Affect Language Interactions In Native And Non Native English Speakers

This volume provides an up-to-date and evaluative review of theoretical and empirical stances on emotion and its close interaction with language and cognition in monolingual and bilingual individuals. Importantly, it presents a novel methodological approach that takes into account contextual information and hence goes beyond the reductionist approach to affective language that has dominated contemporary research. Owing to this pragmatic approach, the book presents brand new findings in the field of bilingualism and affect and offers the first neurocognitive interpretation of findings reported in clinical and introspective studies in bilingualism. This not only represents an invaluable contribution to the literature, but may also constitute a breakthrough in the investigation of the worldwide phenomenon of bilingualism. Beginning with a thorough review of the history and current state of affective research and its relation to language, spanning philosophical, psychological, neuroscientific, and linguistic perspectives, the volume then proceeds to explore affect manifestation using neuropragmatic methods in monolingual and bilingual individuals. In doing so, it brings together findings from clinical and introspective studies in bilingualism with cognitive, psychophysiological and neuroimaging paradigms. By combining conceptual understanding and methodological expertise from many disciplines, this volume provides a comprehensive picture of the dynamic interactions between contextual and affective information in the language domain. Thus, Affect-Language Interactions in Native and Non-Native English Speakers: A Neuropragmatic Perspective fosters a pragmatic approach to research on affective language processing in monolingual and bilingual population, one that builds bridges across disciplines and sparks important new questions in the cognitive neuroscience of bi- and multilingualism.

This book, written for both seasoned and novice researchers, presents a theory of what is called Basic and Higher Language Cognition (BLC and HLC), a theory aimed at making some fundamental issues concerning first and second language learning and bilingualism (more) empirical. The first part of the book provides background for and explication of the theory as well as an agenda for future research, while the second part reports on selected studies of language proficiency in native speakers, as well as non-native speakers, and studies of the relationship between literacy in a first and second language. Conceptual and methodological problems in measuring language proficiency in research on second language acquisition and bilingualism are also discussed. Further, the notion of levels of language proficiency, as rendered by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), is critically examined, suggesting ways of empirically investigating a number of questions that the CEFR raises but is not capable of answering.

The four-volume set LNCS 9296-9299 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th IFIP TC13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, INTERACT 2015, held in Bamberg, Germany, in September 2015. The 41 papers included in the first volume are organized in topical sections on accessibility; accessible interfaces for blind people; accessible interfaces for older adults; affective HCI and emotions and motivational aspects; alternative input; alternative input devices for people with disabilities; interfaces for cognitive support; brain-computer interaction; cognitive factors.

The interplay between musical training and speech perception continues to intrigue researchers in the areas of language and music alike. Historically, language function has been attributed to brain regions localized predominately in left hemisphere, whereas music has been attributed to right hemisphere dominant regions. Recent studies demonstrating neural overlap for processing speech and music, and enhanced speech perception and production in musicians suggest that these regions may be inextricably intertwined. The extent of neural overlap between music and speech remains hotly debated, with surprisingly little empirical research exploring specific neural homo-logs and analogs. Moreover, despite recognition that shared processes likely exist throughout development and depend upon an individual’s acoustic experiences, even less research exists on how overlapping neural structures for music and language are affected by developmental trajectories. Nonetheless, the field is well poised to address key empirical questions, in part because of the recent development of new theories that address the neural and developmental interaction between music and language processing in conjunction with the broad availability of sophisticated tools for quantifying brain activity and dynamics. To understand the overlap of neural structures for language and music processing, research is needed to identify those specific functions of each that influence the other, with areas for enhanced perception of pitch and onset time having already been targeted. Research is also needed to identify the extent to which this overlap is developed in infancy or early childhood and the process by which it affects neural reorganization, plasticity, and trainability in adulthood. For this research topic, we would like to further explore the relationship between language and music in the brain from two perspectives: 1) understanding the nature of shared neural and cognitive processing for music and language and 2) understanding the developmental trajectory of these neural systems and how they are influenced by experience. We seek to gather technically diverse original research articles that present new empirical findings relevant to understanding: 1. When, in the brain, acoustic information becomes processed specifically as language or music. The shared and independent neural structures for processing music and language. 3. How acoustic experiences such as musical training influence overlap of neural structures for language and music. 4. How the overlap of processing regions changes over time due to experiences at any developmental stage.

While discourse markers have been examined in some detail, little is known about their usage by non-native speakers. This book provides valuable insights into the functions of four discourse markers (so, well, you know and like) in native and non-native English discourse, adding to both discourse marker literature and to studies in the pragmatics of learner language. It presents a thorough analysis on the basis of a substantial parallel corpus of spoken language. In this corpus, American students who are native speakers of English and German non-native speakers of English retell and discuss a silent movie. Each of the main chapters of the book is dedicated to one discourse marker, giving a detailed analysis of the functions this discourse marker fulfills in the corpus and a quantitative comparison between the two speaker groups. The book also develops a two-level model of discourse marker functions comprising a textual and an interactional level.

It is largely accepted in the relevant literature that successful learning of one or more non-native languages is affected by a number of factors that are independent of the target language(s) per se; these factors include the age of acquisition (AoA) of the target language(s), the type and amount of formal instruction the learners have received, as well as the amount of language use that the learners demonstrate. Recent experimental evidence suggests that one crucial factor for efficient native-like performance in the non-native language is the amount of naturalistic exposure, or immersion, that the learners receive to that language. This can be broadly defined as the degree to which language learners use their non-native language outside the classroom and for their day-to-day activities, and usually presupposes that the learners live in an environment where their non-native language is exclusively or mostly used. Existing literature has suggested that linguistic immersion can be beneficial for lexical and semantic acquisition in a non-native language, as well as for non-native morphological and syntactic processing. More recent evidence has also suggested that naturalistic learning of a non-native language can also have an impact on the patterns of brain activity underlying language processing, as well as on the structure of brain regions that are involved, expressed as changes in the grey matter structure. This Research Topic brings together studies on the effects of learning and speaking a non-native language in a naturalistic environment. These include more efficient or “native-like” processing in behavioural tasks tapping on language (lexicon, morphology, syntax), as well as changes in the brain structure and function, as revealed by neuroimaging studies.

This book explores the major challenges that the long-standing and diversely debated demise of postmodernism signifies for American literature, art, culture, history, and politics, in the present, third decade of the twenty-first century. Its scope comprises a vigorous discussion of all these diverse fields undertaken by distinguished scholars as well as junior researchers, U.S. Americanists and European Americanists alike. Focusing on socio-political and cultural developments in the contemporary U.S., their contributions highlight the interconnectedness of the geopolitical, economic, environmental and technological crises that define the historical present on global scale. Chapter 16 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This volume brings together experts from a wide range of disciplines to define and describe tabooed words and language and to investigate the reasons and beliefs behind them. In general, taboo is defined as a proscription of behaviour for a specific community, time, and context. In terms of language, taboo applies to instances of language behaviour: the use of certain words in certain contexts. The existence of linguistic taboos and their management lead to the censoring of behaviour and, as a consequence, to language change and development. Chapters in this volume explore the multiple types of tabooed language from a variety of perspectives, such as sociolinguistics, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, historical linguistics, and neurolinguistics, and with reference to fields such as law, publishing, politics, and advertising. Topics covered include impoliteness, swearing, censorship, taboo in deaf communities, translation of tabooed words, and the use of taboo in banter and comedy.