Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
The current study aimed to pinpoint some of the factors underlying the communication difficulties faced by Arabic-speaking immigrants learning Dutch as a second language (L2). To this end, six...Show moreThe current study aimed to pinpoint some of the factors underlying the communication difficulties faced by Arabic-speaking immigrants learning Dutch as a second language (L2). To this end, six classrooms where Dutch is taught as L2 were selected in order to investigate the level of the communicative orientation they foster. Part A of the COLT coding scheme (Fröhlich et al., 1985) was slightly modified and used for the classroom observations. That part of the scheme describes classroom events at the level of activity and contains categories related to participant organization, student modality, content and materials. The materials that seemed to highly control the classroom activities were also analysed in terms of their communicative orientation and in terms of the type and length of output they require from students. The results of the classroom observations revealed that that the communicative orientation was different among the six classes observed. It was minimal at some classes where the teacher was the dominant speaker and the sole controller of the topics discussed. Contrastively, students were passive learners who provided short, prescribed answers without involving in any kind of discussion. Classes with a minimal level of communicativeness were also characterized by being form-focused with minimal integration of meaning and by being highly controlled by the course materials. Other classes fostered the communicative competence at a moderate level. At these classes students were limitedly active, the integration of meaning was higher and group/pair discussion was present. The third type of classes observed was highly communicative. At these classes teachers and learners alike involved in open discussion and they both determined the topics to be discussed. Most of these topics were of broad reference. The analysis of the materials ascertained that the course books used were not communicatively oriented as they stimulate limited output from learners; both in terms of type and length. Nevertheless, a shift in the communicative orientation towards the more communicative end was traced throughout the two books.Show less
Previous research on speech fluency and persuasiveness has generally focused on the effect that measures of speech fluency have on measures of perceived persuasiveness in native speech. In this...Show morePrevious research on speech fluency and persuasiveness has generally focused on the effect that measures of speech fluency have on measures of perceived persuasiveness in native speech. In this study an experiment was carried out to examine how the fluency measure of speech rate affects native and non-native speech in four different persuasive scenarios. Recordings of a native and non-native speaker were manipulated phonetically, resulting in fast and slow recordings for each scenario. Persuasiveness was measured on three dimensions, with one measure of belief change, and two measures of perceived persuasiveness: message perception and speaker perception. The results indicated that the persuasiveness of native and non-native speech is affected differently by speech fluency manipulations. A significant interaction was found for two of the three variables (belief change and speaker perception), indicating that the native speaker was more persuasive with a higher speech rate, whereas the persuasiveness of the non-native speaker was unaffected. For the message perception variable, there was no significant interaction effect, but there was a significant effect for fluency and nativeness, indicating the native speaker was more persuasive, and the fast speaker was more persuasiveShow less
