Analysing lexical richness in French learner language: what frequency lists and teacher judgements can tell us about basic and advanced words

We show how teacher judgements can be used to assess the quality of vocabulary used by L2 learners of French

Creating a new town koine : children and language change in Milton Keynes.

Koineization – the development of a new, mixed variety following dialect contact – has well-documented outcomes. However, there have been few studies of the phenomenon actually in progress. This article describes the development of a new variety in the English New Town of Milton Keynes, designated in 1967. The article is structured around eight “principles” that relate the process of koineization to its outcomes. Recordings were made of 48 Milton Keynes-born children in three age groups (4, 8, and 12), the principal caregiver of each child, and several elderly locally born residents. Quantitative analysis of ten phonetic variables suggests that substantial but not complete focusing occurs in the child generation. The lack of linguistic continuity in the New Town is demonstrated, and the time scale of koineization there is discussed. Finally, it is shown that demography and the social-network characteristics of individuals are crucial to the outcomes of koineization

English in South Asia and Pedagogical Implications

English at present maintains a significant role as a second or foreign language in the region of South Asia as well as globally. In a discussion of this topic, it is important to explore a brief history of the expansion of English and its origins in South Asia. It is also essential to provide a background of South Asian English and its unique linguistic characteristics as well as its use in different contexts of South Asia. The perspectives of linguists and educators who are native to the region of South Asia should be included as much as possible in this research. The most crucial element in this discussion is the various implications of the role of English in South Asia on English language pedagogical practices. The numerous options for how to teach the language and the diverse contexts in which the language may be used have a profound effect on the English language educational approach. These implications lead to examining and suggesting the seemingly most relevant and effective approaches to English language instruction in South Asia. The main question in response to these considerations is what variety of English or instructional model should be taught or used in a South Asian classroom. Based on the diverse cultural context of South Asia and the global state of our world, this research endorses a polymodel of English pedagogy that incorporates the use of an established variety of English primarily for instruction while also exposing students to many more existing varieties that they may encounter as well as the cultures that use them

Recognizing Speech in a Novel Accent: The Motor Theory of Speech Perception Reframed

The motor theory of speech perception holds that we perceive the speech of another in terms of a motor representation of that speech. However, when we have learned to recognize a foreign accent, it seems plausible that recognition of a word rarely involves reconstruction of the speech gestures of the speaker rather than the listener. To better assess the motor theory and this observation, we proceed in three stages. Part 1 places the motor theory of speech perception in a larger framework based on our earlier models of the adaptive formation of mirror neurons for grasping, and for viewing extensions of that mirror system as part of a larger system for neuro-linguistic processing, augmented by the present consideration of recognizing speech in a novel accent. Part 2 then offers a novel computational model of how a listener comes to understand the speech of someone speaking the listener's native language with a foreign accent. The core tenet of the model is that the listener uses hypotheses about the word the speaker is currently uttering to update probabilities linking the sound produced by the speaker to phonemes in the native language repertoire of the listener. This, on average, improves the recognition of later words. This model is neutral regarding the nature of the representations it uses (motor vs. auditory). It serve as a reference point for the discussion in Part 3, which proposes a dual-stream neuro-linguistic architecture to revisits claims for and against the motor theory of speech perception and the relevance of mirror neurons, and extracts some implications for the reframing of the motor theory

Internet: Culture Diversity and Unification

Culture specifics of the Internet usage is analysed. The analysis done is a preliminary work for the application of the socio-historical theory of human mental development. The practice of the Internet usage is ambigious as it gives rise to both the unification and the diversity. The parameters analysed include the techniques of the hypertexts browsing,\ud and the status/position/rank of the communicators - its influence on holding the floor and turntaking rules, the ways the emotions are expressed while Internet communication, and the way the English language serves the functions of world-wide medium

Explicitness and ellipsis as features of conversational style in British English and Ecuadorian Spanish

In this article I examine differences in conversational style between British English and Ecuadorian Spanish which can be the source of communication conflict among speakers of these two languages in telephone conversations, and, presumably in other types of interaction. I look at the language of mediated and non-mediated telephone conversations and examine one feature that interacts with indirectness, i.e., the degree of explicitness participants employ to realize similar acts or moves in the two languages. In non-mediated telephone interactions both British English and Ecuadorian Spanish speakers appear to display a preference for the use of explicitness in formulating various telephone management moves. On the other hand, in mediated interactions, while the British appear to favour explicitness, Ecuadorians in the present study, make use of elliptical forms. The latter, however, tend to be accompanied by deference markers. Differences in the use of explicit and elliptical utterances are interpreted as reflecting that, in certain types of interactions, Ecuadorians favour a style that can be characterized as fast and deferential, but possibly rather abrupt to the English, whereas the latter appear to favour a less hurried style which emphasizes the expression of consideration rather than deference