Search results for: native and non-native speakers

Authors: Shagufta Jahangir, Raisa Jahangir

Abstract:

According to researches the 3rd world youth crave to go to developed countries just merely to get sustainable economic situation. To accomplish their wish they use each and every thing like cross boarder marriages is one of them. The basic and main point of cross boarder marriages is financial sustainability neither cross boarder culture nor cross boarder religion or others. The consequences of this research are that 60% to 70% men of 3rd world do cross boarder marriages just for only economic firmness. Due to this thoughts these men flipside to their native areas with only economic firmness rather social attitudes, moral attitudes behaviors, norms, myths and religion.40% to 50 % men do cross boarder marriages to get firmness even they have families in their native areas.2nd family formation is the easy way to get their desired, according to their eyes. After satisfying their needs they back unaccompanied to their native areas even they leave their offspring. They give precedence to their inhabitant families. This study has been design to find out that economic perspective is the basic phenomena of cross boarder marriages in the 3rd world countries men.

Keywords: cross boarder marriages, moral attitudes, native areas, flipside, norms

Procedia PDF Downloads 279

Authors: Si Chen, Caroline Wiltshire, Bin Li

Abstract:

This study statistically models the surface f0 contour and the underlying pitch target of a well-studied third sandhi tone of Mandarin Chinese. Although the growth curve analysis on the surface f0 contours indicates non-neutralization of this sandhi tone (T3) and the base T2, their underlying pitch targets do show neutralization. These results in Mandarin are also consistent with the perception of native speakers, where they cannot distinguish the third T3 from the base T2, compensating contextual variation. It is possible to use the proposed statistical procedure of testing underlying pitch targets to verify tone sandhi processes in other tonal languages.

Keywords: growth curve analysis, Mandarin Chinese, tone sandhi, underlying pitch target

Procedia PDF Downloads 304

Authors: Rory Patrick O'Kane

Abstract:

More universities and third level institutions now require at least an IELTS Band 6 for entry into courses of study for non-native speakers of English. This presentation focuses on IELTS Academic Writing Tasks 1 and 2 and in particular on the marking criterion of Coherence and Cohesion. A requirement for candidates aiming at Band 6 and above is that they produce answers which show a clear, overall progression of information and ideas and which use cohesive devices effectively. With this in mind, the presenter will examine what exactly is meant by coherence and cohesion and various strategies which can be used to assist students in improving their scores in this area. A number of classroom teaching ideas will be introduced, and participants will have the opportunity to compare and discuss sample answers written by candidates for this examination with a specific focus on coherence and cohesion. Intended audience: Teachers of IELTS Academic Writing.

Keywords: coherence, cohesion, IELTS, strategies

Procedia PDF Downloads 241

Authors: Yili Liu, Honghao Ren, Mariko Kondo

Abstract:

In the field of second language (L2) speech learning, it is well-known that that learner’s first language (L1) phonetic and phonological characteristics will be transferred into their L2 production and perception, which lead to foreign accent. For L1 Mandarin learners of Japanese, the confusion of /u/ and /o/ in /CjV/ sequences has been observed in their utterance frequently. L1 transfer is considered to be the cause of this issue, however, other factors which influence the identification of /Cju/ and /Cjo/ sequences still under investigation. This study investigates the perception of Japanese /Cju/ and /Cjo/ units by L1 Mandarin learners of Japanese. It further examined whether learners’ proficiency, syllable position, phonetic features of preceding consonants and background noise affect learners’ performance in perception. Fifty-two Mandarin-speaking learners of Japanese and nine native Japanese speakers were recruited to participate in an identification task. Learners were divided into beginner, intermediate and advanced level according to their Japanese proficiency. The average correct rate was used to evaluate learners’ perceptual performance. Furthermore, the comparison of the correct rate between learners’ groups and the control group was conducted as well to examine learners’ nativelikeness. Results showed that background noise tends to pose an adverse effect on distinguishing /u/ and /o/ in /CjV/ sequences. Secondly, Japanese proficiency has no influence on learners’ perceptual performance in the quiet and in background noise. Then all learners did not reach a native-like level without the distraction of noise. Beginner level learners performed less native-like, although higher level learners appeared to have achieved nativelikeness in the multi-talker babble noise. Finally, syllable position tends to affect distinguishing /Cju/ and /Cjo/ only under the noisy condition. Phonetic features of preceding consonants did not impact learners’ perception in any listening conditions. Findings in this study can give an insight into a further understanding of Japanese vowel acquisition by L1 Mandarin learners of Japanese. In addition, this study indicates that L1 transfer is not the only explanation for the confusion of /u/ and /o/ in /CjV/ sequences, factors such as listening condition and syllable position are also needed to take into consideration in future research. It also suggests the importance of perceiving speech in a noisy environment, which is close to the actual conversation required more attention to pedagogy.

Keywords: background noise, Chinese learners of Japanese, /Cju/ and /Cjo/ sequences, second language perception

Procedia PDF Downloads 135

Authors: Hema Vanita Kesevan

Abstract:

This study investigated the impact of teacher’s language ideology on their classroom discursive practice in ESL / EFL classrooms. It examines teachers’ perceptions of the use of local variety of Malaysian English in the classroom. The investigation shows that although teachers and students are against its use in the classroom, it is widely employed. The participants of this study consist of two Malaysian non-native English teachers with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. This study employs a comparative case study approach which focuses on the teachers and their classroom discourse practice. There are two modes of inquiry used in this study: classroom observation and semi-guided interviews. The findings are of interest to ESL / EFL teachers, policy makers and language researchers in the Malaysian and other similar ESL / EFL contexts.

Keywords: language ideology, Malaysian English, native teachers, non-native teachers

Procedia PDF Downloads 492

Authors: Hondozi Jahja

Abstract:

There is an obvious need to learn Arabic language and teach it to other speakers through the new curricula. The idea is to bridge the gap between theory and practice. To that end, we have sought to offer some means of help to master the Arabic language, in addition to our efforts to apply these means, enriching the culture of the student and develop his vocabulary. There is no doubt that taking care of the practical aspect of the grammar was our constant goal, and this particular aspect is what builds the student’s positive values and refine his taste and develop his language. In addressing these issues, we have adopted a school-based approach based primarily on the active and positive participation of the student. The theoretical linguistic issues - in our opinion - are not a primary goal, but the goal is to be used them by students through speaking and applying them. Among the objectives of this research is to establish the basic language skills of the students using new means that help the student to acquire these skills and apply them in various subjects of interest in his progress and development. Unfortunately, some of our students consider the grammar as ‘difficult’, ‘complex’ and ‘heavy’ in itself. This is one of the obstacles that stand in the way of their desired results. As a consequence, they end up talking – mumbling - about the difficulties they face in applying those rules. Therefore, some of our students finish their university studies and are unable to express what they feel using language correctly. For this purpose, we have sought in this research to follow a new integrated approach, which is to study the grammar of the language through modern means of the consolidation of the principle of functional language, and that the rule implies to control tongues and linguistic expressions properly. This research is a result of a practical experience as a teacher of Arabic language for non-native speakers at the ‘Hassan Pristina’ University, located in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo and at the Qatar Training Center since its establishment in 2012.

Keywords: arabic, applied methods, acquire, learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 128

Authors: Zaharani Ahmad, Nor Hashimah Jalaluddin

Abstract:

The aim of this paper is to examine and identify the issue of linguistic redundancy in two competing grammars of Malay, namely the school grammar and the corpus grammar. The former is a normative grammar which is formally and prescriptively taught in the classroom, whereas the latter is a descriptive grammar that is informally acquired and mastered by the students as native speakers of the language outside the classroom. Corpus grammar is depicted based on its actual used in natural occurring texts, as attested in the corpus. It is observed that the grammar taught in schools is incompatible with the grammar used in the corpus. For instance, a noun phrase containing nominal reduplicated form which denotes plurality (i.e. murid-murid ‘students’ which is derived from murid ‘student’) and a modifier categorized as quantifiers (i.e. semua ‘all’, seluruh ‘entire’, and kebanyakan ‘most’) is not acceptable in the school grammar because the formation (i.e. semua murid-murid ‘all the students’ kebanyakan pelajar-pelajar ‘most of the students’) is claimed to be redundant, and redundancy is prohibited in the grammar. Redundancy is generally construed as the property of speech and language by which more information is provided than is precisely required for the message to be understood, so that, if some information is omitted, the remaining information will still be sufficient for the message to be comprehended. Thus, the correct construction to be used is strictly the reduplicated form (i.e. murid-murid ‘students’) or the quantifier plus the root (i.e. semua murid ‘all the students’) with the intention that the grammatical meaning of plural is not repeated. Nevertheless, the so-called redundant form (i.e. kebanyakan pelajar-pelajar ‘most of the students’) is frequently used in the corpus grammar. This study shows that there are a number of redundant forms occur in the morphology of the language, particularly in affixation, reduplication and combination of both. Apparently, the so-called redundancy has grammatical and socio-cultural functions in communication that is to give emphasis and to stress the importance of the information delivered by the speakers or writers.

Keywords: corpus grammar, morphology, redundancy, school grammar

Procedia PDF Downloads 310

Authors: Rama Munajat

Abstract:

Discourse information levels may be viewed from either a background-foreground distinction or a multi-level perspective, and cross-linguistic studies on this area suggest that each information level is marked by a specific linguistic device. In this sense, Sundanese, spoken in Indonesia’s West Javanese Province, further differentiates the background and foreground information into ordinary and significant types. This paper will report an ongoing shift from particle-to-active voice marking in the way Sundanese signals foregrounding events. The shift relates to decades of contact with Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesia’s official language) and linguistic compatibility between the two surface marking strategies. Representative data analyzed include three groups of short stories in both Sundanese and Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian) published in three periods: before 1945, 1965-2006, and 2016-2019. In the first group of Sundanese data, forward-moving events dominantly appear in particle KA (Kecap Anteuran, word-accompanying) constructions, where the KA represents different particles that co-occur with a special group of verbs. The second group, however, shows that the foregrounded events are more frequently described in active-voice forms with a subject-predicate (SP) order. Subsequently, the third offers stronger evidence for the use of the SP structure. As for the Indonesian data, the foregrounding events in the first group occur in verb-initial and passive-voice constructions, while in the second and third, the events more frequently appear in active-voice structures (subject-predicate sequence). The marking shift above suggests a structural influence from Indonesian, stemmed from generational differences among authors of the Sundanese short stories, particularly related to their education and language backgrounds. The first group of short stories – published before 1945 or before Indonesia's independence from Dutch – were written by native speakers of Sundanese who spoke Indonesian as a foreign language and went through the Dutch education system. The second group of authors, on the other hand, represents a generation of Sundanese native speakers who spoke Indonesian as a second language. Finally, the third group consists of authors who are bilingual speakers of both Sundanese and Indonesian. The data suggest that the last two groups of authors completed the Indonesian education system. With these, the use of subject-predicate sequences to denote foregrounding events began to appear more frequently in the second group and then became more dominant in those of the third. The coded data also signify that cohesion, coherence, and pragmatic purposes in Particle KA constructions are intact in their respective active-voice structure counterparts. For instance, the foregrounding events in Particle KA constructions occur in Sentence-initial KA and Pre-verbal KA forms, whereas those in the active-voice are described in Subject-Predicate (SP) and Zero-Subject active-voice patterns. Cross-language data further demonstrate that the Sentence-initial KA and the SP active-voice structures each contain an overt noun phrase (NP) co-referential with one of the entities introduced in a preceding context. Similarly, the pre-verbal KA and Zero-Subject active-voice patterns have a deleted noun phrase unambiguously referable to the only one entity previously mentioned. The presence and absence of an NP inform a pragmatic strategy to place prominence on topic/given and comment/new information, respectively.

Keywords: discourse analysis, foregrounding marking, pragmatics, language contact

Procedia PDF Downloads 93

Authors: Yingling Chen

Abstract:

Most current research has been focused on whether NESTs have advantages over NNESTs in English language Teaching. The purpose of this study was to investigate English learners’ preferences toward native English speaking teachers and non-English speaking teachers in four skills of English language learning. This qualitative study consists of 12 participants. Two open-ended questions were investigated and analyzed. The findings revealed that the participants held an overall preference for NESTs over NNESTs in reading, writing, and listening English skills; nevertheless, they believed both NESTs and NNESTs offered learning experiences strengths, and weaknesses to satisfy students’ need in their English instruction.

Keywords: EFL, instruction, Student Rating of Instructions (SRI), perception

Procedia PDF Downloads 184

Authors: Katerina Florou

Abstract:

Two decades after coined the term "learner corpora" as collections of texts created by foreign or second language learners across various language contexts, and some years following suggestion to incorporate "focusing on form" within a Task-Based Learning framework, this study aims to explore how learner corpora, whether annotated with errors or not, can facilitate a focus on form in an educational setting. Argues that analyzing linguistic form serves the purpose of enabling students to delve into language and gain an understanding of different facets of the foreign language. This same objective is applicable when analyzing learner corpora marked with errors or in their raw state, but in this scenario, the emphasis lies on identifying incorrect forms. Teachers should aim to address errors or gaps in the students' second language knowledge while they engage in a task. Building on this recommendation, we compared the written output of two student groups: the first group (G1) employed the focusing on form phase by studying a specific aspect of the Italian language, namely the past participle, through examples from native speakers and grammar rules; the second group (G2) focused on form by scrutinizing their own errors and comparing them with analogous examples from a native speaker corpus. In order to test our hypothesis, we created four learner corpora. The initial two were generated during the task phase, with one representing each group of students, while the remaining two were produced as a follow-up activity at the end of the lesson. The results of the first comparison indicated that students' exposure to their own errors can enhance their grasp of a grammatical element. The study is in its second stage and more results are to be announced.

Keywords: Corpus interlanguage analysis, task based learning, Italian language as F1, learner corpora

Procedia PDF Downloads 20

Authors: Gareth Baxter

Abstract:

We use a mathematical model of language change to examine two recently observed patterns of language change: one in which most speakers change gradually, following the mean of the community change, and one in which most individuals use predominantly one variant or another, and change rapidly if they change at all. The model is based on Croft’s Utterance Selection account of language change, which views language change as an evolutionary process, in which different variants (different ‘ways of saying the same thing’) compete for usage in a population of speakers. Language change occurs when a new variant replaces an older one as the convention within a given population. The present model extends a previous simpler model to include effects related to speaker aging and interspeaker variation in behaviour. The two patterns of individual change (one more centralized and the other more polarized) were recently observed in historical language changes, and it was further observed that slower changes were more associated with the centralized pattern, while quicker changes were more polarized. Our model suggests that the two patterns of change can be explained by different balances between the preference of speakers to use one variant over another and the degree of accommodation to (propensity to adapt towards) other speakers. The correlation with the rate of change appears naturally in our model, and results from the fact that both differential weighting of variants and the degree of accommodation affect the time for change to occur, while also determining the patterns of change. This work represents part of an ongoing effort to examine phenomena in language change through the use of mathematical models. This offers another way to evaluate qualitative explanations that cannot be practically tested (or cannot be tested at all) in a real-world, large-scale speech community.

Keywords: agent based modeling, cultural evolution, language change, social behavior modeling, social influence

Procedia PDF Downloads 208

Authors: Fang Tan

Abstract:

This research focuses on the appropriate use of lexical bundles in spoken discourse, particularly in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms in Northeast China. While previous studies have mainly examined lexical bundles in written discourse, there is a need to investigate their usage in spoken discourse due to the limited availability of spoken discourse corpora. English teachers’ use of lexical bundles is crucial for effective teaching and communication in the EFL classroom. The aim of this study is to investigate the functions of four-word lexical bundles in native English teachers’ EFL oral English classes in Northeast China. Specifically, the research focuses on the usage of stance bundles, which were found to be the most significant type of bundle in the analyzed corpus. By comparing the self-built university spoken English classroom discourse corpus with the other self-built university English for General Purposes (EGP) corpus, the study aims to highlight the difference in bundle usage between native and non-native teachers in EFL classrooms. The research employs a corpus-based study. The observed corpus consists of more than 300,000 tokens, in which the data has been collected in the past five years. The reference corpus is composed of over 800,000 tokens, in which the data has been collected over 12 years. All the primary data collection involved transcribing and annotating spoken English classes taught by native English teachers. The analysis procedures included identifying and categorizing four-word lexical bundles, with specific emphasis on stance bundles. Frequency counts, and comparisons with the Chinese English teachers’ corpus were conducted to identify patterns and differences in bundle usage. The research addresses the following questions: 1) What are the functions of four-word lexical bundles in native English teachers’ EFL oral English classes? 2) How do stance bundles differ in usage between native and non-native English teachers’ classes? 3) What implications can be drawn for English teachers’ professional development based on the findings? In conclusion, this study provides valuable insights into the usage of four-word lexical bundles, particularly stance bundles, in native English teachers’ EFL oral English classes in Northeast China. The research highlights the difference in bundle usage between native and non-native English teachers’ classes and provides implications for English teachers’ professional development. The findings contribute to the understanding of lexical bundle usage in EFL classroom discourse and have theoretical importance for language teaching methodologies. The self-built university English classroom discourse corpus used in this research is a valuable resource for future studies in this field.

Keywords: EFL classroom discourse, four-word lexical bundles, stance, implication

Procedia PDF Downloads 33

Authors: Rita Darmayanti

Abstract:

This study aims at investigating the discourse pattern and structure of research article abstracts. The characteristics of the language used in abstracts written by non-native English-speaking (NNES) novice researchers are mainly examined in terms of rhetorical moves and the degree of variability of the rhetorical features as indicated by the structure of clauses and the linguistic features of the text. To this end, 20 abstracts written by undergraduate students of the accounting department at the State Polytechnic of Malang in 2018-2019 were employed as the data of this study. Findings showed that the most frequently used pattern of the rhetorical move is I(Introduction)-P(Purpose)-M(Method)-Pr(Product or Result)-C(Conclusion) with the significant use of active sentence and present and past tense. The findings of the study are projected to be utilized for evaluating the quality of students’ abstracts and generating a pedagogical proposal of ESP writing course or at least providing a critical review of current practices in ESP program intended for non-native English students at tertiary level.

Keywords: rhetorical features, rhetorical moves, non-native English-speaking novice researchers, research abstract

Procedia PDF Downloads 109

Authors: Ana C. Sanchez

Abstract:

This paper will discuss some of the bilingual practices of Heritage Spanish speakers caused by living within two cultures and two languages, Spanish, the heritage language, and English, the dominant language. When two languages remain in contact for long periods, such as the case of Spanish and English, it is common that both languages can be affected by bilingual practices such as Spanglish, code-switching, borrowing, anglicisms and calques. Examples of these translingual practices will be provided, as well as HS speaker’s linguistic dialects, and the challenges they encounter with the standard variety used in the Spanish classroom.

Keywords: heritage, practices, Spanish, speakers translingual

Procedia PDF Downloads 172

Authors: Moharram Sharifi

Abstract:

Despite a growing interest in the study of the introduction section of Research Articles (RA), there have been few studies to investigate how academic writers engage with other voices and alternative positions in this academic genre. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to show how Native Speaker (NS) and (Non-Native Speaker (NNS) writers take positions and stances in research article introductions. For this purpose, Engagement resources based on the appraisal framework were investigated in sixty articles written by English NS and Iranian NNS published in applied linguistics journals. It was found that the mean occurrences of heteroglossic items in both corpora were larger than those of monoglossic items, but comparing the means of monoglossic engagements between the two corpora, it was revealed that NS writers’ corpus had larger mean occurrences of monoglossic engagements than NNS writers’ corpus implying the native’s stronger authorial stance in the texts. The results also revealed that there was no significant difference in the use of contractive and expansive engagements by NS writers (t (29) = -0.995, p>0.05), indicating a balanced use between the two options. However, the higher mean occurrences of expansive options compared with contractive options in the NNS corpus may suggest that NN writers open up more dialogic room for alternative positions in the RA introductions. The findings of this study may help writers to better perceive the creation of a strong authorial position using appropriate engagement resources in RA introductions.

Keywords: engagement, heteroglossic, monoglossic, introduction

Procedia PDF Downloads 16

Authors: Weijing Zhou, Yuting Lei, Francis Nolan

Abstract:

In the domain of second language acquisition, whenever pronunciation errors or acquisition difficulties are found, researchers habitually attribute them to the negative transfer of the native language or local dialect. To what extent do Mandarin and local dialects affect English phonological acquisition for Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL)? Little evidence, however, has been found via empirical research in China. To address this core issue, the present study conducted phonetic experiments to explore the roles of local dialects and Mandarin in Chinese EFL learners’ acquisition of L2 English consonants. Besides Mandarin, the sole national language in China, Suzhou dialect was selected as the target local dialect because of its distinct phonology from Mandarin. The experimental group consisted of 30 junior English majors at Yangzhou University, who were born and lived in Suzhou, acquired Suzhou Dialect since their early childhood, and were able to communicate freely and fluently with each other in Suzhou Dialect, Mandarin as well as English. The consonantal target segments were all the consonants of English, Mandarin and Suzhou Dialect in typical carrier words embedded in the carrier sentence Say again. The control group consisted of two Suzhou Dialect experts, two Mandarin radio broadcasters, and two British RP phoneticians, who served as the standard speakers of the three languages. The reading corpus was recorded and sampled in the phonetic laboratories at Yangzhou University, Soochow University and Cambridge University, respectively, then transcribed, segmented and analyzed acoustically via Praat software, and finally analyzed statistically via EXCEL and SPSS software. The main findings are as follows: First, in terms of correct acquisition rates (CARs) of all the consonants, Mandarin ranked top (92.83%), English second (74.81%) and Suzhou Dialect last (70.35%), and significant differences were found only between the CARs of Mandarin and English and between the CARs of Mandarin and Suzhou Dialect, demonstrating Mandarin was overwhelmingly more robust than English or Suzhou Dialect in subjects’ multilingual phonological ecology. Second, in terms of typical acoustic features, the average duration of all the consonants plus the voice onset time (VOT) of plosives, fricatives, and affricatives in 3 languages were much longer than those of standard speakers; the intensities of English fricatives and affricatives were higher than RP speakers but lower than Mandarin and Suzhou Dialect standard speakers; the formants of English nasals and approximants were significantly different from those of Mandarin and Suzhou Dialects, illustrating the inconsistent acoustic variations between the 3 languages. Thirdly, in terms of typical pronunciation variations or errors, there were significant interlingual interactions between the 3 consonant systems, in which Mandarin consonants were absolutely dominant, accounting for the strong transfer from L1 Mandarin to L2 English instead of from earlier-acquired L1 local dialect to L2 English. This is largely because the subjects were knowingly exposed to Mandarin since their nursery and were strictly required to speak in Mandarin through all the formal education periods from primary school to university.

Keywords: acquisition of L2 English consonants, role of Mandarin, role of local dialect, Chinese EFL learners from Suzhou Dialect areas

Procedia PDF Downloads 66

Authors: Pimpisa Rattanadilok Na Phuket

Abstract:

This research study aims to examine: 1) teaching competency of the native English-speaking teacher (NEST) 2) the English language learning achievement of Thai students, and 3) students’ perceptions toward their NEST. The population considered in this research was a group of 39 undergraduate students of the academic year 2013. The tools consisted of a questionnaire employed to measure the level of competency of NEST, pre-test and post-test used to examine the students’ achievement on English pronunciation, and an interview used to discover how participants perceived their NEST. The data was statistically analysed as percentage, mean, standard deviation and One-sample-t-test. In addition, the data collected by interviews was qualitatively analyzed. The research study found that the level of teaching competency of native speaker teachers of English was mostly low, the English pronunciation achievement of students had increased significantly at the level of 0.5, and the students’ perception toward NEST is combined. The students perceived their NEST as an English expertise, but they felt that NEST had not recognized students' linguistic difficulty and cultural differences.

Keywords: competency, native English-speaking teacher (NET), English teaching, learning achievement

Procedia PDF Downloads 343

Authors: Vivian Franco

Abstract:

There has been a great deal of research about vowel production of second language learners of Spanish, vowel variation across Spanish dialects, and more recently, research related to Spanish heritage speakers’ vowel production based on speech style. However, there is little investigation reported on Spanish heritage speakers’ vowel production in regard to task modality by incorporating own comparison groups of monolinguals and late bilinguals. Thus, the present study investigates the influence of speech style on Spanish heritage speakers’ vowel production by comparing Spanish-English early and late bilinguals and Spanish monolinguals. The study was guided by the following research question: How do early bilinguals (heritage speakers) differ/relate to advanced L2 speakers of Spanish (late bilinguals) and Spanish monolinguals in their vowel quality (acoustic distribution) and quantity (duration) based on speech style? The participants were a total of 11 speakers of Spanish: 7 early Spanish-English bilinguals with a similar linguistic background (simultaneous bilinguals of the second generation); 2 advanced L2 speakers of Spanish; and 2 Spanish monolinguals from Mexico. The study consisted of two tasks. The first one adopted a semi-spontaneous style by a solicited narration of life experiences and a description of a favorite movie with the purpose to collect spontaneous speech. The second task was a reading activity in which the participants read two paragraphs of a Mexican literary essay 'La nuez.' This task aimed to obtain a more controlled speech style. From this study, it can be concluded that early bilinguals and monolinguals show a smaller formant vowel space overall compared to the late bilinguals in both speech styles. In terms of formant values by stress, the early bilinguals and the late bilinguals resembled in the semi-spontaneous speech style as their unstressed vowel space overlapped with that of the unstressed vowels different from the monolinguals who displayed a slightly reduced unstressed vowel space. For the controlled data, the early bilinguals were similar to the monolinguals as their stressed and unstressed vowel spaces overlapped in comparison to the late bilinguals who showed a more clear reduction of unstressed vowel space. In regard to stress, the monolinguals revealed longer vowel duration overall. However, findings of duration by stress showed that the early bilinguals and the monolinguals remained stable with shorter values of unstressed vowels in the semi-spontaneous data and longer duration in the controlled data when compared to the late bilinguals who displayed opposite results. These findings suggest an implication for Spanish heritage speakers and L2 Spanish vowels research as it has been frequently argued that Spanish bilinguals differ from the Spanish monolinguals by their vowel reduction and centralized vowel space influenced by English. However, some Spanish varieties are characterized by vowel reduction especially in certain phonetic contexts so that some vowels present more weakening than others. Consequently, it would not be conclusive to affirm an English influence on the Spanish of these bilinguals.

Keywords: Spanish-English bilinguals, Spanish monolinguals, spontaneous and controlled speech, vowel production.

Procedia PDF Downloads 101

Authors: Dylan Elliott, Katya Pertsova

Abstract:

Preposition errors are some of the most common errors created by L2 speakers. In addition, improving error correction and detection methods remains an open issue in the realm of Natural Language Processing (NLP). This research investigates whether the bidirectional encoder representations from the transformers model (BERT) have the potential to correct preposition errors accurately enough to be useful in error correction software. This research finds that BERT performs strongly when the scope of its error correction is limited to preposition choice. The researchers used an open-source BERT model and over three hundred thousand edited sentences from Wikipedia, tagged for part of speech, where only a preposition edit had occurred. To test BERT’s ability to detect errors, a technique known as multi-level masking was used to generate suggestions based on sentence context for every prepositional environment in the test data. These suggestions were compared with the original errors in the data and their known corrections to evaluate BERT’s performance. The suggestions were further analyzed to determine if BERT more often agreed with the judgements of the Wikipedia editors. Both the untrained and fined-tuned models were compared. Finetuning led to a greater rate of error-detection which significantly improved recall, but lowered precision due to an increase in false positives or falsely flagged errors. However, in most cases, these false positives were not errors in preposition usage but merely cases where more than one preposition was possible. Furthermore, when BERT correctly identified an error, the model largely agreed with the Wikipedia editors, suggesting that BERT’s ability to detect misused prepositions is better than previously believed. To evaluate to what extent BERT’s false positives were grammatical suggestions, we plan to do a further crowd-sourcing study to test the grammaticality of BERT’s suggested sentence corrections against native speakers’ judgments.

Keywords: BERT, grammatical error correction, preposition error detection, prepositions

Procedia PDF Downloads 116

Authors: Sahar Khedr, Dina Sayed, Ayman Hanafy

Abstract:

Arabic is one of the most ancient and critical languages in the world. It has over than 250 million Arabic native speakers and more than twenty countries having Arabic as one of its official languages. In the past decade, we have witnessed a rapid evolution in smart devices, social network and technology sector which led to the need to provide tools and libraries that properly tackle the Arabic language in different domains. Stemming is one of the most crucial linguistic fundamentals. It is used in many applications especially in information extraction and text mining fields. The motivation behind this work is to enhance the Arabic light stemmer to serve the data mining industry and leverage it in an open source community. The presented implementation works on enhancing the Arabic light stemmer by utilizing and enhancing an algorithm that provides an extension for a new set of rules and patterns accompanied by adjusted procedure. This study has proven a significant enhancement for better search accuracy with an average 10% improvement in comparison with previous works.

Keywords: Arabic data mining, Arabic Information extraction, Arabic Light stemmer, Arabic stemmer

Procedia PDF Downloads 280

Authors: Mohamed Yacoub

Abstract:

This paper investigates the English loanwords in the Egyptian variety of Arabic and reaches three findings. Data, in the first finding, were collected from Egyptian movies and soap operas; over two hundred words have been borrowed from English, code-switching was not included. These words then have been put into eleven different categories according to their use and part of speech. Finding two addresses the morphological and phonological change that occurred to these words. Regarding the phonological change, eight categories were found in both consonant and vowel variation, five for consonants and three for vowels. Examples were given for each. Regarding the morphological change, five categories were found including the masculine, feminine, dual, broken, and non-pluralize-able nouns. The last finding is the answers to a four-question survey that addresses forty eight native speakers of Egyptian Arabic and found that most participants did not recognize English borrowed words and thought they were originally Arabic and could not give Arabic equivalents for the loanwords that they could recognize.

Keywords: sociolinguistics, loanwords, borrowing, morphology, phonology, variation, Egyptian dialect

Procedia PDF Downloads 355

Authors: Swatantra

Abstract:

Hinglish, a blended version of Hindi and English, emerged due to the lack of the competence and command of the speakers over the foreign language, i., e., English. But, amazingly, the trend has gained wide acceptance. In India, this acceptance has gone up to the extent that popular news anchors at the prime time shows are frequently using it. At the moment, instead of being considered a flaw of their presentation Hinglish is emerging as a trendy genre. Its pervasive usage and extensive acceptance is motivating youngsters to opt for the similar kind of patterns. The current study is an endeavour to assess the impact of this trend on the new language learners. With the help of semi-structured interviews, the researcher has tried to gauge the level of comfort and desire to be at par with the other fluent English speakers. The results clearly depict a substantiated boost in the confidence level of learners because they are able to use the vocabulary and sentence patterns of their own choice and convenience. The prevalence and acceptance of the trend in the main stream media have really served as a catalyst and the desire to be at par with the other fluent speakers is also fading away. The users of Hinglish find this trend to be closer to their heart as in the earlier times in the absence of exact translation they had to compromise with the meaning or spirit of the word/phrase / sentence. But now enhanced flexibility is leaving them more comfortable and confident.

Keywords: Hinglish, language learners, linguistic trends, media

Procedia PDF Downloads 124

Authors: Brahim Fares Zaidi

Abstract:

Our work aims to improve our Automatic Recognition System for Dysarthria Speech based on the Hidden Models of Markov and the Hidden Markov Model Toolkit to help people who are sick. With pronunciation problems, we applied two techniques of speech parameterization based on Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients and Perceptual Linear Prediction and concatenated them with JITTER and SHIMMER coefficients in order to increase the recognition rate of a dysarthria speech. For our tests, we used the NEMOURS database that represents speakers with dysarthria and normal speakers.

Keywords: ARSDS, HTK, HMM, MFCC, PLP

Procedia PDF Downloads 74

Authors: Deawan Rakin Ahamed Remal, Sinthia Chowdhury, Sharun Akter Khushbu, Sheak Rashed Haider Noori

Abstract:

Native Speech to text synthesis has its own leverage for the purpose of mankind. The extensive nature of art to speaking different accents is common but the purpose of communication between two different accent types of people is quite difficult. This problem will be motivated by the extraction of the wrong perception of language meaning. Thus, many existing automatic speech recognition has been placed to detect text. Overall study of this paper mentions a review of NSTTR (Native Speech Text to Text Recognition) synthesis compared with Text to Text recognition. Review has exposed many text to text recognition systems that are at a very early stage to comply with the system by native speech recognition. Many discussions started about the progression of chatbots, linguistic theory another is rule based approach. In the Recent years Deep learning is an overwhelming chapter for text to text learning to detect language nature. To the best of our knowledge, In the sub continent a huge number of people speak in Bangla language but they have different accents in different regions therefore study has been elaborate contradictory discussion achievement of existing works and findings of future needs in Bangla language acoustic accent.

Keywords: TTR, NSTTR, text to text recognition, deep learning, natural language processing

Procedia PDF Downloads 100

Authors: Tomasz Raczyński

Abstract:

Non-native and invasive species negatively transform ecosystems. Non-native fish species can displace native fish species through competition, predation, disrupting spawning, transforming ecosystems, or transmitting parasites. This influence is more and more noticeable in Poland and in the world. From December 2014 to October 2020, did catch of fishes by electrofishing method carried on 416 sites in various parts of Poland. Research was conducted in both running and stagnant freshwaters with the predominance of running waters. Only sites where the presence of fish was found were analysed. The research covered a wide spectrum of waters from small mountain streams, through drainage ditches to the largest Polish river - the Vistula. Single sites covered oxbow lakes, small ponds and lakes. Electrofishing was associated with ichthyofauna inventories and was mainly aimed at detecting protected species of fish and lampreys or included in the annexes to the EU Habitats Directive (Council Directive 92/43/EEC on the Conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora). The results of these catches were analysed for alien and invasive fish species. The analysis of the catch structure shows that in 71 out of 416 research sites was found alien and invasive fish species, belonging to 9 taxa. According to the above, alien species of fish are present in 17% of the study sites. The most frequently observed species was the Prussian carp Carassius gibelio, which was recorded on 43 sites. Stone moroko Pseudorasbora parva was found on 24 sites. Chinese sleeper Perccottus glenii was found on 6 sites, and Bullhead Ameiurus sp. was also found on 6 sites. Western tubenose goby Proterorhinus semilunaris was found at 5 sites and Rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss at 3 sites. Monkey goby Neogobius fluviatilis, Round goby Neogobius melanostomus and Eurasian carp Cyprinus carpio was recorded on 2 sites.

Keywords: non-native species, invasive species, fish species, invasive fish species, native fish species

Procedia PDF Downloads 79

Authors: S. AlBustan, B. AlGhannam

Abstract:

This oral presentation discusses a proposal for a study that evaluates the usability of an evidence based application named ProxTalker App. The significance of this study will inform administration and faculty staff at the Department of Communication Sciences Disorders (CDS), College of Life Sciences, Kuwait University whether the app is a suitable tool to use for CDS students. A case study will be used involving a sample of CDS students taking practicum and internship courses during the academic year 2018/2019. The study will follow a process used by previous study. The process of calculating SUS is well documented and will be followed. ProxTalker App is an alternative and augmentative tool that speech language pathologist (SLP) can use to customize boards for their clients. SLPs can customize different boards using this app for various activities. A board can be created by the SLP to improve and support receptive and expressive language. Using technology to support therapy can aid SLPs to integrate this ProxTalker App as part of their clients therapy. Supported tools, games and motivation are some advantages of incorporating apps during therapy sessions. A quantitative methodology will be used. It involves the utilization of a standard tool that was the was adapted to the Arabic language to accommodate native Arabic language users. The tool that will be utilized in this research is the Arabic Standard Usability Scale (A-SUS) questionnaire which is an adoption of System Usability Scale (SUS). Standard usability questionnaires are reliable, valid and their process is properly documented. This study builds upon the development of A-SUS, which is a psychometrically evaluated questionnaire that targets Arabic native speakers. Results of the usability will give preliminary indication of whether the ProxTalker App under investigation is appropriate to be integrated within the practicum and internship curriculum of CDS. The results of this study will inform the CDS department of this specific app is an appropriate tool to be used for our specific students within our environment because usability depends on the product, environment, and users.

Keywords: A-SUS, communication disorders practicum, evidence based app, Standard Usability Scale

Procedia PDF Downloads 121

Authors: Alicja Zapolnik-Plachetka

Abstract:

The paper examines the impact of the Members’ of the European Parliament (MEPs) language choice on the linguistic quality of their political discourse as delivered by the interpreters. The study, designed by the author, who is an EU interpreter herself, consisted of three phases. First, a number of speeches of Polish and Spanish MEPs were analyzed to determine whether the incidence of use of certain figures of speech depending on whether the speech had been delivered in English or their respective mother tongue. Then the use of figures of speech was also analyzed based on speeches by some British MEPs, in order to determine what was the incidence for the native users of English. Subsequently, the speeches were compared with their interpretations to find out whether the interpreters managed to convey accurately the means of oratory used by the MEPs. The final result shows that in case of institutional environments dependant on simultaneous interpretation the speakers’ choices can, in fact, influence the linguistic quality of the political communication.

Keywords: content accuracy, European Parliament, political discourse, simultaneous interpreting

Procedia PDF Downloads 110

Authors: Rugang Tian

Abstract:

In this study, we generated whole-genome sequence (WGS) data from110 native cattle. Together with whole-genome sequences from world-wide cattle populations, we estimated the genetic diversity and population genetic structure of different cattle populations. Our findings revealed clustering of cattle groups in line with their geographic locations. We identified noticeable genetic diversity between indigenous cattle breeds and commercial populations. Among all studied cattle groups, lower genetic diversity measures were found in commercial populations, however, high genetic diversity were detected in some local cattle, particularly in Rashoki and Mongolian breeds. Our search for potential genomic regions under selection in native cattle revealed several candidate genes related with immune response and cold shock protein on multiple chromosomes such as TRPM8, NMUR1, PRKAA2, SMTNL2 and OXR1 that are involved in energy metabolism and metabolic homeostasis.

Keywords: cattle, whole-genome, population structure, adaptation

Procedia PDF Downloads 22

Authors: Nada Poropat Jeletic, Gordana Hrzica

Abstract:

Bilingual conversational corpora represent a meaningful and the most comprehensive data source for investigating the genuine contact phenomena in non-monitored bi-lingual speech productions. They can be particularly useful for bilingual research since some features of bilingual interaction can hardly be accessed with more traditional methodologies (e.g., elicitation tasks). The method of language sampling provides the resources for describing language interaction in a bilingual community and/or in bilingual situations (e.g. code-switching, amount of languages used, number of languages used, etc.). To capture these phenomena in genuine communication situations, such sampling should be as close as possible to spontaneous communication. Bilingual spoken corpus design is methodologically demanding. Therefore this paper aims at describing the methodological challenges that apply to the corpus design of the conversational corpus design of the Istrian Istrovenetian-Croatian Bilingual Corpus. Croatian is the first official language of the Croatian-Italian officially bilingual Istria County, while Istrovenetian is a diatopic subvariety of Venetian, a longlasting lingua franca in the Istrian peninsula, the mother tongue of the members of the Italian National Community in Istria and the primary code of informal everyday communication among the Istrian Italophone population. Within the CLARIN infrastructure, TalkBank is being used, as it provides relevant procedures for designing and analyzing bilingual corpora. Furthermore, it allows public availability allows for easy replication of studies and cumulative progress as a research community builds up around the corpus, while the tools developed within the field of corpus linguistics enable easy retrieval and analysis of information. The method of language sampling employed is kept at the level of spontaneous communication, in order to maximise the naturalness of the collected conversational data. All speakers have provided written informed consent in which they agree to be recorded at a random point within the period of one month after signing the consent. Participants are administered a background questionnaire providing information about the socioeconomic status and the exposure and language usage in the participants social networks. Recording data are being transcribed, phonologically adapted within a standard-sized orthographic form, coded and segmented (speech streams are being segmented into communication units based on syntactic criteria) and are being marked following the CHAT transcription system and its associated CLAN suite of programmes within the TalkBank toolkit. The corpus consists of transcribed sound recordings of 36 bilingual speakers, while the target is to publish the whole corpus by the end of 2020, by sampling spontaneous conversations among approximately 100 speakers from all the bilingual areas of Istria for ensuring representativeness (the participants are being recruited across three generations of native bilingual speakers in all the bilingual areas of the peninsula). Conversational corpora are still rare in TalkBank, so the Corpus will contribute to BilingBank as a highly relevant and scientifically reliable resource for an internationally established and active research community. The impact of the research of communities with societal bilingualism will contribute to the growing body of research on bilingualism and multilingualism, especially regarding topics of language dominance, language attrition and loss, interference and code-switching etc.

Keywords: conversational corpora, bilingual corpora, code-switching, language sampling, corpus design methodology

Procedia PDF Downloads 109

Authors: Soheil Behdarvandirad

Abstract:

The relationship between depression and self-focused language has been well documented. The more depressed a person is, the more "I"s, "me"s, and "my"s they will use. The present study attempted to factor in the impact of mood and examine whether negative mood has self-focused impacts similar to those of depression. For this purpose, 160 Iranian native speakers of Farsi were divided into three experimental groups of negative, neutral, and positive groups. After completing the BDI-II inventory and depression measurement, they were presented with pretested mood stimuli (3 separate videos to induce the target moods). Finally, they were asked to write between 10 to 20 minutes about a topic that asked them to freely write about their state of life, how you feel about it and the reasons that had shaped their current life circumstances. While the significant correlation between depression and I-talk was observed, negative mood led to more we-talk in general and seemed to even push the participants away from self-rumination. It seems that it is an emotion-regulatory strategy that participants subconsciously adopt to distract themselves from the disturbing mood. However, negative mood intensified the self-focused language among depressed participants. Such results can be further studied by examining brain areas that are more involved in self-perception and particularly in precuneus.

Keywords: self-focused language, depression, mood, precuneus

Procedia PDF Downloads 50