Some have argued in favor of translation in the L2 classroom (Danchev, 1983; Levenston, 1985; Ballester Casado, 1991; Newson, 1998; Malloy, 2001; Bonyadi, 2003; Colina, 2006; Kulwindr, 2005; Petrocchi, 2006; House, 2008), while others have argued against it (Sweet, 1899/1964; Jespersen, 1901/1904; Lado, 1957, 1964; Gatenby, 1967; Sankey, 1991), mainly due to its association with the Grammar-Translation Method and the Contrastive Analysis Theory. However, there is limited empirical research evaluating this. The goal of this study is to evaluate the effect of translation tasks in L2 written production. I conducted an experiment with 104 college-students enrolled in a Spanish Advanced Grammar course. The independent variables were type of instruction (explicit vs. implicit) and translation (translation vs. without translation). Four sections of this course were randomly assigned to a group condition: IIG-T (implicit instruction group with translation), IIG-WT (implicit instruction group without translation), EIG-T (explicitinstruction group with translation), EIG-WT (explicit instruction group without translation). Students completed a pretest to assess their proficiency level in writing cover letters. Each condition was given a different step-by-step activity on how to write cover letters. Finally, they wrote a cover letter in Spanish serving as the posttest and composition of the course and they completed a qualitative questionnaire. Data was evaluated via three domains: vocabulary, grammar and discourse, where L2 performance was operationalized as the total number of errors using the same evaluation for both the pretest and posttest. A two-way ANOVA estimated the effect by comparing the aggregated change score (difference between pretest and posttest totals) across the translation and instruction conditions, and also comparing each domain individually. Results indicated that explicit instruction had a significant effect on aggregated change scores and also on discourse change scores. The use or lack of translation and implicit instruction did not have a significant effect on vocabulary and grammar. Therefore, we can still infer that translation was not detrimental for students' L2 acquisition. It will be crucial to implement other empirical studies that involve not only a longitudinal approach but also longer exposure to translation tasks.

<p> This study seeks to examine and compare motivational orientations of French learners across different dimensions: cultural background (USA vs. Russia), educational modality and age (college students vs. private courses learners), gender, and time of studying foreign language. 613 American and Russian learners of French completed the questionnaire addressing 10 motivational factors to study French language. Despite differences in nationality, age, educational background and learning experience, all groups of participants produced nearly identical motivational rankings. The rankings are topped by the Travelling orientation, which seems to be universally appealing, followed by the orientations within the Idealistic motivational cluster (Aesthetic Factors, Culture, Knowledge, and Ideal Self). The Pragmatic motivational cluster (Instrumental orientation, which is sometimes coupled to Emigration and Friendship dimensions) is by far less important. This disposition is also confirmed by the qualitative data. With regard to specific orientations it has been found that US learners score consistently higher in Sociability motivation, whereas Russians score higher in the Peers&rsquo; Encouragement and Aesthetic categories. In regard to gender differences, this study shows that male students appear to be more personable, e.g. among American learners males consistently outscore females in the Friendship category. Referring to age differences, it was found that the overall level of motivation tends to decline with age.</p>

<p> The current study seeks to further the insight on why advanced speakers of additional languages still speak non-natively by connecting the fields of SLA (SLA) and discourse. Invoking the IH (IH) and discourse universals proposed by Chafe, this study seeks to build on previous work in both areas of linguistics. </p><p> Participants for this study were asked to watch a silent film that has been used in discourse research for the better part of the past 40 years called <i> The Pear Film</i>. They then described this film, showing how non-native speakers use their language in real time description. Using a model proposed from the work of Chafe was then used to analyze their noun phrases (NP) and how they are used in terms of identifiability and accessibility. </p><p> Although there were not many incorrect uses of the topics at hand due to the speakers being advanced, there were intriguing results that surfaced. This study revealed that non-native speakers avoided using NPs that had a lower cognitive cost almost altogether and when such were used, they were often used incorrectly. More importantly, however, this study compared these results to a native retelling and revealed the elements of native-like speech that did not surface at all in their speech. This all brings in to question the line of methodology of previous SLA discourse work and the need for more research looking at actual spoken language of non-native speakers.</p><p>

<p> In this thesis, a new methodology is proposed for investigating Spanish [s] lenition (sound weakening or loss) via morphological analysis instead of phonetics. Word-final [s] is a morphological plural marker in Castilian Spanish, but is rarely produced in Western Andalusian Spanish (WAS). It is often asserted in the literature that the loss of [s] in WAS requires plurality to be expressed fcvia alternative means. The results of this study rule out lexical and morpho-syntactic compensation for [s] lenition in WAS in several previously untested domains, and imply that there is no functional motivation in Modern Spanish driving a need for compensation for word-final [s] lenition on nouns or determiners. This investigation is built on a predictable calculation of the environments in which the loss of [s] may result in derived singular/plural homophony in WAS nouns. This is used to quantify potential semantic ambiguity. A frequency comparison of 27,366 WAS and Castilian nouns, across 60 specific Determiner + Noun phrase environments, finds no significant differences between the dialects in the type or token frequencies of numerically ambiguous nouns, nor in 98.7% of the tested phrase environments. When taken in context with studies excluding phonetic compensation in WAS, the current results suggest that the low semantic relevance of word-final [s] in Modern Spanish is a potentially far-reaching explanation for the variable manifestations of [s] lenition experienced in Spanish dialects across the world.</p><p>

This study analyzed how six Heritage language learners at the university level gained conscious awareness and control of the concept of modality as revealed in student verbalizations (Vygotsky, 1998) throughout five different written communicative events. This work took place in the only course designed for Heritage language learners at a large public suburban university in the Northeast part of the United States. Grammatical simplification in bilingual speakers is due to incomplete acquisition of Spanish, attrition or loss of an underused linguistic system (Lynch, 1999; Martínez Mira, 2009a, 2009b; Mikulski, 2010b; Montrul, 2007; Ocampo, 1990; Silva-Corvalán, 1990, 1994a, 1994b, 2003; Studerus, 1995). The result of the process of simplification is reduction or loss of forms and/or meanings. In this work, I investigated in which ways Gal'perin's (1989) systemic-theoretical organized instruction promoted awareness, control and internalization of the concept of modality in three sets of data: definition, discourse and verbalization (Negueruela, 2003). In addition, I examined how the concept of modality emerged and proceeded. By focusing students' attention in Negueruela's (2003) Concept of Mood in Spanish orienting chart in a top down fashion, students were able to strengthen their theoretical understanding in practical activity while still accessing empirical knowledge, and eventually generalizing its use in new contexts across nominal, adjectival and adverbial clauses. At the definition level, Gal'perin's Systemic-theoretical instruction promoted emergence and progress of their conceptual understanding from perceptual to semantic. At the discourse level, students' theoretically based semantic understanding had a positive impact as revealed in student's discourse progress throughout tasks. At the verbalization level, semantic, abstract and systematic verbalizations showed students' emergence of awareness of the interrelated categories of modality. The conceptual category of anticipation was appropriately verbalized and contextualized 68% of the time. The absence of quality verbalizations referring to a specific conceptual category in some students lead me to conclude that students did not fully understand the meaning of some conceptual categories. On the contrary, their presence in any of the tasks showed emergence of conceptual meaning(s) in appropriate contexts, further appropriate recontextualization may provide full awareness and control.