Dataset Information

A Multidimensional Perspective on Individual Differences in Multilingual Learners' L2 Chinese Speech Production.

ABSTRACT: To date, research has been undertaken to reveal factors contributing to learners' second/foreign language (L2) speaking and/or learning at particular points in time in separate studies from cognitive, affective, and socio-cultural perspectives as individual variables. Nonetheless, little research has concurrently investigated L2 speaking with the same cohort of learners as participants from these perspectives in a single study, to obtain comprehensive and systematic understandings of how the three dimensions of factors work together in influencing individuals' L2 speaking. This study, utilizing Segalowitz's (2010) L2 speech production framework as the theoretical lens, examined a group of L2 Chinese multilinguals' perceptions toward their speech performance and production ability development, attempting to comprehensively and systematically uncover the factors influencing L2 speaking from the three perspectives mentioned above. We collected data through focus groups and semi-structured interviews from 17 advanced level L2 Chinese multilinguals. The findings of the study revealed that factors that influenced the L2 Chinese multilinguals' speech performance and their development of such an ability included the following: (1) age of acquisition, cognitive fluency, learning styles, and speaking strategies; (2) motivation, anxiety, speaking self-efficacy, and willingness-to-communicate; (3) L2 cultural interest, L2 communities, and L2 classes; and (4) multilingualism. We conclude that the development of L2 Chinese speech production ability could be the result of the synergies gained from the cognitive, affective, and socio-cultural dimensions of L2 learning and use. Insights into L2 Chinese teachers and learners in terms of how to support and sustain the improvement of L2 Chinese speech production ability are also discussed.

SUBMITTER: Sun PP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7043238 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A Multidimensional Perspective on Individual Differences in Multilingual Learners' L2 Chinese Speech Production.

Sun Peijian Paul PP Zhang Lawrence Jun LJ

Frontiers in psychology 20200219

To date, research has been undertaken to reveal factors contributing to learners' second/foreign language (L2) speaking and/or learning at particular points in time in separate studies from cognitive, affective, and socio-cultural perspectives as individual variables. Nonetheless, little research has concurrently investigated L2 speaking with the same cohort of learners as participants from these perspectives in a single study, to obtain comprehensive and systematic understandings of how the thr ...[more]

PMID: 32140120

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Project description:Reading comprehension is never considered a simple task in linguists' views as it requires a full set of linguistic knowledge, such as word decoding, understanding syntactic and morphological structures, and deriving proper meanings from these structures in a given context. Bearing the simple view of reading, the primary goal of this study is to explore whether the split presentation of Chinese splittable compounds influences the recognition of the compounds in second language (L2) Chinese reading comprehension, and how the reading skills, i.e., word decoding and linguistic comprehension, cooperate to complete this reading comprehension task. Splittable compounds (SCs) in Chinese are typically verbs composed of two constituents with limited separability. The separable property of SCs and their vague morpho-syntactic status are supposed to cause difficulties for L2 Chinese learners in recognizing the compounds. Especially for those whose native language manifests lexical integrity, the split presentation of the compounds may invite the L2 Chinese readers to process them with a mechanism different from that for their non-split forms. To the best of our knowledge, the efforts on investigating this issue are insufficient. In this study, 27 Spanish speaking L2 Chinese learners were invited to complete tasks including reading and interpreting 6 selected SCs in the split and non-split forms, rating their familiarities with each SC and reporting the syntactic category of the SCs based on their existing linguistic knowledge. The results, showed that the split presentation of SCs did cause challenges for L2 Chinese learners in recognizing the compounds in the reading process, regardless of their Chinese proficiencies. The L2 Chinese participants performed significantly worse in recognizing split SCs in salient Verb-Object structures than recognizing those in unsalient Verb-Object structures. These findings underscore the importance of linguistic comprehension in L2 Chinese in-text word reading comprehension and suggest words as the basic processing units.

Project description:ImportanceCochlear implantation is highly effective at improving hearing outcomes, but results have been limited to groupwise analysis. That is, limited data are available for individual patients that report comparisons of preoperative aided speech recognition and postimplantation speech recognition.ObjectiveTo assess changes in preoperative aided vs postoperative speech recognition scores for individual patients receiving cochlear implants when considering the measurement error for each speech recognition test.Design, setting, and participantsThis cross-sectional study used a prospectively maintained database of patients who received cochlear implants between January 1, 2012, and December 31, 2017, at a tertiary, university-based referral center. Adults with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss undergoing cochlear implantation with 6- or 12-month postoperative measures using 1 or more speech recognition tests were studied.ExposuresCochlear implantation.Main outcomes and measuresPostoperative word recognition (consonant-nucleus-consonant word test), sentence recognition (AzBio sentences in quiet), and sentence recognition in noise (AzBio sentences in +10-dB signal-to-noise ratio) scores, and association of each speech recognition score change with aided preoperative score to each test's measurement error.ResultsAnalysis of data from a total of 470 implants from 323 patients included 253 male (53.8%) patients; the mean (SD) age was 61.2 (18.3) years. Most patients had statistically significant improvement in all speech recognition tests postoperatively beyond measurement error, including 262 (84.8%) for word recognition, 226 (87.6%) for sentence recognition, and 33 (78.6%) for sentence recognition in noise. A small number of patients had equivalent preoperative and postoperative scores, including 45 (14.5%) for word recognition, 28 (10.9%) for sentence recognition, and 9 (21.4%) for sentence recognition in noise. Four patients (1.6%) had significantly poorer scores in sentence recognition after implantation. The associations between age at implantation and change in speech recognition scores were -0.12 (95% CI, -0.23 to -0.01) for word recognition, -0.22 (95% CI, -0.34 to -0.10) for sentence recognition, and -0.10 (95% CI, -0.39 to 0.21) for sentence recognition in noise. Patients with no significant improvement were similarly distributed between all preoperative aided speech scores for word recognition (range, 0%-58%) and sentence recognition (range, 0%-56%) testing.Conclusions and relevanceIn this cross-sectional study, with respect to preoperative aided speech recognition, postoperative cochlear implant outcomes for individual patients were largely encouraging. However, improvements in scores for individual patients remained highly variable, which may not be adequately represented in groupwise analyses and reporting of mean scores. Presenting individual patient data from a large sample of individuals with cochlear implants provides a better understanding of individual differences in speech recognition outcomes and contributes to more complete interpretations of successful outcomes after cochlear implantation.

Dataset Information

A Multidimensional Perspective on Individual Differences in Multilingual Learners' L2 Chinese Speech Production.

Publications

A Multidimensional Perspective on Individual Differences in Multilingual Learners' L2 Chinese Speech Production.

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