Roles of domain-general auditory processing in spoken second-language vocabulary attainment in adulthood

Recently, scholars have begun to explore the hypothesis that individual differences in domain-general auditory perception, which has been identified as an anchor of L1 acquisition, could explain some variance in postpubertal L2 learners’ segmental and suprasegmental learning in immersive settings. The current study set out to examine the generalizability of the topic to the acquisition of higher-level linguistic production skills—that is the appropriate use of diverse, rich, and abstract vocabulary. The speech of 100 Polish-English bilinguals was elicited using an interview task, submitted to corpus-/rater-based linguistic analyses, and linked to their ability to discriminate sounds based on individual acoustic dimensions (pitch, duration, and amplitude). According to the results, those who attained more advanced L2 lexical proficiency demonstrated not only more relevant experience (extensive immersion and earlier age of arrival), but also more precise auditory perception ability

Early word learning through communicative inference

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-122).How do children learn their first words? Do they do it by gradually accumulating information about the co-occurrence of words and their referents over time, or are words learned via quick social inferences linking what speakers are looking at, pointing to, and talking about? Both of these conceptions of early word learning are supported by empirical data. This thesis presents a computational and theoretical framework for unifying these two different ideas by suggesting that early word learning can best be described as a process of joint inferences about speakers' referential intentions and the meanings of words. Chapter 1 describes previous empirical and computational research on "statistical learning"--the ability of learners to use distributional patterns in their language input to learn about the elements and structure of language-and argues that capturing this abifity requires models of learning that describe inferences over structured representations, not just simple statistics. Chapter 2 argues that social signals of speakers' intentions, even eye-gaze and pointing, are at best noisy markers of reference and that in order to take advantage of these signals fully, learners must integrate information across time. Chapter 3 describes the kinds of inferences that learners can make by assuming that speakers are informative with respect to their intended meaning, introducing and testing a formalization of how Grice's pragmatic maxims can be used for word learning. Chapter 4 presents a model of cross-situational intentional word learning that both learns words and infers speakers' referential intentions from labeled corpus data.by Michael C. Frank.Ph.D

Functional categories in the L2 acquisition of English Morpho-syntax: a longitudinal study of two Farsi-speaking children

This is a longitudinal case study of two Farsi-speaking children learning English: 'Bernard' and 'Melissa', who were 7;4 and 8;4 at the start of data collection. The research deals with the initial state and further development in the child second language (L2) acquisition of syntax regarding the presence or absence of functional categories, as well as the role and degree of L1 influence in this regard. Some studies in the field of child L1 acquisition are discussed to determine similarities or differences between child L1 and child L2 acquisition. Examining data collected from the children's spontaneous speech, the researcher's diaries and translation and other tasks over a period of 20 months, the competing claims of the two most prominent hypotheses about early L2 grammars are tested: Vainikka & Young-Scholten's (1996) Minimal Trees/Structure Building hypothesis and Schwartz & Sprouse's (1996) Full Transfer/Full Access hypothesis. Word order, use of rote-learned formulae, suppliance of copula/auxiliary be, modals, questions, case assignment, finiteness, presence of null subjects, subject-verb agreement, negation and tense marking are investigated, and the conclusion is reached that functional categories are absent at the initial state and that they emerge without the learners' reliance on their L1, consistent with Minimal Trees/Structure Building. A difference is observed between the two subjects regarding development of some aspects of verbal morphology, and standardized tests of intelligence, aptitude, verbal memory and phonological awareness show that processing speed and what can be described as 'verbalness' are important factors affecting the rate of development of these elements

Optional categories in early French syntax : a developmental study of root infinitives and null arguments

LoC Class: PC2395, LoC Subject Headings: French language--Synta

“Give Me the Rules, I’ll Understand Grammar Better”: Exploring the Effectiveness of Usage-Based Grammar Approach Through Explicit Instruction of Adverbials

The main purpose of this dissertation is to examine the (in)effectiveness of the Usage-based grammar approach through explicit instruction of adverbials in the US educational context. One area that can complicate the question of native speakers’ grammar knowledge is their awareness of grammatical terms and their functions. Along with exploring psychological and linguistic domains of language learning and instructional theories and methodologies, and also investigating grammar teaching in US schools, this dissertation intends to examine native speakers’ knowledge of grammar focusing on adverbs and adverbials as its pedagogical concern. Using a limited pool of students to examine the effectiveness of explicit instruction of adverbials following the parameters introduced in Usage-based linguistics theory, this dissertation looks at American native speakers’ knowledge of adverbs and adverbials, their grammar teaching method preference, and the contribution of grammar knowledge (of adverbials) to the students’ writing. Using a limited number of students enrolled in ENG-145- Writing in the Academic Disciplines, the researcher, in the pre-test, learned that the students didn’t have any familiarity with the grammatical functions of words in sentences. However, the results of the post-test showed that not only did the majority of students provide the correct answers for the definitions, but also their examples were more sophisticated. In fact, simply explicit instruction per se doesn’t necessarily lead to using the knowledge that is why the researcher developed a Usage-based inspired explicit instruction. In order to investigate the students’ grammar teaching method preference, the researcher provided the definitions of explicit and implicit grammar instruction indicating that the researcher would follow an explicit approach to the teaching of adverbials in the class. A quick look at students’ responses revealed that only 6 students (11.76%) out of 51 students preferred the implicit teaching method and 88.24% of students preferred the explicit approach. Out of the reasons the students indicated to support explicit instruction, “to know the rules, to learn better and to make more sense” stood out with the frequency of 39, 34, and 32 respectively. The researcher ran a Readability Test to qualitatively examine the contribution of adverbials in pre and post-grammar instructional classes. After examining the number of space, time, process, and adjunct adverbials in students’ memoir and autobiography in the pre-grammar instruction classes, the researcher found that students used 1136 space adverbials, 1184 time adverbials, 925 process adverbials, and 1096 adjunct adverbials in their papers in the pre-grammar classes. However, the results of the post-grammar classes showed a decline in the number of adverbials as space adverbials (743 times), time adverbials (961 times), process adverbials (462 times), and adjunct adverbials (505 times). It can be hypothesized that because students’ awareness of adverbials was increased through explicit instructions and they gained more knowledge of adverbials, they tended to use adverbials more cautiously and carefully in their papers. Therefore, the number of adverbials in the students’ papers decreased compared to pre-grammar instructional sessions. Qualitatively, the majority of the students’ papers had the quality of 7th graders (26 out of 51) which might be due to the unfamiliarity with the topic of memoir papers. Additionally, 12 students wrote as 8th and 9th graders, 11 students wrote at the level of 6th graders, one student wrote as 10th to 12th graders and only one student wrote their paper at the college level. However, the post-grammar papers showed significant growth in the quality of students’ papers in that 27 out of 51 students wrote their letters at the level of 10th to 12th grades, 19 students wrote at the college level, and only 5 students wrote at the 8th and 9th grades. Based on these findings, the researcher believes that writing instructors should follow the parameters introduced in the Usage-based linguistic theory and incorporate explicit grammar instruction in their classes, so learners better understand grammatical terminology and learn about their own language which ultimately results in students functionally using what they understand about their language in their writing practices