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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Spoken English'
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1
Wells, W. H. G. "Focus in spoken English." Thesis, University of York, 1988. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/10783/.
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2
Sköld, Lovisa. "Spoken English in the EFL classroom : A study of Swedish pupils’ attitudes towards spoken English." Thesis, Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Education, 2008. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-1745.
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The purpose of this essay is to investigate pupils’ attitudes towards spoken English and towards speaking in front of their friends, and how these attitudes appear to be related to their oral communication and communicative behaviour in the classroom. The material was collected by video taping two classes, a questionnaire in these two classes and by interviewing their teacher.
The results show that motivation and anxiety are psychological factors that play a significant role in the learning process. Attitudes, both towards the target language and towards their own production affect pupils’ willingness to communicate, and consequently their oral production in different tasks. The larger the group is, the more anxious they become. In order to motivate pupils, a variety of exercises is needed, where the topic is of great importance to awaken their interest for communication. The teacher also needs to circulate in the classroom to avoid a situation where pupils switch to their first language. Otherwise, pupils appear to code-switch as soon as an opportunity presents itself, which was observed in the analyses of recorded lessons.
3
Toivanen, Juhani H. "Perspectives on intonation English, Finnish, and English spoken by Finns /." Frankfurt am Main ; New York : Peter Lang, 2001. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/47142055.html.
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Hincks, Rebecca. "Computer support for learners of spoken English." Doctoral thesis, Stockholm : KTH Computer science and communication, 2005. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-467.
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Piotrowski, Jennifer A. "Information Structure of Clefts in Spoken English." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/10024.
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xiii, 92 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.Towards a more complete description of cleft constructions, this thesis comprises an investigation of the prosody, syntax, and information structure of IT clefts, REVERSE WH clefts, and existential THERE clefts in Spoken English. Cleft constructions were extracted from the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English on the basis of syntactic characteristics, and empirical methods were developed for evaluating clefts with respect to prosody and information structure factors. Native speaker-hearer judgments about cleft constructions in authentic spoken language were gathered to provide a basis for operational definitions of PROSODIC PROMINENCE, GIVENNESS, NEWNESS, CONTRASTIVENESS, and levels of contextual RELEVANCE. While cleft constructions have conventionally been discussed as contrastive focusing devices, the current study provides empirical evidence for a more complex view of clefts. Added to past corpus studies, this thesis shows that English cleft constructions exhibit a broader range of subtypes and functions than captured by traditional accounts.
Committee in Charge: Dr. Doris L. Payne; Dr. Melissa A. Redford
6
Kuo, Chen-Li. "Interpreting intonation in English-Chinese spoken language translation." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.492917.
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This thesis presents a system for translating spoken English into Mandarin, paying particular attention to the relationship between the phonologically marked emphatic/ contrastive focus in English and the lexical/syntactic focus constructions in Mandarin. This is based on the assumption that information carried by intonation in English may be expressed using lexical/syntactic devices in tone languages.
7
Black, Gladys Elizabeth. "Educational drama, regional dialect & spoken standard English." Thesis, University of Ulster, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.390152.
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Pace-Sigge, Michael. "Evidence of lexical priming in spoken Liverpool English." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2010. http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/7873/.
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This thesis is about two things. Firstly, drawing on Michael Hoey’s Lexical Priming, it aims to extend the research represented in that book – into the roots of the concept of priming and into how far Hoey’s claims are valid for spoken English corpora. The thesis traces the development of the concept of priming, which was initially work done by computational analysts, psychologists and psycho-linguists, to present a clearer picture of what priming means and in how far the phenomenon of priming has been proven to be a salient model of how man’s mind works. Moving on from that, I demonstrate how this model can be adapted to provide a model of language generation and use as Sinclair (2004) and Hoey (2003 etc.) have done, leading to the linguistic theory of Lexical Priming. Secondly, throughout the thesis two speech communities are compared: a general community of English speakers throughout the UK and a specific community, namely the Liverpool English (Scouse) speakers of Liverpool, UK. In the course of this work, a socio-economic discussion highlights the notion of Liverpool Exceptionalism and, grounded in the theory of lexical priming, I aim to show through corporaled research that this Exceptionalism manifests itself, linguistically, through (amongst other things) specific use of particular words and phrases. I thus research the lexical use of Liverpool speakers in direct comparison to the use by other UK English speakers. I explore the use of “I” and people, indefinite pronouns (anybody, someone etc.), discourse markers (like, really, well, yeah etc.) amongst other key items of spoken discourse where features of two varieties of English may systematically differ. The focus is on divergence found in their collocation, colligation, semantic preference and their lexically driven grammatical patterns. Comparing casual spoken Liverpool English with the casual spoken (UK) English found in the Macmillan and BNC subcorpora, this study finds primings in the patterns of language use that appear in all three corpora. Beyond that, there are primings of language use that appear to be specific to the Liverpool English corpus. With Scouse as the example under the microscope, this is an exploration into how speakers in different speech communities use the same language – but differently. It is not only the phonetic realisation, or the grammatical or lexical differences that define them as a separate speech group – it is the fact that they use the same lexicon in a distinct way. This means that lexical use, rather than just lexical stock, is a characterising feature of dialects.
9
Hjelte, Maria. "Spoken ESL in Secondary School : A Study of Spoken English In School and Outside of School." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Akademin för utbildning och ekonomi, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-9717.
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The present study investigates the pupils' spoken English in the classroom as opposed to their spoken English outside school, and suggests ways of how the teachers can incorporate the pupils' pre-knowledge into the teaching of ESL. Today the pupils' pre-knowledge of ESL is developed into their own vernacular, which I choose to refer to as “Media English”, as opposed to the “Academic English” they are taught in school. Two classes in year 8 have answered a questionnaire, and the pupils show both willingness to learn, and awareness of the necessity of knowing the English language, since most pupils spend a lot of their free-time on the Internet. Additionally, four teachers have answered a second questionnaire, and both pupils and teachers agree that the pupils rather talk in small groups, if they talk at all, a finding which is supported by previous studies. The conclusion is that pupils and teachers need to collaborate, but most importantly, the teachers need to encourage the pupils to talk.
10
Cohan, Jocelyn Ballantyne. "The realization and function of focus in spoken English /." Digital version accessible at:, 2000. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/main.
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Loc, Ton That Tung, and n/a. "Assessing the spoken English of Vietnamese EFL teacher-trainees." University of Canberra. Education, 1989. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20060818.142405.
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This study examines the problems of constructing and
administering a test of spoken English for Vietnamese EFL teacher-trainees. In
an attempt to standardize the assessment, a planned oral interview was pilottested
with a group of ten Vietnamese EFL teachers currently enrolled in a
Graduate Diploma Course in TESOL at the Canberra College of Advanced
Education, Australia. Results of the study indicate that the validity and reliability
of such measurement can be achieved if certain carefully outlined procedures in
planning the test and training the testers are carefully followed.
Given the close relationship between testing and teaching, it is
suggested in this study that there could be an improvement in the teaching of
spoken English to Vietnamese EFL teacher-trainees if (i) the amount of time
allocated to testing oral proficiency in the curriculum was increased, (ii)
Vietnamese EFL teachers were provided with formal training in language test
construction, and (iii) research on EFL oral testing was encouraged. Further,
this study recommends co-operation between TEFL institutions in Vietnam to
develop standard instruments for the assessment of spoken English of EFL
teacher-trainees on a national level.
12
Munyandamutsa, Jean Baptiste. "Study of the Rwandan learners' intelligibility in spoken English." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2005. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/55571/.
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The present study investigates the phonological productive and perceptual competence of a group of Rwandan learners of English and the effect that phonological deviations have on their intelligibility and comprehension in spoken English. In order to discover the hierarchy and degree of difficulty these subjects have in the segmental and suprasegmental features of English, productive and perceptual tests of words and sentences were designed and administered to a group of 60 subjects. The study also attempts to explain the effect of various interlanguage phenomena which occur in the production and perception of the pronunciation of English by Rwandan speakers. The results of this study support many of the claims of CA, EA and phonological interlanguage. Chapter One gives background sociolinguistic information on the roles of Kinyarwanda, French, Kiswahili and English in Rwanda. Chapter Two discusses a number of theoretical key issues involved in language learning and acquisition. Chapter Three defines the topic of the study, i.e. intelligibility and comprehension, to gain insight into the study and to provide a framework for the research design and methodology. Chapter Four is a description of the Kinyarwanda and English phonological systems, which is the basis of the predictions of the difficulties and the design of data for Chapters Five and Six. Chapter Five analyses, categorizes and explains the source of deviations in the data gathered from subjects' pronunciation of words and sentences as interpreted by native English speakers. Chapter Six analyzes the effect of phonological deviations on the subjects' comprehension of spoken English. Chapter Seven concludes the whole study with a discussion of the major findings, and suggests some useful steps towards more effective teaching of the pronunciation for better intelligibility and comprehension in English.
13
Thiele, Klaus. "Metaphors in spoken academic discourse in German and English." Thesis, Aston University, 2013. http://publications.aston.ac.uk/20907/.
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Metaphors have been increasingly associated with cognitive functions, which means that metaphors structure how we think and express ourselves. Metaphors are embodied in our basic physical experience, which is one reason why certain abstract concepts are expressed in more concrete terms, such as visible entities, journeys, and other types of movement, spaces etc. This communicative relevance also applies to specialised, institutionalised settings and genres, such as those produced in or related to higher education institutions, among which is spoken academic discourse. A significant research gap has been identified regarding spoken academic discourse and metaphors therein, but also given the fact that with increasing numbers of students in higher education and international research and cooperation e.g. in the form of invited lectures, spoken academic discourse can be seen as nearly omnipresent. In this context, research talks are a key research genre. A mixed methods study has been conducted, which investigates metaphors in a corpus of eight fully transcribed German and English L1 speaker conference talks and invited lectures, totalling to 440 minutes. A wide range of categories and functions were identified in the corpus. Abstract research concepts, such as results or theories are expressed in terms of concrete visual entities that can be seen or shown, but also in terms of journeys or other forms of movement. The functions of these metaphors are simplification, rhetorical emphasis, theory-construction, or pedagogic illustration. For both the speaker and the audience or discussants, anthropomorphism causes abstract and complex ideas to become concretely imaginable and at the same time more interesting because the contents of the talk appear to be livelier and hence closer to their own experience, which ensures the audience’s attention. These metaphor categories are present in both the English and the German sub corpus of this study with similar functions.
14
Ho, Wai Ching. "The English spoken and written narratives of Cantonese speakers." HKBU Institutional Repository, 1996. http://repository.hkbu.edu.hk/etd_ra/76.
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Tucker, Benjamin Vardell. "Spoken Word Recognition of the Reduced American English Flap." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/194987.
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Phonetic variation as found in various speech styles is a rich area for research on spoken word recognition. Research on spoken word recognition has focused on careful, easily controlled speech styles. This dissertation investigates the processing of the American English Flap. Specifically, it focuses on the effect of reduction on processing. The main question asked in this dissertation is whether listeners adjust their expectations for how segments are realized based on speech style. Even more broadly, how do listeners process or recognize reduced speech? Two specific questions are asked that address individual parts of the broad question. First, how does reduction affect listeners’ recognition of words? Is it more difficult for listeners to recognize words pronounced in reduced forms, or is it perhaps easier for listeners to recognize reduced forms? Second, do listeners adjust their expectations about reduction based on preceding speech style (context)? Four experiments were designed using the auditory lexical decision and crossmodal identity priming tasks. Listeners’ responses to reduced and unreduced flaps (e.g. unreduced [pʌɾl] as opposed to reduced [pʌɾl]) were recorded. The results of this work show that the phonetic variation found in speech styles containing reduction causes differences in processing. Processing of reduced speech is inhibited by weakened acoustic information or mismatch to the underlying phonemic representation in the American English flap. Listeners use information about speech style to process the widely varying acoustic reflections of a segment in connected speech. The implications of these findings for models of spoken word recognition are discussed.
16
Hinrich, Sally Wellenbrock. "A contextualized grammar proficiency test using informal spoken English." PDXScholar, 1988. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/3816.
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Intensive college-level ESL programs typically focus on building students' academic skills in English. Yet many ESL students leave the intensive programs only to find that they cannot sufficiently comprehend conversations with native English-speaking classmates or understand freshman-level lectures. While the students frequently perceive the problem as relating to the rapid speech tempo used by native speakers, an integral part of the comprehension problem is the pervasive use of modified forms of English, commonly called reductions, contractions, and assimilations.
The present research investigates whether comprehension of certain modified forms of spoken informal English can be used to measure students' level of proficiency. The research, based on an integrative approach to learning, hypothesizes that successful identification of informal forms may be as reliable and valid as standardized tests currently used to measure students' proficiency in grammar and listening comprehension. The instrument for conducting the research is a contextualized taped dialogue presented as a cloze exercise which depends on redundancy features of English in addition to knowledge of grammatical structures to help the subject reconstruct missing grammatical elements of the dialogue. Research data were not statistically significant to support the original hypothesis because of small sample size, but some general conclusions can be drawn. Conclusions and recommendations are discussed with attention to current trends toward content-based classes.
17
Ranbom, Larissa J. "Lexical representation of phonological variation in spoken word recognition." Diss., Online access via UMI:, 2005. http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/fullcit/1425750.
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McGuire, Michael Larson-Hall Jenifer. "Formulaic sequences in English conversation improving spoken fluency in non-native speakers /." [Denton, Tex.] : University of North Texas, 2009. http://digital.library.unt.edu/permalink/meta-dc-11024.
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Початко, Тетяна Володимирівна, Татьяна Владимировна Початко, and Tetiana Volodymyrivna Pochatko. "A sidelight on conversational english." Thesis, Sumy State University, 2020. https://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/78074.
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If we were to compare the spoken and the literary language we should be greatly impressed by the marked difference that distinguishes the one from the other. This renders a closer study of spoken English all the more important especially because no serious effort has been devoted to this essential aspect of linguistic training. Greater flexibility as regards syntax and grammar is pointed out as one of the distinctive features of spoken English. It can best of all be perceived in its syntactical pattern ever so different from that of the literary language. As W. J. Ball in "Conversational English" puts it: "In conversation a much looser word order than in the literary language is customary. Conversation makes its own rules and if from time to time, they run counter to those of written English they are none the less valid – but in their own territory." And elsewhere: "Conversational English is more broken up in texture and the strands of grammar are less closely knit than in written English." Thus, depended as they are on the basic facts of traditional grammar, conversational structures should be studied as a separate entity if we are to learn speaking in an easy, expressively dynamic manner. It is an urgent, but difficult task.
20
Islam, S. M. Ariful. "L1 Influence on the Spoken English Proficiency of Bengali Speakers." Thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Engelska, 2004. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-883.
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Roberts, Paul. "Spoken English as a world language : international and intranational settings." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2005. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/11110/.
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This thesis sets out to characterise English as a World Language, in contrast with English used in homogeneous, intranational settings. After a brief introduction, the relevant literature is reviewed in two chapters: firstly the concept of an international variety of English is challenged and, following this, there is consideration of current thinking under the headings of English as an International Language and English as Lingua Franca. This preliminary part of the thesis leads to some hypotheses concerning the way in which EWL might be characterised, with particular attention to attitudes among different sorts of speaker. Chapter Five introduces methodologies (1) for finding data-providing participants and (2) assessing their language-related attitudes relevant to the research questions. It continues by (3) examining ways of obtaining spoken data and (4) of transcribing and (5) analysing it. Chapter 6 presents the specific methodological choices for this thesis. The following four chapters provide results. Firstly, brief results are given of tests applied to ascertain participants' language-related attitudes. Following this, the results of analysing and explaining the spoken data itself are given. Chapter 8 closely compares one EWL conversation with one homogeneous one and draws tentative conclusions about what might be found in the remaining conversations: that EWL may be characterised by greater convergence among speakers, irrespective of whether or not they are native speakers. Chapter 9 examines the whole suite of conversations in this light and the previous results are generally confirmed: the speakers in homogeneous conversations tend to be as divergent as they are convergent, where in EWL conversations they try their best to maintain an atmosphere of comity. Chapter 10 completes the results section by comparing the performance of six speakers in particular, who each participate in an EWL conversation and in a homogeneous one. They are found to draw on convergence strategies for their EWL conversations while being more direct and divergent in their homogeneous ones. Chapter 11 attempts to summarise the preceding chapters and to draw some conclusions from the results.
22
Cane, Graeme. "A linguistic description of spoken Brunei English in the 1990s." Thesis, University of Strathclyde, 1993. http://oleg.lib.strath.ac.uk:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=21242.
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The thesis discusses the variety of English that is spoken today in Brunei Darussalam and assesses its status as a 'New English'. Using a corpus of spoken data which was recorded and transcribed by the author, the thesis attempts to produce an empirically based linguistic description of the grammatical, lexical and discourse features found in spoken Brunei English and to discuss the ways in which these features differ from the equivalent features in Standard British English. The final part of the study is concerned with the pedagogical and language planning implications of recognizing the existence of a Bruneian variety of English, and with proposing an appropriate English language teaching model for the Bruneian education system.
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Jones, Christian. "Spoken discourse markers and English language teaching : practices and pedagogies." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2011. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/12260/.
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This thesis reports on a mixed methods classroom research study carried out at a British university. The study investigates the effectiveness of two different explicit teaching approaches, Illustration – Interaction – Induction (III) and Present – Practice – Produce (PPP) used to teach the same spoken discourse markers to two different groups of Chinese learners at the same level of language competency. It was hypothesised that one explicit teaching approach would be more effective than the other in terms of both short and longer term acquisition and both would be more effective than no teaching when viewed objectively with test data and subjectively by the learners themselves. Thirty six Chinese learners (fourteen male, twenty two female) at the same level of language proficiency were assigned to three groups, experimental group 1 (III), experimental group 2 (PPP) and group 3 (control). The average age of the learners was twenty two and all were taking a three week pre-sessional in academic English. Each experimental group received ten hours of explicit instruction on the target language. The control group received no instruction on the target language. The III group were taught using activities which presented the language in context and encouraged them to notice features of the target language by sensitising them to differences between spoken and written modes of language and by comparing the target language with their first language. This group were not given any practice of the target language in class. The PPP group were taught using activities which presented the language in context, checked meaning and form and provided them with opportunities to practice in class. The hypothesis was tested through the use of a free response speaking test used as a pre-test, an immediate post-test and a delayed post-test of eight weeks. The tests were analysed for the amount of target DMs used and learners were rated for interactive ability, discourse management and global achievement. In addition, diaries kept by each learner in the experimental group and focus group interviews were analysed to assess the extent to which this qualitative data supported or added to the quantitative data. Raw counts of the target DMs and interactive ability, discourse management and global test scores indicated that both experimental groups outperformed the control group in the immediate post-test in terms of the target DMs used but that this was weaker in the delayed test. Raw interactive ability, discourse management and global scores weakened in the immediate post-test but improved in the delayed test, suggesting that the increase in use of target DMs did not have an impact upon these scores. Univariate analysis of the pre- and post-tests, using one-way ANOVAs, indicated statistically significant differences between the experimental PPP group and the control group in terms of a higher mean usage of the target DMs in the immediate post-test, whilst the III group's score did not indicate a statistically significant difference when compared to the PPP and control groups. The analysis of the interactive ability, discourse management and global scores did not demonstrate statistically significant differences between the groups. The qualitative results were analysed with Computer Assisted Qualitative Data AnalysiS (CAQDAS) software and supported some of the findings from the test results. This data demonstrated that both groups felt that instruction on the target language was of value to them and the PPP group found their method to be generally more useful, which tallied with their better performances on the tests. The III group showed more evidence of having noticed aspects of language, such as the difference between the target language and their first language and how these spoken forms differ from written ones, although both groups displayed some metalinguistic awareness. Both groups were generally in favour of practice within the classroom but also expressed some strong doubts about its usefulness and articulated a desire for a different kind of practice to be used in class, based on rehearsal for real world tasks. This suggested the need to re-conceptualise practice within III, PPP or other teaching frameworks.
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Plum, Guenter Arnold. "Text and Contextual Conditioning in Spoken English: A genre approach." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/608.
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This study brings together two approaches to linguistic variation, Hallidayan systemic-functional grammar and Labovian variation theory, and in doing so brings together a functional interpretation of language and its empirical investigation in its social context. The study reports on an empirical investigation of the concept of text. The investigation proceeds on the basis of a corpus of texts gathered in sociolinguistic interviews with fifty adult speakers of Australian English in Sydney. The total corpus accounted for in terms of text type or genre numbers 420 texts of varying length, 125 of which, produced in response to four narrative questions, are investigated in greater detail in respect both of the types of text they constitute as well as of some of their linguistic realisations. These largely narrative-type texts, which represent between two and three hours of spoken English and total approximately 53000 words, are presented in a second volume analysed in terms of their textual or generic structure as well as their realisation at the level of the clause complex. The study explores in some detail models of register and genre developed within systemic-functional linguistics, adopting a genre model developed by J.R. Martin and others working within his model which foregrounds the notion that all aspects of the system(s) involved are related to one another probabilistically. In order to investigate the concept of text in actual discourse under conditions which permit us to become sufficiently confident of our understanding of it to proceed to generalisations about text and its contextual conditioning in spoken discourse, we turn to Labovian methods of sociolinguistic inquiry, i.e. to quantitative methods or methods of quantifying linguistic choice. The study takes the sociolinguistic interview as pioneered by Labov in his study of phonological variation in New York City and develops it for the purpose of investigating textual variation. The question of methodology constitutes a substantial part of the study, contributing in the process to a much greater understanding of the very phenomenon of text in discourse, for example by addressing itself to the question of the feasibility of operationalising a concept of text in the context of spoken discourse. The narrative-type texts investigated in further detail were found to range on a continuum from most experientially-oriented texts such as procedure and recount at one end to the classic narrative of personal experience and anecdote to the increasingly interpersonally-oriented exemplum and observation, both of which become interpretative of the real world in contrast to the straightforwardly representational slant taken on the same experience by the more experientially-oriented texts. The explanation for the generic variation along this continuum must be sought in a system of generic choice which is essentially cultural. A quantitative analysis of clausal theme and clause complex-type relations was carried out, the latter by means of log-linear analysis, in order to investigate their correlation with generic structure. While it was possible to relate the choice of theme to the particular stages of generic structures, clause complex-type relations are chosen too infrequently to be related to stages and were thus related to genres as a whole. We find that while by and large the choice of theme correlates well with different generic stages, it only discriminates between different genres, i.e. generic structures in toto, for those genres which are maximally different. Similarly, investigating the two choices in the principal systems involved in the organisation of the clause complex, i.e. the choice of taxis (parataxis vs. hypotaxis) and the (grammatically independent) choice of logico-semantic relations (expansion vs. projection), we find that both those choices discriminate better between types more distant on a narrative continuum. The log-linear analysis of clause complex-type relations also permitted the investigation of the social characteristics of speakers. We found that the choice of logico-semantic relations correlates with genre and question, while the choice of taxis correlates with a speaker's sex and his membership of some social group (in addition to genre). Parataxis is favoured by men and by members of the group lowest in the social hierarchy. Age on the other hand is not significant in the choice of taxis at all. In other words, since social factors are clearly shown to be significant in the making of abstract grammatical choices where they cannot be explained in terms of the functional organisation of text, we conclude that social factors must be made part of a model of text in order to fully account for its contextual conditioning. The study demonstrates that an understanding of the linguistic properties of discourse requires empirical study and, conversely, that it is possible to study discourse empirically without relaxing the standards of scientific inquiry.
25
Plum, Guenter Arnold. "Text and Contextual Conditioning in Spoken English: A genre approach." University of Sydney. Linguistics, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/608.
Full textAbstract:
This study brings together two approaches to linguistic variation, Hallidayan systemic-functional grammar and Labovian variation theory, and in doing so brings together a functional interpretation of language and its empirical investigation in its social context. The study reports on an empirical investigation of the concept of text. The investigation proceeds on the basis of a corpus of texts gathered in sociolinguistic interviews with fifty adult speakers of Australian English in Sydney. The total corpus accounted for in terms of text type or genre numbers 420 texts of varying length, 125 of which, produced in response to four narrative questions, are investigated in greater detail in respect both of the types of text they constitute as well as of some of their linguistic realisations. These largely narrative-type texts, which represent between two and three hours of spoken English and total approximately 53000 words, are presented in a second volume analysed in terms of their textual or generic structure as well as their realisation at the level of the clause complex. The study explores in some detail models of register and genre developed within systemic-functional linguistics, adopting a genre model developed by J.R. Martin and others working within his model which foregrounds the notion that all aspects of the system(s) involved are related to one another probabilistically. In order to investigate the concept of text in actual discourse under conditions which permit us to become sufficiently confident of our understanding of it to proceed to generalisations about text and its contextual conditioning in spoken discourse, we turn to Labovian methods of sociolinguistic inquiry, i.e. to quantitative methods or methods of quantifying linguistic choice. The study takes the sociolinguistic interview as pioneered by Labov in his study of phonological variation in New York City and develops it for the purpose of investigating textual variation. The question of methodology constitutes a substantial part of the study, contributing in the process to a much greater understanding of the very phenomenon of text in discourse, for example by addressing itself to the question of the feasibility of operationalising a concept of text in the context of spoken discourse. The narrative-type texts investigated in further detail were found to range on a continuum from most experientially-oriented texts such as procedure and recount at one end to the classic narrative of personal experience and anecdote to the increasingly interpersonally-oriented exemplum and observation, both of which become interpretative of the real world in contrast to the straightforwardly representational slant taken on the same experience by the more experientially-oriented texts. The explanation for the generic variation along this continuum must be sought in a system of generic choice which is essentially cultural. A quantitative analysis of clausal theme and clause complex-type relations was carried out, the latter by means of log-linear analysis, in order to investigate their correlation with generic structure. While it was possible to relate the choice of theme to the particular stages of generic structures, clause complex-type relations are chosen too infrequently to be related to stages and were thus related to genres as a whole. We find that while by and large the choice of theme correlates well with different generic stages, it only discriminates between different genres, i.e. generic structures in toto, for those genres which are maximally different. Similarly, investigating the two choices in the principal systems involved in the organisation of the clause complex, i.e. the choice of taxis (parataxis vs. hypotaxis) and the (grammatically independent) choice of logico-semantic relations (expansion vs. projection), we find that both those choices discriminate better between types more distant on a narrative continuum. The log-linear analysis of clause complex-type relations also permitted the investigation of the social characteristics of speakers. We found that the choice of logico-semantic relations correlates with genre and question, while the choice of taxis correlates with a speaker's sex and his membership of some social group (in addition to genre). Parataxis is favoured by men and by members of the group lowest in the social hierarchy. Age on the other hand is not significant in the choice of taxis at all. In other words, since social factors are clearly shown to be significant in the making of abstract grammatical choices where they cannot be explained in terms of the functional organisation of text, we conclude that social factors must be made part of a model of text in order to fully account for its contextual conditioning. The study demonstrates that an understanding of the linguistic properties of discourse requires empirical study and, conversely, that it is possible to study discourse empirically without relaxing the standards of scientific inquiry.
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JAFARI, MUHAMMAD REZA. "PERSIAN SIGN GESTURE TRANSLATION TO ENGLISH SPOKEN LANGUAGE ON SMARTPHONE." Thesis, DELHI TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY, 2020. http://dspace.dtu.ac.in:8080/jspui/handle/repository/18787.
Full textAbstract:
Hearing impaired and others with verbal challenges face difficulty to communicate with society;
Sign Language represents their communication such as numbers or phrases. The communication
becomes a challenge with people from other countries using different languages. Additionally,
the sign language is different from one country to another. That is, learning one sign language
doesn’t mean learning all sign languages. To translate a word from sign language to a spoken
language is a challenge and to change a particular word from that language to another language
is even a bigger challenge. In such cases, there is necessity for 2 interpreters: One from sign
language to the source-spoken language and one from the source language to the target language.
There is ample research done on sign recognition, yet this paper focuses on translating gestures
from one language to another. In this study, a smartphone approach is proposed for Sign
Language recognition, because smartphones are available worldwide. Smartphones are limited in
computational power so, a client server application is proposed where most of processing tasks
are done on the server side. In client-server application system, client could be a smartphone
application that captures images of sign gestures to be recognized and sent to a server. In turn,
the server processes the data and returns the translation Sign to client. On the server application
side, where most of the sign recognition tasks take place, background of the sign image is
deleted, and under Hue, Saturation, Value (HSV) color space is set to black. The sign gesture
then separate by detecting the biggest linked constituent in the frame. Extracted feature are in
binary form pixels, and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is used to classify sign images.
After classification, the letter for a given sign is assigned, and by putting the sequence of letters,
a word is created. The word translates to target language, in this case English, and the result
returns to client application.
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鄭敏芝 and Man-chi Sammi Cheng. "Self assessment in the school-based assessment speaking component in aHong Kong secondary four classroom: a casestudy." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2009. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B4324080X.
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Good, Erin. "The Processing and Acquisition of Two English Contours." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/195900.
Full textAbstract:
The primary claim of this dissertation is that children and adults process language in the same manner, meaning that when children are acquiring their first language what they are truly doing is perfecting their language processing abilities. Language acquisition and processing both start from the same place. Both work to find patterns in the signal that will, eventually, be paired with meaning. This dissertation argues that differences in how children and adults accomplish these tasks are one of degree and not kind. To show this, three experiments tested how adults and children responded to a conflict between the lexical and prosodic parse of an utterance. The participants’ response to this conflict reveals information about where they are in the language acquisition process. In these experiments, prosody was used to disambiguate phrases that can be interpreted either as a list of two items (e.g., fruit, salad) or as a single compound item (e.g., fruit-salad). Prosody was also made to conflict with the lexical parse of an utterance. When the word cactus is said with List Prosody two non-words /kæk/ and /tʌs/ result. When the words nail and key are said with Compound Prosody, the non-word nailkey is created. By exploiting the overlap between the prosodic system and the lexical system, it is possible to evaluate how language is being processed. The results show that adults tend to parse utterances based on the lexical content, and ignore ambiguities created by a conflict between the prosodic and the lexical interpretation of the phrase. In contrast, children tend to respond based on the prosody, making increasing use of the lexical content as they mature. When the same items are tested with abstract shapes rather than representational images, adults make greater use of prosody. This suggests that visual input plays a role in spoken word processing. The dissertation also proposes a modified model of spoken word recognition that accounts for the difference seen between the adults and the children, and for the effect of visual content. This model integrates phonetic details, prosodic content, lexical knowledge, visual content, and pragmatic understanding during spoken word recognition.
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Sharp, Harriet. "English in spoken Swedish : a corpus study of two discourse domains." Doctoral thesis, Stockholms universitet, Engelska institutionen, 2001. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-10669.
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Li, Hui. "Measuring and assessing L2 English spoken vocabulary : insights from Chinese candidates." Thesis, Swansea University, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.579584.
Full textAbstract:
Much research on vocabulary to date has contributed to examining vocabulary in written contexts. Vocabulary assessment in spoken contexts, however, has just recently become a burgeoning field for both vocabulary researchers and language testers. Few empirical studies to date have addressed the issue of how vocabulary is assessed in oral examinations. Consequently, little is known about what components of vocabulary knowledge contribute most to L2 English learners' oral proficiency, or whether candidates' vocabulary production is related to raters' subjective assessment of vocabulary in oral examinations. Two arguments are raised in this thesis pertaining to measuring and assessing spoken vocabulary: (1) effectiveness of some vocabulary measures; and (2) vocabulary as a discrete construct in oral examinations. Candidates' spoken vocabulary was investigated in two oral situations: oral proficiency interview (dialogic) and storytelling (monologic) tasks. Vocabulary measures i.e. types, tokens, TTR, D, Vocabulary profile and PLex were employed for an overview of candidates' vocabulary production. Most lexical measures used were able to discriminate at different proficiency levels in both tasks. The results also revealed, however, restrictions on some of the lexical measures in oral contexts. These measures were further used as benchmark statistics of candidates' spoken vocabulary production to compare against raters' subjective assessments of candidates' vocabulary, which was assessed by raters as a discrete construct in six empirical experiments. The scores raters provided, nonetheless, were found to relate more closely to candidates' overall language proficiency than to their lexical statistics. This, without a doubt, raises questions of the reliability of vocabulary scores in oral examinations. Six empirical studies are presented in this thesis, with a combined/mixed method approach (quantitative and qualitative) to data analysis. Experimental segmental ratings, which present a new method of recording and of exploring raters' cognitive process in handling oral data, are adopted to explore raters' decision-making process in assessing vocabulary. The studies in this thesis not only enrich the knowledge of vocabulary measures examined in oral contexts, but raise quite a few concerns in view of vocabulary assessment in oral examinations, e.g. the application of 'range of vocabulary' may be problematic as a stand-alone measure of candidates' lexical resources in oral contexts. The findings in this thesis, together with its overall critical review of the current standing of vocabulary assessment in oral examinations, call for more empirical research of examining vocabulary in spoken contexts, and demand further in-depth investigations of the relationship between the development of L2 learners' lexical proficiency and that of their oral language proficiency.
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De, Klerk Vivian A. "The use of actually in spoken Xhosa English : a corpus study." World Englishes, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011588.
Full textAbstract:
The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the semantic and syntactic characteristics of the discourse marker actually, and then to describe and explain how it is used by mothertongue (MT) Xhosa speakers who have learned English as an additional language. Such a description may provide a useful benchmark for comparison with MT norms. The source of data for the study is a corpus of approximately half a million words of transcribed spontaneous dialogue between Xhosa English speakers.
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Collins, Brett. "SANDHI-VARIATION AND THE COMPREHENSION OF SPOKEN ENGLISH FOR JAPANESE LEARNERS." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2018. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/500157.
Full textAbstract:
Teaching & LearningPh.D.
In this study I addressed three problems related to how sandhi-variation, the adjustments made by speakers to the speech stream, filters comprehension for second language listener processing. The first was the need to better understand proficiency problems encountered by L2 listeners as they decode the speech stream with the phonological features of sandhi-variation, elision and assimilation, by investigating the item difficulty hierarchy of the phenomena. The second was the scarcity of research on aural processing abilities of second language learners in relation to their understanding sandhi-variation in aural texts. The third concerns the lack of research investigating links between learners’ backgrounds and their ability to handle listening texts, especially variations in the speech stream in target aural texts. The purpose of this study was threefold. My first purpose was to investigate the item difficulty hierarchy of sandhi-variation types that learners have in relation to L2 listening proficiency. My second purpose was to evaluate links between aural input containing elision and assimilation and second language aural processing, to provide insight into how learners deal with sandhi-variation as they process such input. My third purpose was to investigate through the use of interviews the aural input that participants have encountered prior to the interventions of this study, to help explain which types of aural input can facilitate intake. Twenty-five first- and second-year Japanese university students participated in the current study. The participants completed a series of instruments, which included (a) a Test of English as a Foreign Language Paper-Based Test (TOEFL PBT), (b) a Listening Vocabulary Levels Test (LVLT), (c) a Modern Language Aptitude Test–Elementary (MLAT-E), (d) a Pre-Listening in English questionnaire, (e) an Elicited Imitation Test (EIT), and (f) a Background and Length of Residency interview. The EIT was used as a sandhi-variation listening test with two component parts (i.e., elision and assimilation) and two sub-component parts (e.g., two different utterance rates), using elicited imitation. Finally, the participants were interviewed about their language backgrounds to gauge their understanding and feelings about English. An empirical item hierarchy for elision and assimilation was investigated, along with the determinants of the hierarchy. Overall, the tendency was for items with elision and assimilation to be more difficult. Results also indicated that the two input rate variables combined with elision and assimilation affected the non-native participants’ listening comprehension. Moreover, the strength of the relationship between two measures of the participants’ language ability, proficiency and aptitude, and their comprehension of items with and without the phonological features of elision and assimilation, were investigated. The results confirmed a positive relationship between language aptitude as measured by the MLAT-E and the comprehension of the phonological features of elision and assimilation. Finally, the results indicated that there were no significant, positive correlations between English language proficiency scores and both the Pre-Listening Questionnaire, which measured the participants’ feelings about second language listening, and the Background and Length of Residency Interview. More research needs to be conducted to determine how learners’ backgrounds are related to listening comprehension in order to better prescribe aural input in second language listening classrooms.
Temple University--Theses
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Moussa, Jase Education Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences UNSW. "The impact of spoken English on learning English as a foreign language: a cognitive load perspective." Publisher:University of New South Wales. Education, 2008. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/43041.
Full textAbstract:
When learning a second language, students are taught to read, write, and listen often simultaneously, as it is assumed that it is more effective if both spoken and written versions of the same material are taught together. However, recent research on cognitive load theory and second language learning (Diao, Chandler, & Sweller, 2007; Diao & Sweller, 2007) has shown that a combination of listening to and reading the same material creates a potential for redundancy (Sweller & Chandler, 1994; Kalyuga, Chandler, & Sweller, 1999; 2000; 2004). Learning can be impeded if the same information appearing in one modality is repeated in the other (Sweller, 2005). The aim of this study was to investigate the consequences of listening and reading on the acquisition of listening skills. Four experiments were conducted. During acquisition, native Arabic-speaking students were required to learn a set of English words and sentences. Learners were either exposed to written work only (single modality), auditory work only (single modality) or written work with an auditory component (dual modality). The findings in this study were consistent in that even though participants in the Read + Listen group had had more experience with listening than participants in the Read Only group, they performed more poorly on listening tasks. Students were better able to learn to listen through reading alone because working memory resources were not required to attend to another mode that contained similar, redundant information. These results also suggest that if we want learners to enhance their listening skills, they may be better off reading the materials only rather than simultaneously reading and listening. These results are further discussed in terms of CLT and redundancy.
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Austin, Shaun. ""Why should I talk proper?" : critiquing the requirement for spoken standard English in English secondary schools." Thesis, University of York, 2014. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/9362/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis explores the relationship between identity and the linguistic style used by adolescent pupils during classroom presentations, with a focus on working-class pupils. It was prompted by the requirement in the education system for pupils to speak standard English, a requirement felt by some to be socially biased against working-class pupils who are more likely to have nonstandard speech features. Seventy-six pupils were withdrawn from their English classes (in friendship groups of three) to take part in the study. They were recorded making a series of one-minute presentations in two conditions: when playing a role and when speaking as themselves. They completed questionnaires designed to generate social profiles. Presentations were transcribed and phonetic, lexico-grammatical and para-linguistic variables (eg formal v informal) were marked. Correlations were sought between linguistic variables and a range of social factors: the two presentation conditions, social profiles, social class backgrounds and genders. These were explored in more depth using qualitative analysis methods. The results showed that identity had a strong impact on the linguistic choices pupils made: when working-class pupils were speaking as themselves they used more localised and informal linguistic variants; conversely, when they were playing a role they were able to adopt a wider range of linguistic features. I hypothesise that this is because when pupils are speaking as themselves they are under pressure to maintain an authentic identity and their linguistic style must be congruent with their background. Furthermore, pupils were found to signal the attitudes they held through their linguistic style. The findings contribute to our understanding of the impact of identity on linguistic style. They also suggest that the educational focus on the narrow issue of standardness misses important issues of identity construction which are more salient in showing how adolescents perceive themselves and are perceived by others.
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Tristram, Hildegard L. C. "Diglossia in Anglo-Saxon England, or what was spoken Old English like?" Universität Potsdam, 2003. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2006/697/.
Full textAbstract:
This paper argues that the texts surviving from the Old English period do not reflect the spoken language of the bulk of the population under Anglo-Saxon elite domination. While the Old English written documents suggest that the language was kept remarkably unchanged, i.e. was strongly monitored during the long OE period (some 500 years!), the spoken and "real Old English" is likely to have been very different and much more of the type of Middle English than the written texts. "Real Old Engish", i.e. of course only appeared in writing after the Norman Conquest. Middle English is therefore claimed to have begun with the 'late British' speaking shifters to Old English. The shift patterns must have differed in the various part of the island of Britain, as the shifters became exposed to further language contact with the Old Norse adstrate in the Danelaw areas and the Norman superstrate particularly in the South East, the South West having been least exposed to language contact after the original shift from 'Late British' to Old English. This explains why the North was historically the most innovative zone. This also explains the conservatism of the present day dialects in the South West. It is high time that historical linguists acknowledge the arcane character of the Old English written texts.
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Montgomery, W. P. G. "'Pilings of thought under spoken' : the poetry of Susan Howe, 1974-1993." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 2003. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/1830.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis discusses the poetry published by contemporary American poet Susan Howe over a period of almost two decades. The dissertation is chiefly concerned with articulating the relationship between poetic form, history, and authority in this body of' work. Howe's poetry dredges the past for the linguistic effects of patriarchy, colonialism and war. My reading of the work is an exploration of the ways in which a disjunctive poetics can address such historical trauma. The poems, rather than attempting to reinstate voices lifted from what Howe has called "the dark side of history", are a means of reflecting the resistance that the past offers to contemporary investigation. It is the effacement, and not the recovery, of history's victims, that is discernible in the contours of these highly opaque texts. Notions of authority are most often addressed in the poetry through the figure of paternal absence, which has a threefold function in the work, serving to represent social authority, an aporetic conception of divinity and an autobiographical narrative. Alongside the antiauthoritarian currents in the writing - critiques, for example, of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny or of scapegoating versions of femininity - my thesis stresses Howe's engagement with negative theology and with a strain of American Protestant enthusiasm that has its roots in 17th century New England. The dissertation explores the dissonance caused by the co-existence in the poetry of elements of political dissent and religious mysticism. Finally, I consider Howe's engagement with literary history and authors such as Shakespeare, Swift, Thoreau and Melville. The manner in which Howe deploys the words of others in her work, I argue, allows for a mixture of textual polyphony and a more conventional notion of authorial 'voice'.
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McGuire, Michael. "Formulaic sequences in English conversation: Improving spoken fluency in non-native speakers." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2009. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc11024/.
Full textAbstract:
Native speakers often ignore the limitless potential of language and stick to institutionalized formulaic sequences. These sequences are stored and processed as wholes, rather than as the individual words and grammatical rules which make them up. Due to research on formulaic sequence in spoken language, English as a Second Language / Foreign Language pedagogy has begun to follow suit. There has been a call for a shift from the traditional focus on isolated grammar and vocabulary to formulaic sequences and context. I tested this hypothesis with 19 L2 English learners who received 5 weeks of task-based instruction and found substantial progress in oral fluency only for the experimental group. Differences between pretest and posttest oral fluency were examined by looking at the learners' speech rate and their mean length of run. Subjective evaluation of fluency by 16 native English judges confirmed the calculated measures.
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Ng, Ming-yin Erika, and 吳名賢. ""Hong Kong English": a source of pride or a disgrace?" Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2005. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31677010.
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Fullilove, John Pope III. "Examining oral English proficiency: some factors affecting rater reliability in the use of English oralexamination." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1992. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B4389334X.
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Timmis, Ivor. "Corpora, classroom and context : the place of spoken grammar in English language teaching." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2003. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/12246/.
Full textAbstract:
The main research question investigated in this thesis is: In an era when English is increasingly used in international contexts, how relevant are the grammatical findings of native speaker spoken corpora in the ELT classroom? In terms of original research data, the thesis draws, initially, on data from a large-scale quantitative survey into the attitudes of students and teachers to conforming to native speaker norms. The data from this survey shows that a desire to conform to native speaker norms is not restricted to learners with an obvious need to interact with native speakers. The research evidence also indicates that there is some interest among both teachers and students in conforming to native speaker spoken norms, though there is uncertainty about what these norms are, and reservations about whether they should be part of the learner's productive repertoire. The thesis includes a set of materials designed to be consistent both with the results from the attitudinal research and with current methodological insights from second language acquisition research. The thesis describes how these materials were evaluated and piloted, both to elicit further research evidence concerning the attitudes of learners and teachers to native speaker spoken norms, and to assess the potential viability of the materials in the classroom. In the light of the theoretical arguments and research evidence presented, the thesis concludes that it is both possible and potentially desirable to design materials which raise awareness of aspects of native speaker spoken grammar, while respecting that English is no longer the exclusive property of its native speakers. The wider, concluding argument of this thesis is that it is both possible and desirable for the native speaker in contemporary ELT to be an object of reference without being an object of deference.
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Thuoc, Bui Duc, and n/a. "Teaching functional spoken English at the Hanoi Foreign Languages Teachers' Training College." University of Canberra. Education, 1988. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20061109.133858.
Full textAbstract:
The English language occupied a specially
important status in the increasing development of science,
technology, culture and international relations in Vietnam,
which has resulted in a growing demand for English Language
Teaching (ELT) all over the country. The Hanoi Foreign
Languages Teachers' Training College in general and its
Department of English in particular plays a very important
role in this by producing as many teachers of English as
possible for high schools as well as for other Colleges and
Universities in Vietnam as a whole. Unfortunately, ELT in
Vietnam is still far from satisfactory. There exists a common
problem of communicative competence in Vietnamese students,
even in Vietnamese teachers of English. ELT at HFLTTC is
taken to illustrate the fact that even after five years'
training, graduates remain deficient in the ability of
language use as well as understanding its use in normal
communication. This being the case, how can they carry out
effectively the teaching of English to high school pupils or
students at other institutions?
In this situation, we need to take a serious look
at ELT in the Department of English at the HFLTTC so as to
suggest suitable materials and methods which will enable the
Institution to function more effectively.
This project makes an exploratory study of the
problem. To provide a context for the study, the background
to ELT in the Department of English is reviewed. This is
followed by a detailed description of different approaches
used in ELT with the reference to the actual activities of
teaching and learning in the Department of English. A special
emphasis is placed on the difference between conventional
approaches and the currently influential one - The Functional-
Notional-Approach to language teaching and learning. The
basic notions of this approach will be covered and also
different categories of functions and categories of
situations which the students of English often encounter in
using English. Different techniques of teaching functional
spoken English will be suggested with an aim to improving the
teaching of spoken English in the above-mentioned setting.
It is hoped that this project may become a
contribution to solving some of the existing problems of
inadequate communicative competence of Vietnamese students of
English and to teaching and learning English with effective
communication skills in the Department of English at the
HFLTTC.
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Cribb, V. Michael. "Coherence in the extended spoken discourse of non-native speakers of English." Thesis, University of Reading, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.493811.
Full textAbstract:
In day-to-day interactional discourse, disturbances in coherence can usually be resolved relatively quickly through collaboration and negotiation between interlocutors. When speakers are required to produce extended discourse in the form of an extended turn (i.e. short monologue), however, there is an additional requirement to package their utterances that the interlocutor can integrate them into the on-going discourse and construct a meaningful, coherent representation of the text. For non-native speakers, this additional burden means that any miscues in the construction of the utterances or in their contextualisation, can lead to disturbances in coherence and a loss of meaning.
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Schäpers, Uta Katharina Elisabeth. "Nominal versus clausal complexity in spoken and written English theory and description." Frankfurt; M. Berlin Bern Bruxelles New York, NY Oxford Wien Lang, 2007. http://d-nb.info/992431271/04.
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Chen, Wan-Ting. "A corpus study of differences in the spoken English and spoken Mandarin Chinese of Taiwanese EFL students in Liverpool and Taiwan." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2018. http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3025924/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis is concerned with whether the Taiwanese EFL learners with different English environment/education backgrounds have noticeably different language use from each other in spoken English and spoken Mandarin. This thesis aims to investigate the differences in language use of two Taiwanese EFL learner communities in the UK (Liverpool) and Taiwan (Taipei). The Taiwanese EFL learner community in Taiwan is further divided into two groups because of their different educational backgrounds (English-relevant subjects and non-English-relevant subjects.) Our investigation looks at the use by the three groups of English pronouns I, you and it, Mandarin pronouns? (wŏ) [I], ? (nĭ) [you] and ? (tā) [it]. Their use of English verbs is and have and the Mandarin verbs ? (shì) [to be] and ? (yŏu) [to have/exist] are also investigated. The investigation focuses on whether there are significant differences in the use of the highly frequent L1 and R1 collocates of these words and the patterns in which these collocations are used. We investigate whether these differences are potentially explained by the influence of the different kinds of input from the environment and educational training to which these EFL learners are exposed. Our findings show that significant differences in the use of spoken English between the three groups exist. Differences in the nature of the English input to which the three groups have been exposed appear to be a possible explanation of differences in these participants' English use. However, we also find there are significant differences in the use of spoken Mandarin between the groups of participants with different English input backgrounds. What we identify as differences suggests that a cross-language influence on people's first and second/foreign language use may exist.
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Willis, Genevieve L. "Does a rising intonation at the end of a spoken statement affect a witness's credibility?" Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2000. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1381.
Full textAbstract:
Past research has shown that the speech style employed by 11 witness in a jury trial may affect their credibility (Erikson, Lind, Johnson, & ()'Barr, 1978). One common linguistic device used by witnesses is a rising intonation, which is defined as the inflection of a speaker’s tone that occurs at the end of a spoken passage. Past research has shown that the use of a rising intonation in speech can add a questioning tone to a passage or signify that the speaker is unsure of what they are saying (Smith and Clark. 1993). If a witness uses a rising intonation they may sound less believable to a juror. The effect of rising intonation on the credibility of witness testimony was examined in the present study. Three independent variables were tested: the intonation contour at the end of a spoken witness statement (rising or nonrising); the gender of the witness; and the gender of the participant. Five dependent variables relating to how subjects judged the believability and credibility of the witness statements were measured. The primary finding was that rising intonation alone did not significantly affect perceptions of the speaker's credibility. However, the gender of the speaker was found to affect overall believability, with female speakers being rated as significantly less believable than male speakers. The results are interpreted from a sociocultural perspective, with the suggestion that rising intonation, given its frequency of use amongst Australian speakers, does not seem to indicate that the speaker is uncertain about their statements.
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MATSUBARA, Shigeki, and Yasuyoshi INAGAKI. "Incremental Transfer in English-Japanese Machine Translation." The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/2237/11131.
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Shum, Nam Lung, and 沈南龍. "The occurrence of schwa among Cantonese speakers of English in Hong Kong." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1989. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31949654.
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Paskewitz, Paul Francis-xavier. "A corpus-based study of recurrent errors in the spoken and written English of native cantonese speakers." Thesis, Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1999. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk:8888/cgi-bin/hkuto%5Ftoc%5Fpdf?b21161781.
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Jensen, Marie-Thérèse 1949. "Corrective feedback to spoken errors in adult ESL classrooms." Monash University, Faculty of Education, 2001. http://arrow.monash.edu.au/hdl/1959.1/8620.
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Gennrich-de, Lisle Daniela. "Theme in conversational discourse : problems experienced by speakers of Black South African English, with particular reference to the role of prosody in conversational synchrony." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004512.
Full textAbstract:
This study is an investigation of instances of conversational failure in interaction as evidenced by speakers of Black South African English (BSAE) , with a particular focus on the role of prosody in conversational (a)synchrony. The data analysed consist of six conversations, one SAE-SAE (South African English) encounter, four BSAE- SAE encounters and one BSAE- BSAE encounter. After a theoretical framework is set up, the analysis is conducted by means of two triangulation research processes based on Ethnomethodology. The analysis consists of an investigation into selected extracts which participants and informants alike perceived as 'stressful'. An attempt is made to isolate the sources of each instance of pragmatic failure. Prosodic features are found to be important in establishing and maintaining theme and conversational synchrony. But other factors are also involved. The analysis reveals two major influences of asynchrony: deviance in the use of (in order of importance) prosodic, lexical and syntactic cues to discourse functions; and a mismatch in the application of socio-cultural principles guiding conversational behaviour. The study leads into a brief outline of aims, objectives and conversational competence at a tertiary level and concludes with suggestions for further research.