Cross-linguistic trade-offs and causal relationships between cues to grammatical subject and object, and the problem of efficiency-related explanations

Cross-linguistic studies focus on inverse correlations (trade-offs) between linguistic variables that reflect different cues to linguistic meanings. For example, if a language has no case marking, it is likely to rely on word order as a cue for identification of grammatical roles. Such inverse correlations are interpreted as manifestations of language users’ tendency to use language efficiently. The present study argues that this interpretation is problematic. Linguistic variables, such as the presence of case, or flexibility of word order, are aggregate properties, which do not represent the use of linguistic cues in context directly. Still, such variables can be useful for circumscribing the potential role of communicative efficiency in language evolution, if we move from cross-linguistic trade-offs to multivariate causal networks. This idea is illustrated by a case study of linguistic variables related to four types of Subject and Object cues: case marking, rigid word order of Subject and Object, tight semantics and verb-medial order. The variables are obtained from online language corpora in thirty languages, annotated with the Universal Dependencies. The causal model suggests that the relationships between the variables can be explained predominantly by sociolinguistic factors, leaving little space for a potential impact of efficient linguistic behavior

Exploring Cross-linguistic Effects and Phonetic Interactions in the Context of Bilingualism

This Special Issue includes fifteen original state-of-the-art research articles from leading scholars that examine cross-linguistic influence in bilingual speech. These experimental studies contribute to the growing number of studies on multilingual phonetics and phonology by introducing novel empirical data collection techniques, sophisticated methodologies, and acoustic analyses, while also presenting findings that provide robust theoretical implications to a variety of subfields, such as L2 acquisition, L3 acquisition, laboratory phonology, acoustic phonetics, psycholinguistics, sociophonetics, blingualism, and language contact. These studies in this book further elucidate the nature of phonetic interactions in the context of bilingualism and multilingualism and outline future directions in multilingual phonetics and phonology research

Reading Polish with Czech Eyes: Distance and Surprisal in Quantitative, Qualitative, and Error Analyses of Intelligibility

In CHAPTER I, I first introduce the thesis in the context of the project workflow in section 1. I then summarise the methods and findings from the project publications about the languages in focus. There I also introduce the relevant concepts and terminology viewed in the literature as possible predictors of intercomprehension and processing difficulty. CHAPTER II presents a quantitative (section 4) and a qualitative (section 5) analysis of the results of the cooperative translation experiments. The focus of this thesis – the language pair PL-CS – is explained and the hypotheses are introduced in section 6. The experiment website is introduced in section 7 with an overview over participants, the different experiments conducted and in which section they are discussed. In CHAPTER IV, free translation experiments are discussed in which two different sets of individual word stimuli were presented to Czech readers: (i) Cognates that are transformable with regular PL-CS correspondences (section 12) and (ii) the 100 most frequent PL nouns (section 13). CHAPTER V presents the findings of experiments in which PL NPs in two different linearisation conditions were presented to Czech readers (section 14.1-14.6). A short digression is made when I turn to experiments with PL internationalisms which were presented to German readers (14.7). CHAPTER VI discusses the methods and results of cloze translation experiments with highly predictable target words in sentential context (section 15) and random context with sentences from the cooperative translation experiments (section 16). A final synthesis of the findings, together with an outlook, is provided in CHAPTER VII.In KAPITEL I stelle ich zunächst die These im Kontext des Projektablaufs in Abschnitt 1 vor. Anschließend fasse ich die Methoden und Erkenntnisse aus den Projektpublikationen zu den untersuchten Sprachen zusammen. Dort stelle ich auch die relevanten Konzepte und die Terminologie vor, die in der Literatur als mögliche Prädiktoren für Interkomprehension und Verarbeitungsschwierigkeiten angesehen werden. KAPITEL II enthält eine quantitative (Abschnitt 4) und eine qualitative (Abschnitt 5) Analyse der Ergebnisse der kooperativen Übersetzungsexperimente. Der Fokus dieser Arbeit - das Sprachenpaar PL-CS - wird erläutert und die Hypothesen werden in Abschnitt 6 vorgestellt. Die Experiment-Website wird in Abschnitt 7 mit einer Übersicht über die Teilnehmer, die verschiedenen durchgeführten Experimente und die Abschnitte, in denen sie besprochen werden, vorgestellt. In KAPITEL IV werden Experimente zur freien Übersetzung besprochen, bei denen tschechischen Lesern zwei verschiedene Sätze einzelner Wortstimuli präsentiert wurden: (i) Kognaten, die mit regulären PL-CS-Korrespondenzen umgewandelt werden können (Abschnitt 12) und (ii) die 100 häufigsten PL-Substantive (Abschnitt 13). KAPITEL V stellt die Ergebnisse von Experimenten vor, in denen tschechischen Lesern PL-NP in zwei verschiedenen Linearisierungszuständen präsentiert wurden (Abschnitt 14.1-14.6). Einen kurzen Exkurs mache ich, wenn ich mich den Experimenten mit PL-Internationalismen zuwende, die deutschen Lesern präsentiert wurden (14.7). KAPITEL VI erörtert die Methoden und Ergebnisse von Lückentexten mit hochgradig vorhersehbaren Zielwörtern im Satzkontext (Abschnitt 15) und Zufallskontext mit Sätzen aus den kooperativen Übersetzungsexperimenten (Abschnitt 16). Eine abschließende Synthese der Ergebnisse und ein Ausblick finden sich in KAPITEL VII

PERCEPTION OF ACCENTS AND DIALECTS IN ADULTS AND INFANTS

This thesis has been undertaken with the purpose of investigating how adult speech processing systems are affected by. and how they cope with, the presence of different regional and foreign accents in speech, and to investigate the developmental origins of adult accent perception capabilities. Experiments 1 to 4 were designed to investigate the long term effects of exposure to different accents, and whether short term adaptation to an accent was possible, using a lexical decision task. The results demonstrated an effect of accent familiarity but no short term adaptation was evident. Experiments 5 to 7 investigated the short term effects of accents by looking at the length of activation of accent-related information in working memory by using a cross-modal matching task. The results found that selective accent related effects were reduced after a 1500 millisecond delay. Experiments 8 to 11 investigated infants' discrimination abilities for regional and foreign accents using a preferential looking habituation method, and found infants at 5 and 7 months could discriminate their own accent from another, unfamiliar regional accent, but could not discriminate two unfamiliar regional accents at 5 months or a foreign accent from their own at 7 months. Experiments 12 and 13 investigated how accents affected infants' word segmentation abilities with continuous speech at 10 months, and found that segmentation was impaired in the presence of regional and foreign accents. Using these results, the Accent Training Model (ATP) is proposed, which attempts to explain how accent related indexical information is processed in the speech processing system. The findings of the infant studies further our understanding of the effect of indexicat variation in early speech perception

A Crosslinguistic/Cultural Perspective of Learning Chinese as a Foreign Language in Canadian Universities

This study examines adult student learning of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) in a Canadian university context, focusing in particular on how students’ diverse prior language(s) and experiences influence their CFL learning and how student motivation develops. It aims at gaining a better understanding of the nature of adult CFL learning; at yielding pedagogic implications and raising questions for further research. Framed by sociocultural theory and cognitive linguistic perspectives, the research was guided by the following questions: 1) What elements of Chinese as a foreign language challenge student learning? 2) How do students’ prior language(s) and language learning experience influence their CFL learning? 3) How does student motivation influence CFL learning and develop in CFL study? This is a qualitative multicase study with university students in Canada studying Chinese as a foreign language. Multiple data collection methods were employed such as survey, interviews, observation, and review of students’ written work. This study yielded the following pedagogic and research implications: The pedagogical implications for CFL curriculum development and pedagogical improvement point to: 1) the importance of pedagogic knowledge in CFL instruction; 2) the need to attune curriculum and syllabus to students’ learning characteristics, needs, interests, and expectations; 3) the need for commitment to prompt feedback on students’ assignments; 4) the importance of identifying opportunities for experiential learning to stimulate student motivation; and 5) the importance of offering students socio-psychological support in addition to academic support; as well as 6) encouraging peer collaboration. Specific to CFL instruction, the study indicates the need to pay particular attention to the teaching of Chinese tones and characters. The implications for further research can be focused on the inquiries into: 1) comparison of the errors by students from different language backgrounds (e.g. Oriental languages and European languages) to capture the learning characteristics of CFL learning; 2) CFL learner internal and external conditions for transfer of prior knowledge; 3) learning motivation: the influence of different contexts on motivational intensity (e.g. CFL learning in China and Canada); or the influence of different motivational orientations on student achievement

The Production of the english interdental fricatives by brazilian former and future EFL teachers

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras/Inglês e Literatura Correspondente, Florianópolis, 2010The present study investigated the production of the English interdental fricatives by Brazilian former and future EFL teachers. The main objectives of the present study were to investigate: (a) the pattern of production and replacements for the voiceless interdental fricative in word-initial and final positions; (b) the pattern of production and replacements for the voiced interdental fricative in word-initial and final positions; and (c) whether word-position might affect the degree of difficulty for the accurate production of the interdentals. The participants of the study were eight undergraduate learners from the Letras English Course at UFSC and three former English teachers from language schools in the south of Brazil. Data were collected through a questionnaire and a production test. The test, which was audio and video recorded, contained the interdentals in each word position, initial and final. Despite the limitations of the study, results show a high percentage of accurate productions especially of word-initial and final /T/. For /D/, more accurate productions were observed in word-initial than in wordfinal position. The predominant production types observed were: (a) the realization of [T] for /T/ in word-initial and final positions; (b) the realization of [D] for /D/ in word-initial position; and (c) the realization of [T] for /D/ in word-final position. The results suggest that the high number of accurate productions might be due to the participants# frequency of English contact and high proficiency level. The difficulty observed for the production of word-final /D/ may be related more to lack of word familiarity than to markedness constraints.O presente estudo investigou a produção das fricativas interdentais do Inglês por antigos e futuros professores brasileiros de Inglês como língua estrangeira (EFL). Os principais objetivos deste estudo foram investigar: (a) o padrão de produção e de substituição para a fricativa interdental surda em posições inicial e final de palavra, (b) o padrão de produção e de substituição para a fricativa interdental vozeada em posições inicial e final de palavra, e (c) se a posição do fonema nas palavras pode afetar o grau de dificuldade para a produção acurada das interdentais. Os participantes do estudo são oito alunos de graduação do Curso de Letras Inglês na UFSC e três exprofessores de Inglês de escolas de idiomas no sul do Brasil. Os dados foram coletados através de um questionário e um teste de produção. O teste, que foi gravado em áudio e vídeo, continha as interdentais em cada posição da palavra, inicial e final. Apesar das limitações do estudo, os resultados mostram uma elevada percentagem de produções acuradas especialmente de /T/ em posição inicial e final de palavra. Para /D/, as produções acuradas foram observadas com maior freqüência em início de palavra do que em posição final de palavra. Os tipos predominantes produção observadas foram: (a) a realização de [T] para /T/ no início e fim de palavra; (b) a realização de [D] para /D/ em início de palavra; e (c) a realização de [T] para /D/ em posição final de palavra. Os resultados sugerem que o elevado número de produções curadas pode ser devido a maior freqüência de contato dos participantes com o Inglês e seu alto nível de proficiência. A dificuldade encontrada para a produção do /D/ final pode estar relacionada mais à falta de familiaridade com as palavras do teste do que apenas à restrições de marcação