Advances in Second/Foreign Language Acquisition [1st ed. 2023] 3031385217, 9783031385216

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Advances in Second/Foreign Language Acquisition Edited by Georgios P. Georgiou Aretousa Giannakou · Christine Savvidou

Advances in Second/Foreign Language Acquisition “A much-needed contribution to second/foreign language acquisition and a great pedagogical resource itself. The volume captures a fascinating engagement with recent scholarship by bringing different mindsets together to present the work of professors from Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. Informed by the state of the art, Georgiou et al. have produced an interesting and thoughtprovoking volume that deserves a wide readership amongst the linguistic community and beyond.” —Maria Tenizi, Doctoral Candidate in Linguistics, University of Cyprus

Georgios P. Georgiou Aretousa Giannakou  •  Christine Savvidou Editors

Advances in Second/ Foreign Language Acquisition

Editors Georgios P. Georgiou Department of Languages and Literature University of Nicosia Nicosia, Cyprus

Aretousa Giannakou Department of Languages and Literature University of Nicosia Nicosia, Cyprus

Christine Savvidou Department of Languages and Literature University of Nicosia Nicosia, Cyprus

ISBN 978-3-031-38521-6    ISBN 978-3-031-38522-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38522-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: Getty Images/Youst This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Preface

The Advances in Second/Foreign Language Acquisition volume comprises a collection of research studies presented at the homonymous conference organized by the Department of Languages and Literature of the University of Nicosia on June 18–19, 2022. This volume includes nine chapters, which employ varied research techniques from diverse fields, targeting a better understanding of the second language (L2)/foreign language (FL) acquisition process, including issues of heritage language (HL) learning. More specifically, in Chap. 1, Naito examines the effect of musical training on the perception of Japanese lexical pitch accents by Italian musicians and nonmusicians. Listeners participated in two training conditions: high variability (HV) and low variability (LV). The aim was to assess how each condition impacts the perceptual abilities of the two groups. The author’s findings suggest that HV training is more beneficial than LV training for nonmusicians, while both training conditions are beneficial for musicians. In Chap. 2, Schuhmann, Schaech, and Catto explore whether multisensory (visual and somatosensory) pronunciation training in a video conference-based foreign language classroom improves the production of the /v-w/ contrast by German learners of English. The results indicated gains from pretest to posttest, designating the important role of multisensory training in speech production. Chapter 3 serves as a follow-up study for the validation of the prosodic patterns of learners of v

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Spanish as a foreign language. In particular, Pálvölgyi examines whether melody, intensity, and duration of Spanish-stressed syllables differ between Spanish speakers and lower-intermediate Hungarian learners of Spanish. The author reports a divergence in the tonal patterns of Spanish learners from those of Spanish speakers, which makes the utterances produced by the learners perceived as suspended instead of finished. In Chap. 4, Alzi’abi and Al-Sheikh examine the impact of teaching listening strategies on the listening skills of Syrian EFL learners. Through a pedagogical intervention, the authors demonstrate that training in listening strategies significantly improves participants’ scores, indicating a positive influence on the development of listening skills. In Chap. 5, Margaza and Gavarró explore the assumption that the acquisition of the syntax–pragmatics interface is more complex than the syntax–semantics interface, as proposed by the Interface Hypothesis (IH). Through testing the IH with both L1 Spanish learners acquiring L2 Greek and L1 Greek learners acquiring L2 Spanish on word order with transitive verbs, the authors suggest, contrary to predictions, that the IH is not able to explain learners’ performance accurately. Chapter 6 examines the phenomenon of transfer between languages with a focus on Turkish speakers of English. Gedik and Uslu challenge the notion of transfer between languages as binary (either it happens, or it does not) and propose, instead, the possibility of a gradient transfer model. In Chap. 7, Sophocleous delves into the development of discourse repertoires in English as an Additional Language (EAL) classrooms for primary school children. By examining the methods employed by EAL teachers and the materials used to support children’s development, the study investigates the processes of developing discourse repertoires. In Chap. 8, Fotiou and Pavlou empirically explore the role of motivation in learning Cypriot Maronite Arabic through heritage speakers’ self-reports. Interestingly, although participants lack instrumental motivation to learn and speak the language, they seem to particularly value the cultural aspects related to their Cypriot Maronite Arabic heritage background. The study contributes to discussions regarding the relationship between heritage language maintenance and heritage identity issues in the context of heritage language transgenerational transmission. Aravossitas in Chap. 9 offers an insightful overview of the status of heritage Greek language

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education in Canada and the essential role that education plays in heritage language maintenance. The investigation of L2/FL and HLs is of paramount importance for understanding more deeply different linguistic phenomena as well as different sociolinguistic contexts of language learning and use. This contribution is also vital for advancing and enriching existing theories in the field, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of communication, fostering intercultural understanding, promoting career growth, and facilitating personal development, all of which collectively maximize the overall learning outcomes. This collection of studies connects researchers from all over the world, who conduct research in the area of L2/FL and HL acquisition. As can be seen in the different chapters of this volume, various methodological protocols are used to examine language acquisition, learning, use, or maintenance, involving speakers and learners with different L1 backgrounds. The findings provide important implications, which are of interest not only to linguists but also to educators, psychologists, and social scientists, among others. We hope that this volume will contribute to the advancement of the study of L2/FL/HLs and that the readers will find it useful in terms of expanding their current knowledge in the area or employing the findings for research purposes. We would like to thank the contributors to this volume and the members of the scientific committee of the conference for peer-reviewing the submitted papers. Finally, we would like to thank the Department of Languages and Literature of the University of Nicosia and the Cyprus Linguistics and Humanities research group for supporting the organization of the conference. Nicosia, Cyprus Nicosia, Cyprus  Nicosia, Cyprus 

Georgios P. Georgiou Aretousa Giannakou Christine Savvidou

Contents

1 Does  Musical Training Influence Perceptual Learning of Japanese Pitch Accent? The Case of Native Italian Speakers  1 Yuka Naito 2 Multisensory  Pronunciation Training in a Video Conference-Based Foreign Language Classroom 19 Katharina S. Schuhmann, Sarah Schaech, and Cain Catto 3 Word  Stress Prosody in the Spontaneous Declarative Utterances of Threshold Level Hungarian Learners of Spanish 49 Kata Baditzné Pálvölgyi 4 Use  of Listening Strategies: Does It Improve Listening Performance Tasks? 69 Safi Eldeen Alzi’abi and Ghiyath Alshaikh Ibrahim 5 Word  Order with Transitives and the Interface Hypothesis in L2 Greek and L2 Spanish 97 Panagiota Margaza and Anna Gavarró ix

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6 L1-L2  Transfer in Ditransitive Construction: A Usage-based Replication Study with Turkish Speakers of English123 Tan Arda Gedik and Fatıma Uslu 7 Encouraging  Children’s Development of Discourse Repertoires in EAL Classrooms147 Andry Sophocleous 8 The  Role of Motivation in Learning Cypriot Maronite Arabic171 Constantina Fotiou and Natalia Pavlou 9 Heritage  Language Education and Ethnolinguistic Vitality: Community Initiatives to Support Greek Learners in Canada191 Themistoklis Aravossitas I ndex213

About the Editors

Georgios (George) P. Georgiou  is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Languages and Literature of the University of Nicosia. Currently, he serves as the Director of the Phonetic Lab and coordinates the Cyprus Linguistics and Humanities Research Group of the University of Nicosia. He holds a BA in Greek Philology, an MA in Education (with distinction), and a PhD in Linguistics (with distinction) from the University of Cyprus. He also worked as a postdoctoral researcher at RUDN University and at the Cyprus University of Technology. His research interests include phonetics, phonology, speech acquisition, and speech-language disorders. He has published over 35 refereed articles in highimpact journals such as Attention, Perception and Psychophysics, Applied Acoustics, Behavioral Sciences, Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, Cognitive Processing, International Journal of Bilingualism, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Language Learning and Development, Language Sciences, Scientific Reports, Speech Communication, Speech, Language, and Hearing, and other. He has also published several monographs, edited volumes, book chapters, and articles in conference proceedings. He has presented papers at over 50 conferences worldwide and has been invited as a guest speaker at various academic meetings around the globe. He is a member of the International Speech Communication Association, the European Association for Signal Processing, and other academic societies. Aretousa Giannakou is a lecturer at the Department of Languages and Literature of the University of Nicosia. She holds a PhD in Linguistics and an xi

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About the Editors

MPhil in Research in Second Language Education (with distinction) from the University of Cambridge, an MA in Hispanic American Literature (with distinction) from the University of Chile, and two BAs in Hispanic Language and Philology and Education from the University of Athens. Her research interests include comparative syntax, second language acquisition, the syntax-discourse/ pragmatics interface, language attrition, bilingualism and heritage languages, particularly Greek and (Latin American) Spanish, as well as educational linguistics and intercultural education. Her research work has been published in international journals and presented at international conferences in Europe, the UK, Latin America, Asia, and the USA. Christine Savvidou  is an Associate Professor at the University of Nicosia and holds a doctorate in Teacher Education from the University of Nottingham, UK. Currently, she is the coordinator of the PhD TESOL programme at the University of Nicosia where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses and supervises PhD students. Her research focuses on Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, second language teacher education, professional development, and professional knowledge and identity in second language teaching. A member of several professional associations, she is an active researcher and regularly presents at international conferences. She has published work in several international refereed journals, including Intercultural Education, Technology, Pedagogy and Education, Journal of Teacher Development, Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, and Teaching English with Technology.

Notes on Contributors

Safi Eldeen Alzi’abi  an instructional professor at Isra University, Jordan, holds an M.A. from York University in 1992 and a Ph.D. from Swansea University in 1995. With nearly 27 years of teaching experience in various Arab countries, his academic focus centers on vocabulary acquisition, dictionary usage, phonetics, and phonology. His overarching objective is to tackle language-related challenges, empowering Arab EFL learners and improving their vocabulary and phonetic skills. His contributions to the field are substantial, encompassing three books and many articles published in local and international journals. Beyond his publications, his commitment to academic excellence extends to serving on the peer-review boards of several EFL journals and holding positions on the editorial boards of select language and education journals. Moreover, he boasts over 30 years of experience in course design and the development of instructional materials for linguistics and academic writing courses. Themistoklis Aravossitas  holds a Bachelor of Education from the University of Athens, Greece. He received his M.A. degree, focusing on second-language education, from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. from the Department of Curriculum Teaching & Learning and the Knowledge Media Design Institute. He was awarded a SSHR Canada Post Doc Scholarship at the University of the Aegean, Greece, and continued his research on the fields of heritage language pedagogy and the Greek Diaspora. His publications include the co-edited volumes: Handbook of Research and Practice in Heritage Language Education (2017); Interdisciplinary Research xiii

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Notes on Contributors

Approaches to Multilingual Education (2018); Language Diversity and Education Matters (2019); Language Diversity in Greece: Local Challenges with International Implications (2020). He is currently working on community-based projects that involve researching community-based schools and developing resources for heritage language teachers and learners across Canada. Cain Catto  is a young professional with research interests in L2 language acquisition, historical linguistics, and psycholinguistics. Cain has a longstanding interest in world languages and how they impact our lives. In 2022, Cain received his Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics and Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the Pennsylvania State University. Currently, Cain is exploring graduate school options and hopes to continue working in the world of psycholinguistics. Constantina Fotiou  is a sociolinguist and an English-language teacher and trainer at the University of Cyprus, Cyprus. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Sociolinguistics. She has presented her work in a number of international and local conferences and published a number of papers in peer-reviewed journals, such as such as The International Journal of Bilingualism, Frontiers in Communication, English Today, and Lingua. She is a member of LAGB, IATEFL, MATSDA, and CyLing. Anna Gavarró  is Full Professor of Linguistics in the Departament de Filologia Catalana at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Spain. She obtained a B.A. from the Universitat de Barcelona and her Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh. She has investigated mainly the syntax of first-language acquisition and, to a lesser extent, of agrammatic aphasia, with a focus on Romance. She is the author of numerous articles in international journals, including Language Acquisition, Journal of Child Language, Lingua, Glossa, Probus, Applied Psycholinguistics, Second Language Research, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Frontiers in Psychology, and PNAS, as well as articles in edited volumes. She has also participated in several reference works, like the Gramàtica del Català Contemporani. She actively participates in the creation of diagnostic tools for Catalan. Until recently she was the director of the Centre de Lingüística Teòrica of the UAB. Tan Arda Gedik  is a Ph.D. candidate at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU) Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany. His research interests revolve around the multifaceted dimensions of literacy and its implications for native language learning. Specifically, his work centers on investigating how literacy influences L1 linguis-

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tic knowledge, with a particular focus on the intricate interplay between print exposure, illiteracy, and nonverbal IQ in illiterate L1 speakers. Gedik has shed light on the transformative power of literacy, demonstrating how even in adulthood individuals can experience substantial enhancements in their morphosyntactic proficiency through increased exposure to written language. His forthcoming papers investigate the relationship between reading and morphosyntactic productivity in L1 Turkish speakers and the role of nonverbal IQ in illiterate L1 speakers. He also developed an author recognition task and a vocabulary size test for Turkish L1 speakers. Ghiyath Alshaikh Ibrahim  a lecturer in the Department of English at both Idlib University and Free Aleppo University, Northwest Syria, holds an M.A. in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) from University of Aleppo, an M.A. in Applied Linguistics from Idlib University, and a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Free Aleppo University. He has been teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) at Syrian schools and universities for over 26 years. He has actively participated in multiple conferences on second-language acquisition and has a keen interest in further exploring the factors that contribute to the development of listening skills among Arab EFL learners. Recently, he has observed a notable disparity in academic achievements between Syrian EFL female students and their male counterparts studying at the same universities in Northwest Syria. He is currently conducting some research to uncover the underlying reasons behind this phenomenon. His contributions to the field of applied linguistics are evident in two studies published in the Research Journal of Free Aleppo University. Panagiota Margaza  holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science and Language from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. She first obtained her B.A. in Greek Philology from the University of Patras. Her main line of research interest focuses on processing, representation, and language acquisition, with Greek and Spanish as the main L1–L2 bidirectional language combination. She has participated in several research projects regarding language development and linguistic variation in bilingual contexts. She has also presented her research work in several international conferences like Going Romance, Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (GASLA), International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB), and International Symposium of Psycholinguistics. Recently, her work has been published in several international journals, including Glossa, Second Language Research, and Frontiers in Psychology.

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Notes on Contributors

Yuka Naito  is a Ph.D. student in at the University of Pavia, Italy. She obtained her master’s degree from Sapienza University of Rome. Her primary academic interests include second-language acquisition and speech perception, with particular focus on suprasegmental phonology and phonetics. Her research interests also lie in language revitalization (of the Ladin language) and problems and difficulties of translation. Her publications are as follows: Naito, Y. (2020). La fraseologia calviniana in giapponese: Il caso di Mapputattsu no shishaku [Calvino’s Phraseology in Japanese: The Case of Mapputattsu no shishaku], published after her master’s degree, in S. E. Koesters Gensini and A. Berardini ed. Si dice in tanti modi: Fraseologia e traduzioni nel Visconte dimezzato di Italo Calvino. Rome: Sapienza Università Editrice., pp. 399–426.; Naito, Y. (2017). Come insegnare italiano L2 agli studenti di madrelingua giapponese? L’intonazione [How Do We Teach L2 Italian to Japanese Students? Intonation], based on her bachelor’s degree thesis carried out at the University for Foreigners of Siena, in P. Diadori and E. Carrea ed. La NUOVA DITALS risponde 1. Rome: Edilingua, pp. 137–144. Kata Baditzné Pálvölgyi  holds a Ph.D. in Neo-Latin Linguistics and is a faculty member in the Department of Hispanic Philology at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest. Her research focuses on intonation, with her doctoral thesis examining the Spanish intonation of Hungarian learners, defended in 2012. She collaborates with researchers at the University of Barcelona on intonation-related projects and has authored and co-authored publications in the areas of intonation and Spanish-language teaching, for example the book “La aplicación de modelos entonativos en la descripción de las interlenguas: el caso del húngaro-español” (The Application of Intonational Models in the Description of Interlanguages: The Case of Hungarian-Spanish). Additionally, she co-founded the research group TALES (Taller de Lingüística Española, “Workshop of Spanish Linguistics”) at ELTE. Her academic work encompasses linguistics, language acquisition, and involvement in various education and teacher training projects. Starting in 2023, she assumed the role of Head of the Centre of Methodology at ELTE’s Faculty of Humanities. Natalia Pavlou is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cyprus, Cyprus. She is interested in syntax and morphology and their interface and a major goal of her research is to understand the structure of sentences and words. She has also worked on experimental projects investigating adult speech and children’s speech development in diglossic contexts.

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Sarah Schaech  is an Assistant Language Teacher for the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. She received a Bachelor’s Degree in Linguistics from Bucknell University and has worked as a lab manager for the Center for Language Science at Penn State University. She is interested in phonology and second-language acquisition. Katharina S. Schuhmann  holds a Ph.D. from the Stony Brook University, NY, USA. She is an Assistant Professor (Juniorprofessorin) of German as a Foreign Language at University of Oldenburg, Germany. She conducts research and writes on foreign- and second-language (L2) acquisition, psycholinguistics, language contact-effects, and linguistic theory. The linguistic aspects she focuses on involve primarily phonetics, in particular acoustic analyses, phonology, and morphology. Schuhmann is interested in instructed and untutored language learning, L2 pronunciation development, perceptual learning, cross-linguistic effects, language adaptation, as well as language mediation in multilingual contexts. One portion of her work places a large emphasis on speech perception in L2 or bilingual listeners and cross-linguistic effects in language processing at the phonetic-phonological level. In another area, she works on speech production, including pronunciation instruction and the development of L2 sound categories, paying particular attention to individual differences. Finally, Schuhmann tests for cross-linguistic outcomes and drift effects in speakers’ first language (L1) as a result of learning additional languages. She works on a variety of languages, including German, English, Spanish, and heritage languages, and studies bilingual and multilingual speakers with various language combinations. Andry Sophocleous is Associate Researcher of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nicosia, Cyprus. Her research interests focus on dialect use in education, language and identity construction, and language and culture. Her publications have appeared in Sociolinguistic Studies, Multilingua, Linguistics and Education, the Journal of Language, Identity & Education, Language, Culture and Curriculum, and the International Journal of Multilingualism. Fatıma Uslu  holds a Master’s Degree in Linguistics from Friedrich-SchillerUniversität (FSU) Jena, Germany. Uslu’s primary research interest lies in foreign language development, where she has dedicated her expertise to investigating the impact of print exposure on non-native speakers. Her work delves into the crucial role that print exposure plays in enhancing collocational knowledge among individuals striving to acquire a foreign language. Uslu has shed light on the ways in which exposure to written material can greatly influence a nonnative speaker’s ability to comprehend and employ idiomatic language expressions and word combinations.

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Pitch accent identification accuracy 10 Fig. 1.2 Mean score progress of musicians vs. non-musicians under the HV training condition (Panel A) and under the LV training condition (Panel B) 11 Fig. 1.3 Accuracy of musical note identification for the three types of timbers (piano, pure tone, and guitar) as a function of the number of semitone errors allowed 12 Fig. 2.1 Mean percent rated as target phonemes scores for all seven participants in the critical condition, separated by phoneme type 32 Fig. 2.2 Individuals’ mean percent rated as target phonemes scores by interview number, separated by phoneme type, for the four participants with lowest number of cases rated as target phonemes in the critical condition (jitter added to improve visibility)33 Fig. 2.3 Mean percent rated as target phonemes scores for the four lowest-­scoring participants, separated by phoneme type 34 Fig. 2.4 Mean percent rated as target phonemes scores for individual / Cw/-clusters for all participants 35 Fig. 2.5 Mean percent goodness ratings scores for all seven participants in the critical condition, separated by phoneme (cluster)-categories 36 Fig. 2.6 All seven individuals’ mean percent goodness ratings scores by interview number, separated by phoneme type 37 xix

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List of Figures

Fig. 2.7 Reaction time (outliers capped) by interview number and separated by phoneme (cluster) type Fig. 3.1 The melody of declarative utterances in Spanish, according to Bolinger (1961), represented by a shape of a suspension bridge, and by Chela-Flores (2003, p. 260); the sentence means ‘Mariano gave me the golden coin’ (my translation), stressed syllables are in italics Fig. 3.2 Relative prosodic prominence associated to stressed syllables of a Spanish utterance from Jaén Cuando estás allí, tienes que marcar otra diagonal ‘when you are there, you have to mark another diagonal (street)’ Fig. 3.3 Tonal change with respect to the average tone of the speaker (values in %) Fig. 3.4 Intensity change with respect to the average tone of the speaker (values in %) Fig. 3.5 Duration change with respect to the average tone of the speaker (values in %) Fig. 3.6 A declarative utterance Al paraíso del agave ‘to the paradise of the agave’ from an HLS, with high final prosodic values on the last syllable Fig. 4.1 IntG’s mean scores for listening strategies after treatment Fig. 4.2 IntG (1) and ConG’s (2) mean scores after the treatment Fig. 5.1 Subject positions with transitive verbs Fig. 5.2 Transitive subjects with an adverbial in neutral contexts Fig. 5.3 Transitive subjects with two adverbials in contrastive contexts Fig. 6.1 Means of grammatical stimuli Fig. 6.2 Means of ungrammatical stimuli Fig. 6.3 Means of grammatical stimuli per proficiency Fig. 6.4 Means of ungrammatical stimuli per proficiency Fig. 7.1 Handout: ‘The Clean Park’ given in class Fig. 7.2 Handout: ‘How do you feel about cell phones’ given in class Fig. 7.3 Continuum of discourse repertoires observed in EAL classes Fig. 8.1 Overall responses (Pavlou & Fotiou, 2022) Fig. 8.2 Overall results by age (Pavlou & Fotiou, 2022) Fig. 8.3 Overall data Fig. 8.4 Teenagers Fig. 9.1 Greeks in Canada. (Statistics Canada, 2022) Fig. 9.2 Greek speakers and generation status. (Statistics Canada, 2011, 2018)

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58 60 61 61 62 86 87 111 113 115 132 133 134 135 153 160 165 182 182 183 184 202 202

List of Tables

Table 1.1 Structure of the high variability phonetic training (HVPT) experiment6 Table 2.1 Participants’ English language background 28 Table 2.2 Timeline of participants’ four Zoom sessions 29 Table 2.3 The four conditions: +/− pronunciation training, +/− selfmonitoring30 Table 3.1 Data from the informants from northern Spain 55 Table 3.2 Data from the informants from southern Spain 56 Table 3.3 Data from the Argentine informants 56 Table 3.4 Data from the Hungarian learners of Spanish 57 Table 3.5 Results of the comparison of the prosodic data of the stressed syllables (average, in %) 59 Table 4.1 Values of Likert’s five-point scale 83 Table 4.2 IntG and ConG’s listening skill level before treatment 84 Table 4.3 IntG’s points of the post-listening strategy questionnaire (ps: point square) 85 Table 4.4 IntG’s (n = 25) use of listening strategies before and after treatment (self-report strategy use) 86 Table 4.5 IntG and ConG’s mean scores for listening skill levels after the treatment 86 Table 5.1 Participants in Version 1 for L2 Greek 109 Table 5.2 Participants in Version 2 for L2 Spanish 109

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List of Tables

Table 5.3 Preverbal subjects with transitives in pragmatically neutral contexts112 Table 5.4 Preverbal subjects with transitives with an adverbial in neutral contexts 114 Table 5.5 Postverbal subjects with transitives with two adverbials in contrastive contexts 115 Table 5.6 Fulfilment of the IH predictions 117 Table 6.1 Entrenchment in Turkish*English ditransitive, grammatical 128 Table 6.2 Entrenchment in Turkish*English ditransitive, ungrammatical129 Table 6.3 ANOVA results 138 Table 8.1 Participants (Pavlou & Fotiou, 2022) 180 Table 8.2 Overall results (Pavlou & Fotiou, 2022) 181 Table 9.1 Language maintenance and vitality factors 200

1 Does Musical Training Influence Perceptual Learning of Japanese Pitch Accent? The Case of Native Italian Speakers Yuka Naito

1 Introduction Pitch is one of the essential components of speech and music, and a substantial amount of literature has examined whether musical training and/ or experience facilitates lexical tone perception (see e.g. Alexander et al., 2005; Burnham et  al., 2015; Delogu et  al., 2010; Gottfried, 2007; Gottfried & Xu, 2008; Lee et al., 2014; Lee & Hung, 2008; Marie et al., 2011; Mok & Zuo, 2012). Such previous studies have largely converged to indicate a positive effect of musical training or experience on lexical tone perception (Ong et al., 2020). Compared to lexical tone perception, fewer studies have investigated the influence of musical training or experience on the learning of lexical tone perception, and none have explored its influence on the learning of Japanese lexical pitch accent. Regarding its effect on lexical tone learning in Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Thai, and synthesized stimuli, prior

Y. Naito (*) Department of Humanities, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Georgiou et al. (eds.), Advances in Second/Foreign Language Acquisition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38522-3_1

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experimental works have shown mixed results (e.g. Cooper & Wang, 2012; Tong & Tang, 2016; Wayland et al., 2010; Wong & Perrachione, 2007; Zhao & Kuhl, 2015). On one hand, in the studies of Wayland et al. (2010), Zhao and Kuhl (2015), and Tong and Tang (2016), non-­ tone language musicians and non-musicians improved to more or less the same degree after linguistic perceptual training. On the other hand, in the studies of Cooper and Wang (2012), and Wong and Perrachione (2007), non-tone language musicians outperformed non-tone language non-musicians. It bears noting that there is no consensus about the definition of a musician in the literature (Ong et al., 2020), and each study had its own definition. For example, while Wayland et al. (2010) defined a musician as an individual with at least six years of musical experience, Burnham et  al. (2015) and Delogu et  al. (2010) defined them as an individual belonging to music-training institutions. The latter definition was adopted in the current research, since it seemed the best way to create a homogeneous group of musicians. Burnham et al. (2015) showed that non-tone-language musicians outperformed non-tone-language non-musicians at tone discrimination; and what is more, that musicians with absolute pitch were more accurate than both groups at discriminating lexical tone. Therefore, it would be interesting to further investigate the influence of musical training and absolute pitch on learning of the Japanese pitch accent. With respect to linguistic perceptual learning, the current study focuses on high variability phonetic training (henceforth HVPT): “perceptual training […] in which the auditory training stimuli include numerous samples, produced by multiple talkers, in varied phonetic contexts” (Thomson, 2018, p. 209). The reason for this focus is twofold. Firstly, in the past 30 years the effectiveness of HVPT has been demonstrated in a considerable amount of research (e.g. Georgiou, 2021, 2022) conducted following two seminal studies which examined the perception of /l/ and /r/ by Japanese learners of English (Lively et al., 1993; Logan et al., 1991). Secondly, a facilitative effect of HVPT on the learning of Japanese pitch accent by native English speakers with no prior experience of Japanese was reported by Shport (2011, 2016). The present study is closely based on Shport’s methodology.

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However, it should be noted that the benefits of HVPT (meant as talker variability) have been observed to be uneven for participants (Silpachai, 2020). Perrachione et al. (2011) and Sadakata and McQueen (2014) found that high variability (HV) input, in other words, stimuli recorded by multiple talkers, was effective only for participants with strong perceptual abilities and less effective for participants with weaker perceptual abilities. As far as the author knows, no study has explored whether HVPT has any influence on the perception of Japanese pitch accent by musicians compared to non-musicians, or whether HV input is more effective than low variability (LV) input (meant as stimuli recorded by a single talker).

1.1 The Present Study To address the issues mentioned above, this ongoing research aims mainly at examining whether musical training (not musical aptitude) has any effects on HVPT for Japanese pitch accent in Italian native speakers with no prior experience of Japanese. The reason why Italian native speakers were chosen as experimental subjects is that the Italian language is very different from Japanese in terms of the accent system: Italian is a stress-­ accent language (Leoni & Maturi, 2018). By contrast, standard Japanese has lexical pitch accent, which is a bitonal high-low accent implemented as an F0 (fundamental frequency) peak followed by a steep F0 fall at a lexically designated syllable in a word (Beckman & Pierrehumbert, 1986; Shport, 2011, 2016). In Japanese a word may be accented on a particular syllable or unaccented to give different meanings such as háshi 箸 “chopsticks,” hashí 橋 “bridge,” hashi 端 “edge” (Shport, 2011, 2016). Given this fundamental difference between the two languages, it can be imagined that it would be difficult for an Italian native speaker to identify Japanese pitch accent and it would be interesting to explore whether the effectiveness of HVPT found by Shport (2011, 2016) for native speakers of American English also holds for native speakers of Italian, another non-­tone language. Another aim of this research is to explore the possible effect of talker variability in training stimuli on the results of HVPT in Italian participants. In the training phase, the two categories (musicians

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and non-musicians) were further divided into two sub-groups based on training conditions: a high variability training group and a low variability training group. Given the aims described above, this project in progress so far consists of an HVPT experiment on Japanese pitch accent and an absolute pitch test (only for participants currently involved in formal musical training). The first hypothesis was that Italian musicians would outperform Italian non-musicians in identifying Japanese pitch accent. It was difficult to predict whether the difference between the two groups would decrease or increase after training, since previous studies presented mixed findings (Cooper & Wang, 2012; Tong & Tang, 2016; Wayland et  al., 2010; Wong & Perrachione, 2007; Zhao & Kuhl, 2015). It was expected that there would be some difference in the ability to identify Japanese pitch accent between musicians with absolute pitch and those without absolute pitch. Note that the present study adopted the following definition of absolute pitch: the ability to name or produce a note of a particular pitch without a reference note, for example naming a tone as “C,” “261 Hz,” or “do” (Burnham et al., 2015; Deutsch et al., 2006). With regard to talker variability, it was also predicted that HV input would be more effective for Italian musicians compared to Italian non-musicians.

2 Methodology 2.1 HVPT Experiment on Japanese Pitch Accent The methodology was mostly based on Shport (2011, 2016) but introduced three novel aspects. Firstly, the experiment was conducted entirely online by means of the Gorilla software package (Anwyl-Irvine et  al., 2020), rather than in a laboratory. Secondly, as described below, there were two categories of participants: musicians and non-musicians. Lastly, each category was further subdivided in the training phase into an HV training condition and an LV training condition.

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Participants A total of 64 adult native speakers of Italian took part in the study. None of the participants had prior experience in Japanese or any other tone languages. In addition, all of them reported having normal or corrected-­ to-­normal vision and unimpaired hearing. The cohort was comprised of two groups: musicians and non-­ musicians. Musicians were defined as individuals engaged in formal tertiary-­level musical training, including those enrolled in conservatories, musical institutes, or majoring in musicology at university, in line with Burnham et al. (2015), Delogu et al. (2010), Lee and Hung (2008), and Lee et al. (2014). This definition was used to create as homogeneous a group of musicians as possible, given that the main aim of the current study is to investigate the effect of musical training on perceptual learning of Japanese pitch accent. Non-musicians were defined as people with three years or less of continuous private musical training, and no music lessons at the time of recruitment (Alexander et  al., 2005; Wong & Perrachione, 2007). The musician group consisted of 32 students (16 male, 16 female; mean age = 24.4 years; SD = 4.9 years). They were recruited from the University of Pavia (majoring in Musicology) and two other musical institutes in Lombardy. The non-musician group also consisted of 32 students (16 male, 16 female; mean age = 23.1 years; SD = 2.2 years) recruited from five universities in Lombardy. Thus, all participants were higher education students in Lombardy. They had similar ages and similar levels of education. Each participant in the two groups was randomly assigned to one of two training conditions: HV training or LV training. Due to a slight glitch in the automated randomization process, 15 participants in each group were given the HV condition and 17 the LV condition.

Stimuli The stimuli were identical to those used in Shport (2011, 2016), that is seven Japanese carrier sentences containing 36 target words, consisting of

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12 triplets of segmentally identical disyllabic words that carried one of three pitch patterns (first-syllable accented; second-syllable accented, and unaccented). The position of the target word in the carrier sentences varied between the initial position: __ ga kakemasu. “(I) can write __.”; and the medial position: Watáshi wa __ ga kakemasu. “I can write __.” (for the other five carrier sentences, see Shport, 2011, 2016). The stimuli were recorded by six native Japanese speakers, who were born, grew up, and live in the Tokyo metropolitan area (namely, in either Tokyo, Chiba, or Saitama prefectures). Recordings were made in PCM WAV format, at 44.1 kHz sampling rate, 32-bit sample size and mono channel.

Procedure The experiment was run on the Gorilla software (Anwyl-Irvine et  al., 2020). Each participant carried out tasks entirely online using a desktop or laptop computer at home. Participants were asked to wear their own headphones or earphones while performing auditory tasks. Informed consent was obtained before they started the tasks. The experiment consisted of five phases as can be seen in Table 1.1. Three alternative forced-choice identification tasks were administered in all phases, but feedback was given to participants only in the training phase. The training phase consisted of three sessions of approximately 20, 20, and 10 minutes on consecutive days (corresponding to 144, 144, and 72 Table 1.1  Structure of the high variability phonetic training (HVPT) experiment Experimental phase

Day

Duration (min)

Pretest Training Posttest (same as the pretest) Test of generalization 1 (Gen-1): Novel stimuli, familiar talker Test of generalization 2 (Gen-2): Novel stimuli and talker

1 1, 2, 3 3 4

22 22, 22, 10 22 22

4

22

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trials). The trial-by-trial feedback given in the training phase consisted of the answer together with a diagram of the correct pitch pattern. Participants also heard the audio file of the trial one more time, irrespective of their answer, shortly after the feedback was displayed. As mentioned, participants (musicians and non-musicians) were further subdivided into two groups: the HV training group and the LV training group. In the HV training condition, input consisted of stimuli recorded by four talkers (two male and two female), whereas in the LV training condition, input consisted of the same stimuli recorded by a single female talker (one of the talkers used in the HV training condition). Two tests of generalization were given in order to see if participants could generalize their knowledge to new words and new talkers. The stimuli used in these tests were three Japanese carrier sentences containing 18 target words (six triplets of segmentally identical words). This meant there were 162 trials in each test (the same number of trials used at the pretest and the posttest). These stimuli were not used either at the pretest/posttest or in the training. The difference between test of generalization 1 (Gen-1) and test of generalization 2 (Gen-2) is that different talkers produced the stimuli. The stimuli used at Gen-1 were recorded by a familiar, single female talker whose voice had been present in both training conditions, whereas the stimuli employed at Gen-2 were produced by a novel talker. Thus, while Gen-1 was carried out to assess participants’ ability to generalize novel stimuli produced by a familiar talker, Gen-2 was to assess participants’ ability to generalize novel stimuli recorded by a novel talker. The reason for carrying out the experiment entirely online was the COVID-19 pandemic. The quality of the data collected this way (rather than in a laboratory) was ensured by requiring participants to adhere to a protocol. Firstly, they had to complete the experiment within two weeks of the first day (the whole experimental procedure, to be reported fully in the author’s PhD thesis, took participants a total of approximately four hours to complete). In addition to this, they were instructed to finish each experimental Day (see Table 1.1) within 24 hours of starting it. This ensured that experimental conditions did not differ significantly between participants, since all participants tested entirely online at any time they wished within the Day. After completing a given Day, participants were

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also instructed to wait at least eight hours before starting the next. This restriction was imposed so that participants could not perform all tasks in one single day.

2.2 The Absolute Pitch Test This test, aimed at identifying musicians with absolute pitch, was mostly a replication of Deutsch et al. (2006), Lee and Hung (2008), and Lee et al. (2014) with the following modification: it was conducted entirely online by means of the Gorilla software package (Anwyl-Irvine et al., 2020).

Participants Only the 32 musicians participated in the absolute pitch test.

Stimuli The stimuli consisted of 108 musical notes. Specifically, these were 36 notes which spanned the three-octave range from C3 to B5, replicated in three types of timbres: piano and acoustic guitar sounds and pure tone. The piano and guitar sounds were created with the GarageBand application incorporated in MacOS. The pure tones were generated by the Praat software (Boersma & Weenink, 2021). Each note lasted 500 ms.

Procedure Like the HPVT experiment, the absolute pitch test was run on the Gorilla software (Anwyl-Irvine et al., 2020). Each participant carried out tasks entirely online using a desktop or laptop computer at home. Participants were asked to wear their own headphones or earphones while performing auditory tasks.

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Musicians were asked to identify the note names of the musical tones without having a reference pitch. They were instructed to click on the correct note name in a list immediately after each tone was played. No feedback was given. The test lasted approximately 15 minutes.

3 Results Since the present study is still in progress, only its preliminary results are presented here.

3.1 The HVPT Experiment Participants’ performances during the pretest, the posttest, and the two tests of generalization were calculated in terms of the percentage of Japanese pitch accents identified correctly. No-response trials were considered as incorrect answers as described by Shport (2016). Figure 1.1 illustrates pitch accent identification accuracy for non-­ musicians vs. musicians. Mean scores are shown as a percentage of the 162 trials administered in each test. Non-musicians are shown in light gray and musicians are shown in dark gray. What stands out in Fig.  1.1 is that musicians outperformed non-­ musicians in all four tests. It is also noticeable that, in both groups, the scores for the posttest and the two tests of generalization (Gen-1 and Gen-2) are higher than the pretest scores. The training thus had a positive effect in both groups. However, a more detailed look at Fig. 1.1 reveals that musicians showed greater improvement from the pretest to the posttest, Gen-1 and Gen-2. In fact, the difference between two groups clearly increased after the pretest (at the pretest: 7.5%; at the posttest: 12.6%; at Gen-1: 12.1%; at Gen-2: 9.7%). Participants’ accuracy score was examined using a mixed ANOVA with Test (pretest, posttest, Gen-1 and Gen-2) as the within-subjects factor and Group (musician and non-musician) as the between-subjects factor. Analyses were conducted using JASP version 0.16.3 (JASP Team, 2022). Since Mauchly’s test of sphericity showed a significant difference in

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Non-musiciains

Musicians

100%

Mean scores

80%

60%

40%

63.9% 51.6%

51.4%

44.1%

60.5% 48.4%

60.2% 50.6%

20%

0%

Pretest

Posttest

Gen-1

Gen-2

Fig. 1.1  Pitch accent identification accuracy

variation between the group differences (p