Models of L2 pronunciation learning have hypothesized that accurate speech perception promotes accurate speech production. This claim can be evaluated longitudinally by examining the extent to which changes in stop consonant perception predict changes in stop consonant production. Taking a time-sensitive view of the perception-production link,…

The extant studies addressing second language phonetic perception assume that second language phonemes are perceived to be similar to first language phonemes, and tend to be substituted by learners of English as a foreign language. This study aimed to assess the perceptual relationship between the phonemes of English and the sound units of Omani…

This study explores the verbal engagement strategies that EFL instructors adopt when teaching English over Instagram. These instructors create videos where they teach English and share them on Instagram. Twenty-five highly engaging English teaching videos on Instagram were used as the data of this study. To discover the engagement strategies that…

Language learners need to map a continuous, multidimensional acoustic signal to discrete abstract speech categories. The complexity of this mapping poses a difficult learning problem, particularly for second language learners who struggle to acquire the speech sounds of a non-native language, and almost never reach native-like ability. A common…

This paper presents the results of a brief mixed-methods intervention which sought to modify the production of prominence-related features in L2 English by four native French-speaking university lecturers, in read-aloud speech. Selected parts of participants' productions were acoustically modified and then used as the model in a Listen-and-Repeat…

The primary goal of this project is to assess the students' better communication attainment after applying a series of five interactive strategies to an experiment group of subjects. This class will be compared with a control group of other participants, and in their class, the interactive approaches are not emphasized and practiced openly. The…

The current study qualitatively examines 23 interviews with English second language users focusing on their lived experiences of communicating in the context of multicultural and multilingual interactions in Montreal. The interpretative phenomenological analysis of data reveals two superordinate themes: the idealized native speaker of English and…

This study utilized Automated Speech Recognition technology to determine the potential utility and acceptance of such technology in the English as a Foreign Language classroom. Learners were made aware of the Automatic Speech Recognition potential of their mobile devices and provided with some direction in, and incentive for, its use. Participants…

This study investigated the role of cross-linguistic similarity in the acquisition of Russian initial stop contrasts by Chinese learners, addressing two specific research questions: (1) How similar are Russian voiced stops to Mandarin stops for Chinese learners?; and (2) How can the speech learning model (SLM) be applied to account for the…

To confirm the role of social factors in mediating cognitive processes, this systematic replication study seeks to extend the generalizability of an exploratory study (McDonough, Crowther, Kielstra & Trofimovich 2015) that reported a positive association between eye gaze and second language (L2) speakers' responses to recasts. For this…

While the role of task repetition has received much attention in task-based research, few studies have examined how exact task repetition affects the performance of child second language learners. Also, little is known about the impact of exact task repetition on trade-off effects between linguistic performance areas among child learners. To help…

This dissertation investigates a typologically rare linguistic phenomenon found in Irish from three different perspectives: how it challenges phonological theory, how it is used by contemporary speakers, and how its written representation affects its acquisition. Initial consonant mutation (ICM), as it appears in the Celtic languages, is known to…

The use of linking or glottalization contributes to the characteristic sound pattern of a language, and the use of one in place of the other may affect a speaker's comprehensibility and fluency in certain contexts. In this study, native speakers of Czech, a language that is associated with a frequent use of glottalization in vowel-initial word…

The 24th Annual Graduate Student Conference of the College of Languages, Linguistics & Literature (LLL) at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa was held online on Saturday, April 18th, 2020. This annual conference provides an opportunity for students to become socialized into academic practices, such as presenting at a conference and producing a…

Purpose: Research in communication sciences and disorders frequently involves the collection of clusters of observations, such as a series of scores for each individual receiving treatment over the course of an intervention study. However, little discipline-specific guidance is currently available on the subject of building and interpreting…