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

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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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.

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.

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.

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.

<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>

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.

Typical experiments investigating the accessibility and/or role of principles of Universal Grammar (UG) in adult second language acquisition (SLA) use a written grammaticality judgment (GJ) task to infer knowledge of principles of UG. The present investigation examined whether subjects would judge sentences differently in the aural modality than the visual. It was hypothesized that subjects in the aural condition would be less accurate and slower at judging sentences violating the subjacency principle than subjects in the visual condition. Four language groups were tested: ESL (English second-language) FSL (French second-language), L1.E (English first language) and L1.F (French first language). Subjects were assigned to either an aural or a visual condition; the same sentences were presented via computer. The target sentences presented to the subjects were declarative sentences involving embedded questions, as well as ungrammatical wh-questions which violated subjacency. The presentation times for all sentences were matched across conditions. Accuracy and reaction time to grammaticality judgment were measured. The hypothesis that subjects would be slower and less accurate in the aural condition than the visual one was supported. Furthermore, subjects were less accurate and slower to judge violations of subjacency than other sentences, in both modalities. The detrimental effects of the auditory task on judgments was most pronounced for the L2 learners. These results are discussed in the context of the informativeness and validity of outcomes derived from GJ tasks, and the ways in which they are presented.