This study explores how bilingualism impacts lexical selection within spontaneous spoken language production. The particular analysis focuses on the choice between synonymous verbs in English. The main hypothesis predicts that, as a result of crosslinguistic influence, bilingual speakers of French and English will opt for the English synonym which has structural correspondence to the French translation equivalent more often than monolingual speakers, who do not experience an influence from French. Structural correspondence exists in two distinct ways: in the form of cognates (e.g., applaudir/applaud vs. clap) and in terms of the number of free morphemes used to convey the same semantic information (e.g., lever/raise vs. put up). The language production data was generated by participants viewing video scenes and describing the action as it progressed. The frequency with which the different verbs were used was then compared across the different participant groups: monolingual English speakers and bilingual speakers of both French and English. The bilingual group was also subdivided based on language dominance. A range of different analyses were conducted. A framework is established for interpreting the data. Bilingualism can have one of three main effects on the speech of bilinguals relative to monolinguals: (a) an expanding effect, in which bilinguals use a wider range of lexical forms than monolinguals, (b) a limiting effect, in which bilinguals use a more limited range of lexical items than bilinguals, and (c) a modifying effect, in which the range of lexical items is basically the same between bilinguals and monolinguals but varies in terms of the frequency with which those lexical forms are used (a type of CLI labeled covert). These effects interact with certain speaker variables such as which language is the speakers dominant language. The stage(s) within the language production process at which CLI impacts ultimate lexicalization is also explored. Current models of language production which focus on lexical selection are discussed. The results of this study are most compatible with specific notions such as lexical access being target-language non-specific (see Costa, 2004, for example) and the Weaker Links Hypothesis (e.g., Gollan and Silverberg, 2001; Gollan, Montoya, & Werner, 2002).

This study investigates the use of authentic subtitled similar task videos (ASSTVs) and their relationship to second language negotiation of meaning and language production among non-native speakers of English in an online task-based language learning (TBLL) environment. Over the course of two weeks, twenty intermediate nonnative speakers (NNSs) of English from the English Language Institute at Texas A&M University engaged in four communicative tasks in pairs using an online TBLL environment designed specifically for this study, and a chat tool in WebCT Vista, a course management system provided by the university. ASSTVs were videotaped and integrated into the online TBLL environment. Participants were divided into two groups, each of which consisted of five dyads, to test the effects of ASSTVs. Five dyads were provided with the ASSTVs and the remaining five dyads were not provided with them before the task completion process. The first section of this study examines the effects of ASSTVs on negotiation of meaning, and the second section examines the effects on language production. The amount of negotiation of meaning was calculated through the negotiation of meaning sequences model developed by Gass and Varonis and revised for online communication by Smith. Language production was investigated in terms of fluency and complexity with regard to lexical and syntactic complexity. A detailed analysis of the data from the chat-scripts showed that NNSs engage in more negotiation of meaning and produce more fluent and lexically diverse language when provided with the ASSTVs than NNSs who were not provided with them. Based on these findings, this study concludes that using ASSTVs in an online TBLL environment is a viable and effective tool for promoting negotiation of meaning and language production in terms of fluency and lexical complexity.

This study investigates the use of authentic subtitled similar task videos (ASSTVs) and their relationship to second language negotiation of meaning and language production among non-native speakers of English in an online task-based language learning (TBLL) environment. Over the course of two weeks, twenty intermediate nonnative speakers (NNSs) of English from the English Language Institute at Texas A&M University engaged in four communicative tasks in pairs using an online TBLL environment designed specifically for this study, and a chat tool in WebCT Vista, a course management system provided by the university. ASSTVs were videotaped and integrated into the online TBLL environment. Participants were divided into two groups, each of which consisted of five dyads, to test the effects of ASSTVs. Five dyads were provided with the ASSTVs and the remaining five dyads were not provided with them before the task completion process. The first section of this study examines the effects of ASSTVs on negotiation of meaning, and the second section examines the effects on language production. The amount of negotiation of meaning was calculated through the negotiation of meaning sequences model developed by Gass and Varonis and revised for online communication by Smith. Language production was investigated in terms of fluency and complexity with regard to lexical and syntactic complexity. A detailed analysis of the data from the chat-scripts showed that NNSs engage in more negotiation of meaning and produce more fluent and lexically diverse language when provided with the ASSTVs than NNSs who were not provided with them. Based on these findings, this study concludes that using ASSTVs in an online TBLL environment is a viable and effective tool for promoting negotiation of meaning and language production in terms of fluency and lexical complexity.

The purpose of this study is to investigate disfluency and gesture in the second language under specific conditions such as familiarity vs. non-familiarity, concrete topic type vs. abstract topic type and speaking with native speaker vs. speaker with non-native speaker. The sample of this study was sixteen students from the Department of Basic English in Middle East Technical University (DBE), three instructors from DBE and one instructor from Modern Language Department in Middle East Technical University. Two of the instructors are native and the rest of them are non-native speakers of English. With an assigned instructor each student spoke on the following topics: making spaghetti, giving directions, spring festival and clashing midterms, and effects of religion on our life. The conversations on each topic were recorded audio-visually. Then the audio-visual data was annotated in terms of linguistic and gestural elements. In order to explore the relation among disfluency, gesture and controlled variables, quantitative data analysis methods were used. Levelt&rsquo / s speech production and Krauss&rsquo / s gesture production model were used as a basic framework. Dual Coding theory and Metalinguistic Awareness Theory was used to explain intricate results of the present study. As a result of the study, it was found that in the concrete topic condition, learners speak more fluently because of time and topic effects. Similarly, in the condition of familiar addressee and native speaker, learners speak more fluently than they do when speaking with a non-familiar or a non- native speaker.

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Language serves as a mechanism through which children are able to interact and communicate with their others. Thus, when children do not produce language at a typical pace, there may be cause for concern. The primary purpose of the current study was to examine the language abilities of children displaying various forms of social withdrawal and children engaging in subtypes of aggression. Participants came from the Brigham Young University Child Laboratory (N = 141; Mage = 4.57; 53% female) and were observed and teachers and parents completed reports on children's behaviors and demographics. Results revealed reticent and solitary-passive children to produce less language compared to their non-withdrawn peers and comorbid aggressive children to produce more language compared to their non-aggressive, physically aggressive and relationally aggressive peers. I then discuss contextual and conceptual factors that may play a role in understanding the relation between language production, social withdrawal and aggression.

Language serves as a mechanism through which children are able to interact and communicate with their others. Thus, when children do not produce language at a typical pace, there may be cause for concern. The primary purpose of the current study was to examine the language abilities of children displaying various forms of social withdrawal and children engaging in subtypes of aggression. Participants came from the Brigham Young University Child Laboratory (N = 141; Mage = 4.57; 53% female) and were observed and teachers and parents completed reports on children's behaviors and demographics. Results revealed reticent and solitary-passive children to produce less language compared to their non-withdrawn peers and comorbid aggressive children to produce more language compared to their non-aggressive, physically aggressive and relationally aggressive peers. I then discuss contextual and conceptual factors that may play a role in understanding the relation between language production, social withdrawal and aggression.

Background speech is annoying and distracting when working on tasks that require focus, and according to previous research, background speech is a common cause of reduced work performance. According to the interference-by-process theory, distraction is a function of the similarity between the processes involved in the involuntary analysis of the background speech and the voluntary processes involved in the task. In view of this theory, a similarity in language—between the produced language and the language that is listened to—may increase the magnitude of distraction by background chatter in comparison with when the language which is produced is different from the language that is perceived. The purpose of the present experiment was to investigate whether work performance—as indexed by writing fluency (WF)—varies depending on the similarity between the language that is heard in the background and the language that is produced. The experiment had a within-participants design with two factors: language to-be-produced (Swedish vs. English) and language of the background speech (Swedish vs. English). The sample constituted of 43 university students, with Swedish as native language. The result showed a main effect of language to-be-produced: WF increased when the participants produced text in their native language compared to text production in their second language. No main effect of language of background speech was found, and no interaction between these two factors was revealed.

Although language usually occurs in an interactive and world-situated context (Clark, 1996), most research on language use to date has studied comprehension and production in isolation. This thesis combines research on comprehension and production, and explores the links between them. Its main focus is on the coordination of visual attention between speakers and listeners, as well as the influence this has on the language they use and the ease with which they understand it. Experiment 1 compared participants’ eye movements during comprehension and production of similar sentences: in a syntactic priming task, they first heard a confederate describe an image using active or passive voice, and then described the same kind of picture themselves (cf. Branigan, Pickering, & Cleland, 2000). As expected, the primary influence on eye movements in both tasks was the unfolding sentence structure. In addition, eye movements during target production were affected by the structure of the prime sentence. Eye movements in comprehension were linked more loosely with speech, reflecting the ongoing integration of listeners’ interpretations with the visual context and other conceptual factors. Experiments 2-7 established a novel paradigm to explore how seeing where a speaker was looking during unscripted production would facilitate identification of the objects they were describing in a photographic scene. Visual coordination in these studies was created artificially through an on-screen cursor which reflected the speaker’s original eye movements (cf. Brennan, Chen, Dickinson, Neider, & Zelinsky, 2007). A series of spatial and temporal manipulations of the link between cursor and speech investigated the respective influences of linguistic and visual information at different points in the comprehension process. Implications and potential future applications are discussed, as well as the relevance of this kind of visual cueing to the processing of real gaze in face-to-face interaction.

This research involved two observational studies. It explored the scaffolding processes as part of classroom pedagogy. The research shed light on the way a teacher's instructional methodology took shape in the classroom. The target event for this study was the time in which a novice learner was engaged publically in uttering a sentence in Arabic in response to a task posed by the teacher. The central question was: What does the teacher do to assist and support this interactive sentence production process? It was decided to label this assistance and support as "scaffolding," i.e., temporary support to help a learner accomplish a challenging task slightly beyond his or her current level of proficiency. The research involved detailed descriptions and analysis of videotaped classroom episodes conducted in first-year Arabic language classrooms at a private liberal arts college during a three-month period. A central finding in this study was that oral Arabic sentence production was achieved through several related steps. These steps involved providing the students a pattern to follow, subsequently removing the pattern, and asking the students to produce sentences after explaining the grammatical rules. The teachers differed in the extent to which they launched models and patterns for students to follow.