Search results for "Cog"
showing 10 items of 17676 documents
Dynamic Usage-based Principles in the Development of L2 Finnish Evaluative Constructions
2021
Abstract This study investigates the formal verbalizations of evaluation used by four beginning L2 learners of Finnish from a dynamic usage-based perspective. Longitudinal data collected weekly were used to investigate what kind of constructions learners use to express evaluation and how these interact and develop over time. The results show that when a new construction is acquired in the L2, another related construction might regress. The results also point to increased variability in the construction during a phase of rapid development and reduced variability in the phases of regression or slower progress. These findings add to our understanding of a developing L2 as a system in which cha…
To correct or to cooperate : Mediational processes and L2 development
2018
The present article argues for a conceptual distinction between corrective feedback and mediation that emphasizes the status of the latter not as an instructional practice but as a defining feature of human psychology (Vygotsky, 1987) that has direct implications for how instruction might be approached. Specifically, Sociocultural Theory (SCT) posits that humans are always and everywhere mediated, as individuals draw upon meanings and ways of thinking they have already internalized as well as those that are available in their immediate environment to regulate their actions. With regard to second language (L2) education, rather than exclusively focusing on learner independent performance or…
Kazoo training for L2 pronunciation practice and reduced foreign accentedness?
2019
This paper presents a controlled pretest–training–posttest study on using a small membraphone instrument called kazoo for L2 pronunciation practice and reducing foreign accentedness. Learners were recorded for free speech before and after a six-week pronunciation and oral skills course including L2 prosody training with personal kazoos. A control group did not receive any kazoo training but did similar tasks in regular speech. Samples of all learners’ free speech before and after the course were rated for foreign accentedness by L1 speakers. In addition, learners taking part in the kazoo group were interviewed in focus groups to ascertain their views on kazoo training. The results imply tha…
Connecting the Language Classroom and the Wild : Re-enactments of Language Use Experiences
2018
AbstractUsing multimodal conversation analysis, this article analyses language learning as an in situ process during a teacher-assigned, experientially based pedagogical activity. The activity involved a three-part pedagogical structure, where learners first prepared for and then participated in real-life service encounters, and later reflected on their experiences back in the classroom. The analysis details how the co-constructed telling sequences through which novice second language users re-enact their experiences create an occasion for language-focused activity. We argue that the actions through which the participants display and sustain an orientation to an interactional practice as an…
Second Language Prosody and its Development : Connection between Different Aspects
2018
This study focuses on the development of L2 prosody and, in particular, whether different aspects can affect each other. Finnish-speaking learners of Swedish took part in a pronunciation and oral skills course and were recorded for various speaking tasks before and after the experimental intervention. Read-aloud declarative sentences (statements) from nine learners were acoustically analysed for several tonal and temporal aspects, focusing on the marking of primary stress. The results reveal that the learning of Swedish tonal word accent 2 (H*LH) facilitates other tonal developments towards native-like utterance intonation. A link between tonal and temporal developments in the marking of pr…
The role of motor system in action-related language comprehension in L1 and L2: An fMRI study
2018
The framework of embodied cognition has challenged the modular view of a language-cognition divide by suggesting that meaning-retrieval critically involves the sensory-motor system. Despite extensive research into the neural mechanisms underlying language-motor coupling, it remains unclear how the motor system might be differentially engaged by different levels of linguistic abstraction and language proficiency. To address this issue, we used fMRI to quantify neural activations in brain regions underlying motor and language processing in Chinese-English speakers’ processing of literal, metaphorical, and abstract language in their L1 and L2. Results overall revealed a response in motor ROIs …
From conceptualization to constructions in Finnish as an L2 : a case study
2017
AbstractThis study traces the individual learning trajectories of an adult beginner L2 Finnish learner in expressing the extralinguistic concept of evaluation from a dynamic usage-based perspective. Our results provide support for the view of learner language as a dynamic system in which patterns wax and wane and in which a change in one component has the potential to affect the whole system. In the early stages of learning there was a strong preference to use lexical verbs first, and then adjectives. The study also shows that variability plays a role. Finally, the study confirms that the learning of L2 constructions is in some cases item based. However, another highly frequent and superfic…
Developing a metatheoretical framework for second language development : a cultural-historical theory and dynamic systems theory perspective
2017
The main aim of this article-based dissertation is to construct and articulate a dialectical metatheoretical architecture for the study of second language development termed Purposive-Historical Systems Theory (PHiST) invoking, inter alia, the axiomatic imperatives of dynamic systems theory (DST), Vygotskian cultural-historical theory (CHT), and Pepperian root metaphor theory (RMT). Specifically, it primarily purports, first, to demonstrate the tenability of a dialectical synthesis of DST and CHT; second, to philosophize on the fundamental contours of PHiST; third, to apply a novel metatheoretical perspective, as a quintessential example, to reconceptualizing the seminal construct of the Zo…
Lexically specific vs. productive constructions in L2 Finnish
2020
ABSTRACTIt is assumed from a usage-based perspective that learner language constructions emerge from natural language use in social interaction through exemplar learning. In L1, young learners have been shown to develop their constructions from lexically specific, formulaic expressions into more productive, abstract schemas. A similar developmental path has been shown for L2 development, with some exceptions. The aim of the current study is to explore to what extent the default assumption holds for L2 learning. The development of two constructions was traced in four adults learning L2 Finnish. Free-response data, collected weekly over a period of 9 months, were used to investigate the produ…
The embodiment of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words : Evidence from late Chinese–English bilinguals
2023
Although increasing studies have confirmed the distinction between emotion-label words (words directly label emotional states) and emotion-laden words (words evoke emotions through connotations), the existing evidence is inconclusive, and their embodiment is unknown. In the current study, the emotional categorization task was adopted to investigate whether these two types of emotion words are embodied by directly comparing how they are processed in individuals’ native language (L1) and the second language (L2) among late Chinese-English bilinguals. The results revealed that apart from L2 negative emotion-laden words, both types of emotion words in L1 and L2 produced significant emotion effe…