235 research outputs found
Orthographic input and phonological representations in learners of Chinese as a foreign language.
Full text linkThis paper provides evidence that the second language orthographic input affects the mental representations of L2 phonology in instructed beginner L2 learners. Previous research has shown that orthographic representations affect monolinguals' performance in phonological awareness tasks; in instructed L2 learners such representations could also affect pronunciation. This study looked at the phonological representations of Chinese rimes in beginner learners of Chinese as a foreign language, using a phoneme counting task and a phoneme segmentation task. Results show that learners do not count or segment the main vowel in those syllables where it is not represented in the pinyin (romanisation) orthographic representations. It appears that the pinyin orthographic input is reinterpreted according to L1 phonology-orthography correspondences, and interacts with the phonological input in shaping the phonological representations of Chinese syllables in beginner learners. This explains previous findings that learners of Chinese do not pronounce the main vowel in these syllables
Effects of writing systems on second language awareness: Word awareness in English learners of Chinese as a Foreign Language.
No full textBilingualism and thought: grammatical gender and concepts of objects in Italian-German bilingual children
Full text linkThis paper investigates whether bilinguals' and monolinguals' concepts of entities differ when the bilinguals' two languages provide two different representations of the same entity. Previous research shows that speakers of languages that have a grammatical gender system think of objects as being masculine or feminine in line with the grammatical gender of the objects' nouns. The present study investigates the effects of grammatical gender on concepts of objects in bilingual speakers of two languages that assign opposite gender to the same object. Italian-German bilingual children and Italian monolingual controls performed an on-line voice attribution task. All children were native speakers of Italian and living in Italy. Results show that Italian monolingual children attribute more female voices to objects whose noun is grammatically feminine in Italian. Monolinguals also show a preference for attributing voices consistently with Italian grammatical gender assignment. Italian-German bilingual children are not affected by Italian grammatical gender. It is argued that when the two languages of a bilingual represent a specific aspect of reality differently, the bilingual may develop different concepts from a monolingual. This is due to the knowledge of two specific languages rather than to bilingualism per se, and to linguistic rather than cultural factors
Effects of adding interword spacing on Chinese reading : a comparison of Chinese native readers and English readers of Chinese as a second language
Full text linkEnglish is written with interword spacing, and eliminating it negatively affects English readers. Chinese is written without interword spacing, and adding it does not facilitate Chinese readers. Pinyin (romanized Chinese) is written with interword spacing. This study investigated whether adding interword spacing facilitates reading in Chinese native readers and English readers of Chinese as a second language. Participants performed two sentence–picture verification tasks with sentences written with pinyin or hanzi (characters). Interword spacing facilitated pinyin reading in English readers but not in Chinese readers; it did not affect hanzi reading in either group. The effects of interword spacing on second language reading appear to be determined by characteristics of both readers' first language writing system and the writing system being read
Effects of Orthography on Second Language Phonology:Learning, Awareness, Perception and Production
No full textThis is the first book devoted to the effects of orthographic forms (spellings) on second language phonology.Written by one of the pioneer researchers in the field, the book provides an authoritative overview of the effects of spellings on the perception, production, awareness, learning and teaching of sounds and spoken words in a second language. Using the findings and implications from a large-scale research project at its centre, the book reveals that English consonants spelled with double letters lead Italian learners and users of English as a second language to perceive, produce, classify, and learn English consonants as geminates (long consonants).Presenting a narrative of a second language research project, and discussing its implications, the book will be of interest to scholars and researchers in the fields of orthography, phonology, and speech and language perception. Language teaching practitioners will also find the book useful
Advanced Synthetic Strategies for the preparation of Key Small Molecules and Biologically Active Compounds
Full text linkThe present manuscript gathers many topics I dealt with during my PhD research period. The first
chapter includes an overview on how sustainability is getting more and more relevant in chemistry
and, in particular, in the development of chemical processes, since the outbreak of Green Chemistry
concepts until now. Moreover, some of the most important enabling technologies in organic
synthesis are detailed, such as one-pot processes, microwave irradiation, flow chemistry and
photochemistry, with a final section dedicated to combined techniques.
The second and third chapters encompass the research work I conducted at University of Camerino
(Chemistry Interdisciplinary Project, ChIP, Camerino, Italy) in the Green Chemistry Group, under
the supervision of Prof. A. Palmieri, with the collaboration of Indena S.p.A., and in Prof. C. O.
Kappe’s research group (CCFLOW lab) from April 2022 to October 2022, at the University of Graz,
Institute of Chemistry, under the supervision of Dr. C. Hone.
In particular, the second chapter focuses on the importance of nitro compounds as key building
blocks in organic synthesis. In this context, nitroolefins were exploited, during my PhD, to achieve
the synthesis of polysubstituted carbazoles and conjugated (E,E)-dienones under mild conditions,
two important compounds that find application in drug molecules and materials science.
Furthermore, their hydroalkylation was accomplished under photocatalytic conditions, both in batch
and flow, in a project conducted in collaboration with the PhotoGreen Lab of University of Pavia.
The third chapter is devoted to explore the relevance of natural products in organic chemistry, with
particular attention on the development of synthetic procedures to access valuable compounds. With
this aim, we envisaged a simple four-step sequence for the preparation of flavonoid Luteoloside,
often present in natural sources only in traces, in the context of a project carried out in collaboration
with Indena S.p.A.
The last section of the chapter describes the work realized during my abroad period at the University
of Graz, in which a continuous flow protocol was developed, after an extensive batch investigation,
for the selective synthesis of two cannabinoids, Δ9
-THC and Δ8
-THC
Do bilinguals have different concepts? The case of shape and material in Japanese L2 users of English
Full text linkAn experiment investigated whether Japanese speakers’ categorisation of objects and substances as shape or material is influenced by acquiring English, based on Imai and Gentner (1997). Subjects were presented with an item such as a cork pyramid and asked to choose between two other items that matched it for shape (plastic pyramid) or for material (piece of cork). The hypotheses were that for simple objects the number of shape-based categorisations would increase according to experience of English and that the preference for shape and material-based categorisations of Japanese speakers of English would differ from mono¬lingual speakers of both languages. Subjects were 18 adult Japanese users of English who had lived in English-speaking countries between 6 months and 3 years (short-stay group), and 18 who had lived in English-speaking countries for 3 years or more (long-stay group). Both groups achieved above criterion on an English vocabulary test. Results were: both groups preferred material responses for simple objects and substances but not for complex objects, in line with Japanese mono¬linguals, but the long-stay group showed more shape preference than the short-stay group and also were less different from Americans. These effects of acquiring a second language on categorisation have implications for conceptual representation and methodology
Relating language and cognition::The second language user
No full textThis innovative volume provides a state-of-the-art overview of the relationship between language and cognition with a focus on bilinguals. It brings together contributions from international leading figures in various disciplines and showcases contemporary research on the emerging area of bilingual cognition. The first part of the volume discusses the relationship between language and cognition as studied in various disciplines, from psychology to philosophy to anthropology to linguistics, with chapters written by some of the major thinkers in each discipline. The second part concerns language and cognition in bilinguals. Following an introductory overview and contributions from established figures in the field, bilingual cognition researchers provide examples of their latest research on topics including time, space, motion, colors, and emotion. The third part discusses practical applications of the idea of bilingual cognition, such as marketing and translation. The volume is essential reading for researchers and postgraduate students with an interest in language and cognition, or in bilingualism and second languages
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