Search results for "Litai"
showing 10 items of 417 documents
Second and foreign language fluency from a cognitive perspective : inefficiency and control of attention in lexical access
2017
The present dissertation focuses on the fluency of second and foreign language (L2). Second and foreign language use is often assessed by its fluency. However, the connections between language proficiency and fluency are far from clear. The fluency reasearch has tried to establish these connections, but results are varied. In the current thesis, this question is explored within the theoretical framework of Norman Segalowitz’s division of three types of fluency: cognitive, utterance, and perceived fluency. The overall proposition here is that in relation to L2 proficiency, cognitive fluency provides important insights. This is based on the theories of limited cognitive resources, which state…
Influencing through language : university students' argumentation strategies
2009
This article investigates university students’ argumentation skills in their efforts to infl uence fellow students through language. The project was implemented at the University of Kuopio and the subjects, both Finnish and foreign university students, spoke English as a lingua franca. The students were required to argue in roles either ‘for’ or ‘against’ in videotaped debates. The aim was to determine how well they managed and what problems arose. In this demanding speech situation the students applied collaborative strategy, repetition, rephrasing and topic negotiation. Problems were caused mainly by the diffi cult topics and unknown terminology. However, there was a strong sense of commi…
Aletaan alusta : luku- ja kirjoitustaidottomat aikuiset uutta kieltä oppimassa
2014
Kvantitativa perspektiv på L2-tal på olika färdighetsnivåer
2021
The aim of this study is to investigate differences in the amount (the occurrence rate) of second language (L2) traits at different proficiency levels in spoken L2 Finland-Swedish. In the analysis, we focus on L2 features in segments, segment lengths, word stress and sentence stress. Further, we analyze the ability to produce speech and the complexity of production at different proficiency levels: the amount of speech, token length, token structure and speech rate. Through previous research, we know that pronunciation plays an important role for comprehensibility and foreign accent but also for the level of oral proficiency. Although pronunciation and different pronunciation features are us…
Prosody and fluency of Finland Swedish as a second language: Investigating global parameters for automated speaking assessment
2023
This study investigates prosody and fluency of Finland Swedish as a second language (L2). The main objective is to investigate global measures of prosody and fluency as predictors of overall oral proficiency, fluency, and pronunciation ratings. We analyzed parameters related to temporal fluency, timing (based on syllable durations), and f0 change from spontaneous speech produced by 30 native and 235 non-native speakers of Finland Swedish representing proficiency levels from beginner to intermediate. We used pairwise comparisons to investigate the differences between native speech (L1) and L2 samples from different proficiency levels. To study the predictability of ratings with acoustic para…
Tuoretta tutkimusta suomen oppimisesta ja oppijoista
2022
The role of pause location in perceived fluency and proficiency in L2 Finnish
2022
Fluency is a commonly used descriptor of second language (L2) speaking skills. Unplanned and too frequent pauses, hesitations, and repetitions disrupt the flow of speech and can cause temporal irregularities at all levels of speech hierarchy, from syllable rate to phrasing. However, most studies that attempt to quantify fluency disregard pause locations. The current study investigates, whether and which pause locations affect the perceived fluency and proficiency in L2 Finnish. Several pause parameters were computed from spontaneous L2 Finnish speech samples. Pause locations were investigated with regards to clauses and phrases as well as incomplete words. The effect of pause locations to h…
Developing Automated Feedback on Spoken Performance : Exploring the Functioning of Five Analytic Rating Scales Using Many-facet Rasch Measurement
2022
In this study, we used the Many-facet Rasch measurement (MFRM) to explore the quality of ratings as well as the functioning of five analytic rating scales developed for automated assessment of L2 speech. This study is part of a multidisciplinary research project that develops automatic speech recognition (ASR), automated scoring and automated feedback for L2 Finnish and Swedish. The data include the analytic ratings (task completion, fluency, pronunciation, range, accuracy) gathered from human raters (n=14) who assessed L2 Finnish learners’ (n=64) speech samples using Moodle. The four-facet Rasch analysis showed that the raters performed and the rating scales functioned well, although task …
Differences in acoustically determined sentence stress between native and L2 speakers of Finland Swedish
2021
This study describes a pilot attempt to use acoustically determined sentence stress in distinguishing native and L2 speakers of Finland Swedish at different proficiency levels. The study is part of the DigiTala project that examines and develops automatic tools for spoken L2 assessment. Stressed syllables were detected in 235 L2 and 30 L1 speech samples using combinations of f0, intensity, and duration. Differences were found in the relative number of stressed syllables between native and L2 speakers using f0 and duration or all three features. Further research with more consistent speech data is needed to establish reliable automatic measures of sentence stress. nonPeerReviewed