Search Results (130)

While past research has affirmed the supportive role of growth language mindset (GLM) in fostering L2 willingness to communicate (L2 WTC), there remains a scarcity of studies exploring how growth language mindset may predict L2 WTC. This study aimed to investigate the impact of growth language mindset on L2 WTC while considering the chain mediating influences of metacognitive strategies and language learning self-efficacy (LLSE). Additionally, network analysis was used to examine the internal structure and connections between growth language mindset and L2 WTC. A total of 532 L2 learners (32.60% male; 67.40% female), aged between 17 and 25 years (M = 20.42 years; SD = 1.49 years), participated in an online survey to assess the variables of interest. The results revealed that growth language mindset has a positive predictive effect on L2 WTC, with specific items—GLM4 (“You can always change your L2 ability.”), GLM1 (“No matter who you are, you can significantly change your language intelligence level.”), and L2 WTC5 (“When you have an opportunity to explain in English your own culture to your classmates.”)—emerging as key indicators. The relationship between GLM and L2 WTC was sequentially mediated by metacognitive strategies and LLSE. This chain mediation model explained 85% of the variance in L2 WTC, with LLSE (β = 0.61) demonstrating the largest practical impact. These findings suggest that fostering metacognitive strategies and enhancing LLSE can significantly amplify the impact of a GLM on L2 WTC, highlighting meaningful effects beyond mere statistical significance. Full article

This study investigates the English adjective amplifier system of eleven Mandarin Chinese L2 speakers of English residing in Australia compared to a sample of ten native Australian English (AusE) speakers from the AusTalk corpus. Employing a variationist framework, we find that the L2 speakers employ a markedly overall higher rate (50.2%) of use of adjective amplifiers than AusE speakers (34.8%). This has been shown to be a common phenomenon among L2 speakers, who have a smaller range of adjectives at their disposal, and thus “over-use” amplifiers. However, we also argue that the propensity for amplifier–adjective bigrams in Mandarin Chinese transfers to their L2 English. The results show that Chinese L2 speakers use very more than really, whereas really is more frequent than very in AusE, suggesting that the L2 speakers may be lagging behind in this previously-reported change in AusE. The results also show that higher rates of English proficiency and length of residence in Australia result in more Australian-like amplifier behavior among the Chinese L2 group. The present paper can provide meaningful insights for future language teaching and learning in classroom and naturalistic settings, revealing potential for the instruction of more authentic language among L2 English learners. Full article

Using the analytical tool Rbrul, this study explores the object expression variations in the speech of twenty CSL (Chinese as a Second Language) learners whose first languages (L1) were English, Russian, Korean, and Japanese, and compares them to native speaker (NS) patterns. Multivariate analysis revealed that the learner patterns closely resembled NSs’ in most dimensions explored, except the learners tended to overuse overt pronouns and underuse null forms. For both CSL learners and NSs, the general patterns in object use were as follows: (1) animate objects tended to favor overt objects, while inanimate objects favored null forms, (2) switch in referents favored overt forms, while no referent change favored null, (3) specific referents favored null forms, whereas nonspecific referents favored overt expressions, and (4) conversational contexts favored null forms, but elicited narratives favored explicit forms. As for the patterns specific to learners, the findings were as follows: (1) among the four L1s included in the analysis, Japanese and Russian speakers tended to use null objects more than Korean and English speakers, (2) a stay in China of one, two, or four years tended to favor null forms, but a three-year stay favored explicit forms, and (3) high-intermediate learners tended to use null forms more frequently than advanced learners. These results indicated that learners successfully acquired null object use patterns in spoken Chinese, but they still required further development in understanding the nuances between overt object forms and null object use to enhance their sociolinguistic competence. Full article

Adjunct clauses have traditionally been assumed to be syntactic configurations from which extraction is universally impossible. However, numerous studies have challenged this assumption and extraction from finite adjunct clauses has been shown to be acceptable to varying degrees in the Mainland Scandinavian languages, as well as in English. The relative acceptability of extraction appears to depend on a number of factors, including the type of adjunct clause and the type of extraction dependency. Research on L2 learning has shown that learners often transfer properties of their L1 grammar into their L2 during the process of learning a second language. Our previous studies on L1 English and L1 Danish found a surprising contrast in which L1 English users found relativization out of adverbial clauses to be better than L1 Danish users did. Based on these findings, we conducted an L2 acceptability judgment experiment on extraction from three types of finite adjunct clauses in Danish (corresponding to English if-, when- and because-clauses) in order to test whether language-specific parameters related to extractability are transferred from L1 to L2. Our results show that the judgments from L2 Danish speakers are intermediate between and significantly different from L1 English and L1 Danish, which does not suggest a parameter resetting. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the widespread adoption of online instruction all around the world. In fact, in the post-pandemic era, online teaching and learning are proliferating and are considered as alternatives to traditional learning. The current study investigated L2 learners’ perceptions of an online pronunciation course. Sixty L2 learners, ranging in age from 18 to 60, were recruited from different intensive English programs (IEPs) across the United States and six other countries, including India, Brazil, China, France, Russia, and Canada. The participants received online-based computer-assisted pronunciation training (CAPT) on Moodle over a period of three weeks and completed an online survey on Qualtrics. The results of the quantitative and qualitative data collected from the learners at the end of the course showed that the learners were highly satisfied with their own performance and that they found the online course highly useful and preferred it over a face-to-face pronunciation course. The findings provide valuable insights into the design and delivery of online courses for pronunciation teachers. The findings also suggest that CAPT can effectively support asynchronous L2 pronunciation teaching. Full article

Existing studies have revealed that the reading comprehension ability of readers can be adversely affected by their psychosocial stress. Yet, the detailed impact of stress on various stages of text processing is understudied. This study aims to explore how the higher-level text processing ability, including syntactic parsing, sentence integration, and global text processing, of first language (L1) and second language (L2) English readers is affected under stress situations. In addition, the roles of trait anxiety, the central executive function moderating stress effects, in text processing were also examined. Twenty-two L1 readers and twenty-one L2 readers were asked to perform reading comprehension tasks under different stress situations. Eye-tracking technology was adopted to record participants’ visual behaviors while reading, and ten eye-movement measurements were computed to represent the effect of different types of text processing. The results demonstrate that the stress reduced the efficiency of syntactic parsing and sentence integration in both L1 and L2 groups, but only impaired global text processing in L2 readers. Specifically, L2 readers focused more on the topic structure of text to facilitate comprehension under stress situations. Moreover, only L1 readers’ higher-level text processing was affected by trait anxiety, while L2 readers’ processing was mainly related to their reading proficiency level. Future studies and applications were discussed. The findings advance our understanding of stress effects on different stages of higher-level text processing. They also have practical implications for developing interventions to help language learners suffering from stress disorders. Full article

This article presents a study examining the vocabulary knowledge of English as an additional language (EAL) learners in two international schools in Japan in relation to the vocabulary profiles of the textbooks they are required to use in the classrooms. The vocabulary knowledge of 139 participants from two international schools was assessed using either the New Vocabulary Levels Test (NVLT) or the Updated Vocabulary Levels Test (UVLT). These results were compared to a 15 million-word corpus compiled from representative subject-specific textbooks to estimate the vocabulary coverage participants are likely to achieve. The findings revealed that EAL learners consistently scored lower than a combined group of their first-language English (FLE) and proficient L2 (PL2) peers, with fewer than 25% of EAL learners mastering the AWL before Grade 12. Furthermore, even the most frequent 5000-word bands provided only 91–93% coverage for subjects like biology and chemistry, leaving many EAL learners struggling to comprehend these texts. This analysis highlights the potential difficulties EAL learners may face in understanding the textbooks that are being used in EAL classrooms, underscoring the need for better vocabulary scaffolding and support for such learners in the international school context. Full article

The present paper investigates the link between perception and production in the laryngeal phonology of multilingual speakers, focusing on non-contrastive segments and the dynamic aspect of these processes. Fourteen L1 Hungarian, L2 English, and L3 Spanish advanced learners took part in the experiments. The production experiments examined the aspiration of voiceless stops in word-initial position, regressive voicing assimilation, and pre-sonorant voicing; the latter two processes were analyzed both word-internally and across word boundaries. The perception experiments aimed to find out whether learners notice the phonetic outputs of these processes and regard them as linguistically relevant. Our results showed that perception and production are not aligned. Accurate production is dependent on accurate perception, but accurate perception is not necessarily transferred into production. In laryngeal postlexical processes, the native language seems to play the primary role even for highly competent learners, but markedness might be relevant too. The novel findings of this study are that phonetic category formation seems to be easier than the acquisition of dynamic allophonic alternations and that metaphonological awareness is correlated with perception but not with production. Full article

Research into L3 phonological acquisition has grown in the past decade, yet perceptual studies remain scarce. Existing studies report complex interactions between the phonetic categories of multilinguals’ L1, L2 and L3, depending on investigated feature and stage of L3 learning. This small-scale study, grounded in Complex Dynamic Systems Theory, examines the development of coda obstruent perception in seven beginner learners of Polish as an L3 (aged 21–39), with German as their L1 and English as their L2. Over ten months of instructed L3 learning, participants were tested four times using a timed forced-choice goodness task in both L2 and L3. Additionally, three participants provided monthly data between the second and fourth testing. Analyses across the sample revealed a competitive relationship between L2 and L3 perception, with L2 accuracy declining as L3 accuracy improved. Individual data, however, indicated more varied patterns: while one learner followed the overall trend, another exhibited decreasing accuracy in both their L2 and L3, and the third maintained accurate L2 perception alongside more accurate yet increasingly variable L3 perception. These findings highlight the value of analyzing both overall trends and individual data to better understand multilingual speech perception development, and suggest that, with growing L3 experience, the newly learnt L3 may influence L2 perception of a phonological process shared in the L1 and marked in the L2. Full article

During conversation, speakers produce reduced speech, and this can create homophones: ‘we were’ and ‘we’re’ can both be realized as [ɚ], and ‘he was’ and ‘he’s’ can be realized as [ɨz]. We investigate the types of information non-native listeners (Dutch L1-English L2) use to perceive the tense of such verbs, making comparisons with previous results from native listeners. The Dutch listeners were almost as successful as natives (average percentage correct for ‘is’/’was’ in the most accurate condition: 81% for Dutch, 88% for natives). The two groups showed many of the same patterns, indicating that both make strong use of whatever acoustic information is available in the signal, even if it is heavily reduced. The Dutch listeners showed one crucial difference: a minimal amount of context around the target, just enough to signal speech rate, did not help Dutch listeners to recover the longer forms, i.e., was/were, from reduced pronunciations. Only the full utterance context (containing syntactic/semantic information such as ‘yesterday’ or another tensed verb) helped Dutch listeners to recover from reduction. They were not able to adjust their criteria based on the surrounding speech rate as native listeners were. This study contributes to understanding how L2 learners parse information from spontaneous speech in a World Englishes setting with inputs from multiple dialects. Full article

Collocations typically refer to habitual word combinations, which not only occur in texts but also constitute an essential component of the mental lexicon. This study focuses on the mental lexicon of Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL), investigating the representation of collocations and the influence of input frequency and L2 proficiency by employing a phrasal decision task. The findings reveal the following: (1) Collocations elicited faster response times and higher accuracy rates than non-collocations. (2) Higher input frequency improved the accuracy of judgments. High-proficiency Chinese EFL learners exhibit better accuracy and faster response times in collocation judgment tests. Additionally, input frequency and L2 proficiency interactively affected both response time and accuracy rate. These results indicate that L2 learners have a processing advantage for collocations, which function as independent entries in the mental lexicon. Both input frequency and L2 proficiency are crucial factors in collocational representation, with increased input frequency and proficiency shifting the representation from analytic retrieval toward holistic recognition in a continuum pattern. Full article

Arabic phonotactics significantly differ from English phonotactics in that they usually follow a framework that forbids the presence of consonant clusters in syllabic onsets. This study examines the relationship between Arabic-speaking EFL learners’ spelling accuracy and pronunciation, concentrating on the difficulties caused by consonant clusters in initial and final positions. A mixed-methods approach was employed, involving audio recordings to assess pronunciation accuracy and a spelling test to evaluate spelling performance. According to the results, words with initial consonant clusters (clusters at the beginning of a syllable, or onset) are harder to pronounce and spell than words with final consonant clusters (clusters that follow the vowel). Initial consonant clusters are considered to demand a quick transition in consonants at the start of a syllable, requiring more exact articulation. On the other hand, final clusters allow for a more progressive and straightforward articulation by involving a consonant transition following the initial vowel sound. Additionally, epenthesis may be used as a method to break up consonant clusters in L1 phonological interference, which is consistent with Arabic phonotactic patterns. Full article

In this study, we respond to calls for more research on the motivation to learn a third language (L3), especially regarding how this motivation is influenced by linguistic distance in various second language (L2) contexts. We employed a comparative and mixed-method design to investigate whether L3 learners with a “longer L2–L3 linguistic distance” show significantly different L3 motivational constructs compared with L3 learners with a “shorter L2–L3 linguistic distance”. We recruited sixty university students majoring in English who were enrolled under same program curriculum in China, with half of them selecting French as their L3 and with the other half selecting Japanese. The French L3 group was labeled “shorter L2–L3 linguistic distance”, and the Japanese L3 group was labeled “longer L2–L3 linguistic distance”. We recruited learners from the same Chinese university to complete a Taguchi-based questionnaire on the L3 motivational system. The quantitative results revealed that the ideal L3 self, the ought-to L3 self, family influence and instrumentality promotion were significantly different between these two L3 groups. Qualitative results based on follow-up interviews with four participants showed that shorter L2–L3 linguistic distance contributed to higher instrumentality promotion, and family influence tended to be driven by practical concerns. These findings demonstrate how cross-linguistic factors may impact multilingual learners’ motivation and insights, which may be also of assistance to L3 acquisition and pedagogy. Full article

Implicit causality (IC) is a phenomenon where verbs supply information about the potential cause of the behavior or state to one of the antecedents (e.g., “Mary praised David because…” will continue about David, not Mary). The study examines the influence of IC information and second language (L2) proficiency on Chinese English learners’ pronoun anaphoric inference. Results from an eye-tracking study showed that Chinese English learners can actively use IC information in making pronoun anaphoric inference. Additionally, compared to low-proficiency learners, high-proficiency learners spent less time on making pronoun anaphoric inference. The findings indicate that Chinese English learners can activate IC information early, before the disambiguating information appears, thus supporting the focusing account. Furthermore, L2 proficiency also affects this process. Full article

Southeast Asian learners of English, including those from Vietnam, frequently omit word-final consonants in their English speech. Previous work on Vietnamese learners of English is limited, and errors are typically usually attributed to first-language transfer effects. No large-scale empirical study on Vietnamese learners has been carried out to aid the development of an evidence-based pedagogy. This study uses authentic spoken data to compare lexical and morphological word-final /s/ and /z/ in the speech of sixteen Vietnamese adult learners of English. We discuss the relative impact of frequency of use, whether the instance of a target /s/ or /z/ is in a root or bound morpheme, and whether the preceding phoneme is a consonant or vowel. An overall omission rate of 28.4% of expected instances was found. Morphological {-s} when it is preceded by a consonant has the highest error rate (50.7%). A multilevel binary logistic regression was performed to ascertain the relative effects. Morphological words containing /s/ or /z/ were significantly more likely to be pronounced with the /s/ or /z/ absent than lexical words containing a /s/ or /z/, as were those in clusters compared to those with a preceding vowel. The results indicate that phonological effects and morphological effects are stacked and not multiplicative and that the observed omission rates are not solely attributable to L1 transfer effects. Frequency of use is also highly correlated with accuracy. Full article