354,494 research outputs found
Grammatical errors in spoken english of University students in oral communication course
The present study examines the grammatical errors in spoken English of university
students who are less proficient in English. The specific objectives of the study are to
determine the types of errors and the changes in grammatical accuracy during the
duration of the English for Social Purposes course focussing on oral communication. The
language data were obtained from the simulated oral interactions of 42 students
participating in five role play situations during the 14-week semester. Error analysis of
126 oral interactions showed that the five common grammar errors made by the learners
are preposition, question, article, plural form of nouns, subject-verb agreement and tense.
Based on Dulay, Burt and Krashenâs (1982) surface structure taxonomy, the main ways
by which students modify the target forms are misinformation and omission, with
addition of elements or misordering being less frequent. The results also showed an
increase in grammatical accuracy in the studentsâ spoken English towards the end of the
course
Talking the Talk: The Effect of Vocalics in an Interview
Our voices carry more than just content. People continuously make assumptions of oneâs intelligence, credibility, personality, and other characteristics merely based on the way we talk. As the diversity of individuals in the workplace increases, so too do the differences in how those individuals talk. It is important that we understand how these different ways of speaking are being perceived in the workplace. More specifically, how are individuals being perceived prior to being hired via the interview process? This Honors Capstone project aims to understand the impact that vocal characteristics in an individual have on the interviewerâs perception of the interviewee, and how that impacts the hiring process. This project will offer professionals of all ages tangible advice on ways to increase oneâs chances of receiving a job just by altering aspects of oneâs voice
Atypical audiovisual speech integration in infants at risk for autism
The language difficulties often seen in individuals with autism might stem from an inability to integrate audiovisual information, a skill important for language development. We investigated whether 9-month-old siblings of older children with autism, who are at an increased risk of developing autism, are able to integrate audiovisual speech cues. We used an eye-tracker to record where infants looked when shown a screen displaying two faces of the same model, where one face is articulating/ba/and the other/ga/, with one face congruent with the syllable sound being presented simultaneously, the other face incongruent. This method was successful in showing that infants at low risk can integrate audiovisual speech: they looked for the same amount of time at the mouths in both the fusible visual/ga/â audio/ba/and the congruent visual/ba/â audio/ba/displays, indicating that the auditory and visual streams fuse into a McGurk-type of syllabic percept in the incongruent condition. It also showed that low-risk infants could perceive a mismatch between auditory and visual cues: they looked longer at the mouth in the mismatched, non-fusible visual/ba/â audio/ga/display compared with the congruent visual/ga/â audio/ga/display, demonstrating that they perceive an uncommon, and therefore interesting, speech-like percept when looking at the incongruent mouth (repeated ANOVA: displays x fusion/mismatch conditions interaction: F(1,16) = 17.153, p = 0.001). The looking behaviour of high-risk infants did not differ according to the type of display, suggesting difficulties in matching auditory and visual information (repeated ANOVA, displays x conditions interaction: F(1,25) = 0.09, p = 0.767), in contrast to low-risk infants (repeated ANOVA: displays x conditions x low/high-risk groups interaction: F(1,41) = 4.466, p = 0.041). In some cases this reduced ability might lead to the poor communication skills characteristic of autism
Aristotle on verbal communication: The first chapters of De Interpretatione
ABSTRACT
This article deals with the communicational aspects of Aristotleâs theory of signification
as laid out in the initial chapters of the De Interpretatione (Int.).1 We begin
by outlining the reception and main interpretations of the chapters under discussion,
rather siding with the linguistic strand. We then argue that the first four chapters
present an account of verbal communication, in which words signify things via
thoughts. We show how Aristotle determines voice as a conventional and hence accidental
medium of signification: words as âspoken soundsâ are tokens of thoughts,
which in turn are signs or natural likenesses of things. We argue that, in this way,
linguistic expressions may both signify thoughts and refer to things. This double
account of signification also explains the variety of ontological, logical and psychological
interpretations of the initial chapters of Int
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