This thesis reports on the factors that hinder the acquisition of the past verb forms in (past simple form, past progressive form, past perfect form) by Saudi learners of English. This study argues that Arabic and English share similar grammatical characteristics in the past verb forms. It also sheds light on the role of these similarities in facilitating the acquisition process of the targeted forms. This is a mixed-method study conducted on thirty-six Saudi EFL learners. The participants were assigned to two groups: group A (received treatment session about the past verb forms in English and highlighted their counterparts in Arabic) and group B (received treatment session about the past verb forms in English only). Three types of tasks were employed: multiple choice, gap-filling, and storytelling, and they were conducted at three periods: pre intervention, post intervention, and delayed test. A randomly-selected group was invited for stimulated recall interviews immediately after the delayed test. The interviews were conducted individually. The study answered two research questions and hypotheses: RQ1: To what extent does linking the similarities in the past verb forms between English and Arabic help Saudi EFL learners to acquire these forms? H1: Drawing the Saudi EFL learners’ attention to the similarities in the past verb forms between Arabic and English facilitates their acquisition. RQ2: Does L1 Arabic influence the choice of past verb forms in English for Saudi EFL learners? (a) What is the impact on explicit and implicit knowledge? (b) What is the impact on receptive and productive knowledge? H2: Saudi EFL learners consciously resort to their first language when they lack the correct past verb form in English. The results show that the intervention that highlighted the similarities in past verb forms between Arabic and English helped the participants to acquire the targeted forms. L1 has influence on the learners’ choice of forms, and they consciously resort to their first language. The results suggest that rising the awareness of Saudi EFL learners about the. The study suggests further research utilising a longitudinal QUAN-QUAL research paradigm.

<p dir="ltr">This dissertation explores clear speech which is defined as a specific speaking style people adopt when fluent communication could be compromised for various reasons. Although acoustic properties and their perceptual benefits of clear speech produced by monolingual speakers of English are well documented, there has only been a small body of past research on clear speech produced by non-native speakers despite its importance in informing second language (L2) speech fluency (Lindblom, 1990). Aiming to address the gap, I examined English clear speech produced by native Korean speakers from three different perspectives: its acoustic properties, its perceptual benefits, and crosslinguistic influence in the production of clear speech. Together, the broad question addressed in this dissertation concerns a communicative ability of native Korean speakers in their L2.</p><p dir="ltr">The first experiment investigated how L1 Korean speakers (n = 30) produce clear speech in their L2, English, compared with native English speakers (n = 20) in a laboratory setting where they read a list of English words. I analyzed acoustic parameters of clear speech that could be considered language-universal (e.g., vowel lengthening), and those which could be employed in a more language-specific manner (e.g., enhancement of the phonological voicing contrast). The results indicated that Korean speakers produced clear speech acoustically distinct from casual speech in every property. Furthermore, the directions of acoustic modifications in Korean-accented English clear speech were on par with those of native clear speech. However, the degree of several clear speech modifications was smaller in Korean speakers’ production than in native production. The specific points of divergence between the two groups suggest the influence of Korean speakers’ L1 phonology on their English clear speech.</p><p dir="ltr">The second experiment investigated the perceptual benefits of Korean-accented English clear speech, for both native (n = 64) and non-native (L1 Korean) listeners (n = 64). Four groups of talker–listener combinations were recruited to examine the intelligibility benefit provided by clear speech: native talker–native listener, native talker–non-native listener, non-native talker–native listener, and non-native talker–non-native listener. Listeners were presented with semantically anomalous stimulus sentences (e.g., <i>the wrong room sold the rain</i>), which were mixed with speech-shaped noise at 0dB signal-to-noise ratio. The findings suggested that neither talkers’ L1 nor listeners’ L1 determined the degree of the intelligibility benefit. In other words, Korean-accented English clear speech was as beneficial as native clear speech, and Korean listeners were able to take advantage of clear speech to a similar extent as native English listeners.</p><p dir="ltr">The third experiment investigated the possibility of crosslinguistic influence in Korean-accented English clear speech. English and Korean clear speech was recorded, using six English minimal pairs (e.g., <i>tab </i>vs. <i>dab</i>) and six Korean minimal (or near-minimal) triplets (e.g., <i>t</i><i>h</i><i>ant</i><i>h</i><i>anhata </i>vs. <i>tantanhata </i>vs. <i>t*ant*anhata</i>), from three groups of speakers: late Korean-English bilinguals residing in USA (n = 30), Korean monolinguals (n = 30) living in Korea, and English monolinguals (n = 20). The primary goal was to determine how English and Korean laryngeal contrasts are enhanced in clear speech, and whether non-native speakers would transfer their L1 enhancement strategies to their L2 and vice versa. The results revealed that late bilinguals employed language-specific strategies in each of the two languages. In both languages, they enhanced the acoustic parameter that correlates most strongly with laryngeal contrasts in each of the two languages: VOT and onset f0 in Korean vs. VOT in English. Furthermore, they showed a greater VOT modification in Korean clear speech compared with Korean monolinguals, but a lesser VOT modification in English clear speech compared with English monolinguals, suggesting a possibility of the influence of L2 on L1 production and of L2 on L1 production, as VOT arguably plays a more prominent role in the English phonology.</p><p dir="ltr">Taken together, the overall findings from the three studies demonstrated that late Korean-English bilinguals were successful interlocutors who were able to both produce clear speech and accommodate listeners in their L2. Moreover, they implemented either English-specific or Korean-specific clear speech strategies according to the languages they produced, which indicates their flexibility in the use of appropriate cues across the two languages.</p>

<p>This dissertation investigates the linguistic features of engagement in spoken academic online and face-to-face instruction in mathematics on two platforms: Khan Academy and MIT OpenCourseWare. In particular, the study analyses involvement features (personal pronouns and deixis) and interactional features (response elicitors, direct hypothetical reported speech). Using corpus linguistics methodology and register analysis framework (Biber &Conrad, 2009), I investigated normed frequency of occurrence for these features and multi-word expressions which contain them to reveal patterns of use. Additionally, I investigated the function of these features in concordance lines to reveal their use to engage audience in the learning process. The findings of this study suggests that Khan Academy instruction in mathematics relies on using conversational and academic spoken features similar to those found in the MIT lecture corpus, including frequent use of personal pronouns (especially <i>we)</i>, and response elicitors (<i>right?)</i>. The format of online video instruction also elicits more use of spatial deixis to draw attention to the elements on the virtual board. The findings of this exploratory study add to the growing literature on language used for educational purposes in online environments, especially the online academic spoken discourse.</p>

<p>  </p> <p>There is a plethora of information surrounding the stages of infant vocal development, and canonical babble’s predictive power concerning future language outcomes. However, there is less information regarding how the acoustic features of early babble differ between canonical and non-canonical syllable types over the course of development. Furthermore, previous studies rely on small sample sizes which limit their findings’ generalizability. This project examined the pitch range, mean pitch, and syllabic nuclei duration of monosyllabic canonical and non-canonical infant vocalizations over the course of development. </p> <p>Audio files of monosyllabic utterances were obtained from 29 infants at low risk for developing a speech or language disorder, aged 10-26 months. The infants were divided into three age bands: 10-12 months (M=11.74, N=10, 5=F), 13-22 months (M=16.08, N=9, 6=F), and 23-26 months (M=24.67, N=9, 2=F). We listened to each utterance and marked syllable nucleus boundaries prior to running scripts to measure acoustic cues. Between 6 and 15 utterances were selected from each participant. The number of canonical utterances was matched to the number of noncanonical utterances (e.g., if 13 canonical utterances were selected for a specific participant, 13 non-canonical utterances were also selected). We then ran a Praat script which yielded the mean pitch, pitch range, and duration of the syllabic nucleus for each audio file. </p> <p>We found that there was a significant effect of syllable type on duration, as canonical syllables were shorter in duration than non-canonical syllables (F (1, 618.34) = 10.64, <em>p </em>= .001), and on mean pitch, as canonical syllables were lower in mean pitch than non-canonical syllables (F (1, 618.57) = 7.18, <em>p</em> = .008). We did not find an effect of syllable type on pitch range, age on mean pitch or duration, or any interaction effects between syllable type and age. However, we did find an effect of age on pitch range, because infants in the oldest age bracket (23-26 months) were more likely to have a wider pitch range than younger infants (F (2, 44.77) = 5.05, <em>p</em> = .011). </p> <p>This provides preliminary evidence that there are pitch and duration distinctions between canonical and non-canonical syllable types and suggests that as infants age they are more likely to use greater pitch variation within their vocalizations. However, as our study only examined monosyllabic utterances, further research is necessary in order to thoroughly investigate pitch and duration distinctions present in canonical and non-canonical syllables. </p>

<p dir="ltr">Suprasegmental features (i.e., features realized through pitch, volume, and/or duration changes) are particularly difficult for second language learners. This has led to the creation of many different methods of training, often employing the use of experimenter or instructor-created training materials. However, the use of authentic materials for training suprasegmental features remains underexplored. Authentic materials have recently been shown to be useful for some aspects of language learning, such as communicative competence and listening comprehension, while their usefulness for training suprasegmental features remains unclear.</p><p dir="ltr">This dissertation explores the potential usefulness of authentic materials for training two suprasegmental features, second language (L2) lexical tone in Mandarin and L2 lexical pitch accent in Japanese. For each language, participants were divided into an authentic group and an inauthentic group based on the type of materials they were exposed to during a shadowing task. Participants then used words they shadowed in a visual feedback task, which was chosen due to visual feedback’s previously proven usefulness for training these two features.</p><p dir="ltr">For each language, L2 productions at the pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest were compared to first language (L1) productions using a previously established analysis known as the <i>CID </i>measure analysis. The resulting time-series plots, <i>CID </i>measures, magnitudes (pitch height), and phases (timing), were analyzed to determine which group, authentic or inauthentic, performed in a more L1-like way at the posttest compared to the pretest. Results suggest that the authentic group outperformed the inauthentic group for three out of four Mandarin tones, and three out of seven Japanese pitch accent patterns. These results begin to show support for the usefulness of authentic materials, with experimental and pedagogical implications for researchers and learners of Mandarin and Japanese.</p>

Research into the effects of extensive reading (ER) in second language acquisition has surged over the past few decades. Many studies report several benefits that come from engaging in ER, including reading rate gains. However, these studies almost exclusively focus on English language learners and tend to be limited by their lack of control over how the ER treatment is conducted. Furthermore, experimental and quantitative studies that investigate the possible effects of ER on the reading skills of learners of Japanese have yet to be fully explored. The goal of this study was to investigate the possible effects of ER on the reading rate development of learners of Japanese as a foreign language. This study also aimed to examine the level of comprehension learners were able to maintain as their reading rates increased as well as the feasibility of a 12,000 character (7,200 standard word) per week reading goal. Finally, this study also surveyed learner perceptions of ER.<br><br>Using a quantitative single-case experiment design, eight intermediate-level learners of Japanese were monitored engaging in ER following strict adherence to ER principles over two and a half to four months. Longitudinal reading rate data as well as reading comprehension, ER, and survey data were collected over the course of the study. Results showed that participants’ reading rates increased significantly following the ER treatment. Furthermore, participants’ comprehension abilities were not hampered by an increase in their reading rates. Results also indicate that a weekly reading goal of 12,000 characters is likely feasible for intermediate-level learners. Finally, it was found that participants had overwhelmingly positive attitudes towards ER. This study provides evidence that ER has the potential to provide a highly enjoyable activity while substantially increasing learner reading rates without hindering comprehension.<p></p>