scholarly journals Non-Final Focus Accents in The Speech of Advanced Italian Learners of German

2015 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Paschke ◽  
Barbara Vogt
Keyword(s):  
Success Rate ◽  
Reading Aloud ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Correct Placement ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Focus Condition ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Pitch Accents

This study investigates the prosodic marking of focus in non-native German. Ten proficient learners of German with Italian L1 were recorded reading aloud 40 sentences containing mostly non-final focused constituents embedded in an adequate question context. Non-final focus accents in L2 German are difficult for Italian learners to produce, especially in broad focus contexts with de-accentuation of final verb forms (cf. Paschke/Vogt, in press), because their native language has a strong positional requirement of rightmostness. Given that both German and Italian use pitch accents for information structuring, i. e. to highlight important information, a correct placement of focus accents might, however, be favoured by narrow focus contexts in which prosodic prominence has to be assigned to one specific constituent. In addition to this main hypothesis, the study investigated whether additional clues (such as prosodic highlighting of the relevant constituent in the L2 question, a corresponding syntactic and prosodic structure between L1 and L2) might increase the success rate. The data shows that advanced Italian speakers of German L2 correctly realize non-final focus accents in more than half of the narrow focus contexts, but that their success rate is not significantly higher than in the broad focus condition and is not affected by the additional clues provided.

scholarly journals USING PROSODY TO PREDICT UPCOMING REFERENTS IN THE L1 AND THE L2

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Anouschka Foltz
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Exposure Period ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Prosodic Cues ◽  
Resource Deficit ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Pitch Accents

Abstract While monolingual speakers can use contrastive pitch accents to predict upcoming referents, bilingual speakers do not always use this cue predictively in their L2. The current study examines the role of recent exposure for predictive processing in native German (L1) second language learners of English (L2). In Experiment 1, participants followed instructions to click on two successive objects, for example, Click on the red carrot/duck. Click on the green/GREEN carrot (where CAPS indicate a contrastive L + H* accent). Participants predicted a repeated noun following a L + H* accent in the L1, but not in the L2, where processing was delayed. Experiment 2 shows that after an exposure period with highly consistent prosodic cues, bilinguals engaged in predictive processing in both their L1 and L2. However, inconsistent prosodic cues showed different effects on bilinguals’ L1 and L2 predictive processing. The results are discussed in terms of exposure-based and resource-deficit models of processing.

scholarly journals Prosodic Structure Shapes the Temporal Realization of Intonation and Manual Gesture Movements

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 850-864 ◽  
Author(s):  
Núria Esteve-Gibert ◽  
Pilar Prieto
Keyword(s):  
Target Word ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Prosodic Phrasing ◽  
Temporal Coordination ◽  
Contrastive Focus ◽  
Focus Condition ◽  
Manual Gesture ◽  
Prosodic Boundary ◽  
Pointing Gesture

Purpose Previous work on the temporal coordination between gesture and speech found that the prominence in gesture coordinates with speech prominence. In this study, the authors investigated the anchoring regions in speech and pointing gesture that align with each other. The authors hypothesized that (a) in contrastive focus conditions, the gesture apex is anchored in the intonation peak and (b) the upcoming prosodic boundary influences the timing of gesture and intonation movements. Method Fifteen Catalan speakers pointed at a screen while pronouncing a target word with different metrical patterns in a contrastive focus condition and followed by a phrase boundary. A total of 702 co-speech deictic gestures were acoustically and gesturally analyzed. Results Intonation peaks and gesture apexes showed parallel behavior with respect to their position within the accented syllable: They occurred at the end of the accented syllable in non–phrase-final position, whereas they occurred well before the end of the accented syllable in phrase-final position. Crucially, the position of intonation peaks and gesture apexes was correlated and was bound by prosodic structure. Conclusions The results refine the phonological synchronization rule (McNeill, 1992), showing that gesture apexes are anchored in intonation peaks and that gesture and prosodic movements are bound by prosodic phrasing.

L1/L2 Spanish grammars and the pragmatic deficit hypothesis

1999 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Liceras ◽  
E. Valenzuela ◽  
L. Díaz
Keyword(s):  
Continuity Condition ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Proposal A ◽  
Syntactic Development ◽  
Pragmatic Principle ◽  
L2 Spanish ◽  
L1 And L2

In recent research on primary (L1) and non-primary (L2) acquisition,special attention has been given to whether syntactic development is subject to a continuity condition. While it has been proposed that the continuity condition applies to both L1 and L2 syntactic growth,the changes that take place in developing grammars have sometimes been attributed to other cognitive systems. Specifically, it has been proposed that child grammars are ‘underspecified’ because they lack a pragmatic principle which determines the range of indices available for establishing verbal and nominal coreference. According to this proposal, a grammar which is underspecified for Number has null subjects and bare NPs only with non-inflected verb forms. Assuming that adults will not have a pragmatic deficit of the kind proposed for children, we have analysed data from child L1 Spanish and adult L2 Spanish. The results of our analysis show that: (1) in child L1 Spanish, the feature Person may encode Number so that when Person is distinctively implemented, root infinitives and bare NP subjects will cease to occur. However, the pervasive morphology of Spanish verbs conspires against the possibility of providing clear-cut evidence for underspecification in the case of child Spanish; (2) the different nature of L1 and L2 root infinitives may provide partial evidence for underspecification in the case of L1 Spanish; and (3) in the case of L2 learners, the distribution of null and overt subjects seems to be partially determined by their L1 rather than by underspecification.

scholarly journals The impact of L2 proficiency on cross-language influence during L2 word processing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Branzi ◽  
Ya-Ning Chang ◽  
Claudia Gaele ◽  
Theodora Alexopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Word Processing ◽  
Control Strategies ◽  
Proactive Inhibition ◽  
Target Language ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
The Impact

We investigated the relationship between L2 proficiency and the language control strategies employed during L2 word-processing to cope with cross-language interference. Our main hypothesis is that proactive inhibition of the non-target language (L1) is the best cognitive strategy to optimise L2 performance when L1 and L2 lexical/phonological representations do not overlap. This strategy should be especially implemented by L2 high proficient individuals. We tested a group of native speakers of Chinese (L1) with various levels of proficiency in L2 English in a task that required to decide whether English words presented in pairs were related in meaning or not. Crucially, L2 learners were unaware of the fact that half of the words concealed a character repetition when translated into Chinese which allowed us to measure the activation of L1 phonological representations. Contrary to our predictions, we found that higher proficiency correlated with higher L1 activation.

Complexity at the phrasal level in spoken L1 and very advanced L2 French

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-201
Author(s):  
Inge Bartning ◽  
Klara Arvidsson ◽  
Fanny Forsberg Lundell
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Oral Production ◽  
On Line ◽  
Post Modification ◽  
L1 And L2

This article examines linguistic complexity in the noun phrase in spoken L1 and L2 French. Research on linguistic complexity in L2 has often concentrated on syntactic complexity, subordination in particular. In this study, we focus on syntactic complexity at the phrasal level, i.e. in the noun phrase, following the assumption put forward by Norris and Ortega (2009: 564) that internal NP complexity provides an important measure of very advanced learners. The present study examines pre- and post-modification in the noun phrase in the oral production of very advanced non-native speakers (NNS) and native speakers (NS) elicited through an on-line retelling of a clip from Modern Times. The results confirm our main hypothesis, that there are differences between NS and NNS: NS use more complex NPs, NPs with a higher mean number of words and more NPs with multiple modifiers.

Late-L2 increased reliance on L1 neurocognitive substrates: A comment on Babcock, Stowe, Maloof, Brovetto & Ullman (2012)

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 704-707 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHEL PARADIS
Keyword(s):  
Length Of Residence ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
The Past ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Grammatical Functions

Babcok et al. (2012) claim that Paradis (1994, 2004, 2009) argues that the reliance of late L2 learners on L1 neurocognitive mechanisms increases over time across both lexical and grammatical functions, namely for lexical items as well as rule-governed grammatical procedures, when in fact one can find repeated statements to the contrary in the very publications cited by the authors. Actually, Paradis’ main contention over the past 20 years has been that, contrary to grammatical functions, lexical items (as meaning–form relationships) are always of the same nature in L1 and L2 (hence stored declaratively). Thus in L2, only the neurocognitive mechanisms on which aspects of the grammar depend change over time. Consequently, the finding that length of residence (like age of arrival) influences the mechanisms underlying regular (composed), but not irregular (stored) verb forms, is compatible with Paradis’ views, in contradiction to what Babcock et al. are also suggesting.

scholarly journals The impact of L2 proficiency on cross-language influence during L2 word processing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Branzi ◽  
Ya-Ning Chang ◽  
Claudia Gaele ◽  
Theodora Alexopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Word Processing ◽  
Control Strategies ◽  
Proactive Inhibition ◽  
Target Language ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
The Impact

We investigated the relationship between L2 proficiency and the language control strategies employed during L2 word-processing to cope with cross-language interference. Our main hypothesis is that proactive inhibition of the non-target language (L1) is the best cognitive strategy to optimise L2 performance when L1 and L2 lexical/phonological representations do not overlap. This strategy should be especially implemented by L2 high proficient individuals. We tested a group of native speakers of Chinese (L1) with various levels of proficiency in L2 English in a task that required to decide whether English words presented in pairs were related in meaning or not. Crucially, L2 learners were unaware of the fact that half of the words concealed a character repetition when translated into Chinese which allowed us to measure the activation of L1 phonological representations. Contrary to our predictions, we found that higher proficiency correlated with higher L1 activation.

scholarly journals An intonational grammar for Icelandic

2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Dehé
Keyword(s):  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Intonational Phrases ◽  
Pitch Accents

The aim of this paper is to shed new light on the tonal grammar of Icelandic and to complement the tone inventory as previously described in the literature (Árnason 1998). Specifically, types of pitch accents and edge tones and their combinations in neutral declaratives and questions, and in utterances containing narrow focus are addressed. Two pitch accent types (H* and L*) and two edge tones (H- and L-) are identified, for which evidence has not been found in previous research. Moreover, the paper shows for declaratives, that along with downstep, Icelandic has upstep across Intonational Phrases. Upstep applies to a series of pitch peaks. It may occur in neutral declaratives and in utterances with final narrow focus. Overall, the results of this study provide a substantial addition to our knowledge of Icelandic intonational phonology.

INCIDENTAL ACQUISITION OF GRAMMATICAL FEATURES DURING READING IN L1 AND L2

2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denisa Bordag ◽  
Amit Kirschenbaum ◽  
Andreas Opitz ◽  
Maria Rogahn ◽  
Erwin Tschirner
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Grammatical Knowledge ◽  
New Words ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Morphological Markedness

The present study explores the initial stages of incidental acquisition of two grammatical properties of verbs (subcategorization and [ir]regularity) during reading in first language (L1) and second language (L2) German using an adjusted self-paced reading paradigm. The results indicate that L1 speakers are superior to L2 speakers in the incidental acquisition of grammatical knowledge (experiments on subcategorization), except when the new knowledge interferes with previously acquired knowledge and mechanisms (experiments on [ir]regularity): Although both populations performed equally well regarding the acquisition of the subcategorization of verbs from the input (i.e., whether the verbs are transitive or intransitive), they differed with respect to the regularity status of new verbs. L1 speakers (in contrast to L2 learners) seem to disprefer irregularly conjugated verb forms in general, irrespective of their conjugation in the previous input. The results further show that the syntactic complexity of the context and morphological markedness positively affect the incidental acquisition of new words in the L2, triggering learners’ shift of attention from the text level to the word level.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document