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The role of aspect on anaphora resolution in English as a first and second language
Full text linkThis study investigates pronominal reference assignments across sentences that
contain English verbs of transfer in monolingual English speakers and second-language
(L2) learners having German as a first language and English as an L2. In a forcedchoice task, participants were presented with sentences in perfective or imperfective
aspect, like “Elizabeth took/was taking a meal to Mary” (adapted from Ferretti et al.,
2009). They were then shown sentences that contained gender-matching pronouns,
as in “She breathed in the smell of fresh basil”, and they were finally asked to choose
who performed the relevant actions: “Who breathed in the smell of fresh basil?
Elizabeth or Mary?”. We found that both groups preferred more often goal-oriented
interpretations in the perfective condition, while in the imperfective condition only
English monolingual speakers preferred more often source-oriented interpretations.
The pattern observed in the perfective condition is consistent with previous studies
and indicates that perfective aspect creates a strong bias towards end-states. For the
imperfective condition, we argue that the different pattern observed in L2 learners
may be due to some features of German, where an overall bias for end-states was
previously observed. This indicates an effect of first-language strategies on L2
processing, consistent with previous research on different languages
The role of number mismatch and exposure in the comprehension of relative clauses in bilingual children
No full textResearch on English relative clauses shows that, in most studies, subject relatives are comprehended more accurately than object relatives by both monolingual and bilingual children. The current study focuses on Czech-English bilingual children and extends this line of research in two ways. First, it includes a condition in which the noun phrases involved in the action differ in number (one is singular and the other is plural), a manipulation that was never tested on bilinguals. Second, it includes a fine-grained measure of language exposure, since the exposure has been linked to the acquisition of complex structures. Thirty-eight Czech-English bilinguals (aged 8-11 years) were tested on their comprehension of relative clauses using a picture matching paradigm. Results show that sentences with number mismatch were comprehended more accurately than match sentences and that subject relatives were comprehended more accurately than object relatives. In addition, in the subject relatives subset, higher exposure to English corresponded to poorer performance in relative clauses with number mismatch. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed
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Learning rate and success as a function of code-switching strategies in the input
Full text linkCode-switching is a natural phenomenon in which a speaker alternates between two languages. Although code-switching could be a useful tool for foreign language learning (Bhatti et al., 2018; Macaro, 2005), it is unknown what types of code-switches are potentially most useful. To investigate this, we present an experiment in which we compare learning rate and success of learning vocabulary (nouns) and functional categories (determiners) from input containing two types of switches from English into a Swahili-based artificial language: inserting two adjacent words (e.g., Kiti ro is next to the book) or inserting two distant words (e.g., The kiti is next to book ro). Images help participants deduce word meaning. Recall accuracy over successive cycles is used to provide a measure of learning rate for nouns and determiners, allowing us to gauge the effect of code-switching on learning grammar and lexis independently. Data collection (n ≈ 40 per condition) is ongoing
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Testing the predictions of the feature-assembly hypothesis: evidence from the L2 acquisition of Spanish aspect morphology
No full textAccording to the Feature-Assembly Hypothesis (FAH) (Lardiere 2005, 2009, Choi and Lardiere 2006a) convergence in second language acquisition is determined by whether L2 speakers can effectively reassemble existing features into new (L2) configurations. We discuss the validity of this prediction for the L2 acquisition of Spanish imperfect, an area of attested difficulty, which requires native speakers of English to remap semantic concepts regarding the temporal status of events onto new morphological configurations. Data from 60 L1 English learners of Spanish and 15 native speakers who completed a context/sentence matching task show that only the meaning associated with Spanish imperfect which requires a new semantics-morphology mapping is problematic. We argue that a hypothesis, such as the FAH, which takes into account the conditions which determine the expression of aspect-related features, can adequately provide a fine-grained account of L2 variation in this grammatical domai
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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