This study replicates VanPatten's research (1990) in order to determine whether learners of Spanish as a second language (L2) can simultaneously attend to meaning and form when processing input. My research furthers VanPatten's work through an investigation of more advanced students of Spanish L2. / The participants for this study were 60 advanced Spanish L2 students at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. To investigate whether advanced L2 learners can focus on form while listening for meaning, participants were randomly assigned to complete one of four listening tasks: Task I (control task): listening to the passage for content only, Task II: listening to the passage for content and simultaneously noting the key lexical item, inflacion, Task III: listening to the passage for content and simultaneously noting the article la, and Task IV: listening for content and simultaneously noting the verb morpheme -n. Comprehension of the passage was assessed by a written recall protocol. / Results revealed that comprehension scores were higher among learners listening only for meaning than those of learners attending to meaning and one of the formal features. The findings of the present study are in agreement with VanPatten (1990). Learners' attention to form while listening for meaning appears to affect comprehension.

Several current studies in language acquisition have focussed on the emergence of functional categories in first and second languages. The properties of functional categories can be exhibited through movement, inflections, case marking and the use of functional elements such as determiners and complementizers. / This pilot study investigated the English second language of two groups of Inuktitut speaking schoolchildren at the beginning of the school year to see whether the properties of functional categories in English emerged in the same way as they do for first language speakers. While some of the Kindergarten children showed no access to these properties, others showed partial or complete access to them. Those children who had been in school one year demonstrated access to all of the properties under investigation. The results are discussed with respect to future research methodologies and studies of acquisition.

This thesis studies the L2 acquisition of transitivity alternations in English, Spanish and Turkish within the Generative framework. in particular, it sets out to investigate the interaction of universal principles and L1 knowledge in interlanguage grammars, as well as whether similar patterns of development are observed across typologically different languages. The focus is on verbs that participate in the causative/inchoative alternation, verbs whose lexico-semantic composition---[x CAUSE [ y BECOME predicate]]---is not matched by morphological derivation uniformly across, and even within, languages. / The thesis adopts a templatic account to verb classes. Verbs are decomposed into primitive semantic predicates (CAUSE, BECOME, BE) which map onto an X-bar configuration as the heads of light verbs. Thematic roles like Agent and Theme occupy the specifiers. Different verb classes---alternating, transitive non-alternating, unaccusative and unergative verbs---derive from the interaction of semantic subpredicates and thematic roles. Transitivity alternations are determined by other narrower aspects of meaning: namely, the nature of the Agent role and the CAUSE subevent. Causative and anticausative morphology is the overt manifestation of the CAUSE and BECOME subpredicates. / Causative errors in L1 acquisition have been attributed to the overgeneralization of the causative/inchoative alternation to unergative and unaccusative verbs. This study proposes that these errors result when children incorrectly map non-alternating transitive and intransitive verbs onto a default transitive template. By extending this proposal to the L2 acquisition situation, it is hypothesized that L2 learners of Turkish, Spanish and English of different language backgrounds and at lower proficiency levels also rely on this universal mechanism when learning transitivity alternations; L1 influence only plays a role with the overt/non-overt morphology of alternating verbs in these languages. / Three independent but methodologically identical experimental studies on English, Spanish and Turkish as second languages are presented. Overall, results of a Picture Judgment Task confirm the hypotheses in the three studies. This work argues against the Full Transfer/Full Access Hypothesis (Schwartz & Sprouse 1996) as a theory of L2 competence and advances a modular view of Transfer which proposes that L1 influence does not affect all linguistic domains in the same way.

The studies included in this thesis had as aim to elucidate how individual differences in phonetic learning abilities might be related to differences in more general, psychoacoustic learning abilities, and in how they might be related to differences in brain function and brain morphology. / We tested and trained English speaking volunteers to perceive the Hindi dental-retroflex phonetic contrast. We found evidence suggesting that the ability to accurately perceive "difficult" non-native contrasts is not permanently lost during development. We also tested and trained subjects to perceive the difference between non-linguistic rapidly changing and steady-state tonal sounds, and found evidence supporting the hypothesis that successful phonetic learning is in part a function of a more general psychoacoustic ability to process rapidly changing sounds. / The aim of the second study was to determine how the pattern of brain activity may change as a result of training with non-native speech sounds, and in whether it is possible to differentiate "learners" from "non-learners" on the basis of neural activation patterns. Results of this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) investigation suggested that successful learning of a non-native contrast results in the recruitment of the same areas that are involved in the processing of native contrasts; but the degree of success in learning is accompanied by more efficient neural processing in classical frontal speech regions, while making greater processing demands in left parieto-temporal speech regions. / In the final study, we correlated phonetic learning measures with brain morphology throughout the whole brain volume. We found evidence for overall larger parietal volumes in the left relative to the right hemisphere, and for more white relative to gray matter in the left hemisphere in the learners and not in the nonlearners. This finding is consistent with findings by other investigators suggesting that left-hemispheric dominance for speech may be in part accounted for by hemispheric differences in white matter connectivity, which may allow faster intra- and inter-hemispheric neural transmission. This latter feature may be critical for the processing of consonant speech sounds, which depends on the ability to process sounds that change on the time scale of 30--50 milliseconds.

This research project explored how modern media and the theme of Bedroom Culture could be used to enhance second language learning of preadolescent girls. Most of the girls who participated in this project are first language English speakers. Therefore it is a challenge for them to learn isiZulu. Thus, to kindle an interest an obvious entry point to working with these pre-adolescent girls in a participatory way in terms of language learning, was to capitalize on their interest and expertise. The theme ‘My Bedroom’ was used because girls spend much of their out-of-school time in their bedroom and this is considered a critical interest space for them. This approach focused on using photographs taken by the girls themselves, on digital cameras, of various aspects and spaces in their bedroom. Thereafter a Power Point presentation was created by each girl, using these photographs. The presentations were then carried out by the girls in front of the class and the teacher. Making use of modern technologies and media, and what is familiar to them allowed the girls to work with different modes from the purely written/verbal linguistic mode which has dominated language learning and teaching for some time. These modes of meaning included the visual, audio and gestural. Incorporated into the research were the Multimodal approach together with the idea of Multiliteracies. These Multiliteracies include the understanding and control of meaning-making forms, which are becoming increasingly important in the communications environment, and which lead to a new direction in language learning during the second language lessons. The approach of this work builds on the popular Communicative/Task-Based Approach in language learning. This research showed that allowing the girls to use photographs of their bedrooms, empowered them to take ownership of their project, enabling them to confidently carry out the presentation using modern technology with which they are familiar as well as, using a subject with which they are familiar. At the same time they were able to extend their own knowledge to learn isiZulu. It also revealed much about their Bedroom Culture, Girlhood Studies, Children as Cultural Producers and Children and Visual Studies. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban, 2007.

This study investigated the underlying factor structure of second language (L2) cloze test performance as explained by a theoretical model including the following hypothetical constructs: cloze-taking ability, knowledge of language, knowledge of text content, and knowledge of contextual constraints. Eight cloze tests reflecting the posited factors were constructed and administered to 182 Francophone, university-level students. The factors were examined separately and in combination through a causal model building process. A model composed of three orthogonal factors was confirmed and accepted as the best explanation of the data. The results indicate that cloze performance is dependent upon knowledge of a specific language (second language or first language) and nonlinguistic-specific knowledge related to close-taking ability that crosses over linguistic boundaries. Cloze has been considered as an overall L2 proficiency measure. This study empirically demonstrates that factors other than language are significantly contributing to cloze performance. It also demonstrates the potential of a causal modeling approach.

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To analyze the impact multicultural factors had on skills international graduate students at Ball State University's classrooms, two independent variables (professors' behavior and students' participation) and three dependent variables (language skills, cultural awareness, and group support) were utilized in this study.The primary goal of this thesis, an analysis of the impact that multicultural factors: language skills, cultural awareness, participation, group support, and professors' behavior had on international graduate students' participation in classrooms, revealed that:First, English language proficiency and language (speaking,reading, writing, and understanding) limited international graduate students' participation.Second, no relationship was found between the time international students lived in the United States and their cultural awareness hierarchy; but international students were aware of "other" cultural values and aspects beyond their own culture.Third, the level of group support provided to international students affected international graduate students' frequency of participation in classroom. Group support was provided basically by professors through encouragement and feedback.Fourth, although English proficiency limited international students participation, it was found that frequency participation ranked from "some times (30%)" and "always (30%) ", to "most of the time (33%)".Fifth, within 9 variables of professors' behavior, all of which were perceived as positive to some degree, forty-seven percent of (n=83) international graduate students reported that they perceived feedback as "always" positive.The second goal of this thesis, a comparison between students from developed and developing countries regarding their English language proficiency revealed that:Students from developing countries were 70 percent of the sample while students from developed countries made up 30%;Males were in a majority overall and more males than females were enrolled in master's programs. However, more females than males were enrolled in doctoral programs.Marital status did not affect English proficiency, but unmarried students showed higher levels of language- skills (speaking, reading, etc.) than married students.The third goal of this study, a description of how both family and friend relationships affected international graduate students' English proficiency revealed that both relationships limited international students' English proficiency. / Department of Educational Leadership

The case studies offered in this ethnography describe the learning experiences of 13 second and third grade students, six girls and seven boys, living in a medium-sizemidwestern town in the United States, who are taught Spanish as a foreign language once a week in 30 minute sessions during the 1995-6 school year. None of the children had any prior exposure to Spanish nor any additional exposure to Spanish outside the class I taught.The research investigates several areas of individual variety, including motivation, learning style, approach to vocabulary learning, classroom behavior, expectations, and listening and pronunciation skills.The study also investigates the impact of age and gender, as well as associations between the individuals' basic skills and L2 learning success.In addition, the study documents the teacher's experiences, observations, and insights during these classroom sessions. The researcher functioned as a participant-observer by teaching, recording, transcribing, and analyzing.The material for this study comes from hours of classroom teaching which were video- and audio-taped and from careful notes. The tapes and notes were transcribed and analyzed for patterns of learning behavior.A large number of observations resulted from this indepth study. One of the main findings of the study was that classroom management, emotional climate, and peer group influence are very closely interconnected. Learning was strongly related to cooperativeness and supportiveness in the two groups of girls but not seem to be so with the boys. There was no conclusive evidence that any one personality trait was more important than another in the long run. Overall scores on the CTBS were positively related to success in second language learning and were not negatively affected from one year to the next from the time taken out to study Spanish. There was no one area in the CTBS battery that could successfully predict foreign language aptitude; the best predictor seemed to be overall classroom success. Learning a foreign language was not particularly easy or automatic with this group; however, they did seem to have an aptitude and a willingness for repeating unfamiliar sounds. / Department of English

The present study examined the request strategies of advanced learners of Japanese, by comparing those of native speakers of Japanese. The investigation focused on the following aspects: discourse structure, sentence types, strategy types, and reasoning behind the speakers’ choice of strategy. The participants for this study were five learners and six native speakers of Japanese. Data were collected through role plays and a retrospective verbal report. The distribution of the types of responses was compared. Results showed that the request realization of learners of Japanese and that of native speakers of Japanese were similar at least in the use of the supporting statements in the discourse structure and use of indirect strategies; in contrast, they differed in the use of sentence types to realize indirect requests and types of intended strategies. Findings suggest that the learners’ deviations from native speakers were caused by their inadequate grammatical skills. / Graduate