Search results for "Language"

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 …

"We really had a great week together, didn't we?" : the development of questions in texts written by adult learners of English as a second language

2011

Toisen kielen kehityksen tasoja on tutkittu jo vuosikymmenien ajan ja kysymyslauseet ovat olleet yksi alan keskeisimpiä tutkimuskohteita. Pienemannin, Johnstonin ja Brindleyn vuonna 1988 esittelemä kysymyslauseiden kuusiportainen kategorisointi niiden kehitystason mukaisesti on vaikuttanut todella suuresti alalla tehtyyn tutkimukseen aina tähän päivään saakka. Myöhemmissä tutkimuksissa, esimerkiksi Lightbown ja Spada (1993), on selvitetty että uusien tasojen oppiminen tapahtuu järjestelmällisesti ja että kielen oppija ei voi hypätä minkään kehitystason yli. Uusi kehitystaso ei myöskään korvaa aiempia tasoja vaan liittyy niiden jatkeeksi. Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli jatkaa kysymyslau…

Words, clauses, sentences, and T-units in learner language: Precise and objective units of measure?

2020

In research on learner language complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF), syntactic complexity is often studied with quantitative measures based on words, clauses, sentences, and T-units. The findings have been mixed, but segmenting learner language into these units of measure has seldom been problematised, even if the need for accurate coding is well known. The present study explores words, clauses, sentences, and T-units as production units in written learner language using a corpus of 352 L2 Finnish texts (28,813 words). The results illustrate how written learner language can be hard to fit into the production unit categories, which are essential for the most frequently used quantitative m…

Lärarnas uppfattningar av att inleda undervisningen i A1-språk i årskurs 1

2022

Since 2020, the teaching of the A1 language starts in grade 1. In order to study the shift to an earlier start to the teaching of the A1 language, a survey of the teaching of A1 languages in grade 1 was carried out with the focus on the most common A1 languages: Finnish in the Swedish-medium schools and English in the Finnish-medium schools. The article examines the teachers’ perceptions of starting the teaching of A1 languages in grade 1. The data consists of 644 answers to an online questionnaire, of which 94 apply to A1 Finnish and 550 to A1 English. The results show that the teachers generally have a positive perception of early language teaching and consider starting the language in gr…

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…

Guiding and assessing development of L2 writing process : the role of peer collaboration

2022

This study, informed by Vygotskian notion of mediation and reporting on a partnership between a researcher (the first author) and a teacher (the second author), aims at exploring how peers’ comments can inform teacher assessment and guidance of learners’ L2 (second/foreign language) writing. The participants were 19 L2 English learners in an upper secondary school in Finland. We largely focus on the notes that one pair of learners made on each other’s essays and how they responded to peer assistance. Triangulating these data with classroom observation and a questionnaire, we traced how learners co-constructed their understanding of how their texts can be developed. The foci and how the iden…

Mobilizing ‘context’: Vocabulary checks in ESL tutoring sessions

2022

This study investigates the practice of unplanned and emergent vocabulary checks, i.e. turns through which a speaker explicitly checks whether the recipient knows a word, in small-group tutorial instruction. The data are video-recorded English as a second language (ESL) tutoring sessions between a native English speaker tutor and ESL students at an urban community college in the United States. By drawing on conversation analysis, we analyze how vocabulary checks emerge sequentially and with the help of contextual interactional resources. Findings suggest that vocabulary checks constitute a practice for managing both shared understanding and pedagogical concerns. By singling out a vocabulary…

Learning Grammar for Social Action : Implications for Research and Language Teaching

2022

Kirjoitusprosessi suurennuslasin alla

2020

Arvioitu teos:
 Olga Gaitšenja: Venekeelsete eesti keele õppijate kirjutamisprotsess. Tallinn: Tallinna ülikool 2019. 254 s. isbn 978-9949-29- 466-4. Saatavilla verkossa osoitteessa http://www.digar.ee/id/nlib-digar:406495.