The development of apologies in the Japanese L2 of adult English native speakers

The present paper focuses on the use of seven apologies strategies in the Japanese of 20 adult, high-intermediate English learners/users of Japanese. Nine of these learners had spent a minimum of two years in Japan. The proportions of apology strategies produced by the two groups of learners in response to 8 situations presented to them in a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) were compared with data obtained from a control group of 14 Japanese L1 participants and a control group of 12 British English L1 participants. In total, 1999 tokens of apology strategies were collected. Statistical analyses and an analysis of lexical items allowed us to describe the learners‟ development and the effect of the stay in Japan

The effect of two years abroad on the development of apologies in the Japanese L2 of adult English native speakers

Book synopsis: Speech Acts and Politeness are among the main areas of interest in pragmatics. These communicative phenomena can be considered universal and at the same time language and culture-specific. It is this latter dimension that has been at the centre of recent developments in pragmatics, and it is also the focus of this book. The aim of this book is to reflect this development, providing evidence from four main areas crucial to pragmatics across languages and cultures: a description of a variety of speech acts and politeness strategies in different languages and cultures, a cross-cultural comparison of several speech acts and patterns of politeness, an in-depth analysis of issues concerning the learning and teaching of speech acts and politeness in second/foreign languages, as well as some methodological resources in pragmatics. This book is intended for researchers, scholars and students interested in the field of pragmatics, in general, or in the fields of cross-cultural and second/foreign language pragmatics, and specifically for those interested in speech acts and politeness. It will also be useful to any scholar interested in how communication and culture are related

On <i>Prophoca</i> and <i>Leptophoca</i> (Pinnipedia, Phocidae) from the Miocene of the North Atlantic realm: redescription, phylogenetic affinities and paleobiogeographic implications

BackgroundProphoca and Leptophoca represent the oldest known genera of phocine seals, dating from the latest early to middle Miocene. Originally, Prophoca rousseaui and Prophoca proxima were described based on fragmentary remains from the Miocene of Belgium. However, several researchers contested the union of Prophoca rousseaui and Prophoca proxima into one genus, without providing evidence. The stratigraphic context of Prophoca remained poorly constrained due to the lack of precise data associated with the original specimens collected in the area of Antwerp (north of Belgium).MethodsProphoca and Leptophoca are redescribed and their phylogenetic position among Phocidae is reassessed using PAUP. Dinoflagellate biostratigraphy has been carried out on sediment samples associated with specimens from Prophoca and Leptophoca to elucidate their approximate ages.ResultsWhereas the species Prophoca rousseaui is redescribed, Prophoca proxima is considered synonymous to Leptophoca lenis, with the proposal of a new combination Leptophoca proxima (Van Beneden, 1877). Sediment samples from specimens of both taxa have been dated to the late Langhian–early Serravallian (middle Miocene). Following a reinvestigation of Leptophoca amphiatlantica, characters from the original diagnosis are questioned and the specimens of Leptophoca amphiatlantica are considered Leptophoca cf. L. proxima. In a phylogenetic analysis, Prophoca rousseaui and Leptophoca proxima constitute early branching stem-phocines.DiscussionLeptophoca proxima from the North Sea Basin is younger than the oldest known find of Leptophoca proxima from North America, which does not contradict the hypothesis that Phocinae originated along the east coast of North America during the late early Miocene, followed by dispersal to Europe shortly after. Morphological features of the appendicular skeleton indicate that Prophoca rousseaui and Leptophoca proxima have archaic locomotory modes, retaining a more prominent use of the fore flipper for aquatic propulsion than extant Phocidae

Do ESL/EFL teachers´ emotional intelligence, teaching experience, proficiency and gender affect their classroom practice?

Emotions are a key part of language education for all stakeholders. Yet, to date, learner emotions have been studied more frequently than those of teachers. In this chapter, we argue that it is crucial to investigate teachers’ management of their own emotions and examine any possible links with their classroom practices. We use the metaphor of teachers being like orchestra conductors, attuned to -and regulating- the emotions in the classroom. Using an online questionnaire, we collected quantitative feedback concerning classroom behaviours from 513 ESL/EFL teachers from around the world. Independent variables included Trait emotional intelligence (EI), years of teaching experience, general English proficiency and gender. Statistical analyses revealed that Trait EI and teaching experience were positively linked with levels of self-reported creativity, classroom management, and pedagogical skills and negatively linked with predictability. Level of English proficiency was only positively linked to self-reported creativity and gender had no effect. Reflecting on the implication of these findings suggests that training in emotional competences could improve the effectiveness of (trainee) teachers' classroom practices and, ultimately, also their professional well-being

The foreign language classroom anxiety scale and academic achievement: an overview of the prevailing literature and a meta-analysis

Foreign language learners experience a unique type of anxiety during the language learning process: Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA). This situation-specific anxiety is frequently examined alongside academic achievement in foreign language courses. The present meta-analysis examined the relationship between FLCA measured through the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) and five forms of academic achievement: general academic achievement and four competency-specific outcome scores (reading-, writing-, listening-, and speaking academic achievement). A total of k = 99 effect sizes were analysed with an overall sample size of N = 14128 in a random effects model with Pearson correlation coefficients. A moderate negative correlation was found between FLCA and all categories of academic achievement (e.g., general academic achievement: r = -.39; k = 59; N = 12585). The results of this meta analysis confirm the negative association between FLCA and academic achievement in foreign language courses

Predicting language learners' grades in the L1, L2, L3 and L4: the effect of some psychological and sociocognitive variables

This study of 89 Flemish high-school students' grades for L1 (Dutch), L2 (French), L3 (English) and L4 (German) investigates the effects of three higher-level personality dimensions (psychoticism, extraversion, neuroticism), one lower-level personality dimension (foreign language anxiety) and sociobiographical variables (gender, social class) on the participants' language grades. Analyses of variance revealed no significant effects of the higher-level personality dimensions on grades. Participants with high levels of foreign language anxiety obtained significantly lower grades in the L2 and L3. Gender and social class had no effect. Strong positive correlations between grades in the different languages could point to an underlying sociocognitive dimension. The implications of these findings are discussed

A critical revision of the fossil record, stratigraphy and diversity of the Neogene seal genus <i>Monotherium</i> (Carnivora, Phocidae)

Historically, Monotherium had been one of the few genera of extinct Phocidae (true seals) that served as a wastebin taxon. Consequently, it did neither aid in understanding phylogenetic relationships of extinct Phocidae, nor in understanding seal diversity in deep time. This urged the reassessment of the genus. Before our review, Monotherium included five different species: Monotherium aberratum, Monotherium affine, and Monotherium delognii from Belgium; Monotherium gaudini from Italy; and Monotherium? wymani from the east coast USA. In this work we redescribe the fossil record of the genus, retaining the type species M. delognii. Monotherium aberratum and M. affine are reassigned to the new phocine genus Frisiphoca. Monotherium gaudini is renamed and considered a stem-monachine (Noriphoca gaudini). The holotype of the monachine M.? wymani requires further study pending the discovery of new fossil material that could be attributed to the same taxon. Reinvestigating the stratigraphic context reveals that N. gaudini most likely represents one of the two oldest named phocid seals, or even the oldest, dated to the late Oligocene–earliest Miocene. Our results allow questioning the widespread idea that Phocidae originated in the western Atlantic and better appreciate their palaeobiogeography during the late Oligocene–Miocene interval in the North Atlantic realm

The power to improve: effects of multilingualism and perceived proficiency on enjoyment and anxiety in foreign language learning

The study examines whether already knowing several languages and feeling proficient in a new foreign language (FL) has an effect on positive and negative emotions during the learning. The emergence of positive psychology in language acquisition studies has led to the examination of positive emotions in the FL learning process, such as Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE). FLE is a positive emotional state where psychological needs are met and was introduced as the positive emotion counterpart to the oft studied negative emotion, Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA). A international sample of 1622 FL learners were analysed utilising multivariate tests of variance, examining the level of multilingualism and the level of self-perceived FL proficiency as independent variables, with FLE and FLA as dependent variables. Results indicated a very small, but statistically significant interaction effect between the level of multilingualism and self-perceived FL proficiency on the FLA of the language learner, but not on FLE. In addition, higher levels of multilingualism were associated with higher levels of enjoyment and lower levels of anxiety in FL learners. In turn, more self-perceived proficient FL learners indicated higher levels of enjoyment and lower levels of anxiety. Although effect sizes were in some cases very small, the results do indicate the benefits multilinguals and higher proficiency FL learners have when learning a FL