-se grandes diferenças individuais entre os sujeitos, entre elas o nível de proficiência e habilidades cognitivas dos sujeitos, tais como a aptidão para notice the gap. Dentre os aspectos interacionais, constatamos que o padrão colaborativo prevalece nas interações, mas que com o decorrer da tarefa, algumas interações mudam para os padrões dominante/passivo, e outras para o padrão dominante/dominante, com alguns momentos de conflito. O diálogo colaborativo gerou construção de conhecimento nos padrões colaborativos mas demonstrou seus limites em outros padrões de interação, como no menos experiente/menos experiente, não geralmente relatado na literatura. Os depoimentos dos sujeitos sugerem que esses perceberam a complexidade da tarefa, mas que a consideram de potencial utilidade para a aprendizagem. Além disso, relataram que o trabalho em pares foi positivo / Abstract: In our teaching practice and within a communicative-oriented instruction of intermediate levelleamers of English as a foreign language, we have noticed that many leamers become fluent but lack accuracy. It has been suggested in SLA that in order to promote accuracy certain kinds of tasks can be used: those that encourage pushed output, defined as the cognitive effort to produce and reflect on production, stretching and going beyond the actual competence of the leamer. This reflection on production may encourage the leamer to notice linguistic form and make cognitive comparisons between their interlanguage form and the L2 form, i.e., notice the gap, which may encourage the restructuring of the interlanguage. Bearing this in mind, this research was designed to investigate cognitive and interactional factors involved in the implementation of the pedagogical task known as dictogloss. Five dyads of college students attending an intermediate leveI course in a language center in a state university in the state of São Paulo in Brazil took part of the experiment. The interaction of the dyads was audiotaped as they carried out the task. It required them to listen, take notes, and produce a written reproduction of the oral text with their partners. After that they received a copy of the written text, and went on to compare and notice differences between their versions and the original. From a cognitive perspective, the theoretical background comes from task-based research of Skehan (1996, 1998), the modeI of input processing of VanPatten (1996, 2002), the Output Hypothesis of Swain (1985, 1995) as well as the investigation of individual differences of Robinson (2002, 2005). From a socio-cultural perspective, the theoretical background comes from the collaborative dialogue proposed by Swain (2000) and the interaction pattems by Storch (2001, 2002). From a cognitive perspective, the findings suggest that the high complexity of the task produced a trade-off effect in attentional resources: attention was either allocated to the meaning or to the formoThe oral comprehension and production and the written comprehension and production revealed individual differences in the subjects' cognitive abilities, such as noticing the gap. From a socio-cultural perspective, the collaborative pattem of interaction prevails, but over time, some of the pairs changed to other pattems such as dominant/passive and dominant/dominant, indicating some conflict in their interactions. The collaborative dialogue shows the co-construction of knowledge, but this does not take place in all interaction pattems, such as novice/novice, which is rarely discussed in the literature. In follow-up interviews, the subjects reported that they found the task complex but useful and that working with a partner helped them perform the task / Mestrado / Lingua Estrangeira / Mestre em Linguística Aplicada

This study investigates how Japanese learners of English respond to English negative questions. Previous research has reported that Japanese learners of English make errors in yes/no responses to English negative questions due to the first language (L1) influence (Kang & Lim-chang, 1998; Takashima, 1989). From the perspective of L1 influence, there are two learning pitfalls: different functions of the yes/no response and different interpretations of negative questions. Both of these influences were examined in this study. This study involved 8 Japanese learners of English, 4 females and 4 males, attending Portland State University (PSU). In order to elicit data that reflect the effect of Japanese English Language Teaching (ELT), the subjects were chosen so that at the time of data elicitation, they had less than 6 months of experience in an English-speaking environment. In addition, all the participants had English instruction in Japan at least through high school. In order to see how the L1 influenced their yes/no answers to negative questions, I used two data elicitation methods: an oral interview with a native speaker and a retrospective protocol analysis of the interview. The results indicated the following: First, the participants appeared to respond to English negative questions fairly consistently with the English norm. Deviation was observed only when a negative question had a negative expected answer. Particularly, the stronger the expectation for a negative answer was, the more likely it was that the negative question elicited an incorrect yes/no response. Secondly, the participants interpreted the polarity of the expected answer based on the Japanese norm. With the help of context, they usually interpreted the stimulus sentence correctly. However, when an expected answer was ambiguous for any reason, the participants interpreted the stimulus sentence as having a negative expected answer, which is the default interpretation for Japanese negative questions. This study shows that the influence of the L1 on answers to negative questions requires complex analysis. That is, superficially the participants appeared to answer questions correctly, but a deeper analysis revealed that they still relied on an L1 interpretation norm.

Previous research has established the importance of the nouns and noun modification in academic writing because of their commonness and complexity. However, little is known about how noun modification varies across the rhetorical sections of research articles. Such a perspective is important because it reflects the interplay between communicative function and linguistic form. This study used a corpus of empirical research articles from the fields of applied linguistics and language teaching to explore the connection between article sections (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion; IMRD) and six types of noun modification: relative clauses, ing-clause postmodifiers, ed-clause postmodifiers, prepositional postmodifiers, premodifying nouns, and attributive adjectives. First the frequency of these six types of noun modification was compared across IMRD sections. Second, the study also used a hand coded analysis of the structure and structural patterns of a sample of noun phrases through IMRD sections. The results of the analyses showed that noun modification is not uniform across IMRD sections. Significant differences were found in the rates of use for attributive adjectives, premodifying nouns, and prepositional phrase postmodifiers. There were no significant differences between sections for relative clauses, ing-clause postmodifiers, or ed-clause postmodifiers. The differences between sections for attributive adjectives, premodifying nouns, and prepositional phrases illustrate the way the functions of these structures intersects with the functions of IMRD sections. For example, Methods sections describe research methods, which often have premodifying nouns (corpus analysis, conversation analysis, speech sample, etc.); this function of Methods sections results in a higher use of premodifying nouns compared to other sections. Results for structures of noun phrase across IMRD sections showed that the common noun modification patterns, such as premodifying noun only or attributive adjective with prepositional phrase postmodifier, were mostly consistent across sections. Noun phrase structures including pre-/post- or no modification did have differences across sections, with Introduction sections the most frequently modified and Methods sections the least frequently modified. The different functions of IMRD sections call for different rates of usage for noun modification, and the results reflected this. The results of this research benefit teachers of graduate students of applied linguistics in students' research reading and writing by describing the use of noun modification in the sections of empirical research articles and aiding teachers in the design of materials to clarify the use of noun modification in these IMRD sections.

The purpose of this two-phase, explanatory mixed methods study was to understand the benefits of teaching grammar from three different learning methods: face-to-face, online personalized learning lab and a blended learning method. The study obtained quantitative results from a pre and post-tests, a general survey and writing assignment rubrics from three English 1301 classes and then follow-up interviews with focus groups from each class to explore those results in more depth. In the first phase, quantitative research questions addressed the relationship of grammar teaching methods and grammar acquisition with students at a two-year technical and academic college. In the second phase, used focus groups to perform qualitative interviews to better explore the quantitative results.

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Beginning with Plato's expulsion of the poets in the Republic, this dissertation ' looks at the often hostile, yet also symbiotic, relationship between·poetry and philosophy. Aristotle's 'response' to Plato is regarded as a significant origin of literary theory. Nietzsche's critique of Western philosophy as being an attempt to suppress its own metaphoricity, leads to a revaluation of truth and consequently of the privileging of philosophy over poetry. Post-structuralism sometimes overemphasizes this constitutive force of metaphoricity, at the expense of conceptual modes. However, Derrida's notion of philosophy as play retains a balance between concept and metaphor: there is no attempt to transcendentally ground philosophy, but neither is it reduced to a merely metaphorical discourse. Finally, Wittgenstein's notion of meaning as determined by use can help us distinguish pragmatically between poetry and philosophy by looking at the contexts in which they function. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Linguistics)

Thesis (MSc)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: We investigate the application of weighted tree transducers to correcting grammatical errors in natural language. Weighted finite-state transducers (FST) have been used successfully in a wide range of natural language processing (NLP) tasks, even though the expressiveness of the linguistic transformations they perform is limited. Recently, there has been an increase in the use of weighted tree transducers and related formalisms that can express syntax-based natural language transformations in a probabilistic setting. The NLP task that we investigate is the automatic correction of grammar errors made by English language learners. In contrast to spelling correction, which can be performed with a very high accuracy, the performance of grammar correction systems is still low for most error types. Commercial grammar correction systems mostly use rule-based methods. The most common approach in recent grammatical error correction research is to use statistical classifiers that make local decisions about the occurrence of specific error types. The approach that we investigate is related to a number of other approaches inspired by statistical machine translation (SMT) or based on language modelling. Corpora of language learner writing annotated with error corrections are used as training data. Our baseline model is a noisy-channel FST model consisting of an n-gram language model and a FST error model, which performs word insertion, deletion and replacement operations. The tree transducer model we use to perform error correction is a weighted top-down tree-to-string transducer, formulated to perform transformations between parse trees of correct sentences and incorrect sentences. Using an algorithm developed for syntax-based SMT, transducer rules are extracted from training data of which the correct version of sentences have been parsed. Rule weights are also estimated from the training data. Hypothesis sentences generated by the tree transducer are reranked using an n-gram language model. We perform experiments to evaluate the performance of different configurations of the proposed models. In our implementation an existing tree transducer toolkit is used. To make decoding time feasible sentences are split into clauses and heuristic pruning is performed during decoding. We consider different modelling choices in the construction of transducer rules. The evaluation of our models is based on precision and recall. Experiments are performed to correct various error types on two learner corpora. The results show that our system is competitive with existing approaches on several error types. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Ons ondersoek die toepassing van geweegde boomoutomate om grammatikafoute in natuurlike taal outomaties reg te stel. Geweegde eindigetoestand outomate word suksesvol gebruik in ’n wye omvang van take in natuurlike taalverwerking, alhoewel die uitdrukkingskrag van die taalkundige transformasies wat hulle uitvoer beperk is. Daar is die afgelope tyd ’n toename in die gebruik van geweegde boomoutomate en verwante formalismes wat sintaktiese transformasies in natuurlike taal in ’n probabilistiese raamwerk voorstel. Die natuurlike taalverwerkingstoepassing wat ons ondersoek is die outomatiese regstelling van taalfoute wat gemaak word deur Engelse taalleerders. Terwyl speltoetsing in Engels met ’n baie hoë akkuraatheid gedoen kan word, is die prestasie van taalregstellingstelsels nog relatief swak vir meeste fouttipes. Kommersiële taalregstellingstelsels maak oorwegend gebruik van reël-gebaseerde metodes. Die algemeenste benadering in onlangse navorsing oor grammatikale foutkorreksie is om statistiese klassifiseerders wat plaaslike besluite oor die voorkoms van spesifieke fouttipes maak te gebruik. Die benadering wat ons ondersoek is verwant aan ’n aantal ander benaderings wat geïnspireer is deur statistiese masjienvertaling of op taalmodellering gebaseer is. Korpora van taalleerderskryfwerk wat met foutregstellings geannoteer is, word as afrigdata gebruik. Ons kontrolestelsel is ’n geraaskanaal eindigetoestand outomaatmodel wat bestaan uit ’n n-gram taalmodel en ’n foutmodel wat invoegings-, verwyderings- en vervangingsoperasies op woordvlak uitvoer. Die boomoutomaatmodel wat ons gebruik vir grammatikale foutkorreksie is ’n geweegde bo-na-onder boom-na-string omsetteroutomaat geformuleer om transformasies tussen sintaksbome van korrekte sinne en foutiewe sinne te maak. ’n Algoritme wat ontwikkel is vir sintaksgebaseerde statistiese masjienvertaling word gebruik om reëls te onttrek uit die afrigdata, waarvan sintaksontleding op die korrekte weergawe van die sinne gedoen is. Reëlgewigte word ook vanaf die afrigdata beraam. Hipotese-sinne gegenereer deur die boomoutomaat word herrangskik met behulp van ’n n-gram taalmodel. Ons voer eksperimente uit om die doeltreffendheid van verskillende opstellings van die voorgestelde modelle te evalueer. In ons implementering word ’n bestaande boomoutomaat sagtewarepakket gebruik. Om die dekoderingstyd te verminder word sinne in frases verdeel en die soekruimte heuristies besnoei. Ons oorweeg verskeie modelleringskeuses in die samestelling van outomaatreëls. Die evaluering van ons modelle word gebaseer op presisie en herroepvermoë. Eksperimente word uitgevoer om verskeie fouttipes reg te maak op twee leerderkorpora. Die resultate wys dat ons model kompeterend is met bestaande benaderings op verskeie fouttipes.

Thesis (MEd )--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / This research was undertaken due to the increase of Afrikaans L1 learners in an English medium class and the problems these learners face. This study reports on An Observation Survey of Early Learning Achievement (Clay, 2002) in order to assess the emergent literacy of grade two learners in terms of specific literacy skills in English. This survey aimed to assist the educator in determining the progress and processing behaviours made by Afrikaans L1 learners in terms of literacy content in an English medium class. The Observation Survey was conducted thrice over a three month period. It was aimed at determining what processing skills and strategies the learners use and if traditional teaching combined with Outcomes Based Education (OBE) enabled learners to acquire strategies for learning. Simultaneously it was determined if code switching, code mixing and mother tongue (Afrikaans) use facilitated learning. The data indicated the language problems, preference and proficiency of the learners. This research necessitated the use of both quantitative and qualitative data. Using a case study design, a qualitative tool with quantitative elements was used to collect data. Further data was collected at parent meetings with the learners in the study as well as from written correspondence from parents. This data gave insight to the learner’s ethnographic background and the language proficiency of the parents. The findings of this study indicate the need for ongoing support and in-service training for educators in the ever changing curriculum. In conclusion it was determined that various factors contribute to the literacy development of learners. In order for them to stay abreast with the curriculum further research and support is imperative for educators.