The purpose of the present study is to investigate similarities and differences in the listening behaviors of native speakers and learners of Japanese, focusing on the production of aizuchi and head nods. The term aizuchi is often interchangeably used with the word backchannel, and these are characterized as the listener's use of short utterances such as oh or uh huh in English or hai, un, or aa in Japanese. In this study, aizuchi is defined as a short verbal utterance that is produced in response to the primary speaker's speech in Japanese. A total of 14 NS--NS or 14 NS--NNS dyads were formed to elicit native speakers' and learners' aizuchi and head nods. With the exception of a few participants in their late twenties, most of the participants were female native speakers and learners of Japanese who were of college age. The learners of Japanese were native speakers of American English who had been labeled as intermediate/high-intermediate level learners of Japanese. Each interaction included a semi-free conversation and a narrative story-telling task, both of which were recorded and transcribed for analysis. The findings indicate that the differences in the use of aizuchi and head nods produced by native speakers and learners lie not mainly in their frequency, but in the types and functions. The results show that when the frequency of aizuchi and head nods was measured with a time-based scale, which was the frequency per 60 seconds, differences were found in the frequency of head nods and total frequency of aizuchi and head nods. However, no significant difference was found in the frequency of aizuchi and head nods based on the amount of speech the speakers produced. Aizuchi were categorized into 16 groups to investigate differences in their types. The results show that the learners were using less aa-group, hee-group, iya-group aizuchi but more soo-group aizuchi compared to the native speakers. The number of different aizuchi each participant used was also measured to examine the variety of aizuchi, and it was found that both the native speakers and the learners were producing a similar number of different aizuchi. Head nods were analyzed based on nodding count, and it was revealed that more multiple head nods were observed in the learner's behaviors. The functions of aizuchi and head nods were categorized into seven groups, and the distribution of the functions was analyzed. The results indicate that learners tend to use more aizuchi to express their understanding and reaction to their interlocutors' response solicitation, while the use of aizuchi that do not show their attitude was more frequent with native speakers. The distribution of the functions of head nods was similar between the two groups. By further examining the types and the function of aizuchi and head nods, the study sheds light on which types of aizuchi learners may be lacking or overusing. Pedagogical implications are drawn from the results.

Second language (L2) learners notoriously have trouble using articles in their target languages (e.g., a, an, the in English). However, researchers disagree about the patterns and causes of these errors. Past studies have found that L2 English learners: *Predominantly omit articles (White 2003, Robertson 2000), *Overuse the (Huebner 1983, Master 1987, Parrish 1987, Tarone & Parrish 1988, Thomas 1989, Ionin 2003), or *Overuse a (Leung 2001). Previously proposed explanations of the causes of article errors include: *Learners have incorrect or incomplete semantic representations (Tarone & Parrish 1988, Hawkins & Chan 1997, Goto Butler 2002, Ionin 2003), or *Learners have complete, correct semantic representations for articles, but difficulty choosing the lexical form during production due to stress on mental processing or phonological limitations (Lardiere 1998, Bruhn de Garavito & White 2000, White 2003, Goad, White, & Steele 2003). Prior studies have focused on articles, which identify discourse relationships, but have not considered other morphemes that do so as well, such as pronouns and demonstratives. Furthermore, they have focused on L2 errors in isolation and not in the context of a full discourse or contrasted with first language (L1) input. This study examined the use of articles and other discourse morphemes in 20 L1 and 20 L2 English essays. L2 essays were produced by L1 Chinese and Korean writers at two proficiency levels. The essays' noun phrases (NPs) were marked for part-of-speech, co-reference, syntactic position, and other discourse-relevant features. L2 errors were identified and categorized. Frequency data showed that L2 proficiency level more often indicated significant differences in discourse construction than L1. No significant difference between L2 and L1 writers was when considering all articles together. Breaking this down, students used a/an significantly less than L1 writers, but the use of the was not significantly different. In contrast, the error analysis showed most L2 mistakes being made in the use of the, with almost none in the use of a/an. Together the frequency and error data give a richer understanding of discourse and article use in L2 production.

L2 learner's use of communication strategies (CSs) has received an attention since 1970s (Faech & Kasper, 1983; Tarone et al., 1983). Previous studies have focused on identification and classification of CSs, the effectiveness and teachability of CS, the uses of CSs by different proficiency levels in different tasks, and individual differences in CS use. In spite of the varieties in focus of the previous researches, no research has address whether the use of CSs affects L2 acquisition over and beyond the level of sustainment of communication. Recent studies in classroom acquisition have shown beneficial effects of negotiation during peer conversation on L2 grammar acquisition. However, previous studies in peer interaction focus primarily on how a listener's negotiation move or corrective feedback helps a speaker to repair his/her erroneous utterances. One the other hand, CS research concerns with a speaker's voluntary action to make him/her understood at the time of communication difficulty. In other words, both negotiation strategies and CSs occur in the same conversational context. Even so, no research has ever investigated the relationship between them. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationship between the use of CSs and negotiation strategies on L2 acquisition. Twenty four students enrolled in the intermediate and advance Japanese language courses are asked to engage in two types of communicative tasks, and their development of vocabulary and grammar knowledge are examined through pre- and posttests of the target linguistic items. Also, conversations during the tasks are transcribed and qualitatively analyzed to examine the pattern of CS use and the rate of successful repair moves. The results indicate that some CSs such as appeals and code switching are beneficial, with or without a negotiation move from the interlocutor, but others may be detrimental to L2 development.

Grounded in both interactionist and collaborative learning theories, this study empirically investigates the effects of interactive second language (L2) practice on subsequent individual L2 Chinese composition writing. In L2 classrooms, the learning of writing is often treated as an individual act. However, researchers (Hamdaoui, 2006; Susser, 1994; Weissberg, 2006) have argued that writing should be socially situated, and collaborative learning of L2 writing may generate the cognitive skills needed for the development of L2 writing ability. Two forms of interactive discussion were investigated: online text chat communication and face-to-face (FTF) oral discussion. Six third-year Chinese L2 learners participated in this study. The participants conducted five online-chat and five FTF pair discussion tasks. Upon completing each interactive task, students immediately wrote a 350-character composition independently on the topic that was addressed in the interactive session. Interviews were also conducted individually with the participants to elicit learner perception data. The primary results indicated that both mediums had benefits for the development of L2 Chinese writing in both cognitive and social dimensions, including improving L2 composition writing fluency and heightened motivation for learning Chinese writing. The collaborative pattern and the transfer process, however, differed between the two mediums. The collaborative pattern in the online chats was relatively equal, whereas the collaborative pattern in the FTF conversations was relatively unequal. The transfer process from the online chats to post-chat composition writing was more of a parallel process, whereas a more selective transfer pattern was seen from the FTF sessions to the post-FTF composition writing. The FTF conversations also stimulated a deeper thinking process and activated higher-level cognitive skills. In summary, the findings in this study support the integration of interactive practice in the learning of L2 Chinese writing.

Electropalatography (EPG) provides real-time visual biofeedback for linguapalatal contact during speech and swallowing. Historically, EPG has proved to be an effective tool for assessment and treatment of a variety of speech disorders across a wide age range. The present thesis is part of a larger study examining the effectiveness of using EPG in assisting second language (L2) learners to acquire the German fricatives , [x], and //. Real and nonsense word productions were collected from six native German speakers. Electrode activation levels were generally highest for and lowest for [x]. Even when considering the impact of vowel context, [x] consistently showed only trace linguapalatal contact. Further research regarding the use of EPG as a tool for second language acquisition may include the development of linguapalatal contact maps from which L2 learners can compare their production of , [x], and // to native production. It is hoped that the information contained in this thesis will expand the current uses of EPG as a tool to assist L2 learners in acquiring non-native speech sounds.

No description available.

No description available.

In recent years, KSL (Korean as a second language) education has developed together with the rising status of Korea in the international community. In the context of KSL, the number of foreign students has increased dramatically by virtue of Korea??s growing status. Most learn the Korean language for academic purposes and successful reading is an important key to success in their academic setting. The purpose of this study is to examine the types of reading strategies employed by intermediate KSL learners when reading Korean texts. The study also attempted to examine similarities and differences in the use of reading strategies according to the variables of gender, nationality, text genre, and reading proficiency and to investigate the results of data analysis by multiple research methods, namely, reading strategies questionnaires/follow up interviews, think aloud protocols, and diary studies. The results of the study indicated that the participants employed all of the defined reading strategies. In particular, participants concentrated on dealing with cognitive strategies and support strategies. Furthermore, most participants employed ??focusing word?? strategy frequently owing to the effect of orthographic similarity. In addition, some participants used multiple reading strategies simultaneously rather than a particular single strategy to cope with a breakdown in comprehension. This study found no meaningful overall differences in strategy use according to the variables of gender, nationality, and text genre. However, skilful readers employed every reading strategy actively compared with less skilful readers with regard to the variable of proficiency. There were some discrepancies of results among multiple research methods. These differences are due to the characteristics of each research method. This finding suggested that in fact the multiple research methods serve to complement each other. Implications are discussed in relation to the significance of multiple research methods as well as the construction of KSL reading strategy training programs.

Research into how learners acquire second language has established that there are developmental stages but has not established the nature of variation within these stages. On the basis of a longitudinal study of the speech of six learners acquiring English as a Second Language (ESL), this thesis investigates the proposals which have been made about variation in stages within the paradigm established by the Multidimensional Model (MDM). Of particular interest is the variational option hypothesis in Processability Theory (PT), the theoretical framework of this thesis. The findings indicate that these variational options and the variational features are not satisfactory in three main respects. They are based on a theoretical construct which makes problematic assumptions about the learner’s knowledge of the second language, they do not reliably predict variation and they exclude important aspects of variation. This thesis proposes a new approach termed ‘developmental style’ which suggests that learner orientation at each stage can be defined in terms of a learner’s lexical or grammatical orientation. The findings demonstrate support for the developmental hypothesis and show that learners are consistent in their particular developmental style at the different stages investigated. The results indicate that learners vary in terms of their general grammatical development at any stage. This study also finds that language background, gender and task are variables which need to be controlled (informally) in order to demonstrate developmental styles. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.