BEYOND LINGUISTIC FEATURES Nagle, Charles L.; Trofimovich, Pavel; O’Brien, Mary Grantham ...
Studies in second language acquisition,
03/2022, Volume:
44, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Comprehensibility, or ease of understanding, has emerged as an important construct in second language (L2) speech research. Many studies have examined the linguistic features that underlie this ...construct, but there has been limited work on behavioral and affective predictors. The goal of this study was therefore to examine the extent to which anxiety and collaborativeness predict interlocutors’ perception of one another’s comprehensibility. Twenty dyads of L2 English speakers completed three interactive tasks. Throughout their 17-minute interaction, they were periodically asked to evaluate their own and each other’s anxiety and collaborativeness and to rate their partner’s comprehensibility using 100-point scales. Mixed-effects models showed that partner anxiety and collaborativeness predicted comprehensibility, but the relative importance of each predictor depended on the nature of the task. Self-collaborativeness was also related to comprehensibility. These findings suggest that comprehensibility is sensitive to a range of linguistic, behavioral, and affective influences.
Despite the prevalence of quantitative approaches in applied linguistics (AL) and second language acquisition (SLA) research (Gass, 2009), evidence indicates a need for improvement in analyzing and ...reporting SLA data (e.g., Larson-Hall & Plonsky, 2015). However, to improve quantitative research, researchers must possess the statistical knowledge necessary to conduct quality research. This study assesses AL and SLA researchers’ knowledge of key statistical concepts on a statistical knowledge test. One hundred and ninety-eight AL and SLA researchers from North America and Europe responded to 26 discipline-specific questions designed to measure participants’ ability to (a) understand basic statistical concepts and procedures, (b) interpret statistical analyses, and (c) critically evaluate statistical information. Results indicate that participants generally understood basic descriptive statistics, but performance on items requiring more advanced statistical knowledge was lower. Quantitative research orientation, number of statistics courses taken, and frequent use of statistics textbooks had positive influences on researchers’ statistical knowledge.
The present study investigates how L2 learners adapt their production preferences following immediate and cumulative experience with a syntactic structure when an L2 structure differs from an L1 ...structure in terms of verb subcategorization frame and argument structure. Korean learners of English described causative events in English in a picture-matching game. The meaning of a causative sentence in English (e.g., Jen had her computer fixed) is expressed with an active transitive sentence in Korean (e.g., Jen-NOM computer-ACC fixed). The results demonstrated that both immediate and cumulative experience with a causative structure increased the likelihood of producing grammatical causative descriptions (e.g., Jen had her computer fixed), while decreasing the production of ungrammatical active transitive descriptions (e.g., Jen fixed her computer). The findings provide novel evidence that an implicit learning mechanism is involved in L2 learners’ processing and learning of an L2 structure that is different from L1.
Replication is a research methodology designed to verify, consolidate, and generalize knowledge and understanding within empirical fields of study. In second language studies, however, reviews share ...widespread concern about the infrequency of replication. A common but speculative explanation for this situation is that replication studies are not valued because they lack originality and/or innovation. To better understand and respond to the infrequency of replication in our field, 354 researchers were surveyed about their attitudes toward replication and their practices conducting replication studies. Responses included worldwide participation from researchers with and without replication experience. Overall, replications were evaluated as relevant and valuable to the field. Claims that replication studies lack originality/innovation were not supported. However, dissemination issues were identified: half of published replication studies lacked explicit labeling and one quarter of completed replications were unpublished. Explicit labeling of replication studies and training in research methodology and dissemination can address this situation.
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