This paper will explore the issue of similar lexical forms (Laufer 1991) as a potential problem in vocabulary acquisition of Serbian EFL learners. Building on previous research (Kocić 2008), we collected data from two groups of undergraduate students at the Faculty of Philology and Arts in Kragujevac (lower- and upper-intermediate), and attempted to identify the factors that contribute to synform confusions.
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Studies in L2 intonation and phrasal phonology are interesting not only to understand how second languages (L2) are acquired, but also to get better insights into the phonology of the target language itself. Indeed, clear descriptions are still missing for many intonational and phrasal phenomena; and analysing the speech production of L2 learners may help in analyzing phenomena that have remained unnoticed up to now (e.g. grammatical and prosodic constraints that operate in case of self-repairs, and phonological status of some prosodic events). We propose a close look at a well-designed corpus, as an introduction to this research perspective. The aim of the present contribution is twofold: (i) to present the COREIL corpus, an electronic oral learner corpus that has been designed to study the acquisition of phrasal phonology and intonation in French and English as a foreign language; (ii) to explain the principles used to collect and annotate the data. The data collection protocol is developed to be as modular as possible: for instance, it can be used to gather data produced by children as well as by adults. The protocol is intended as an easy-to-use tool that can be modified by the research community. It allows for a comparison of acquisition processes along several dimensions (L1 vs. L2, differences among L1 learners, etc).
After identifying a linguistic difference between the English quantifier most and the Japanese quantifier hotondo ‘most’ we set out to find if the semantic difference between the two would constitute a learning problem for Japanese second language (L2) learners of English. The difference we hypothesized between the two is that English most is considered “more than half,” while hotondo is “nearly all.” As this semantic difference is not explicitly taught in a classroom environment, acquisition by learners would need to take place through experiencing most in contexts where they might receive contextual clues. An examination of a corpus indicated that contextual clues towards such a semantic difference would be unavailable or rarely available. Two sets of experiments (Experiments 1 and 2) were conducted using the Truth Value Judgment Task methodology. The results of Experiment 1 showed that L2 speakers treated most as meaning “nearly all” but that the level of learner proficiency has an effect. The upper intermediate L2 learner group (Experiment 1a) behaved more like the L1 English speaker group (Experiment 1b) than the lower proficiency L2 group (Experiment 1c). Experiment 2, testing Japanese L1 speakers on their interpretation of Japanese hotondo ‘most,’ revealed that while a majority of participants treated hotondo as “almost all,” there was, somewhat unexpectedly, a group of speakers who interpreted hotondo to mean “more than half.” Therefore, although the possibility cannot completely be eliminated that the result of Experiment 1a is due to L1 transfer, if some Japanese learners of English can unlearn the incorrect meaning, then some prior, if not innate, knowledge that makes the process possible must be available to them.
Since the vowel systems of German and English are similar to some extent, German learners of English can be expected to transfer a considerable part of their German vowels to their L2 English. This paper traces the extent and source of positive and negative L1 transfer in two groups of university students from different German L1 backgrounds. To this end, acoustical analyses of three areas of vowel space are provided: high front vowels, high back vowels and mid/low front vowels. While positive transfer widely persists with high front vowels, learners refrain from consistently transferring high back vowels, probably owing to variability both in L1 German and in L2 English. In the case of mid/low front vowels negative transfer is reduced due to exposure to native English, and even more so due to formal instruction, which appears to accelerate the acquisition process
Since the vowel systems of German and English are similar to some extent, German learners of English can be expected to transfer a considerable part of their German vowels to their L2 English. This paper traces the extent and source of positive and negative L1 transfer in two groups of university students from different German L1 backgrounds. To this end, acoustical analyses of three areas of vowel space are provided: high front vowels, high back vowels and mid/low front vowels. While positive transfer widely persists with high front vowels, learners refrain from consistently transferring high back vowels, probably owing to variability both in L1 German and in L2 English. In the case of mid/low front vowels negative transfer is reduced due to exposure to native English, and even more so due to formal instruction, which appears to accelerate the acquisition process
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