Technological advances in Digital Signal Processing over the last decade have provided applied linguists with a number of computerized applications for speech analysis which can be of benefit to both the researcher and the instructor. This research project explores the techniques of speech spectrography and implements methods of acoustic phonetics to current issues in Second Language Acquisition theory. Specifically, the effects of vowel production in one's native language on the targets in a second language are investigated. Acoustic measurements of English vowels spoken by Japanese students were compared with measurements of native Japanese vowels and American English vowels. In addition, these data were compared with measurements of learner speech from a variety of native language backgrounds. Vowels from both groups of non-native English speakers showed tendencies toward the center of the vowel space. The less-experienced group showed greater token-to-token variability across height parameters than across frontedness parameters while the more experienced group showed no difference for parameters. Both groups exhibited greater frontedness than height variability between speakers which can be explained in part by differences in vocal tract size. In addition, Flege's Speech Learning Model was tested. Data did not support the hypothesis that similar vowels are more difficult to produce than different vowels. ANOVA tests showed that large LI vowel inventories do not advantage learners of languages with many vowels. The results suggest that the unique qualities of L2 speech may have more to do with developmental processes than L 1 interference.

The relationship of language and culture is explored in this thesis for the purpose of better understanding why all sojourners, regardless of preparation, experience some degree of culture shock. The author begins with a review of literature on culture shock establishing that the native language of sojourners is not considered to be of any consequence to the sojourning experience. The fields of intercultural communication, social psychology and psychology are then explored to establish the link between language and culture and to introduce the notion of linguistic identity. Evidence found in each of these fields leads the author to conclude that linguistic identity must become a focal point of language instruction and that both language and linguistic identity must be addressed more effectively in pre-departure orientations. Also included is a research proposal which is designed to test pre-departure orientation strategies which introduce students to linguistic identity and to track their transition experiences over the course of a year-long study abroad sojourn.

The current study lays the groundwork for a model of Mandarin tones based on both native speakers' and non-native speakers' perception and production. It demonstrates that there is variability in non-native speakers' tone productions and that there are differences in the perceptual boundaries in native speakers and non-native speakers. There are four experiments in this study. Experiment 1 utilizes native speakers' production data from a published speech database to explore the features of tone production by native speakers. Inter-speaker normalization is used to analyze the data. Experiment 2 synthesizes 81 tones that are carried by four sentences to measure perception by native and non-native speakers. The intra-speaker and inter-speaker normalization is used to investigate the perceptual space of T1, T2, T3, and T4. The researcher also explores the salient features distinguish native speakers' and non-native speakers' perception of the four principal tones. Experiment 3 uses both synthesized tones and natural tones that are carried by sentences to explore how pitch values of tones create overlapping areas in the perceptual map. Experiment 4 examines tone production by non-native speakers to identify the differences between native speakers' perception and non-native speakers' production; and the differences between non-native speakers' perception and their production of tones. The results of the perception and production experiments with native speakers show the perceptual boundaries and tonal categories in the perceptual space and the production space. The difference of native speakers' perception and production shows us the perceptual cue for perception. Meanwhile, the similarities of native speakers' perception and production reveal the acoustic cues, including register and contour, for tone perception and production. The results of the perception experiments with non-native speakers indicate that there are no clear boundaries, and that tone overlap in the perceptual space. Register plays an important role in the perception of tones by non-native speakers. The results of non-native speaker production also show overlapping tones in the acoustic space. The non-native speaker production appears to be determined by the contour of the tones in contrast both the contour and register determine the tonal categories of native speaker.

This study is a qualitative examination of second language (L2) learning processes by four advanced learners of Japanese in the community of a summer intensive full-immersion program in the United States. Using L2 socialization theory as a theoretical framework, this study conceives of L2 learning as a process of social participation in a community of practice and examines L2 learning processes by four learners, focusing on the dynamic interplay between the affordances of the social community and the agency of the individual learners. The purpose of this study is twofold: (a) It investigates the ways in which the four learners exercise their agency to pursue their goals of learning Japanese and (b) it documents how the different ways in which the four learners exercise agency form different trajectories of learning and create different experiences of L2 socialization. This study has adopted an ethnographic case study approach to the investigation of research inquiries. Through the analyses of data obtained from multiple sources, including interviews with the four learners, observations of their engagement in the community of practice of the summer intensive full-immersion program, their audio-recorded conversations with other members of the community, and various artifacts, this study explores the role of L2 learner agency in the process of L2 socialization and describes in depth their experiences of learning Japanese from their emic perspectives. The case studies of the four learners have highlighted the different ways in which they engaged in the community of practice, understood their tasks of learning Japanese, interpreted the affordances of the social community, negotiated the meaning of their participations, defined and redefined their sense of self, and eventually achieved their L2 learning goals. The findings suggest that the richness and effectiveness of a social environment are not characterized by the physical and academic affordances of a social community alone; rather they are constructed in a dynamic relation between the affordance structure of a social community and the L2 learners' agency in the pursuit of the joint enterprise of making L2 learning happen. With regard to the role of L2 learner agency, the study has foregrounded the important role of the aspirations of the four L2 learners for personal transformation and negotiation of the meaning of self of the past, the present, and the future. The findings suggest that L2 learners' diverse and complex social and personal desires for learning an L2 may not be able to be explained using the notion of investment (Norton, 1995, 2000) alone. Since the SLA debate initiated by Firth and Wagner (1997, 2007), SLA research has begun to reconceptualize L2 learners as socially situated beings with diverse needs, wants, and identities. This study presents four portraits of L2 learners who engaged in the enterprise of learning Japanese, as a means of contributing to this reconceptualization, and explores for these four learners what it meant to learn Japanese in the summer of 2010.

Using a grounded theory approach, the purpose of this research study is to generate a learning-how-to-learn training model for learners in flipped language course. The model is grounded in the interactions and comments from college students enrolled in an elementary Spanish I class at a large Midwestern university. The study participants video recorded themselves on two occasions during the semester as they worked online to study and learn new vocabulary. Twice during the semester the participants discussed with their classmates how they approached the online course work, offering tips and suggestions to one another. Finally, the participants met with me individually to view recordings of themselves working online and to reflect on their behaviors. The study addressed research questions pertaining to (a) their online interactions with three online components, (b) the insights gained from discussing their online interactions with their peers, (c) the insights gained from watching and reflecting on video clips of themselves working online, (d) the supports needed to help learners learn in a flipped course. The grounded theory analysis of the three data sources—recorded think-aloud sessions, focus groups, and individual sessions with the researcher— provides a clear picture of how students learn in an online environment and what supports they need to become more effective language learners in a flipped course environment The study identified communication as the core construct that emerged from the data. Communication was found to be central to the types of supports that learners in a flipped course need and essential to the learning-how-to-learn training model. The training model considers the learner as well as the director and instructors and communication at each level is vital to the learners’ understanding of flipped learning and subsequent interactions. Autonomy, guidance, and reflection are the three concepts that support the core construct by addressing ways to support learners. A major contribution of this study is to explore the culture of flipped learning from the students’ perspective, since previous research on flipped learning is weighted toward the instructor side. The findings suggest that training in a flipped course be ongoing to increase communication and in-class to bridge the disconnect between face-to-face time and online time. The pedagogical implications, which consider the entire language program from the program level to the classroom level, describe ways to guide learners in building their autonomous learning skills and practices, along with the practice of reflection, both of which are fundamental to learning in a flipped course. The need for ongoing and in-class training is presented in addition to pedagogical implications at the program level, instructor level, student level, and the classroom level.

This dissertation examines the discourse produced by beginning learners of Spanish using social media. Specifically, it looks at the use and development of interactional resources during two video-mediated conversations. Through a combination of Conversation Analysis tools and quantitative data analysis, the use of turn-taking strategies, repair trajectories, and alignment moves was examined to discover how beginning language learners manage videoconferencing exchanges and develop their interactional capabilities in this new interactional setting. The goal of this investigation was twofold: 1) to describe and explain how students construct, manage and maintain conversations via videoconferencing, and 2) to gain a better understanding of the links between technology-based social media and language learning. The results of this study indicate that instructional videoconferencing conversations display their own clearly delimited and idiosyncratic organization of interactional features. In terms of turn-taking, the results of the analyses demonstrate that beginning learners are fully capable of participating competently in speaker selection to manage a conversation with a peer of similar proficiency level. In the area of repair, the analyses show that, during instructional videoconferencing exchanges, beginning learners orient to both the communication of personal meaning and the accuracy of their discourse. They enact this orientation through the use of self-initiated self-repair. Finally, with regard to the use of alignment moves, the analyses reveal that, in tune with their nascent linguistic and interactional abilities, beginning learners use primarily acknowledgement moves.

Complaining happens in all cultures, and offers a unique insight into the values, taboos, and communicative practices of a given society. The ways in which complaining is viewed and performed vary drastically not only cross-culturally, but across smaller communal groups and between individuals, too. This dissertation approaches complaining from a multilateral perspective to investigate how individuals in three different language groups – monolingual French speakers, monolingual English speakers, and native English speakers enrolled in upper-division university French courses – perceive and produce complaints as well as the influential role played by social context. In the perception study, the researcher explores how individuals within the examined language groups identify the presence of complaints and perceive their naturalness when presented with contextualized scenarios involving native speakers. In the production study, the researcher examines both the frequency with which individuals complain and the strategies they employ to perform a complaint in various social situations. Additionally, within the production study the researcher examines the frequency with which participants opt out from complaining and their provided rationale for doing so. This dissertation not only identifies a variety of universal linguistic and sociocultural features of complaints, it also uncovers several aspects distinctive to the individual language groups. At the core of this dissertation is the argument that to best understand complaint behavior, researchers should acknowledge the essential influence of social context on both the perception and production of complaints. Above all, future research must consider the complex and dynamic interplay that exists between cross-cultural complaint behaviors and social norms of politeness.

This study explores the development of second language (L2) fluency during a semester abroad and its relationship to the development of grammar, vocabulary, and language processing speed. It also considers the influence of individual participants' first language (L1) and pre-study abroad (SA) L2 fluency on the development of fluency during study abroad. Additionally, the study examines issues in the measurement of fluency, focusing on questions related to measuring pauses in L2 speech. Thirty-nine undergraduate students (L1 English) studying in Buenos Aires, Argentina, completed a pretest consisting of speaking tasks in English and Spanish, Spanish grammar and vocabulary tests, a picture-naming task, and a measure of sentence processing speed. Approximately three months later, near the end of their time abroad, they completed a posttest consisting of the same tasks, with the exception of the speaking tasks in English. Participants also filled out a questionnaire every other week during the semester in which they estimated the amount of time that they had spent interacting with native speakers of Spanish. Results show that participants experienced significant gains on most measures of fluency during study abroad. This finding was especially true for participants who began their time abroad with low L2 fluency. Nevertheless, students who began the semester abroad with high L2 fluency still had significantly higher fluency at the end of the semester than students who began with low L2 fluency. Looking at the relationship between L2 fluency and L2 linguistic knowledge (vocabulary and grammar scores) and language processing speed (picture-naming and sentence-matching scores), the study found a moderate relationship between pretest measures of L2 fluency and pretest measures of linguistic knowledge and processing speed. However, the results show no relationship between pre-SA linguistic knowledge and processing speed and gains in L2 fluency, and little relationship between gains in linguistic knowledge and processing speed and gains in L2 fluency. The best predictor of gains in L2 fluency was pre-SA L2 fluency. These results suggest that although there is a relationship between L2 linguistic knowledge and L2 fluency, having more advanced L2 linguistic knowledge prior to study abroad does not necessarily give students an advantage in the area of fluency development during study abroad. Regarding the measurement of fluency, the data show that learners with low and high levels of lexical-grammatical competence significantly differed from one another on all measures of rates of pauses (short and long pauses, filled and unfilled pauses, and mid-clause and end-of-clause pauses) as well as in the percent of pauses occurring in the middle of a clause. However, they did not significantly differ from one another in the percent of filled pauses. The findings suggest that measuring all of these pauses may be useful in examining L2 fluency. However, there is perhaps little or nothing to be gained from counting filled and unfilled pauses separately, as speakers' tendency to use more of one or the other appears to be more closely related to personal speaking style than to L2 ability.

Logographic character handwriting, such as Hanzi in Chinese, Kanji in Japanese, or Hanja in Korean, is notoriously challenging for foreign language learners. Fortunately, computer-assisted learning systems for handwriting are being improved to meet the instructional needs of teachers and learners in foreign language education. However, the effect of computer-assisted language learning in logographic handwriting has never been explored. To anchor the inquiry of the current study, the extensive complementarity approach was adopted, in which SLA research complements L2 instruction by studying the impact of a theory-based instructional method on the learning of an aspect of the L2. The present study explores the orthographic development at the initial stage of character learning among non-heritage, beginning-level learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) by investigating the effect of Interactionist-instructed mediations on orthographic attrition and maintenance and by examining the relationships among awareness of internal formation sequencing, character recognition and production. Data was collected from 167 first-year CFL students in a Chinese program at a large research university in North America. In phase one, 63 students completed all the six-week lab writing tasks. In phase two, 125 students completed all the end-of-semester correlation tasks in their first semester of learning Chinese. The findings of the study are multifold. First, by closely examining the roles of input, output, and feedback in the Interactionist model, the results show that, to maximize orthographic retention and reduce attrition, the effect of working memory needs to be taken into consideration in the design of instruction for immediate kinesthetic skill training and for better development of orthographic awareness among CFL non-heritage beginners. Second, the effect of multimedia input enhancements along with handwriting output on reducing variations of character formation in character learning is also significant. Third, the effect of the handwriting feedback is not found to be significant when compared to its counterpart without feedback in computer-assisted handwriting instruction; however, its influence on the participants' writing motivations and learning objectives were observed and addressed in the study. Finally, the CFL non-heritage beginning learners' awareness of internal formation sequencing was found to be correlated with their performance in character recognition and reproduction. The pedagogical implications are discussed.

This dissertation examines the connection between language ideologies and second language learning, specifically in the case of American Sign Language. I argue that students' and teachers' ideologies about American Sign Language (ASL) influence the goals and pedagogies of ASL teachers. ASL students enter the classroom with ideologies that conflate ASL with gesture or view it as simplified visual English. ASL students also view deafness as a disability that needs to be fixed. This contrasts with ASL teachers' view that Deaf people are a distinct cultural minority who wish to remain Deaf. As a result, ASL teachers' goals focus on teaching ASL students to respect Deaf people and their language. This leads to three major pedagogical differences with teachers of spoken languages. First, ASL teachers focus their cultural lessons on teaching their students a non-pathological view of Deafness. Second, ASL teachers are far more likely than spoken language teachers to think that a member of Deaf Culture should teach ASL. Finally, ASL teachers go to greater lengths than spoken language teachers to avoid the use of English in their classrooms. This research was conducted at five different public universities in the United States. I observed ASL classes at all five universities and a Spanish class at one university. I administered a survey at four of the five universities. I interviewed ASL teachers and teachers of other languages at all five universities.