Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-64).

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-64).

Attitude and motivation, two central concepts in the domain of educational psychology, have not been attended to as required in the literature on English language teaching and learning in Iraq. Consequently, the current study aims at launching a theoretical and empirical investigation into the role of both concepts in bringing about the current discouraging situation of teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Iraq. The theoretical part of the work subsumes the first four chapters. Chapter One is the introduction where the problem to be investigated, the hypotheses, the aims of the research, and the reasons behind the choice of this topic for research have been stated. Chapter Two describes the educational system and the current situation of English language teaching and learning in Iraq. Worth mentioning in this respect are the different pre- and in-service training establishments, English textbooks and tests, and the supervision of teachers of English. Chapter Three is on attitude. The concept has been initially considered from a purely psychological viewpoint with focus on the historical review of attitude development, definition, basic components, main characteristics, formation, and change. Attitude in education forms a second point of departure with emphasis being laid on the role of the concept in teaching and learning foreign languages. Chapter Three ends with attitude measurement. Motivation, the topic of study of Chapter Four, is tackled in terms of its historical development, definition, and different theories. Reference is also made to the role of motivation in education in general, and in foreign language teaching and learning in particular. Accordingly, types of motivation, factors affecting pupils' and teachers' motivation, and teachers' role in motivating pupils form main subjects of discussion. Chapter Four ends with two sections; the first of which tackles the facets of difference between attitude and motivation, while the second deals with the differences between interest on the one hand, and attitude and motivation on the other. Chapter Five is on the method of research adopted to gather the data for the current study. It also contains the analysis of the Pupils' and Teachers' Attitudes and Motivation Questionnaires. Finally, some general remarks about the empirical part of the work are also made. Chapter Six presents the statistical analysis and survey results. It also contains some hypotheses on pupils' and teachers' attitudes and motivation. There is further analysis of some responses made by pupils and teachers which could not be hypothesized. This chapter ends with the analysis of headteachers' and supervisors' perceptions of English language teaching and learning in Iraq. The final chapter titled 'conclusion' contains the general conclusions arrived at by the researcher, followed by some implications for future work.

Listener perception of accentedness has been shown to be influenced by experience with L2 (measured by length of residence in US). However, frequency of L1 use and degree of phonological complexity (defined by the number of non-native phonetic features targeted) may provide more insight into the role of experience in the perception of accentedness.Three groups of listeners (monolingual English and Spanish [L1] speakers divided into two groups of high and low use of English [L2]) rated the accentedness of bilingual speakers who spoke with varying degrees of accentedness. The speakers read sentences adapted from Magan (1998) to include phonological aspects likely to be difficult for native Spanish speakers.Listeners performed similarly in rating speakers degree of accent.

Researchers are becoming increasingly interested in responding to the effects of the English language’s viability as a Lingua Franca. English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) is being used predominantly in communication from one non-native speaker to another, and descriptive studies are just beginning to emerge (Dewey 2007; Jenkins, 2000; Seidlhofer, 2004). This report offers a theoretical overview showing ELF’s increasing relevance, and reviews empirical studies that have investigated how ELF is manifesting in the field of language education. These empirical studies are gaining significant traction, specifically in relation to descriptive linguistics, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics (House, 2003; Mauranen, 2003). In order to investigate a formal description of ELF, recent empirical work is reviewed after two seminal articles were published that helped gain viability into ELF as a distinct research area (i.e. Seidlhofer, 2001; Mauranen, 2003). Such reviews of empirical studies through the use of corpora are not meant to distinguish ELF as a distinct variety of English, but to simply allow for a deep description of how ELF is being used currently. Also discussed are the developments to English language pedagogy and directions for future research as ELF scholars begin to re-conceptualize what is meant by language context and communication in ELF. / text

This dissertation explores language comprehension in native speakers (NSs) and second language (L2) speakers of French. Recent findings suggest that whereas NSs process complex sentences using both syntax and semantics, late learners of a L2 process shallowly, relying on lexical, semantic, and pragmatic cues to interpretation. Studies supporting this Shallow Structure Hypothesis (Clahsen & Felser, 2006b) rely on limited methodologies, however, and are challenged by reports demonstrating proficiency and cognitive effects on processing. In addition, recent research suggests that native language comprehension is not always complete or accurate (Ferreira & Patson, 2007) and is subject to variability (Dabrowska, 2012). This dissertation brings new evidence to bear on NS-L2 differences through the structural priming paradigm and investigates several factors thought to contribute to NS-L2 differences, including the exploratory effect of relative language dominance. Evidence from a self-paced reading task examining off-line and on-line priming of relative clause attachment height suggests that prior exposure to structural information through comprehension influences NSs' subsequent comprehension at the post-interpretive stage. Results argue for priming at the level of abstract hierarchical syntax and an implicit learning account of persistence. This study is one of few to demonstrate priming of ambiguously attached modifiers during comprehension and the first to do so within a L2. Unlike for NSs, the nature of the L2 priming effect is linked to discourse information. Age of acquisition was found to be a more important factor in L2 priming than language dominance. The results also argue that both native and L2 speakers are susceptible to shallow processing, though they use slightly different strategies. While NSs in the current study were more willing to accommodate competing syntactic and semantic analyses, ultimately accepting a less-than-complete analysis, the L2 parsing mechanism preferred to settle on one interpretation. The evidence here lends partial support to the hypothesis that L2 processing relies more on semantic/pragmatic information than NS processing but crucially does not exclude the possibility of L2 syntactic processing and highlights NS-L2 similarities in terms of the contexts that trigger shallow processing. / text

published_or_final_version / English / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Implicit learning is the learning of underlying regularities hidden in the environment without the learner being conscious of what is being learnt. First language acquisition in young children is essentially implicit (Krashen, 1982), but the role of implicit learning in second language acquisition is debatable. Previous research on learning of tonal languages focused on perception and identification of language tones in relatively explicit settings, and showed that tonal language experience may not help with learning a new tonal language in an explicit setting (So & Best, 2010; Wang, 2006). Yet, little research was done on the implicit learning of language tones, and on whether prior tonal language experience plays a role in such implicit learning. In this study, simplified Thai tonal rules were used as a learning target to investigate if implicit learning of such rules is possible. Implicit learning performance among native tonal language speakers with no knowledge of Thai, non?tonal language native speakers who have learnt/have been learning tonal languages other than Thai, and non?tonal language speakers with little knowledge of tonal languages were compared. Results showed that the native tonal language group implicitly learnt the target, and some trends of learning were found in the tonal language learner group, but not in the tonal language na?ve group. This advantage of tonal language experience over the learning of tonal patterns suggested that tonal language experience can be transferable to the learning of a new tonal language in implicit settings. This suggested that, rather than being hindered by their prior linguistic experience, learners with some tonal language background may benefit from implicit settings when learning a new tonal language. / published_or_final_version / English / Master / Master of Philosophy

The primary purpose of this study is to explore the lexical inferencing of Chinese learners of English as foreign language in terms of the intent, the clue use, the procedure, the processing type, the adaptability, and the success of lexical inferencing as well as the subsequent lexical knowledge acquisition. All together 781 Chinese EFL learners at four stages of English learning (senior secondary year-2, tertiary beginning, tertiary middle, and tertiary final) participated in this study. 726 respondents answered a questionnaire of lexical strategies to unknown words in reading and clue use in lexical inferencing. 55 participants thought aloud the process of inferring the meaning of 12 target words while reading an article, and reported their knowledge of target words in a surprise test one week after the think-aloud activity. Data collected from the questionnaire were analyzed quantitatively to rank various lexical strategies and types of clue use. The think-aloud protocols of lexical inferencing were analyzed qualitatively to identify the type and amount of clue use, the event sequence of lexical inferencing, the processing type & adaptability, and the outcome of lexical inferencing. Their subsequent knowledge of target words was coded and analyzed. All these items of lexical inferencing also were processed quantitatively to explore the overall view of Chinese EFL learners‘ lexical inferencing, and the similarities & differences of learners at different stages. The findings reveal that Chinese EFL learners frequently used a number of lexical strategies, and lexical inferencing was the most frequently used. They used various types of clues, especially sentence meaning, morphology, and discourse meaning in their lexical inferencing. Some features of clue use, such as abundant imagined morphological clue and L1 grammar clue, revealed the impact of the Chinese language. There were also some variations in the clue use of learners at different stages. The results of this study show that major lexical inferencing procedure was ‘Guess > Accept’ at senior secondary stage and ‘Guess > Evaluate > Accept’ at three tertiary stages. There was an obvious upward shift of processing type from the ‘pure top processing’ of senior secondary to more advanced processing of tertiary stages. The overall adaptability of Chinese EFL learners‘ lexical inferencing was not high. There was an increasing tendency of high adaptability from the stage of senior secondary to tertiary final. The findings show that one fourth of lexical inferencing outcomes were ?Correct‘, while one third were ?Partially Correct‘. There was an increase tendency of ‘Correct‘ or ?Partially correct’ inferences and vocabulary knowledge acquisition from senior secondary stage to tertiary final stage. Measurable vocabulary knowledge was acquired in lexical inferencing. Further explorations reveal that Chinese EFL learners‘ procedural & declarative knowledge might potentially explain the performances of their lexical inferencing. This study culminates with some pedagogical implications for vocabulary learning and reading, and some suggestions for further research on lexical inferencing. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

In the past few decades, cognitive psychologists and linguists have shown increasing research interest in the phenomenon of implicit learning, a term generally defined as learning of regularities in the environment without intention and awareness. Some psychologists regard implicit learning as the primary mechanism for knowledge attainment and language acquisition (Reber, 1993), whereas others deny the possibility of learning even simple contingencies in an implicit manner (Lovibond and Shanks, 2002). In the context of language acquisition, while first language acquisition is essentially implicit, the extent to which implicit learning is relevant to second language acquisition remains unclear. Empirical evidence has been found on the implicit learning of grammar/syntactic rules (e.g., Rebuschat & Williams, 2012) and form-meaning connections (e.g., Leung & Williams, 2011) but little investigation of implicit learning has been conducted in the realm of phonology, particularly supra-segmental phonology. Besides, there is still no consensus on the extent to which implicit learning exhibits population variation. This dissertation reports three experiments which aim to 1) address the possibility of learning second language (L2) word stress patterns implicitly; 2) identify relevant individual differences in the implicit learning of L2 word stress rules; and 3) improve measurement of conscious knowledge by integrating both subjective and objective measures of awareness. Using an incidental learning task and a two-alternative forced-choice post-test, Experiment 1 found evidence of learning one-to-one stress-to-phoneme connections in an implicit fashion, and successfully applied the process dissociation procedure as a sensitive awareness measure. Experiment 2 found implicit learning effect for more complicated word stress rules which involved mappings between stress assignment and syllable types/types of phoneme, and integrated verbal reports, confidence ratings and inclusion-exclusion tasks as awareness measures. Experiment 3 explored potentially individual differences in the learning of L2 word stress rules. No correlation was found between learning of L2 word stress and working memory, processing speed and phonological short-term memory, supporting the belief that involvement of working memory in implicit learning is minimal, and the view that different stimuli/task-specific subsystems govern different implicit learning tasks. It is concluded that L2 word stress rules may be learnt implicitly with minimal individual variations. / published_or_final_version / English / Master / Master of Philosophy