This study explores the effects of socio-economic background on attitudes towards L2 motivation within Gardner's (e.g. 1985, 2000, 2001, 2002) Integrative Motivation framework. Recent findings by Dörnyei & Csizér (2002) and Csizér & Dörnyei (2005) have cast doubt on the explanatory power of 'integrativeness' for monolingual contexts of language learning. While the authors propose a reformulation of the concept based on the learners' construction of "possible selves", this thesis stresses the need to delve deeper into the origins of such representations to better understand FL learners' attitudes and motivation. Socio-economic background is thus proposed as a potentially fruitful avenue of investigation. Despite the current emphasis on contextualized motivation (Clément & Gardner 2001, Dörnyei 2001b, Gardner 2002, McGroarty 1998, 2001, Spolsky 2000), and strong indications from sociology about the impact of social stratification on human behavior (Grusky 1994), no systematic empirical work shows how socio-economic status may impinge upon FL motivation. To investigate the socio-economic dimension of motivation, two questionnaires were designed based (1) on Gardner's (1985) AMTB and (2) on Bourdieu's (1986) tripartite conceptualization of capital. Parental occupation was also used as an additional measure of socio-economic level. Both questionnaires were administered among 39 fourth-graders (9-10 years of age) enrolled in EFL intensive classes in six public so-called Plurilingual Schools in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Though not conclusive or generalizable due to the reduced pool of respondents and the novel testing conditions and instruments, this study gives some evidence in support of a predictive role of economic capital and parental occupation on motivation. Overall, more economically disadvantaged EFL learners showed more positive attitudes towards the benefits of learning English to attain present and future goals, and they were more generally motivated to learn the language as well. Possible interpretations of these results in light of Bourdieu's 'habitus' as well as the potential effects of parental expectations and performance anxiety are discussed.

This experimental study aims to test the effectiveness of three different techniques designed to support the learning problems associated with generalizing an L1 phoneme with allophonic variation (/l/ ¡æ /©©/ word finally) to all L2 environments, learning that an L1 allophone (/t/, /d/ ¡æ flap word-medially before an unstressed syllable) has phonemic status in the L2, and learning an L2 phoneme that does not exist in the L1 (/r/). All the experimental groups received equal exposure to the three target segments. The only difference between the groups was the treatment. The treatment exercises included equal exposure to the three target segments, but exclusively covered either articulatory practice, contrasting environments for the same sound or English-Spanish pairs. Each treatment was predicted to be optimally effective for one segment in particular, based on the learning problem associated with each of the three segments included in the study. The effectiveness of each treatment was measured quantitatively based on improvements in test scores measuring pronunciation accuracy. The 53 study participants were native speakers of English enrolled in first-semester Spanish at the University of Pittsburgh. Subjects were divided into three experimental groups and one control group. With the exception of the control group, course instructors engaged students in daily imitation drills over a four-week period. Results were evaluated by means of a word list recording for the pretest and posttest. The main and interaction effects of time, treatment and position for each of the target sounds were analyzed using a 3-way ANCOVA. A second set of 3-way ANCOVAs measured the effects of time, position and test item frequency for each sound. None of the outcomes supported the hypotheses that predicted each treatment would be maximally effective for one of the target sounds. A variety of factors, such as variation in instruction, may have influenced overall improvements in accuracy. It is possible that the treatments might have produced significant outcomes had the treatment been longer. Despite the lack of statistically significant outcomes, the results suggest that explicit instruction in pronunciation can have a positive effect on pronunciation accuracy.

The use of group work in the second language classroom has become common with the introduction of Communicative Language Teaching. The focus on group work has led to a body of research analyzing differences in student speech in the group work and teacher-fronted environments. The present study focused on differences in pronunciation accuracy in these two environments, and the influence that language anxiety may have on these differences. The results show that pronunciation accuracy does not differ between the two environments. In addition, there was no significant relationship between pronunciation accuracy and anxiety in the group work environment. However, there was a significant negative correlation (r = -.562, p = .012) between language anxiety and pronunciation accuracy in the teacher-fronted environment. This suggests that language anxiety only has negative effects on pronunciation during teacher-fronted activities.

In this study, I examine the sociological, socio-psychological, and psychological domains of two Quichua-speaking communities—one urban and one rural—in Imbabura, Ecuador. The goal of the study is to determine the ethnolinguistic vitality (EV) of these two groups, and, ultimately, to predict whether a situation of language maintenance or language shift will prevail. Previous studies of EV have considered one of these three domains, but very few have considered all three. Furthermore, none has sought to measure ethnolinguistic vitality in the Quichua context. This study examines the role of various factors, particularly the individual network of linguistic contacts, in the survival of a particular language and ethnic group. Giles, Bourhis, and Taylor introduced the notion of ethnolinguistic vitality—defined as "that which makes a group likely to behave as a distinctive and active collective entity in intergroup situations" (1977, p. 308)—in the late 1970s as a theoretical framework for analyzing intergroup relations within a contact situation. Those with little vitality eventually cease to exist as distinctive linguistic groups within the intergroup setting. Allard and Landry (1987) developed a macroscopic model, including Giles et al.'s notions of objective (sociological level) and subjective (psychological level) EV, and adding to them the notion of individual networks of linguistic contacts (socio-psychological level) to mediate between the other two levels. This macroscopic model is the one I have followed in this study. To examine the sociological level, I used census and descriptive data. To investigate both the socio-psychological and the psychological levels, I used quantitative and qualitative approaches. I employed questionnaires, orally administered to a sample of 100 Indigenous persons between the ages of 18 and 25, and six elite interviews with Indigenous leaders. The findings of this study reveal the importance of the individual network of linguistic contacts for maintenance of a stable bilingual situation. At the same time they reveal the pervasive influence of the dominant language and culture, which threatens to undermine efforts to maintain and revitalize the ethnic language. Only with considerable planning and effort will these two communities be able to maintain Quichua in a stable bilingual situation.

Talmy (1975; 1985) proposes that most of the worlds languages can be divided into two classes regarding their expression of Motion Situations. The difference between these languages lies in the additional elements with which Motion is combined in the verb root. Spanish, for instance, typically describes the Motion and the Path in the verb root, while English conflates Motion and Manner in the verb. Speakers of a language must therefore focus their attention on different aspects of a Motion Situation in order to effectively describe it in their language. Prior research has attempted to discover whether L2 speakers can learn a new way of experiencing Motion Situations in order to describe them later. The consensus is that this is a difficult change to make at most levels, even for near-native speakers. This thesis looks at some fundamental elements of how native speakers of English develop their ability to express motion at two early stages of learning Spanish. The productive ability of beginning and low-intermediate Spanish L2 learners was analyzed against native speakers during the narration of a wordless picture book as well as filling in blanks of a Spanish representation. The results show that beginning students use many light manner verb constructions including phonologically null light verbs. Similarly, low-intermediate students revert to English when the production of a Motion Situation requires the conflation of Motion and Path instead of Manner. These findings suggest that Talmys typological framework may not explore issues with L2 transfer deeply enough. Instead, a finer-grained analysis can explain some results that are not predicted by Talmys typology. It is suggested that this style of analysis continue to be used to better describe the early process of L2 Spanish acquisition.

This paper contributes to the literature on the transferability of grapho-morphological awareness (GMA) for L2 learners by analyzing L2 learners morphology knowledge at the word and text level. GMA helps readers to identify grammatical categories, infer meanings of unfamiliar words, and access stored lexical information (Koda, 2008). Previous research indicates that L2 GMA is influenced by L1 GMA (Fender 2003; Hancin-Bhatt & Nagy, 1994; Koda, 2000; Ramirez, et. al., 2010; Schiff & Calif, 2007). In this paper, native speakers of Spanish (n=30) and native speakers of English learning Spanish as an L2 (n=46) completed four tasks: two timed lexical decision tasks (LDT) in English (only English speakers) and Spanish; three short passages followed by multiple choice questions; a cloze task; and an interview to discuss their answers. L2 learners show a native-like word recognition pattern (Clahsen & Felser, 2006a, 2006b), providing evidence for a language-specific morphological processing. L2 learners could recognize and decompose words into morphemes and lexemes through the different tasks, which implies that they neither ignore morphology nor follow a whole-word reading approach. However, this ability did not always help them to access the right word meaning. Also, orthographically similar words from L1 and L2 interfere with word recognition of inflected and derived words. Despite showing interference in inflected words during the timed LDT, they show a greater control during the interviews. However, derivational morphology is more difficult for L2 learners since they do not know derivational constraints either implicitly or explicitly. The results suggest that intermediate L2 learners with an alphabetic writing system in their L1 can go beyond transfer in an alphabetic L2, and that the relationship between proficiency and GMA might be reciprocal (Kuo & Anderson, 2008).

No description available.

This dissertation examines the role of the native dialect in non-native perception and production in the specific case of Cuban and Peninsular Spanish as native varieties and of English vowels as in hat, hut, hot as the target. In most second language studies, the learners’ native variety is assumed to be homogenous, regardless of their regional variety. Nevertheless, regional varieties differ in non-trivial ways and such differences need to be considered when analyzing second language acquisition. This dissertation takes shape around the main research question of whether potentially systematic differences between vowels in the native dialects of Cuban and Peninsular Spanish would produce matching phonetic differences in non-native perception and production of English vowels. This question was addressed in three experiments that compared native vowels in these Spanish varieties, as well as the perception and production of the target English vowels as in hat, hut, hot by Cuban and Peninsular Spanish learners. Significant cross-dialectal differences were identified in the production of native vowels, namely, locations of /i, o/, durations of /e, a, o/ as well as different variability patterns, which were predicted to influence mapping of sounds in L2 perception and production. In L2 perception, discrimination for advanced and naïve listeners from each dialect was tested with English contrasts as in hat-hut, hut-hot, and hat-hot. No clear native dialect effect could be identified; however, Cuban advanced listeners obtained high error rates with hut-hot. In L2 production, though, dialect-specific patterns were found: Peninsular learners produced vowels as in hat, hut, hot with significant spectral but no durational differences whereas Cuban learners produced vowels as in hut, hot with no significant spectral but with duration differences. I concluded that the native dialect was one of several factors generating the differences between Peninsular and Cuban participants’ perception and production of English vowels as in hat, hut, hot. The conjoint effect of the native dialect, input and learning experience were shown to have contributed to the distinctions. This finding contributes to second language acquisition research because it stresses the need to control for learners’ native dialect. This research contributed new acoustic data on Cuban Spanish and on L2 English. It uncovered specific patterns and interlanguage strategies of Spanish learners of English.

This dissertation examines the role of the native dialect in non-native perception and production in the specific case of Cuban and Peninsular Spanish as native varieties and of English vowels as in hat, hut, hot as the target. In most second language studies, the learners’ native variety is assumed to be homogenous, regardless of their regional variety. Nevertheless, regional varieties differ in non-trivial ways and such differences need to be considered when analyzing second language acquisition. This dissertation takes shape around the main research question of whether potentially systematic differences between vowels in the native dialects of Cuban and Peninsular Spanish would produce matching phonetic differences in non-native perception and production of English vowels. This question was addressed in three experiments that compared native vowels in these Spanish varieties, as well as the perception and production of the target English vowels as in hat, hut, hot by Cuban and Peninsular Spanish learners. Significant cross-dialectal differences were identified in the production of native vowels, namely, locations of /i, o/, durations of /e, a, o/ as well as different variability patterns, which were predicted to influence mapping of sounds in L2 perception and production. In L2 perception, discrimination for advanced and naïve listeners from each dialect was tested with English contrasts as in hat-hut, hut-hot, and hat-hot. No clear native dialect effect could be identified; however, Cuban advanced listeners obtained high error rates with hut-hot. In L2 production, though, dialect-specific patterns were found: Peninsular learners produced vowels as in hat, hut, hot with significant spectral but no durational differences whereas Cuban learners produced vowels as in hut, hot with no significant spectral but with duration differences. I concluded that the native dialect was one of several factors generating the differences between Peninsular and Cuban participants’ perception and production of English vowels as in hat, hut, hot. The conjoint effect of the native dialect, input and learning experience were shown to have contributed to the distinctions. This finding contributes to second language acquisition research because it stresses the need to control for learners’ native dialect. This research contributed new acoustic data on Cuban Spanish and on L2 English. It uncovered specific patterns and interlanguage strategies of Spanish learners of English.

Past theorists have shown through their work the versatility and advantages of utilizing pre-established schemata to form a novice’s interaction with and comprehension of a text. Schemata have shown to contribute to comprehension by means of four purposes: to disambiguate, to elaborate, to filter, and to compensate (Lee & VanPatten 1999). Furthermore, we see that these schemata, or formerly attained background knowledge, are integral parts of Coady’s ESL psycholinguistic reading model (1979) , as well as Carrel’s schema theory (1984). Previous studies done by Jimenez (2000) and that of Valdés (2001) with ESL/LEP students show that motivation for learning a second language is partly derived from the social environment in which students are participants. Valdés’ study in particular supports a Funds of Knowledge Approach (Moll et. al. 1994), which stresses the need for increased attention on the social environment of the student. The present study focuses on novel L2 lexical item decoding. Students will be given a “pre-study” questionnaire in order to ascertain knowledge of and ability level of Spanish. Novices will encounter the lexical items in two different short texts. One will activate a known “social schema”, while the other will be a text for which students will not have a background structure. There will be the same amount of novel lexical items in both texts, and each text will be of the same level. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to investigate whether, and how, students interpret the meanings of novel lexical items when they are presented in a “socially tailored” text. This new “socio-schematic approach” to L2 lexical item decoding can contribute to the stages of Reading Skill and Acquisition outlined by ACTFL. By applying this “socio-schematic approach”, implications for foreign language learning can be linked to the stages of ACTFL.