Languages, Literatures, & Cultures
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Item TOWARD A THEORY-BASED ACCOUNT OF THE L2 VOCABULARY PROCESSING AND LEARNING BENEFITS OF READING WHILE LISTENING(2024) Malone, Jonathan; Gor, Kira; Hui, Bronson; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The tantalizing prospects of learning benefits from multimodal conditions on second language (L2) learning in general, and L2 vocabulary development in particular, have important implications. Indeed, opening a language learning app on any device provides the immediate experience of simultaneous input modalities, and a wide range of input types. But how helpful is multimodality to vocabulary learning, especially when the focus of the learner is on the meaning of a text? Researchers have manipulated input to compare a variety of learning conditions and examined vocabulary learning gains. However, relatively few within second language acquisition (SLA) have utilized real-time monitoring of learner behavior to examine how learners encounter new words over multiple exposures during a reading task, and how the quality of these encounters may or may not influence explicit learning outcomes. Even fewer have mapped differences in the developmental trajectory of form-form and form-meaning mapping for new words at the group level, comparing reading only (RO) with reading while listening (RWL). Crucially, to my knowledge, none have made or tested predictions within RWL on possible psycholinguistic source(s) of reported benefits. Our understanding of outcome benefits, along with implications for optimizing input in classroom or individual instructed contexts, is thereby quite limited. My dissertation study was designed to address each of these issues. 119 advanced English learners read or read while listening to a 7,400-word short story under incidental conditions (time pressure, focus on comprehension, and unannounced posttest outcomes). The text was embedded with 25 target pseudoword items 10 times each, with target items replacing real nouns in object positions. Measures of real-time form learning were defined as faster reading times and fewer total visits to the new words across encounters (Godfroid, 2020b), and there were three post-exposure measures of explicit word knowledge (form recognition, meaning recognition, meaning recall). New to this area of vocabulary research, outcome items were presented in randomized item modality (visual or auditory), to ensure congruence between treatment and test items and reducing modality-specific testing bias (Jelani & Boers, 2018). Group-level comparisons examined differences in (1) developmental trajectory of form familiarity and meaning integration for RO and RWL groups, (2) learning outcomes, and (3) effects of multi-componential L2 proficiency and phonological short-term memory (PSTM) skills on processing and learning outcomes. Within-RWL analyses operationalized a theoretical source of benefit (reading slightly ahead of the audio) and its impact on reading time and posttest learning gains. Findings indicated differences between RO and RWL across three measures of eye movements: (1) gaze duration (GD), a measure of form familiarity with new words; (2) total reading time (TRT), a measure of meaning integration; and (3) visit count, or the total number of encounters looking at the words. The overall pattern for RWL indicated longer initial reading times for new words, fewer re-readings, and steadier decrease in GD and TRT across encounters. Additionally, differences in learning outcomes were most clearly revealed through auditory test items, with RWL superior to RO across all three posttest outcome measures, and a group by item modality interaction. In other words, RWL indicated superior overall effects compared with RO across all items in form recognition and meaning recall, across all three posttests in auditory items, and better scores on visual than auditory items in RO (but equal across test item modality in RWL). Within-RWL analyses revealed that reading ahead of the audio was a positive predictor of TRT, as well as the most difficult of the three outcome measures (meaning recall). While PSTM predicted processing of new words, it did not predict outcomes for any of the three measures of vocabulary learning gains for advanced-level L2 readers. In sum, this study provides convergent evidence that process (form-form / form-meaning acquisition) and product (learning gains) are both positively impacted for new words under multimodal incidental conditions for advanced L2 learners, along with an initial indication that audiovisual asynchrony may play a role in RWL benefits in learning new words above and beyond L2 proficiency or memory skills.Item Individual Variables in Context: A Longitudinal Study of Child and Adolescent English Language Learners(2023) Struck, Jason; Jiang, Nan; Clark, Martyn; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Millions of public-school students in the United States are identified as English language learners (ELLs), whose academic success is tied to their second language (L2) English education. Previous research in adult populations indicates that L2 proficiency is related to the contextual variable of the prevalence of one’s first language (L1) among their peers, called L1 density, which may also moderate the effects of individual variables such as age and exposure to the L2. Despite its substantial impact on the amount and quality of adult learners’ exposure to the L2, the variable of L1 density has received little attention in child and adolescent populations, even though it is unknown what role, if any, L1 density plays in L2 acquisition in a school context. Other outstanding questions concerning individual variables include the nature of the purported rate advantage of later starters and whether the similarity of one's L1 and L2 is related to L2 proficiency.The current study addressed these questions by analyzing longitudinal L2 proficiency assessment records of 10,879 ELLs in grades 1–12 in the United States. The assessment was WIDA's ACCESS for ELLs Online Test, a national, standardized test with scores for each of the four domains of listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Multilevel models were used to estimate the effects of several variables: age of enrollment in a United States school, length of enrollment, language similarity, and L1 density. In the fitted model estimates, age of enrollment had a small, positive effect. Length of enrollment had a sizable, positive effect but attenuated over time. ELLs enrolling at a later age progressed slightly slower than ELLs enrolling at an earlier age, contrary to the widely accepted notion that later starters enjoy a rate advantage. Little to no evidence was found for a relationship between test scores and language similarity or L1 density, or that the effects of age of enrollment or length of enrollment varied with L1 density. The results of this study give evidence for the following conclusions for ELLs in United States schools: an earlier age of enrollment is associated with greater gains in L2 proficiency over time, speakers of different L1s are not expected to become differentially proficient in L2 English, and ELLs’ levels of L2 proficiency are not expected to vary with how many of their peers speak the same L1.Item Variation in Interlanguage: Evidence from Internal and External Patterning of Morphosyntactic Variability in the Speech of Second Language Learners(2022) Zheng, Qi; Jiang, Nan; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Language is inherently variable, and learner language is particularly variable. The variationist paradigm considers learner language a heterogeneously variable yet inherently rule-governed system. Specifically, learners’ alternation between native-like and nonnative-like variants of a variable or invariable target native speaker (NS) form constitutes learner language variation. Variation is also viewed as an indication of a transitional phase towards acquisition (e.g., Regan, 2013; Tagliamonte, 2011). With a particular concentration on second language (L2) morphosyntactic variation, this dissertation explored inter-learner variation and intra-learner variability together with interlanguage development by analyzing Japanese L2 learners’ oral performances in English oral proficiency interviews. The research observed and studied the variation pattern in the interview data and identified the linguistic, paralinguistic, and nonlinguistic factors and factor groups which may give rise to Japanese L2 learners’ repeated exercise of their interlanguage grammar for four morphosyntactic features: preposition/particle, article, object pronoun-dropping, and modal auxiliary verb. The data were analyzed by using classification trees, random forests, and mixed-effects variable rule methods which together identified a hierarchy of variable importance among potential factors and factor groups and the influential factor levels within each significant factor group. With modern mixed models, the dissertation concluded that the observed morphosyntactic variation is subject to inter-lingual and intra-learner factors. Additionally, learners may also have individualized baselines and grammar. More importantly, the findings of the current research have provided important theoretical and empirical justification on whether and how individual patterns mirror the interlanguage patterns and hence an inter-lingual developmental understanding of L2 morphosyntactic competence.Item EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF AUDITORY INPUT ON INCIDENTAL VOCABULARY LEARNING BY L2 JAPANESE SPEAKERS(2020) Hillman, Kyoko Kobayashi; Ross, Steven J; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Research on advanced L2 adult learners and viable classroom instruction for them has become increasingly important along with increasing global connections. This study investigated the effects of different kinds of spoken input modification on listening comprehension and incidental vocabulary learning by 106 advanced Chinese speakers of Japanese in Japan. The participants were randomly assigned to four types of input (genuine, simplified, elaborated, modified elaborated) used in four short academic talks by Japanese professionals. Each talk contained eight low-frequency nouns, each appearing three times. Learning outcomes were assessed using three different measures: form-recognition, meaning recognition with contextual information, and meaning recognition via L2 definitions. Participants responded to three types of comprehension questions (replication, synthesis, inference) while listening to the talks. Scores from an online proficiency test and two working memory (WM) tasks served as moderator variables.Results showed that elaborated input was the most effective of the four types for both comprehension and incidental vocabulary learning. Results also showed that modified elaborated input, a novel input modification type that contained the same elaboration but with shorter sentences, was more effective when higher WM was available. In contrast, elaborated input was least influenced by WM capacities. Regarding the relationships between input modification and type of comprehension questions, modified elaborated input had a marginally significant effect on replication items. For synthesis and inference items, statistically significant effects for input type were not found, contradicting previous results in the literature. Proficiency showed significant effects on all tests, whereas WM showed interaction effects with simplified and modified elaborated input. In light of these findings, the study concludes that (a) elaborated input is more beneficial for advanced L2 learners than genuine input regardless of WM, (b) modified elaborated input with short sentences requires WM, (c) input elaboration is more effective than input enhancement for incidental vocabulary learning for both form and meaning recognition, and (d) enhanced incidental vocabulary conditions using greater input elaboration are likely to provide L2 learners with better input and opportunities to learn more lexical items incidentally.Item SELECTIVITY IN LEXICAL ACCESS AMONG BILINGUALS OF ORTHOGRAPHICALLY DISTINCT SCRIPTS AND THE ROLE OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS(2020) Al Thowaini, Buthainah M; Jiang, Nan; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A fundamental inquiry within bilingual processing research addresses the underlying mechanisms of lexical access. Research involving bilinguals of orthographically similar scripts has revealed that cross-language activation is non-selective, which supposedly causes the bilingual brain to regularly manage the activation of two languages. Such continuous management of two languages has led some researchers to argue that the bilingual experience contributes to enhanced executive control. The research on selectivity in lexical access, nevertheless, has overwhelmingly involved bilingual speakers of orthographically similar scripts, with a scarcity of studies involving bilingual speakers of orthographically distinct scripts. Additionally, while active management of both languages is expected for bilinguals, little is known about whether language selectivity is related to individual variation in executive control. Instead, research investigating executive functions (EFs) in relation to bilingual processes has primarily been conducted within the context of switch costs, which has been associated with methodological issues. In light of the issues outlined above, the current study investigated selectivity in lexical access among bilinguals of orthographically distinct scripts and the relationship between the degree of selectivity and EFs (i.e., top-down goal maintenance, interference resolution, and working memory capacity). In addition to adopting an individual differences approach to lexical access, the study manipulated the degree of language task demands (comprehension and production). The study employed alternative non-switch tasks to investigate the relationships between EFs and cross-language activation. One hundred and thirty-eight Arabic-English bilinguals, 25 English native speakers, and 24 Arabic native speakers participated in a phoneme monitoring task and a masked primed lexical decision task involving monolingual materials. Bilingual participants also completed non-verbal visuo-spatial and visual single n-back tasks, as well as an AX-CPT task. The analyses revealed non-selective lexical access in language production but were inconclusive for language comprehension, where participants varied in the degree of selectivity. In addition, the results, although preliminary, demonstrated that top-down goal maintenance partially accounted for some of the variances in the degree of selectivity in language comprehension and production. The results suggest that selectivity is influenced by task-dependent variables as well as individual differences in executive functions.Item THE EFFECTS OF TRAINING FOR AUTOMATICITY ON MULTIWORD RECOGNITION(2020) JEONG, HYOJIN; DeKeyser, Robert M; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Automatic lexical processing, such as accessing and retrieving the correct meaning of a word quickly and automatically in reading, is fundamental for successful and fluent language use. However, the focus of the previous studies has been limited to the processing of single words. No study has investigated whether skilled recognition of newly learned multiword expressions, such as cook the books, can be fostered by training as predicted by skill acquisition theory. The present study, therefore, investigated the effects of multiword-recognition training on the development of automaticity in collocation-recognition processing, and also examined the roles of first language (L1) congruency (having word-for-word translation equivalents in L1), training condition (verbatim repetition vs. varied repetition), working memory capacity, and procedural learning ability in automatization of collocation recognition. Seventy-two Korean learners of English were assigned to one of two experimental conditions (verbatim repetition and varied repetition conditions). All the participants engaged in three training sessions. The training consisted of a series of fill-in-the-blank exercises that only differed in terms of training materials. The target items for the training consisted of 16 congruent (corresponding to the participants’ L1) and 16 incongruent verb-noun phrases in English. Two tests (phrasal decision task and sentence-and-word recall task) were used to assess the participants’ learning gains from the training. In line with the predictions of skill acquisition theory, the results showed that repeated practice through explicit vocabulary exercises led to significant improvement in recognition performance of collocations in terms of speed, processing stability and cognitive capacity usage. L1 congruency was found to play a facilitative role in collocation-recognition speed only in the early stages of learning. No reliable evidence for differential effects of the two types of training condition on developing automaticity in collocation recognition was found in the current study. Working memory played a facilitative role in collocation-recognition performance as measured by the sentence-and-word recall task but not in collocation-recognition speed or processing stability as measured by the phrasal decision task. On the other hand, no reliable evidence for a facilitative role of procedural learning ability in automatization of collocation recognition was found.Item COMPREHENSION OF CONVERSTATIONAL IMPLICATURE: EXAMINING EVIDENCE OF ITS SEPARABILITY AS A LISTENING SUBSKILL(2019) O'Connell, Stephen Patrick; Ross, Steven J; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Understanding the inferences that speakers rely on to communicate is a core part of listening comprehension and is, more broadly, an important aspect of communicative ability. As a result, theories of communicative language ability account for it, and language testers who try to gauge the proficiency of learners of a second language include it in their assessments. Within the field of language testing, much research has been conducted to better understand how different aspects of listening may contribute to difficulty for second-language learners. One area of investigation has been the notion of listening being separable into different subskills, such as listening for inferences as opposed to listening for specific explicit details or listening for main idea. However, there have been mixed results when attempting to determine the psychological reality of these subskills. This study attempts to clarify this question via a listening comprehension instrument that was designed specifically to assess the comprehension of conversational implicature, or pragmatic inferencing, in contrast to non-implicature, or general comprehension. This balanced instrument was administered to 255 language learners in two item formats, multiple choice and constructed response. In addition, participants were administered short-term memory and working memory measures. A variety of analyses, including item response theory (Rasch), logistic regression, and confirmatory factor analyses were used to try to attain evidence for 1) the existence of a separable listening for conversational implicature subskill and 2) the validity of assessing this subskill through a multiple-choice format. The results from the analyses generally converged to indicate that while conversational implicature contributes to difficulty, it is not a separable subskill. However, the results did show that the multiple-choice item format is a defensible method for targeting this skill. This leads to the conclusion that expending effort on assessing comprehension of conversational implicature in general language proficiency tests may not be necessary unless the test-use context places particular emphasis on this ability. Although it is an integral aspect of listening, from an assessment standpoint, performance on general listening items will likely give test users the information they need to make predictions about comprehension of conversational implicature ability.Item EXPLICIT WRITTEN CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK AND LANGUAGE APTITUDE IN SLA: IMPLICATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT OF LINGUISTIC ACCURACY(2016) Benson, Susan Dianne; DeKeyser, Robert; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Most second language researchers agree that there is a role for corrective feedback in second language writing classes. However, many unanswered questions remain concerning which linguistic features to target and the type and amount of feedback to offer. This study examined two new pieces of writing by 151 learners of English as a Second Language (ESL), in order to investigate the effect of direct and metalinguistic written feedback on errors with the simple past tense, the present perfect tense, dropped pronouns, and pronominal duplication. This inquiry also considered the extent to which learner differences in language-analytic ability (LAA), as measured by the LLAMA F, mediated the effects of these two types of explicit written corrective feedback. Learners in the feedback groups were provided with corrective feedback on two essays, after which learners in all three groups completed two additional writing tasks to determine whether or not the provision of corrective feedback led to greater gains in accuracy compared to no feedback. Both treatment groups, direct and metalinguistic, performed better than the comparison group on new pieces of writing immediately following the treatment sessions, yet direct feedback was more durable than metalinguistic feedback for one structure, the simple past tense. Participants with greater LAA proved more likely to achieve gains in the direct feedback group than in the metalinguistic group, whereas learners with lower LAA benefited more from metalinguistic feedback. Overall, the findings of the present study confirm the results of prior studies that have found a positive role for written corrective feedback in instructed second language acquisition.Item THE RELATIVE SIGNIFICANCE OF SYNTACTIC KNOWLEDGE AND VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE IN SECOND LANGUAGE LISTENING COMPREHENSION(2016) Vafaee, Payman; Ross, Steve; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The main purpose of the current study was to examine the role of vocabulary knowledge (VK) and syntactic knowledge (SK) in L2 listening comprehension, as well as their relative significance. Unlike previous studies, the current project employed assessment tasks to measure aural and proceduralized VK and SK. In terms of VK, to avoid under-representing the construct, measures of both breadth (VB) and depth (VD) were included. Additionally, the current study examined the role of VK and SK by accounting for individual differences in two important cognitive factors in L2 listening: metacognitive knowledge (MK) and working memory (WM). Also, to explore the role of VK and SK more fully, the current study accounted for the negative impact of anxiety on WM and L2 listening. The study was carried out in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context, and participants were 263 Iranian learners at a wide range of English proficiency from lower-intermediate to advanced. Participants took a battery of ten linguistic, cognitive and affective measures. Then, the collected data were subjected to several preliminary analyses, but structural equation modeling (SEM) was then used as the primary analysis method to answer the study research questions. Results of the preliminary analyses revealed that MK and WM were significant predictors of L2 listening ability; thus, they were kept in the main SEM analyses. The significant role of WM was only observed when the negative effect of anxiety on WM was accounted for. Preliminary analyses also showed that VB and VD were not distinct measures of VK. However, the results also showed that if VB and VD were considered separate, VD was a better predictor of L2 listening success. The main analyses of the current study revealed a significant role for both VK and SK in explaining success in L2 listening comprehension, which differs from findings from previous empirical studies. However, SEM analysis did not reveal a statistically significant difference in terms of the predictive power of the two linguistic factors. Descriptive results of the SEM analysis, along with results from regression analysis, indicated to a more significant role for VK.Item Pre-task planning time and working memory as predictors of accuracy, fluency, and complexity(2012) Nielson, Katharine Brown; DeKeyser, Robert; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Working memory, which accounts for the ability to process information in the face of interference, is critical to second language acquisition (SLA) and use. The interaction of working memory capacity (WMC) with specific pedagogical interventions is a logical place for empirical SLA research, both to examine the cognitive processes underpinning second language performance and to identify instructional treatments that may differentiate learners based on their WMC. A good candidate for such an examination is planning time, a pedagogical intervention that has been the subject of extensive empirical research, which has, thus far, been largely unrelated to WMC. The study undertaken here considers WMC along with two different types of pre-task planning time (guided and unguided) as predictors of the accuracy, fluency, and complexity of learners' discourse. Ninety-two intermediate ESL students from seven classes at a community college participated in this study by completing two different working memory span tasks as well as two different "there-and-then" oral story-telling tasks. The treatment condition of the story-telling tasks was manipulated so that learners' performance could be considered in terms of provision of pre-task planning (± planning), type of planning (guided vs. unguided), and order of planning (planning first or planning second). The results demonstrate that the relationship among type of planning time, order of planning time, and WMC is complex. Task order had a clear effect on learners' production, regardless of the provision of planning time. When learners began the series of story-telling tasks under the + planning condition, their output on the subsequent, unplanned task varied according to whether they had first received guided or unguided planning time. In addition, guided planning time and unguided planning time also have very different effects on learners' production, with guided planning time promoting a focus on accuracy at the expense of complexity and unguided planning time fostering fluency. Finally, this study indicates that task conditions can affect learners with high and low WMC in different ways. Learners with high WMC are more likely to comply with complex story-telling instructions, improving their focus on grammatical form at the expense of fluency, whereas learners with low WMC are more likely to improve their fluency as a result of task repetition, regardless of the task conditions.