Identity,accent aim,and motivation in second language users: New Scottish Gaelic speakers’ use of phonetic variation

This paper examines the use of phonetic variation in word‐final rhotics among nineteen adult new speakers of Scottish Gaelic, i.e. speakers who did not acquire the language through intergenerational transmission. Our speakers learned Gaelic as adults and are now highly advanced users of the language. We consider variation in their rhotic productions compared to the productions of six older, traditional speakers. Previous approaches to variation in second language users have either focussed on how variable production will eventually result in native‐like ‘target’ forms (Type 1 study), or have investigated the extent to which second language users reproduce patterns of variation similar to ‘native speakers’ (Type 2 study). We additionally draw on sociocultural approaches to Second Language Acquisition and apply notions of accent aim, identity construction, and learning motivation in order to fully explore the data. In doing so, we advocate a ‘Type 3’ approach to variation in second language users.     

Listening in a Multilingual World: The Challenges of Second Language (L2) Listening

Research into language acquisition and oral language use was examined in order to identify key factors that contribute to the successful acquisition of second language (L2) listening ability. The factors were grouped into three major domains: affective, cognitive, and interpersonal. It is claimed that in each domain, proficient L2 listeners have developed strategies, that is, plans of conscious action, in order to address persistent challenges of L2 acquisition. For the affective domain, the strategies concern development of resilience in order to maintain long-term motivation and investment of identity as an active user of the L2. For the cognitive domain, the strategies involve relearning the phonological system of the L2 as an independent system in order to counteract native language influences and using compensation tactics to supplement the influences of semantic organization of one’s native language. For the interpersonal domain, the strategies involve accommodation to communication styles and a task orientation to interaction. Research is reviewed from cognitive psychology, neurolinguistics, pragmatics, bilingualism studies, and language pedagogy, with the aim of identifying particular obstacles faced by L2 listeners and practical approaches used to cope with them.     

ENGLISH PROFICIENCY AND LABOR MARKET PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM THE ECONOMICS PROFESSION

This article investigates whether the global spread of the English language provides an inherent advantage to native English speakers. This question is studied within the context of the economics profession, where the impact of being a native English speaker on future publishing success is examined. English speakers may have an advantage because they are writing in their native language, the quality of writing is a crucial determinant of publishing success, and all the top economics journals are published in English. Using a ranking of the world's top 2.5% of economists, this article confirms that native English speakers are ranked 100 spots higher (better) than similar non‐native English speakers. A variety of extensions examine and dispel many other potential explanations. (JEL A11, J44, F66)     

Phonemic contrasts under construction? Evidence from Basque

Attunement theories of speech perception development suggest that native‐language exposure is one of the main factors shaping infants' phonemic discrimination capacity within the second half of their first year. Here, we focus on the role of acoustic–perceptual salience and language‐specific experience by assessing the discrimination of acoustically subtle Basque sibilant contrasts. We used the infant‐controlled version of the habituation procedure to assess discrimination in 6‐ to 7‐month and 11‐ to 12‐month‐old infants who varied in their amount of exposure to Basque and Spanish. We observed no significant variation in the infants' discrimination behavior as a function of their linguistic experience. Infants in both age‐groups exhibited poor discrimination, consistent with Basque adults finding these contrasts more difficult than some others. Our findings are in agreement with previous research showing that perceptual discrimination of subtle speech sound contrasts may follow a different developmental trajectory, where increased native‐language exposure seems to be a requisite.     

Language familiarity influences own-race face recognition in 9- and 12-month-old infants

During their first year, infants attune to the faces and language(s) that are frequent in their environment. The present study investigates the impact of language familiarity on how French-learning 9- and 12-month-olds recognize own-race faces. In Experiment 1, infants were familiarized with the talking face of a Caucasian bilingual German-French speaker reciting a nursery rhyme in French (native condition) or in German (non-native condition). In the test phase, infants’ face recognition was tested by presenting a picture of the speaker's face they were familiarized with, side by side with a novel face. At 9 and 12 months, neither infants in the native condition nor the ones in the non-native condition clearly recognized the speaker's face. In Experiment 2, we familiarized infants with the still picture of the speaker's face, along with the auditory speech stream. This time, both 9- and 12-month-olds recognized the face of the speaker they had been familiarized with, but only if she spoke in their native language. This study shows that at least from 9 months of age, language modulates the way faces are recognized.     

What Types of Training Improve Learners’ Performances in Second Language Listening Comprehension?

This study investigates the impact of a high-level and a low-level process-based L2 comprehension training on L1 French students’ listening performances. These students (N = 108) of English, Spanish, and German came from five different classes. After a L2 comprehension pretest, the participants were divided into two experimental groups. During the experimental phase, the two groups listened to the same three documents in their respective L2. The first group undertook listening comprehension activities relying on low-level processes, while the second group undertook activities aiming at fostering their use of high-level processes. These second types of activities were based on the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) (Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal & Tafaghodatari, 2006). As hypothesized, less skilled listeners trained to automatize low-level processes, scored significantly higher on the comprehension posttest than on the pretest. However, the hypothesis that more skilled listeners trained to develop high-level listening processes, would score better on the posttest than on the pretest could not be verified. Nevertheless, we observed some tendencies showing that more skilled learners had drawn some benefits from the training. In our conclusion, we argue that the impact of a high-level and a low-level process-based L2 comprehension training strongly depends on learners’ initial levels.     

Vois‐Tu Le Kem? Do You See the Bos? Foreign Word Learning at 14 Months

How easily can infants regularly exposed to only one language begin to acquire a second one? In three experiments, we tested 14‐month‐old English and French monolingual infants’ ability to learn words presented in foreign language sentence frames. Infants were trained on two novel word‐object pairings and then tested using a preferential looking task. Word forms were phonetically and phonotactically legal in both languages, and cross‐spliced across conditions, so only the sentence frames established the word as native or foreign. In Experiment 1, infants were taught one native and one foreign word and successfully learned both. In Experiment 2 and 3, infants were taught two foreign words, but only showed successful learning of the first word they encountered. These results demonstrate that infants can successfully learn words embedded in foreign language sentences, but this is more challenging than native word learning. More broadly, they show that the sentential context of a novel word, and not just the word form itself, influences infants’ early word learning.     

Difference in Eye Gaze for Floor Apportionment in Native- and Second-Language Conversations

In face-to-face communication, eye gaze is known to play various roles such as managing the attention of interlocutors, expressing intimacy, exercising social control, highlighting particular speech content, and coordinating floor apportionment. For second language (L2) communication, one’s perception of eye gaze is expected to have more importance than for native language (L1) because eye gaze is assumed to partially compensate for the deficiencies of verbal expressions. This paper examines and clarifies the efficiency of the function of eye gaze in the coordination of floor apportionment through quantitative analyses of eye gaze during three-party conversations in L1 and L2. Specifically, the authors conducted ANOVA tests on the eye-gaze statistics of a speaker and two listeners during utterances while focusing on whether floor-switch occurs subsequent to the utterance. The analysis results show that the listener who is gazed at more by the speaker is more likely to be the next speaker with a higher probability in L2 than in L1 conversations. Meanwhile, the listeners gaze more at the speaker in L2 than in L1 conversation for both the utterances just before a floor switch and cases with no floor switch. These results support the observation that the eye gaze of the speaker is efficient for floor apportionment in L2 conversations and suggest that longer listeners’ eye gazes in L2 conversations also function efficiently in smooth floor apportionment.     

Distributional Phonetic Learning at 10 Months of Age

Infant phonetic perception reorganizes in accordance with the native language by 10 months of age. One mechanism that may underlie this perceptual change is distributional learning, a statistical analysis of the distributional frequency of speech sounds. Previous distributional learning studies have tested infants of 6–8 months, an age at which native phonetic categories have not yet developed. Here, three experiments test infants of 10 months to help illuminate perceptual ability following perceptual reorganization. English‐learning infants did not change discrimination in response to nonnative speech sound distributions from either a voicing distinction (Experiment 1) or a place‐of‐articulation distinction (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, familiarization to the place‐of‐articulation distinction was doubled to increase the amount of exposure, and in this case infants began discriminating the sounds. These results extend the processes of distributional learning to a new phonetic contrast, and reveal that at 10 months of age, distributional phonetic learning remains effective, but is more difficult than before perceptual reorganization.     

The Turkish and Moroccan Second Generation in the Netherlands: Divergent Trends between and Polarization within the Two Groups1

This article examines the socioeconomic and sociocultural status of the second‐generation Turkish young people in the Netherlands, comparing them to their Moroccan counterparts. The comparative perspective can better highlight the characteristic features of the Turkish second generation. The educational status of both the Turkish and the Moroccan young people is still weak, especially by comparison with their ethnic Dutch peers. The obstacles that second‐generation migrants encounter in their educational careers are many and diverse, and these derive both from inside their own groups and from institutional structures and other forces in Dutch society. Among the latter has been the delay in introducing professional second‐language training, which resulted in Dutch language deficiencies and poor primary school achievements. This, in combination with early school selection mechanisms at age 12, has consigned the vast majority of second‐generation children to short, dead‐end lower vocational or secondary school tracks. Unemployment is extremely high among the second‐generation migrants with short educational tracks, and discrimination in the labor market hits this group especially hard. Despite all this, the number of second‐generation young people who have succeeded in getting a better education is growing, and they are now well equipped to seek employment. An important factor in their success has been the mutual help and support they have received from family and community networks.     

Monolingual and bilingual infants’ word segmentation abilities in an inter‐mixed dual‐language task

Previous studies show that young monolingual infants use language‐specific cues to segment words in their native language. Here, we asked whether 8 and 10‐month‐old infants (N = 84) have the capacity to segment words in an inter‐mixed bilingual context. Infants heard an English‐French mixed passage that contained one target word in each language, and were then tested on their recognition of the two target words. The English‐monolingual and French‐monolingual infants showed evidence of segmentation in their native language, but not in the other unfamiliar language. As a group, the English‐French bilingual infants segmented in both of their native languages. However, exploratory analyses suggest that exposure to language mixing may play a role in bilingual infants’ segmentation skills. Taken together, these results indicate a close relation between language experience and word segmentation skills.     

The development of infants’ sensitivity to native versus non-native rhythm

Speech rhythm is considered one of the first windows into the native language, and the taxonomy of rhythm classes is commonly used to explain early language discrimination. Relying on formal rhythm classification is problematic for two reasons. First, it is not known to which extent infants’ sensitivity to language variation is attributable to rhythm alone, and second, it is not known how infants discriminate languages not classified in any of the putative rhythm classes. Employing a central-fixation preference paradigm with natural stimuli, this study tested whether infants differentially attend to native versus nonnative varieties that differ only in temporal rhythm cues, and both of which are rhythmically unclassified. An analysis of total looking time did not detect any rhythm preferences at any age. First-look duration, arguably more closely reflecting infants’ underlying perceptual sensitivities, indicated age-specific preferences for native versus non-native rhythm: 4-month-olds seemed to prefer the native-, and 6-month-olds the non-native language-variety. These findings suggest that infants indeed acquire native rhythm cues rather early, by the 4th month, supporting the theory that rhythm can bootstrap further language development. Our data on infants’ processing of rhythmically unclassified languages suggest that formal rhythm classification does not determine infants’ ability to discriminate language varieties.     

Two Generations, Two Strategies: The Fate of Bare English–origin Nouns in Ukrainian

The status of lone nouns of one language in discourse of another is often ambiguous, since they typically provide few indications of their language membership. Making use of the facts of linguistic variability in each of Ukrainian and English, we examine the quantitative conditioning of such forms in bilingual performance data. Results yield a synchronic portrait of the integrated loanword, even when it bears no surface indication of that integration, is neither recurrent nor widespread, and has no history of attestation or other status in the language. Distinguishing the languages involved in the contact situation (Canada) as produced by the first generation (G₁) or the second generation (G₂), further reveals that G₁ speakers incorporate borrowed items – nonce or established – into recipient language discourse by applying to them the fine details of their native language constraints on linguistic variability. In contrast, G₂ speakers' treatment of English-origin nouns coincides neither with their own treatment of Ukrainian nouns nor with G₁ speakers' treatment of Ukrainian or English–origin nouns.     

To reduce stigma,describing ACEs is better than “words matter”: Study

“Words matter” is the refrain of anti‐stigma proponents in the United States, who state that person‐first language will improve attitudes toward drug users. But a recent study conducted in the U.K. has found that portraying people as having adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) does far more to reduce stigma than changing language, which does nothing.     

Hard Jobs and Good Ambition: U.S. Army Generals and the Rhetoric of Modesty

This article examines the accounts given by U.S. Army general officers explaining their success. Based on interviews with sixty‐two generals, I describe the ways in which these officers—whose profession renounces careerism and self‐aggrandizement—fashion explanations of their success (and the success of their colleagues) as being due to selfless service. Even as they have reached the zenith of success in their field, these men and women are not free to admit to personal ambition or to a desire for promotion. Their accounts of their success emphasize their good fortune, hard work, and love of the service. Eschewing personal ambition, they cite as their primary responsibility the well‐being of the soldiers under their command. When asked directly about their extraordinarily successful careers, they almost uniformly acknowledge their willingness to accept the “hard jobs” the organization has asked them to assume. When asked about ambition, they routinely distinguish between good and bad ambition, a distinction that aligns almost perfectly with that between unit and self. Although they are warriors, specialists in the art of war, this is a group that is also practiced in modesty. I think I've had good ambition. (Division Commander, Interview #53)     

Within‐rhythm Class Native Language Discrimination Abilities of Basque‐Spanish Monolingual and Bilingual Infants at 3.5 Months of Age

Language rhythm determines young infants' language discrimination abilities. However, it is unclear whether young bilingual infants exposed to rhythmically similar languages develop sensitivities to cross‐linguistic rhythm cues to discriminate their dual language input. To address this question, 3.5‐month‐old monolingual Basque, monolingual Spanish and bilingual Basque‐Spanish infants' language discrimination abilities (across low‐pass filtered speech samples of Basque and Spanish) have been tested using the visual habituation procedure. Although falling within the same rhythmic class, Basque and Spanish exhibit significant differences in their distributions of vocalic intervals (within‐rhythmic class variation). All infant groups in our study successfully discriminated between the languages, although each group exhibited a different pattern. Monolingual Spanish infants succeeded only when they heard Basque during habituation, suggesting that they were influenced by native language recognition. The bilingual and the Basque monolingual infants showed no such asymmetries and succeeded irrespective of the language of habituation. Additionally, bilingual infants exhibited longer looking times in the test phase as compared with monolinguals, reflecting that bilingual infants attend to their native languages differently than monolinguals. Overall, results suggest that bilingual infants are sensitive to within‐rhythm acoustic regularities of their native language(s) facilitating language discrimination and hence supporting early bilingual acquisition.     

Stress Pattern Preference in Spanish‐Learning Infants: The Role of Syllable Weight

As a result of exposure, infants acquire biases that conform to the rhythmic properties of their native language. Previous lexical stress preference studies have shown that English‐ and German‐, but not French‐learning infants, show a bias toward trochaic words. The present study explores Spanish‐learning infants' lexical stress preferential patterns and the role of syllable weight at 9 months of age. Spanish is a syllable‐timed language with no vowel reduction and variable stress. Around 50% of the word types in Spanish are disyllabic, with a superior proportion of trochees than iambs (60% and 40%, respectively). Experiment 1 with CV.CV pseudo‐words failed to reveal a clear trochaic bias in 9‐month‐old Spanish‐learning infants. However, when preference was explored with items containing a heavy syllable (CVC.CV and CV.CVC, respectively), both a trochaic (Experiment 2) and an iambic preference (Experiment 3) could be elicited. These results suggest that knowledge about the close and highly regular link between heavy syllables and stress assignment in Spanish can be easily acquired and determines infants' preference at 9 months of age, while for CV.CV items, the trochaic bias appears to be weak. Our results broaden the current knowledge on the factors that determine the emergence of rhythmic biases.     

Dialect stabilization and speaker awareness in non‐native varieties of English1

Research on indigenized non‐native varieties of English has aimed to distinguish these varieties from individual second language learning in structural and social terms ( B. Kachru 1983 ; Platt, Weber and Ho 1984 ; Cheshire 1991 ) ; however, quantitative evidence of this divergence remains scarce. Through an analysis of a range of Indian English speakers in a contact situation in the United States, this study distinguishes developing dialect features from second language learning features and explores the concomitant emergence of dialect consciousness. First, an implicational analysis shows that some non‐standard variables (past marking, copula use, agreement) exhibit a second language learning cline while others (articles) form a more stable, incipient non‐standard system shared to some extent by all speakers; a multivariate analysis suggests that both sets of variables are governed by proficiency levels. Next, the explanatory scope of proficiency is assessed by examining the use of selected phonological variants (rhoticity, l‐velarization, aspiration). The use of these features resembles native‐like style‐shifting, as it appears to be more sensitive to speakers’ attitudinal stances than to proficiency levels. This points to the importance of understanding emerging speaker awareness and perceptions of stigma, risk, and value in new varieties of English.     

Race and the beauty premium: Mechanical Turk workers’ evaluations of Twitter accounts

ABSTRACT

Race, gender, and physical attractiveness strongly affect perceptions of trustworthiness and subsequent face-to-face interactions. This study examines how social media users’ perceived gender, race, and physical attractiveness can impact their standing online. We test these broad hypotheses by having Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers evaluate a sample of 816 Twitter accounts. Our results show a ‘beauty premium,’ where MTurk workers say they are more likely to follow Twitter accounts with attractive pro?le photos, and attractive photos are positively associated with evaluations of trust. However, very attractive Black male and female Twitter accounts are associated with lower evaluations of trust compared to their White counterparts. These findings suggest that social media users’ social characteristics, perceived from their username or profile image, can replicate offline inequality online.     

Rasch Analysis of the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ)

A valid metacognitive awareness second language (L2) listening questionnaire is important for both researchers and teachers to facilitate the measurement of language learners’ ability to reflect on and direct their L2 learning. However, very few metacognitive awareness questionnaires have been validated, particularly in the area of L2 listening (cf., Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal, & Tafaghodtari, 2006). The Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) (Vandergrift et al.) is one exception. However, very little information has been collected on the MALQ’s psychometric properties. To address this paucity, we administered the MALQ to a sample of 299 male Korean adolescent speakers of English. Using a modern measurement approach to scale validation (Rasch modeling), we found that with the exception of one subscale (Person knowledge) the subscales had good psychometric properties in that it was reliable and unidimensional.