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The acquisition of focus by adult English learners of Hungarian : evidence of optionality in mature and developing grammarsPapp, Szilvia January 1999 (has links)
The process of second language acquisition is usually assumed to be affected by differences between the source language (L 1) and the target language (L2). Within the Minimalist approach (Chomsky 1995) crosslinguistic variation is accounted for in terms of differences in the values of features of functional categories instantiated in specific languages. Mature English differs from Hungarian in that its Tense category does not carry the [+f] feature characteristic of Hungarian focused sentences. Also, English lacks an additional functional projection dominating IP, namely F(ocus)P(hrase), which hosts focused, wh-, and negative operators in Spec,FP and attracts the verb or adjectival predicate into its head in order to satisfy spec-head agreement. It follows that English learners of Hungarian will have . to instantiate a new functional category FP and reset the values of the Tense category in their IL grammar. In this thesis we account for the difficulties faced by adult English learners of Hungarian by adopting the hypothesis that the two main classes of features have distinct learnability properties. It has been suggested that interpretable features (among them phi-features of nouns as well as [+wh] and [+f] features) are acquired easier than non-interpretable features (such as features responsible for V2 word order, resumptive pronouns, verbal inflection and nominal case morphology, as well as verb-movement associated with the Focus Projection in Hungarian). We demonstrate that this effect is also found -in our English-Hungarian interlanguage data. We show that even though L2 learners manage to prepose wh, focus and negative operators, they have continued difficulties with the accompanying verb-movement properties of Hungarian. This is reminiscent of the difficulties we find in child L 1 language acquisition of Hungarian. However, we argue that learnability factors have to be complemented by considerations about the nature of the target language input L2 learners receive. We propose that the nature of the TL input accounts for the differences between child and adult learners of Hungarian. It is well known that robust data (i.e. simple, salient and frequently occurring sentences) are required for the acquisition of correct feature-specifications of a target language. Infrequent data may cause a delay in the process of establishing L2 feature specifications and result in incomplete representations. Ambiguous data, on the other hand, are Iikely to ultimately result in divergent L2 representations at near native level. Testing these predictions in a study of acceptability judgements of adult English-speaking learners of Hungarian, we show that adult English speaking learners of Hungarian have difficulties in acquiring double wh- and double focus constructions as well as focused infinitives, long and partial operator movement in Hungarian. It is demonstrated that in the case of double wh- and double focus constructions native speakers' intuitions are indeterminate/optional, therefore the data L2 learners receive are not robust, leading to optionality in learners' interlanguage grammars. Although enjoying categorical judgements in native grammars, the nature of the input is similarly non-robust in the case of focused infinitives as well as long and partially extracted operator sentences. This is argued to lead to the difficulties L2 learners exhibit with respect to these structures. In the face of non-robust target language data learners are found to fall back on L 1 values and/or to resort to general learning strategies, such as overgeneralization and analogy.
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Syntactic focus structure processing : behavioral and electrophysiological evidence from L1 and L2 FrenchReichle, Robert Vincent 11 October 2012 (has links)
This dissertation presents results from three experiments to address two research questions: What do the acquisition and processing of information structure tell us about the acquisition and processing of language in general, and what do the acquisition and processing of information structure tell us about the nature of information structure as a syntactic and pragmatic phenomenon? The first two experiments were behavioral studies of native and L2 speakers of French in which subjects made acceptability judgments of sentences containing felicitous or infelicitous information structure. In Experiment 1, there was evidence of a postmaturational effect of age of arrival on judgment task scores; the geometry of this age effect did not show evidence of leveling off over time, contrary to the predictions of some formulations of the critical period hypothesis for second language acquisition (e.g. Newport, 1990; cf. Birdsong & Molis, 2001). The results of this experiment are interpreted as evidence against the presence of a critical period for the acquisition of information structure in a second language. In Experiment 2, L2 learners in low- and high-proficiency groups performed a similar judgment task. Low-proficiency L2 learners exhibited lower scores on the information structure anomaly judgment task than did high-proficiency L2 learners and L1 speakers. The behavioral results from this experiment, in conjunction with electrophysiological data from Experiment 3, suggest that many subjects judged the target sentences based on truth value, rather than information structure. In Experiment 3, subjects were presented with sentences containing felicitous and infelicitous information structure while a 14-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. Results from this experiment suggest the presence of an N400 and P600 effect indexed with the processing of information structure anomalies in native-speaking subjects. L2 subjects of both high- and low-proficiency also exhibited a late positivity; however, results for the two groups diverged in the earlier time window, suggesting that high-proficiency speakers exhibit a P600 but low-proficiency speakers exhibit a P3 effect reflecting the processing of oddball stimuli. Taken together, the results from these experiments suggest that L2 speakers can acquire aspects of information structure processing to a nativelike degree. / text
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Gender difference in perception and adoption of technology to enhance second language learning out-of-schoolHuo, Qian, 霍茜 January 2013 (has links)
Current research has identified various cases of gender difference in perception and adoption of technology in general and language learners’ use of technology for second language learning. To understand these differences, this study investigated the use of technology out-of-class to enhance their second language learning of the students in a Chinese high school in Chengdu, Sichuan. It was showed that males and females have some differences in using technology for affection regulation, technology for culture regulation, technology for metacognition regulation and technology for resource regulation. In addition, this study unraveled the factor of family background that influenced students’ perception and selective use of technology in second language learning. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education
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How auditory discontinuities and linguistic experience affect the perception of speech and non-speech in English- and Spanish-speaking listenersHay, Jessica Sari Fleming 28 August 2008 (has links)
Not available / text
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The Influence of Unfamiliar Orthography on L2 Phonolexical AcquisitionMathieu, Lionel January 2014 (has links)
Recent studies in the acquisition of a second language (L2) phonology have revealed that orthography can influence, both positively and negatively, the way L2 learners come to establish target-like lexical representations. The majority of these studies, however, involve language pairs relying on a Roman-based script. In comparison, the influence of a foreign or unfamiliar written representation on L2 phonolexical acquisition remains understudied. This dissertation aims to fill this gap. CHAPTER 2 considers the effects of multiple scripts (e.g. Arabic, Cyrillic, Roman-Maltese, etc.) on the acquisition of the Arabic voiceless pharyngeal fricative /ħ/ and the voiceless uvular fricative /χ/ word-initially. Monolingual native speakers of English participated in a set of five word-learning experiments where they were instructed to learn six pairs of minimally contrastive words, each associated with a unique visual referent. In each experiment, a different script configuration was manipulated. After an initial learning phase, participants were then tested on their phonological acquisition of these L2 minimal pairs. Results show significant differences in phonological accuracy between groups of learners exposed to varying degrees of script unfamiliarity. Specifically, complete script foreignness exerted an inhibitory effect on L2 phonolexical acquisition, while semi-foreign scripts exercised differential inhibitory effects based on whether grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) also activated L1 phonological units. Two follow-up spelling experiments were also conducted in an attempt to find a more intuitive, symbolic representation of these L2 phonemes. While spellers managed to find various ways to symbolically encode /χ/-words from /ħ/-words, when presented in minimal pairs (but not when presented randomly), no form-consistent pattern emerged from their spelling renditions. These spelling experiments nevertheless support the interpretation that L1 GPCs are likely activated in the course of L2 phonological processing. CHAPTER 3 examines the acquisition of another nonnative phonological contrast, that of Japanese singleton/geminate consonants word-medially. In another set of five word-learning experiments manipulating various aspects of unfamiliar scripts (e.g. Hiragana, Roman/Cyrillic blended), it was found that the acquisition of such a length-based contrast was significantly affected by the foreign written input only when the unfamiliar characters encoding the contrast were graphically highlighted (by way of font coloring and underline) or when they did not convey any information about the durational dimension of the L2 contrast (i.e. when both singletons and geminates were represented with a single character, instead of two for the geminates). These inhibitory effects show that learners are susceptible to be confused by small details featured in unfamiliar written representations presented to them in the course of L2 phonoloxical acquisition. Similar to Chapter 2, two follow-up spelling experiments were conducted. Here, spellers failed to symbolically mark a difference between singleton and geminate auditory items, whether they were presented randomly or in minimal pairs. This lack of differentiation in writing suggests that a consonantal singleton/geminate contrast is a priori not so intuitive to native English speakers. The contributions of this dissertation are manifold. First, the present results provide strong evidence that, aside from recognized acoustic and phonological features influencing the acquisition of a second language sound system, extra-linguistic elements such as written representations also contribute to the acquisitional experience of L2 learners. Furthermore, such findings show that exposure to unfamiliar written representations can significantly inhibit the successful creation of target-like phonological representations, an outcome that has thus far not been attested. Second, it provides additional and complementary research in the subfield of L2 acquisition dealing with the interaction of phonological and orthographic knowledge. The work presented here indeed expands the scope of L2 contrasts and script treatments thus far investigated. Third, implications for second language teaching and loanword phonology can be envisaged. Methods geared towards the acquisition of L2 sounds for instance could be designed taking into account the results obtained here, namely, the fact that a foreign written support may not always be beneficial to learners, depending on the degree of familiarity with the L2 writing system.
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The Syntax, Processing and Second Language Acquisition of Chinese Relative ClausesXu, Yi January 2009 (has links)
The structural complexity and the typological universals associated with relative clauses (RCs) have made the structure particularly interesting to linguists and second language acquisition (SLA) researchers. Currently, much controversy is found in RCs in East Asian Languages. This dissertation tests the syntactic status of "relative clauses" in Chinese and explores second language (L2) learners' processing and production of different types of Chinese RCs.In the theoretical part of the dissertation, I test whether Comrie (2002)'s proposal of analyzing putative relative clauses in East Asian languages as "attributive clauses" can be applicable to Chinese. From a review of syntactic literature and movement test, I argue that there are crucial differences between Chinese RCs and attributive clauses. Further, reconstruction effect suggests that A-bar movement takes place within gapped Chinese RCs. More specifically, following Sauerland (2000)'s proposal, I suggest that the derivation of Chinese RCs involves the movement of an operator taking a complex NP as its complement to the Spec of CP, and that complex NP matches with an external head outside the RC.Further, I examine the possibility of analyzing AdjP+DE structure as relative clauses, and examine the flexibility and effect of demonstrative and numeral-classifier positions and their relation with relative clauses.In the experiment chapter, I discuss results from three experiments that tested the relative degrees of difficulty for L2 learners among different types of RCs including Subject, Direct Object, Indirect Object and Object of Preposition relative clauses, I seek plausible linguistic and psycholinguistic proposals in explaining the performance data. The experiments include a self-paced word order judgment task, a written sentence completion task, and a written sentence combination task. It was found that the L2 acquisition of Chinese RCs is generally consistent with the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (Keenan & Comrie, 1977), a typological generalization based on natural languages and a hierarchy that was found to be predictive of learners' order of acquisition in SLA studies of many other languages.
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The state of near-native grammar : a study of aspect in L2 PolishKozłowska-Macgregor, Martyna January 2002 (has links)
Sorace (1993) suggests that competence at the final stage of non-native acquisition falls into qualitatively distinct categories: (1) incomplete grammar, which lacks a representation for a part of the target system; (2) divergent grammar, which has the target distinctions with non-target instantiations. She captures the general nature of the two systems but leaves their contents undefined. This study adopts her proposal and investigates non-native grammars with respect to acquisition of the Polish aspects: completive, pofective and perfective, in an attempt to define the properties of incomplete or divergent knowledge in the domain of aspect. / According to the account of the aspectual system of Polish proposed in this thesis, acquisition of this system requires knowledge of the following semantic and morpho-syntactic properties: (1) aspectual interpretations, which depend on the semantic features of a VP; (2) the semantic features carried by the aspects; (3) the distinct feature context required for each aspectual interpretation; (4) restriction on feature composition with respect to the syntactic domain of derivation, namely l(exical)-syntax vs. s(syntactic)-syntax. The learners' competence, therefore, must contain information about which feature context yields which interpretation, which interpretations are unrealizable in these contexts, and which aspectual structures are allowed by virtue of their syntactic vs. lexical feature character. The Polish aspectual system involves many elements of knowledge that must be acquired for the L2 end-state to be complete. It also provides a wide range of properties whose nontarget status would lead to a divergent grammar. / Experimental data were elicited from two groups of English speakers who were advanced or near-native learners of Polish in a series of tests (grammaticality judgments, semantic and end-state compatibility tasks, and picture selection) each addressing separate sets of restrictions governing the system. Results were compared to native speaker adult and child controls. / Although the results reveal two types of competence, these cannot be categorically defined as either complete or divergent. While the near-natives' knowledge manifests a complete representation of the elements of the target grammar and native-like distinctions between the aspects, it also bears some characteristics of an incomplete system. The advanced learners manifest a system that is both divergent and incomplete. The study shows that the classification proposed by Sorace (1993) is only appropriate with reference to individual properties of grammar, as a single system of knowledge may show the characteristics of complete, incomplete, divergent and, possibly, non-divergent competence.
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Translating and writing processes of adult second language learnersUzawa, Kozue 05 1900 (has links)
While translation in L2 learning/teaching has been viewed negatively
since the 1950s in North America, in the late 1980s a re-evaluation of
translation has begun (Duff, 1989). The purpose of this research is to
explore text-level translation from the learner’s perspective, as this kind of
research, at present, remains quite scarce (Krings, 1987). This study focuses
on text-level translation as a useful component of second language (L2)
learning/teaching. Adult L2 learners’ translation processes and performance
are examined and contrasted with the same group’s Li and L2 writing
performance.
Twenty-two Japanese ESL students studying at a Canadian college
performed three tasks individually (translation from Li into L2, Li writing,
L2 writing), thinking aloud. Their writing samples were evaluated, and
think-aloud protocols were analyzed, supplemented by interviews and text
analyses.
The data were analyzed with attention given to four recent cognitive
theories of language learning: Cummins’ theories (1986) of cross-linguistic
interdependence of cognitive academic skills; Schmidt’s “conscious
attention” (1990); Swain’s “i+1 output” hypothesis (1985); and
McLaughlin’s “restructuring” (1 990b).
Findings: 1) The correlations of the quality of translation, Li writing,
and L2 writing of L2 learners (whose Li writing skills are still developing)
were not significant. 2) The learners’ conscious attention to language use was high in the translation task, but unexpectedly low in the L2 writing.
Their language use was more sophisticated in the translation than in the L2
writing. 3) Some students preferred translation tasks to L2 writing tasks,
expressing their views which were consistent with the “i+1 output”
hypothesis. 4) Contrary to general expectation about student translations, the
students did not translate word for word; they often restructured Li/L2
correspondences, and examples of “restructuring” were not limited to the
word level.
General conclusions: Cross-linguistic interdependence among
translation, Li writing, and L2 writing was not confirmed clearly. However,
there was evidence that translation processes prompted conscious attention,
“i+1 output”, and restructuring, which some consider to be necessary for
second language learning. Thus translation in L2 learning deserves a closer
look as it provides potential opportunities for learners to learn a second
language.
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Teaching reading in English as a foreign language: a study of a grade 10 class in Taiyuan City, China.Gao, Li. January 2007 (has links)
<p>Since economic reform started in China in 1978, the educational objectives for English language teaching have undergone many changes. In secondary school, reading and writing abilities have become increasingly important, not only in assisting students to study and work in English language contexts, but also in setting up the foundation for further English learning at university level. Thus, new materials have been devised and new teaching methods have been used. However, in practice, the English reading skills of many learners do not seem to have improved and learners have difficulty in achieving the syllabus goals set for reading. This study investigated the factors which influence the development of reading skills by learners in one Grade 10 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) class in Taiyuan, a city in China.</p>
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The feasibility of critical pedagogy in the English Second Language classroom : comparative case studies of senior primary classrooms.Edwards, Ian Phillip. January 1996 (has links)
The aim of the study was to explore the feasibility of critical pedagogy in a sampling of English
Second Language classrooms in the Durban-Pinetown region of KZN. I was situated at the
Abantwana Higher Primary School for eleven weeks for the first phase of my data collection.
Access was negotiated with the Barnabas Shaw Primary School in Pinetown towards the end of
August, this ESL-school provided me with a contrasting site for the purposes of comparison. At
about the same time I commenced with my case survey of the English Second Language
classrooms in the Model C (B) schools. The survey was viewed as a third site in the case study.
The construct of "critical pedagogy" was placed within the context of critical theory as this
theoretical vantage point was ideally suited to probing and exposing the underlying historical and
social relationships of the education problem in KZN. Critical pedagogy is a specific instance
within critical theory. The research was qualitative in nature, using comparative case studies of
primary classrooms in KZN; supplemented by a case survey of 107 pupils. A popular children's
novel was used to develop a critical curriculum suitable for Std 5 pupils. This workbook was
used in the classrooms included in the study, and as a means of observing pupils' response to
critical teaching processes.
The research was described as an ethnographic case study because of the more bounded nature
of the research and because of the fact that it was conducted over a fairly short period of time.
Nevertheless, the principles of classical ethnography applied. Data was collected by means of
sustained observation and participant observation, supported by interviews, questionnaires and
document collection. Data analysis took place during the process of data collection and was ongoing
and cyclical in nature.
The research was initially described as an exploratory study, however, towards the end of the
data analysis phase it appeared that the study was more explanatory in nature, as I had become
aware of the inter-relatedness of the conditions which were required for the successful
introduction of critical pedagogy in the English Second Language classroom. These linked
conditions were described as causal links in the final chapter and a feasible set of
recommendations were made in respect of the reconstruction and development of critical
teaching in the senior primary phase in the historically disadvantaged schools of KZN. The
inevitability of political influences on the curriculum and classroom pedagogy emerged during the
final stages of the process of data analysis, and the recommendations thus included an appeal to
the politicians of this province to address the issue of violence and racial integration in the
province with expediency in order to normalise the provision of education for all its citizens. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Durban-Westville, 1996.
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