{"title":"Self-Assessment of the Sounds of the English Language that Pre-Service EFL Teachers Consider Problematic to Pronounce","authors":"Oleksandr (Alexander) Kapranov","doi":"10.4312/ELOPE.16.1.77-99","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ELOPE.16.1.77-99","url":null,"abstract":"The article presents and discusses a mixed-method study that aimed at establishing how pre-service teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) self-assessed those sounds of the English language that would cause problems for their pronunciation in EFL. Fourteen pre-service EFL teachers on the intermediate level of EFL proficiency whose first language (L1) was Norwegian were recruited for the study. They were asked to write reflectiveessays concerning the sounds of the English language that they considered problematic to pronounce. The participants’ essays were contrasted with the essays written by the control group that was comprised of 14 in-service EFL teachers whose L1 was Norwegian. The results of the analysis revealed that the participants identified several English sounds that they self-assessed as problematic to pronounce, e.g. /z/, /ð/, /θ/, and /ʌ/. The analysis of the controls’ essays yielded similar results. These findings and their linguo-didactic implications are discussed in the article.","PeriodicalId":37589,"journal":{"name":"ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83113798","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Trainee Translators’ Perceptions of the Role of Pronunciation and Speech Technologies in the Technology-Driven Translation Profession","authors":"Nataša Hirci","doi":"10.4312/ELOPE.16.1.29-45","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ELOPE.16.1.29-45","url":null,"abstract":"We live in a world of rapid technological advances which constantly affect the work of professional translators. Suitable training is therefore required for future translators to be able to compete on the translation market. With the rise of translation technologies, new ideas have been put forward on how to make translators faster and more efficient. Among the technologies that future translators may not be adequately familiar with are speech recognition tools; these enable translators to dictate their sight translation and have it typed out, allowing more time to focus on the content. However, as with all digital tools, the quality of input is important; a question thus arises on the role pronunciation assumes in such work. The present study aimed to establish how much awareness there is amongst the trainee translators of the possibilities afforded by speech technologies and to explore their perceptions of the role played by pronunciation.","PeriodicalId":37589,"journal":{"name":"ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81008165","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages and Co-Speech Gestures","authors":"Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica","doi":"10.4312/ELOPE.16.1.123-144","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ELOPE.16.1.123-144","url":null,"abstract":"The paper presents an overview of sign languages and co-speech gestures as two means of communication realised through the visuo-spatial modality. We look at previous research to examine the correlation between spoken and sign language phonology, but also provide an insight into the basic features of co-speech gestures. By analysing these features, we are able to see how these means of communication utilise phases of production (in the case of gestures) or parts of individual signs (in the case of sign languages) to convey or complement the meaning. Recent insights into sign languages as bona fide linguistic systems and co-speech gestures as a system which has no linguistic features but accompanies spoken language have shown that communication does not take place within just a single modality but is rather multimodal. By comparing gestures and sign languages to spoken languages, we are able to trace the transition from systems of communication involving simple form-meaning pairings to fully fledged morphological and syntactic complexities in spoken and sign languages, which gives us a new outlook on the emergence of linguistic phenomena.","PeriodicalId":37589,"journal":{"name":"ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81509151","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Challenges, Methods and Results of Teaching GB Pronunciation to Slovene EFL Students","authors":"Smiljana Komar","doi":"10.4312/ELOPE.16.1.101-122","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ELOPE.16.1.101-122","url":null,"abstract":"The paper presents and discusses the results of a study whose main purpose was to test the oral production of General British (GB) sounds in connected speech by Slovene BA students of English. Previous studies in contrastive English-Slovene pronunciation were mainly concerned with the perception and production of individual sounds. Our study, on the other hand, focused on the production of GB sounds in connected speech. We were interested in the state of affairs of English pronunciation before and after a 60-hour intensive and systematic theoretical and practical instruction of English pronunciation. The results confirmed out initial two hypotheses that the influences of L1 phonological and phonetic system, orthography and General American pronunciation were stronger before the instruction, and that the phonemic transcription has a very positive influence on the acquisition of foreign sounds in EFL students.","PeriodicalId":37589,"journal":{"name":"ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80793182","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Duration as a Phonetic Cue in Native and Non‑Native American English","authors":"Biljana Čubrović","doi":"10.4312/ELOPE.16.1.15-28","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ELOPE.16.1.15-28","url":null,"abstract":"This vowel study looks at the intricate relationship between spectral characteristics and vowel duration in the context of American English vowels, both from a native speaker (NS) and non-native speaker (NNS) perspective. The non-native speaker cohort is homogeneous in the sense that all speakers have Serbian as their mother tongue, but have been long-time residents of the US. The phonetic context investigated in this study is /bVt/, where V is one of the American English monophthongs /i ɪ u ʊ ε æ ʌ ɔ ɑ/. The results of the acoustic analysis show that the NNS vowels are generally longer than the NS vowels. Furthermore, NNSs neutralise the vowel quality of two tense and lax pairs of vowels, /i ɪ/ and /u ʊ/, and rely more heavily on the phonetic duration when prononuncing them.","PeriodicalId":37589,"journal":{"name":"ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79611431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reliability, Validity, and Writing Assessment: A Timeline","authors":"Nikola Dobrić","doi":"10.4312/ELOPE.15.2.9-24","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ELOPE.15.2.9-24","url":null,"abstract":"Looking at the issue of validity and test validation, the historical and the theoretical progression has been well described both when it comes to educational assessment in general and language assessment in particular. A clear progression can be seen starting in the 1920s and culminating in the late 1980s/early 1990s (with minor notable developments since), and it is an advancement motivated and driven almost solely by new theoretical and practical considerations. Securing validity and validation with regard to writing assessment in particular, however, took a more winding route and was primarily shaped by a power struggle between externally administered standardized testing (and the supporting administrative bodies) on one side, and the practicing teachers of writing at higher education institutions on the other. The paper at hand outlines this evolution and gives a timeline of the events and major developments that have fueled it and explores the cutting edge of today.","PeriodicalId":37589,"journal":{"name":"ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries","volume":"82 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84007251","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mary Hays, an Eighteenth-Century Woman Lexicographer at the Service of “the Female World”","authors":"Begoña Lasa Álvarez","doi":"10.4312/elope.15.2.81-94","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.15.2.81-94","url":null,"abstract":"The English reformist writer Mary Hays published a compilation of women’s biographies entitled Female Biography (1803), with the aim at providing other women with examples to emulate. she intended not only to convey her deepest convictions about women’s capacities and abilities, but also to leave her own stylistic imprint on the text. This study seeks to analyse diverse entries of Hays’s collection (Lady Dudleya North, Lady Damaris Masham, Margaret Roper, Aphra Behn, and Lady Rachel Russel) in order to elucidate her concerns as a data collector and biographer, and her techniques as a lexicographer, which are chiefly shaped by her concern about education and by her intended audience: women.","PeriodicalId":37589,"journal":{"name":"ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70577243","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Role of Motion Verbs in Conveying Path-Related Information in English and Slovene Fictive Motion Expressions","authors":"Frančiška Lipovšek","doi":"10.4312/ELOPE.15.2.63-78","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ELOPE.15.2.63-78","url":null,"abstract":"The paper presents a study on fictive motion (FM) uses of motion verbs in English and slovene from the point of view of conveying path-related information. An FM expression describes a static scene in terms of motion (e.g. The road weaves through a range of hills). Motion verbs in FM uses do not describe actual motion events, but may refer to certain properties of the path by virtue of their meanings. English and slovene FM expressions exhibit different behaviours in this respect. Many English verbs display meaning components that can be metonymically mapped onto the properties of the path. The meanings of slovene verbs are less specific, so that such properties need to be expressed verb-externally in slovene FM expressions.","PeriodicalId":37589,"journal":{"name":"ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries","volume":"48 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86559341","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Developing EFL Writing with Year 5 Pupils by Writing Summaries","authors":"Nataša Puhner, Mateja Dagarin Fojkar","doi":"10.4312/ELOPE.15.2.97-113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ELOPE.15.2.97-113","url":null,"abstract":"Developing EFL writing skills in primary school pupils is one of the most demanding and time consuming challenges that foreign language teachers face. The main aim of this study was thus to analyse 64 written summaries of Year 5 pupils in terms of content, structure, length and most often used words. In order to achieve the aim of pupils being able to write a summary of a story individually and in a given time frame, the task was approached gradually and systematically throughout the school year. The results show that most of the pupils managed to finish a structurally organized summary and most of them wrote a summary which included the most important aspects regarding the content of the story. The results of the survey indicate that a systematic approach to writing summaries helps pupils in developing their writing skills.","PeriodicalId":37589,"journal":{"name":"ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries","volume":"83 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83802290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Middle Construction in Minimalist Syntax: English and Slovenian","authors":"Jakob Lenardic","doi":"10.4312/ELOPE.15.2.45-61","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ELOPE.15.2.45-61","url":null,"abstract":"The paper discusses the argument structure of the English middle construction and its Slovenian equivalent from the perspective of minimalist syntax. The paper first introduces Bruening’s (2012) recent approach to syntactic middle formation, which posits that middle sentences are derived via an operator that existentially quantifies over the open agent variable introduced by an active Voice projection. Subsequently, the paper argues that the adverbial modifier in the middle construction is not a semantic argument of the null operator, contra Bruening (2012). Finally, the paper proposes that the reflexive morpheme se in the related Slovenian se-sentences plays a role of valency reduction similar to that of the null English operator.","PeriodicalId":37589,"journal":{"name":"ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries","volume":"399 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74961218","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}