Evaluating the intonation of non-native speakers of English using a computerised test battery

This study investigates the intonation of Chinese and Arabic learners of English using the computerized test battery Profiling Elements of Prosody for Speech and Communication (PEPS-C). The aims were to ascertain which aspects of intonation are difficult for these learners, and to determine whether PEPS-C can be used to assess the intonation of adult learners. Although some results were significantly different from native-speaker data, raw scores showed that the learner groups performed well in most tasks, which may indicate that the learners' level is too high for the PEPS-C to be useful. However, the PEPS-C did reveal that Arabic learners performed significantly worse at contrastive stress placement, and Chinese learners performed significantly worse assessing likes and dislikes.

L1 transfer in the acquisition of manner and path in Spanish by native speakers of English

In this article the authors argue that L1 transfer from English is not only important in the early stages of L2 acquisition of Spanish, but remains influential in later stages if there is not enough positive evidence for the learners to progress in their development (Lefebvre, White, & Jourdan, 2006). The findings are based on analyses of path and manner of movement in stories told by British students of Spanish (N = 68) of three different proficiency levels. Verbs that conflate motion and path, on the one hand, are mastered early, possibly because the existence of Latinate path verbs, such as enter and ascend in English, facilitate their early acquisition by British learners of Spanish. Contrary to the findings of Cadierno (2004) and Cadierno and Ruiz (2006), the encoding of manner, in particular in boundary crossing contexts, seems to pose enormous difficulties, even among students who had been abroad on a placement in a Spanish-speaking country prior to the data collection. An analysis of the frequency of manner verbs in Spanish corpora shows that one of the key reasons why students struggle with manner is that manner verbs are so infrequent in Spanish. The authors claim that scarce positive evidence in the language exposed to and little or no negative evidence are responsible for the long-lasting effect of transfer on the expression of manner.

Investigating the phytotoxicity of the graminicide fluazifop-P-butyl against native UK wildflower species

BACKGROUND: The selective graminicide fluazifop-P-butyl is used for the control of grass weeds in dicotyledonous crops, and commonly applied in amenity areas to reduce grass productivity and promote wildflower establishment. However, evidence suggests that fluazifop-P-butylmight also have phytotoxic effects on somenon-target plants. This study investigates the effects of fluazifop-P-butyl on the emergence, phytotoxicity and above-ground biomass of nine perennial wildflower species and two grass species, following pre- and post-emergent applications at half, full and double label rates in a series of glasshouse experiments. RESULTS: While pre- and post-emergent applications of fluazifop-P-butyl caused reductions in seedling emergence and increased phytotoxicity on native wildflower and grass species, these effects were temporary for the majority of wildflower species tested, and generally only occurred at the double application rate. No differences in biomass were observed at any of the rates, suggesting good selectivity and no long-term effects of fluazifop-P-butyl application on the wildflower species from either pre-emergent or post-emergent applications. CONCLUSION: These results have direct relevance to the management of amenity areas for biodiversity, as they confirm the suitability of these wildflower species for inclusion in seed mixtures where fluazifop-P-butyl is to be applied to control grass productivity.

Prediction and functional analysis of native disorder in proteins from the Three Kingdoms of Life

An automatic method for recognizing natively disordered regions from amino acid sequence is described and benchmarked against predictors that were assessed at the latest critical assessment of techniques for protein structure prediction (CASP) experiment. The method attains a Wilcoxon score of 90.0, which represents a statistically significant improvement on the methods evaluated on the same targets at CASP. The classifier, DISOPRED2, was used to estimate the frequency of native disorder in several representative genomes from the three kingdoms of life. Putative, long (>30 residue) disordered segments are found to occur in 2.0% of archaean, 4.2% of eubacterial and 33.0% of eukaryotic proteins. The function of proteins with long predicted regions of disorder was investigated using the gene ontology annotations supplied with the Saccharomyces genome database. The analysis of the yeast proteome suggests that proteins containing disorder are often located in the cell nucleus and are involved in the regulation of transcription and cell signalling. The results also indicate that native disorder is associated with the molecular functions of kinase activity and nucleic acid binding.

Is a native rodent competitively dominant over an invasive rodent in lowland agro-forest habitat of the Philippines?

In the lowland agro-forest of the Sierra Madre Biodiversity Corridor (SMBC), it is considered that a native rodent species, Rattus everetti is competitively dominant over an invasive pest species, Rattus tanezumi. The main aim of this study was to assess the response of R. tanezumi following short term removal of R. everetti. We tested this experimentally by trapping and removing R. everetti from two treatment sites in agro-forest habitat on three occasions over three consecutive months. This was followed by three months of non-removal trapping. Two non-treatment sites were trapped for comparison. Following R. everetti removal, R. everetti individuals rapidly immigrated into the treatment sites and a significantly higher proportion of R. tanezumi females were in breeding condition in the treatment sites than in the non-treatment sites. The results from this study provide evidence of competition between native and invasive rodent species in complex agro-ecosystems. We were also able to demonstrate that R. everetti populations are able to recover rapidly from the non-target effects of short-term lethal control in and around agro-forest.

Emergence of fluoroquinolone resistance in the native Campylobacter coli population of pigs exposed to enrofloxacin

Objective: The effect of a single 5 day enrofloxacin treatment on the native Campylobacter coli population in conventionally weaned 5-week-old pigs was investigated. Materials: Twelve pigs were split into two groups of six: one group was treated with a therapeutic dose (15 mg/pig/day) of enrofloxacin and the other remained untreated to act as the control. Campylobacter coli were isolated from faecal samples and tested for ciprofloxacin resistance by measuring MIC values. Mutations in the quinolone resistance-determining region (QRDR) of the gyrA gene of resistant isolates were identified by sequencing and denaturing HPLC. Levels of enrofloxacin and its primary metabolite ciprofloxacin in the pig faeces were also measured by HPLC. Results: No quinolone-resistant C. coli (n = 867) were detected in any of the pigs prior to treatment, indicating <0.1% resistance in the group. Resistant C. coli were isolated from pigs for up to 35 days after treatment with a therapeutic dose. These resistant C. coli had MIC values of 128 mg/L and 8-16 mg/L for nalidixic acid and ciprofloxacin, respectively, and the same single point mutation causing a Thr-86 to Ile substitution in the QRDR was identified in each. The concentration of enrofloxacin in the pig faeces was 2-4 mug/g faeces for the duration of the 5 day therapeutic treatment and was detected up to 10 days post-treatment. Ciprofloxacin was also measured and peaked at 0.6 mug/g faeces in the treated group. Conclusion: This study provides evidence that a single course of enrofloxacin treatment contributes directly to the emergence and persistence of fluoroquinolone resistance in C. coli.

Robotic multiwell planar patch-clamp for native and primary mammalian cells

Robotic multiwell planar patch-clamp has become common in drug development and safety programs because it enables efficient and systematic testing of compounds against ion channels during voltage-clamp. It has not, however, been adopted significantly in other important areas of ion channel research, where conventional patch-clamp remains the favored method. Here, we show the wider potential of the multiwell approach with the ability for efficient intracellular solution exchange, describing protocols and success rates for recording from a range of native and primary mammalian cells derived from blood vessels, arthritic joints and the immune and central nervous systems. The protocol involves preparing a suspension of single cells to be dispensed robotically into 4-8 microfluidic chambers each containing a glass chip with a small aperture. Under automated control, giga-seals and whole-cell access are achieved followed by preprogrammed routines of voltage paradigms and fast extracellular or intracellular solution exchange. Recording from 48 chambers usually takes 1-6 h depending on the experimental design and yields 16-33 cell recordings.

Native speakers and task performance: comparing effects on complexity, fluency, and lexical diversity

This article argues that a native-speaker baseline is a neglected dimension of studies into second language (L2) performance. If we investigate how learners perform language tasks, we should distinguish what performance features are due to their processing an L2 and which are due to their performing a particular task. Having defined what we mean by “native speaker,” we present the background to a research study into task features on nonnative task performance, designed to include native-speaker data as a baseline for interpreting nonnative-speaker performance. The nonnative results, published in this journal (Tavakoli & Foster, 2008) are recapitulated and then the native-speaker results are presented and discussed in the light of them. The study is guided by the assumption that limited attentional resources impact on L2 performance and explores how narrative design features—namely complexity of storyline and tightness of narrative structure— affect complexity, fluency, accuracy, and lexical diversity in language. The results show that both native and nonnative speakers are prompted by storyline complexity to use more subordinated language, but narrative structure had different effects on native and nonnative fluency. The learners, who were based in either London or Tehran, did not differ in their performance when compared to each other, except in lexical diversity, where the learners in London were close to native-speaker levels. The implications of the results for the applicability of Levelt’s model of speaking to an L2 are discussed, as is the potential for further L2 research using native speakers as a baseline.

Pausing patterns: differences between L2 learners and native speakers

This paper reports on a comparative study of pauses made by L2 learners and native speakers of English while narrating picture stories. The comparison is based on the number of pauses and total amount of silence in themiddle and at the end of clauses in the performance of 40 native speakers and 40 L2 learners of English. The results of the quantitative analyses suggest that, although the L2 learners generally pausemore repeatedly and have longer periods of silence than the native speakers, the distinctive feature of their pausing pattern is that they pause frequently in the middle of clauses rather than at the end. The qualitative analysis of the data suggests that some of the L2 learners’mid-clause pauses are associated with processes such as replacement, reformulation, and online planning. Formulaic sequences, however, contain very few pauses and therefore appear to facilitate the learners’ fluency.

(PDF, 406 KB) On L3 acquisition and phonological permeability: a new test case for debates on the mental representation of non-native phonological systems

The goal of this article is to make an epistemological and theoretical contribution to the nascent field of third language (L3) acquisition and show how examining L3 development can offer a unique view into longstanding debates within L2 acquisition theory. We offer the Phonological Permeability Hypothesis (PPH), which maintains that examining the development of an L3/Ln phonological system and its effects on a previously acquired L2 phonological system can inform contemporary debates regarding the mental constitution of postcritical period adult phonological acquisition. We discuss the predictions and functional significance of the PPH for adult SLA and multilingualism studies, detailing a methodology that examines the effects of acquiring Brazilian Portuguese on the Spanish phonological systems learned before and after the so-called critical period (i.e., comparing simultaneous versus successive adult English-Spanish bilinguals learning Brazilian Portuguese as an L3).

Knowledge of A/A'-dependencies on subject extraction with two types of infinitives in non-native Portuguese adult bilingualism

Within generative L2 acquisition research there is a longstanding debate as to what underlies observable differences in L1/L2 knowledge/ performance. On the one hand, Full Accessibility approaches maintain that target L2 syntactic representations (new functional categories and features) are acquirable (e.g., Schwartz & Sprouse, 1996). Conversely, Partial Accessibility approaches claim that L2 variability and/or optionality, even at advanced levels, obtains as a result of inevitable deficits in L2 narrow syntax and is conditioned upon a maturational failure in adulthood to acquire (some) new functional features (e.g., Beck, 1998; Hawkins & Chan, 1997; Hawkins & Hattori, 2006; Tsimpli & Dimitrakopoulou, 2007). The present study tests the predictions of these two sets of approaches with advanced English learners of L2 Brazilian Portuguese (n = 21) in the domain of inflected infinitives. These advanced L2 learners reliably differentiate syntactically between finite verbs, uninflected and inflected infinitives, which, as argued, only supports Full Accessibility approaches. Moreover, we will discuss how testing the domain of inflected infinitives is especially interesting in light of recent proposals that Brazilian Portuguese colloquial dialects no longer actively instantiate them (Lightfoot, 1991; Pires, 2002, 2006; Pires & Rothman, 2009; Rothman, 2007).