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Cai, Jing. / "August 2010." / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-161). / Abstracts in English and Chinese; some appendixes in English and Chinese. / Chapter CHAPTER ONE --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter CHAPTER TWO --- p.4 / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.4 / Chapter 2.2 --- What is transfer? --- p.4 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- History and development of transfer research --- p.4 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- The problem of definition-transfer or CLI? --- p.7 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Interlanguage transfer --- p.9 / Chapter 2.3 --- What can be transferred? --- p.10 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Different types of transfer --- p.10 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Transfer in comprehension- an ignored area in the transfer study --- p.13 / Chapter 2.4 --- The study of third language acquisition (TLA) and CLI in TLA --- p.15 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- Factors that influence transfer in the multilingual context --- p.15 / Chapter 2.4.2 --- The role of (psycho) typology in the cross-linguistic influence of TLA --- p.18 / Chapter 2.4.3 --- The role of L2 proficiency --- p.21 / Chapter 2.5 --- Methodological considerations in the study of transfer --- p.23 / Chapter 2.5.1 --- Research using think-aloud protocol in reading comprehension --- p.25 / Chapter 2.5.2 --- Think-aloud protocol in the study of transfer --- p.26 / Chapter 2.5.3 --- Controversies and limitations in using the think-aloud method --- p.27 / Chapter 2.6 --- "A contrastive analysis of tense and aspect in Chinese, English and French" --- p.29 / Chapter 2.6.1 --- Tenses in French and in English --- p.29 / Chapter 2.6.2 --- Aspectual systems of French and English --- p.30 / Chapter 2.6.3 --- Tense and aspect in Mandarin Chinese --- p.34 / Chapter 2.6.4 --- Passe compose in French --- p.35 / Chapter 2.7 --- "Pilot studies: findings, implications and modifications" --- p.38 / Chapter 2.7.1 --- "The first pilot study (June, 2009)" --- p.38 / Chapter 2.7.2 --- "The second pilot study (July, 2009)" --- p.39 / Chapter 2.7.3 --- "The third pilot study (July, 2009)" --- p.40 / Chapter 2.8 --- Research questions --- p.43 / Chapter CHAPTER THREE --- METHODOLOGY --- p.44 / Chapter 3.1 --- Participants --- p.44 / Chapter 3.2 --- Sampling procedure --- p.44 / Chapter 3.3 --- Data collection technique: The think-aloud protocol --- p.46 / Chapter 3.4 --- The warming-up (training) session of TAP --- p.47 / Chapter 3.5 --- Research design --- p.48 / Chapter 3.5.1 --- Task one: On-line comprehension task --- p.48 / Chapter 3.5.2 --- Task Two: a test on English past and perfect tenses --- p.51 / Chapter 3.5.3 --- Task three: a follow-up interview --- p.52 / Chapter 3.6 --- Materials --- p.53 / Chapter 3.7 --- Data processing --- p.54 / Chapter 3.8 --- Data analysis --- p.55 / Chapter CHAPTER FOUR --- GENERAL RESULTS --- p.57 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.57 / Chapter 4.2 --- General results on how the tasks were completed --- p.57 / Chapter 4.3 --- Describing the coding scheme --- p.60 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- The criterion for judging the case of transfer and its category --- p.64 / Chapter 4.4 --- Answers to Research Question 1 --- p.67 / Chapter 4.5 --- Answers to Research Question 3 --- p.71 / Chapter 4.5.1 --- Some general descriptive analysis of transfer in tense and aspect --- p.71 / Chapter 4.5.2 --- Relationship between transfer (in tense and aspect) and other variables --- p.73 / Chapter 4.6 --- Answers to Research Question 4 --- p.80 / Chapter 4.6.1 --- Different causes for errors in tense and aspect- ProE and ProF --- p.82 / Chapter 4.7 --- General results of Research Question 2 --- p.84 / Chapter 4.8 --- Conclusion --- p.97 / Chapter CHAPTER FIVE --- DISCUSSION --- p.99 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.99 / Chapter 5.2 --- Research questions readdressed --- p.99 / Chapter 5.3 --- Discussion of Research Question 1 --- p.100 / Chapter 5.4 --- Discussion of Research Question 3 --- p.104 / Chapter 5.4.1 --- General descriptive analysis --- p.104 / Chapter 5.4.2 --- Discussion of the relationship between transfer in tense and aspect and other variables related to L2 proficiency --- p.104 / Chapter 5.5 --- Discussion of Research Question 4 --- p.111 / Chapter 5.6 --- Discussion of Research Question 2 --- p.114 / Chapter 5.6.1 --- System transfer from Chinese in tense and aspect --- p.115 / Chapter 5.6.2 --- Patterns of transfer from English in tense and aspect- a dynamic system --- p.117 / Chapter 5.6.3 --- Cross-linguistic interaction in third language acquisition --- p.126 / Chapter 5.7 --- Conclusion --- p.129 / Chapter CHAPTER SIX --- "IMPLICATIONS, LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH" --- p.132 / Chapter 6.1 --- Introduction --- p.132 / Chapter 6.2 --- Implications for L3 instructions --- p.132 / Chapter 6.3 --- Limitations of the current study --- p.136 / Chapter 6.4 --- Suggestions for future research --- p.140 / BIBLIOGRAPHY / APPENDICES

Book Summary: Phonemic awareness and phonetic skill are the backbones of phonological theory. In phonological acquisition, the presence or lack of the former crucially determines the outcome of the latter. This inescapably becomes a common thread that interweaves developmental phonology in both childhood and adulthood. Child and adult-learner speech in the course of development constitute separate linguistic systems in their own right: they are intermediate states whose endpoint is, or ought to be, mastery of targeted speech either in a first or a second language. These intermediate states form the theme of this volume which introduces the term protolanguage (to refer to child language in development) and juxtaposes it with interlanguage (to refer to language development in adulthood). Although major languages like English and Spanish are included, there is an emphasis in the book on under-reported languages: monolingual Hungarian and Swedish and bilingual combinations, like Greek-English and German-English. There is also a focus on under-represented studies in IL: L2 German from L1 French; L2 English from Catalan and Portuguese; and in dialectal acquisition of Ecuadorian Spanish from Andalusian speakers. This volume brings together different methodological approaches with a stress on both phonetic and phonological analysis. It includes both child and adult developmental perspectives, descriptive and/or theoretical results from a combination of methodological approaches (e.g. single-case, cross-sectional; spontaneous speech samples, narrative retells) and a consideration of speech acquisition in the general context of language. The volume aims to motivate a shift in the general tendency among researchers to specialize in language subfields (L1 acquisition; L2 acquisition, bilingualism; typical/atypical language) of what is actually one common linguistic domain, i.e. the study of speech sounds (phonology/phonetics).

This project deals with the sociocultural and pragmatic aspects of second language acquisition. Most current research in this field examines the ability of second language learners to produce socioculturally appropriate utterances in simulated speech settings. Researchers are interested in whether students can interact adequately within the confines of both their linguistic competence and the foreign culture's interactional norms. Analyses of learners' speech routines are quite valuable to our understanding of their ability to enact conversational routines. However, they do not indicate to use what the learners understand; that is, they do not tease apart what learners understand to be true about the language from what they can do under the pressure of performance. The purpose of this dissertation is to determine whether learners of Russian perceive the sociocultural weight of the two personal pronouns for 'you,' ty (informal/intimate) and Vy (formal/polite). In this project, the term understand is used in two ways, each of which is tested empirically. First, understanding implies knowledge about the pragmatic impact of the pronouns. Do learners correctly indicate which pronoun is appropriate in context? Second, understanding is listening ability. Do learners utilize their pragmatic knowledge when they listen to native speech? Or do proficiency factors, individual learner characteristics, syntactic saliency (overt pronoun vs. pro-drop), and overall attentional limitations affect their listening ability? Students at Middlebury College and at the University of Iowa participated in two experimental tasks evaluating their pragmatic knowledge and listening ability with the ty / Vy feature: (a) a metapragmatic judgment task and (b) a listening task using video clips from famous Russian films. Results indicate that pragmatic knowledge is not significantly different across proficiency levels, nor is perception of the pronouns in a listening task; that is, beginning learners and advanced learners demonstrate similar ability with the understanding of the feature. Furthermore, female learners outperformed male learners on the listening task, although performance on the pragmatic knowledge task did not vary by gender. These results add to the body of knowledge in second language acquisition and, more specifically, to our knowledge of how pragmatic features of a language are acquired.

This study, undertaken within the field of interlanguage pragmatics, investigates the kinds of pragmatic failures observed among tertiary level foreign learners of Japanese and also seeks to find reasons to help explain the occurrence of these failures. The focus of the study is on the data generated from a role play where a student has to borrow a book from their Japanese teacher. The primary role play is performed by nine beginner level learners of Japanese studying at an Australian university, but the role play is also performed by ten Japanese native speakers in order to determine what is normative for native speakers in this situation. Unlike previous studies in this area, this research collects kinesic non-verbal data in addition to linguistic data. The data is analysed using Thomas's (1983) concept of pragmatic failure, and Brown and Levinson's (1978, 1987) politeness theory. The study also considers whether Japanese native speakers evenly evaluate the role play performances of the Japanese learners. Despite difficulties in the application of these linguistic theories to beginner level learners, a number of sociopragmatic failures and one pragmalinguistic failure are observed in the role play performances of the Japanese learners. These are partially explained by a lack of instruction, nervousness in performing the role play and the learners' limited proficiency in the Japanese language. Inconsistencies are also observed in the way that JNS participants evaluate the role play performances of the JFL learners.

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Center for Language Studies, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 26-28).

This study aimed to investigate Chinese EFL interlanguage complaint behaviors in terms of production collected by role play and DCT. Four contextual factors were involved: social distance, social status, gender and obligation. A total of 320 role plays were elicited from 80 college students, including 20 native speakers of English, 20 native speakers of Chinese, 20 EFL-low proficiency learners and 20 EFL-high proficiency learners. Additionally, the DCT data were elicited by 180 participants, including 60 native speakers of Chinese, 60 native speakers of English, 30 EFL-high proficiency learners and 30 EFL-low proficiency learners. Three aspects of complaints were examined: complaint strategies, complaint modifications and the effect of language proficiency. Results showed that no matter in role play or on DCT, participants tended to use more indirect strategies to avoid conflicts with others. Below the level of Reproach was the main complaint strategy they used. Besides, the complaint strategies used by the four groups were quite similar in role play. However, they differed in the frequency of strategy use, the preference orders, and modifications used in making their complaints. On the other hand, participants performed quite differently on DCT. They differed in strategy use, but there were no significant difference in frequency use, preference orders, and the use of modifications. Furthermore, NS-E tended to use more direct strategies than EFL learners. This result echoed Olshtain and Weinbach¡¦s (1993) findings that learners would use less severe strategies than native speakers because learners would try to ¡§¡Kavoid straightforward face-threatening interactions at all costs¡¨ (p. 115). Besides, proficiency effect is found in EFL learners¡¦ interlanguage complaints production. It is more difficult for EFL-L learners to make complaints because of their low L2 proficiency. For future studies, gathering natural occurring data to compare the differences between role play is suggested. Besides, due to time limitation, the issue of interlocutor gender differences is not discussed and future work could include this matter to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the speech at of complaints.

published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

Not available / text

The present study adopted Articulatory Phonology as a theoretical framework to investigate the aticulatory timing of English consonant clusters. Both native and non-native (Mandarin ESL learners) speakers’ performances were of interest. An acoustic approach was taken to explore the consonantal overlap in both native and non-native English speakers’ production. Also investigated in the present study were the factors that influence the overlap between consonants. Thirty-one native Mandarin speakers and eight native Canadian English speakers participated in the study. The thirty-one native Mandarin speakers were divided into three proficiency groups according to a pretest which evaluated Mandarin speakers’ English speaking proficiency. The experiment of the study was a reading task. Participants were instructed to put the words ending with the target consonant clusters in four carrier sentences and read them aloud. In total, 256 tokens (20 clusters×2 vowel environments×4 carrier sentences+12 consonants×2 vowel environments×4 carrier sentences) were recorded for each participant. The duration of each segment in the word was measured in the phonetic software, Praat. Three timing ratios: consonant to cluster, cluster to a pair of individual consonants, and cluster to rime were calculated. Repeated measures ANOVAs showed significant effect for place of articulation and manner of articulation on the articulatory timing of English consonant clusters in the coda position. Meanwhile, voicing feature, as an unexpected factor, was also reported to be an influential factor. More detailed analysis revealed that heterorganic clusters have more overlap than homorganic clusters. Within heterorganic clusters, a tongue tip consonant is more overlapped by a following tongue body consonant than a tongue body consonant is by a following tongue tip consonant. For manner of articulation, stops are found to be more overlapped by a following stop than by a following fricative. Overlapping caused by voicing feature was an unexpected outcome found in the present study. Voiceless consonant clusters have more overlap than voiced clusters. The difference between native and non-native speakers is also of interest. With respect to the amount of overlap, native speakers have more overlap than non-native speakers. Moreover, statistic tests reported a significant effect for proficiency group. From the comparison of mean values of three ratios, the performance of advanced group was close to native speakers. And intermediate and low groups exhibited similar performance. / Graduate