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The mid short vowels: /e/ and /o/ are among the vowels shared between Hausa and Yorùbá but differ in Hausa mid-high long, front and back vowels: /e:/ and /o:/. The phonemic differences in the two languages have caused learning difficulties among the Yorùbá native speakers to achieve their second language learning desire and competence. Yorùbá-Hausa learners mispronounce certain disyllabic Hausa words due to the substitution of vowels in the first and second syllables. Thus, both lexical and grammatical meanings of the Hausa words are affected. This study examined the production of the 12 Hausa vowels by level 1 and level 3 students who were learning Hausa as a second language to determine if there was a significant difference in how level 1 and level 3 students pronounced the short and long mid-high, front and back Hausa vowels. 88 Yorùbá native speakers were recruited using purposive sampling. Twenty-four different wordlists extracted from Bargery's (1934) Hausa-English dictionary and prepared in carrier phrases were audio-recorded. It was a mixed-method, and the results were discussed within the theoretical framework of Flege and Bohn's (2020) Revised Speech Learning Model and Corder's (1967) 'Error Analysis Model'. The results of the Mann-Whitney U test revealed that participants in level 1 generally performed lower than level 3 participants in the pronunciation of mid-Hausa vowels due to substitutions. Such errors have pedagogical implication in learning Hausa as a second language, and if not addressed accordingly, the standard of Hausa will continue to fall at an undesirable and alarming rate.

Sentence repetition (SR) tasks have been used to measure children's expressive language skills in normal and abnormal language development, and to examine the development of the speaking skills in second language acquisition, as well as to survey the proficiency of bilingual language development. Recently, SR tasks have been recognized as a potential psycholinguistic tool to identify bilingual children with language impairment. SR tasks are easy and quick to conduct, and a useful technique for obtaining quantitative and qualitative information about children's lexical and morphosyntactic knowledge, as well as language development in a complex linguistic background. This paper reports the results of a pilot study conducted to investigate the performance of SR among bilingual Mandarin-English preschoolers, from age four to six. The task was conducted in both languages: Mandarin, and English, to examine the type of grammatical errors found among different age groups in the SR task. Studying the performance of SR in both languages could provide a better understanding of children's language learning and their acquisition pattern in both the first and second language. Overall task accuracy in each language was compared; grammatical errors in the SR task were described qualitatively. The results showed that the linguistic characteristic of the stimulus materials in Mandarin and English influences the performance of these bilingual children in the SR task. The study also showed that the grammatical errors found in the SR tasks may have the potential of being used to distinguish children with typical and atypical language development in the first language (L1).

For many years, ESL educators have placed significant emphasis on improving the reading abilities of primary and secondary education students. Nonetheless, despite these efforts, many university students still encounter difficulties in comprehending academic reading materials. This inadequacy in reading comprehension may be ascribed, at least in part, to the insufficient development of metalinguistic competence, which includes a set of linguistic skills, such as morphology, syntax, and vocabulary. Previous empirical studies have provided compelling evidence of the role of morphological awareness, syntactic awareness, and lexical knowledge in reading comprehension across various age groups such as children and adolescents. Notwithstanding these findings, the precise role and contributions of each determinant remains inconclusive and contradictory, particularly for university students. Hence, this pilot study aimed to validate the adapted instruments used and to bridge the existing scientific lacunae on the linguistic determinants that could predict reading comprehension among Malaysian ESL undergraduates. This study draws upon three prominent theoretical underpinnings: the Reading Systems Framework, the Vocabulary Knowledge-Reading Comprehension Model, and the Automaticity Reading Theory. This study adopted a quantitative approach with a correlational design and recruited ESL undergraduates (n=35) from a public university. Five tests were administered, which included Morphological Awareness Test, Syntactic Awareness Test, Vocabulary Levels Test, Word Associates Test, and Reading Comprehension Test. Data were analysed using statistical techniques, such as descriptive statistics, normality testing, reliability, and Pearson product-moment correlation analysis. The findings revealed significant correlations between all linguistic determinants and reading comprehension, establishing promising groundwork for further large-scale study. This preliminary work not only contributes to the validation of measurement instruments in the Malaysian ESL context but also offers valuable insights into the metalinguistic dimensions of academic reading at the tertiary level so as to address a crucial scientific lacunae in the literature on L2 reading comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bilingual speakers often engage in code-switching, that is the use of lexical items and grammatical features from two languages in one sentence. Malaysia is a particularly interesting context for the study of code-switching because Malay-English code-switching is widely practiced across formal and informal situations, and the available literature reveals that there is a great diversity in switch patterns in this language pair. One of the most remarkable characteristics of Malay-English code-switching is the high frequency of switches of function words (pronouns, modal verbs, demonstratives, etc.), which is very unusual in most code-switching corpora. Here, we analyse the structural properties of Malay-English code-switching, which have received less attention than functional analyses in the academic literature on code-switching in this language pair. We first summarize the literature on the different types of code-switching that are found in a range of sources, and then analyze the code-switching patterns in the speech of two teachers of English in Malaysia. We conclude with a discussion of the variables that can explain the diversity found, in particular structural factors (similarity between the word orders of both languages, and the limited number of inflections), and bilingual optimization strategies, as well as strategies of neutrality and efficiency.

Ever since the Facebook established, friending has become an easy thing as people take a simple click to bridge a connection. To connect with their friends, Facebook respondents disclosed information about themselves by posting messages on Facebook wall posts. The contents of wall post messages are more to disclose Facebook respondents’ aspects of life. The initiative of Facebook respondents to share the happenings in their life with their Facebook friends is to maintain established virtual relationship as connecting friends through Facebook is free of charge and easy to reach. Thus, this study aims to explore the types of communicative strategies and the ways these communicative strategies used to maintain friendship online. This study can provide a better understand of self-disclosure as a behaviour category for enacting friendship in Facebook. Facebook posted messages from the participants’ Facebook profiles were collected in one year time. This is qualitative case study. Content analysis was used to analyse posted messages. The posted messages were then categorised into types of communicative strategies in self-disclosure. The majority of the posted messages are self story-telling through state and action statements and affective statement. The Facebook users act as story-tellers were noted as they describe about their personal details and experience as a form of self-disclosure to increase the feeling of connecting with their Facebook friends.

The negative effects of stereotyping arising from a victim's acceptance and internalisation of stereotype identities are well-known. As stereotypes are created and maintained in discourse, understanding how targets of stereotyping employ discursive resources to resist the constraining structures of stereotypic identities imposed upon them can provide insight into the process of stereotyping and contribute to efforts to reduce the threat of stereotyping. We examined the strategies used by targets of stereotyping in contesting stereotypic representations of their social group through the mobilisation of a range of discourse strategies when presented with stereotyping attacks on the group. The findings revealed that stereotypes are subtle in nature and may not be easily recognised and hence, difficult to resist. Participants employed a number of discourse strategies to repair their fragmented self and group identities. However, in their attempt to maintain identity coherence, they ended up using stereotyping discourses themselves to devalue the perceived outgroup as well as subgroups they created within their own social group. The study highlights the complexity of stereotyping and its self-perpetuating character, and sheds light on the difficulty faced by targets of stereotyping discourse in reconciling their identities through intense discursive and identity work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Question design by medical practitioners has been shown to have important consequences on how patients present their problems in clinical consultations. Linguistic structure of questions as part of question design implements different communicative and pragmatic functions, and hence, affects patients' response in different ways. This study examined types of questions asked by veterinarians in the problem presentation phase of the clinical consultation in relation to their linguistic forms and functions. Veterinary illness consultations were video-recorded and veterinarians' question types, their linguistic forms and clients' response in the interaction were identified and examined. The results show that the general inquiry question implemented using the open-ended wh-question structure and the closed-ended declarative interrogative are the preferred forms used by veterinarians to solicit patients' presenting problems from clients. Also, alignment of the linguistic form of questions with their pragmatic functions and the discourse goal of problem presentation affects clients' ascription of veterinarians' actions. The findings from the study can inform veterinarian communication training for more effective veterinarian-client communication to accomplish problem presentation in clinical consultations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing a rich vocabulary repertoire in English is an essential achievement for young learners acquiring English as a second language (ESL) as having a strong word knowledge base supports the development of the four language skills in the second language. Most studies on vocabulary learning, however, have been conducted with adult learners at the college levels. The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of different instructional techniques (incidental learning and intentional learning) on vocabulary acquisition among young ESL learners. The participants were 99 students between 10-11 years old in a Malaysian Tamil primary school. Stratified sampling was applied, and the subjects were divided into 3 groups; a control group and two experimental groups: extensive reading (ER) and extensive reading plus vocabulary enhancement (ER+). The ER group received treatment involving extensive reading of storybooks while, the ER+ group received treatments involving extensive reading of storybooks and vocabulary enhancement activities. The treatments were conducted as after-class activities. The control group did not attend the after-class activity but continued with regular class activities. The vocabulary levels test (VLT) was administered to all groups before and after the treatment to measure the significant difference between the three groups. The results show a significant gain for both the experimental groups with the ER+ group having higher means in both the posttest and delayed post-test scores. However, there was no gain recorded for the control group. The study provides evidence that extensive reading can enhance vocabulary learning but the blending with vocabulary enhancement activities was more effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a new set of subjective Age of Acquisition (AoA) ratings for 299 words (158 nouns, 141 verbs) in seven languages from various language families and cultural settings: American English, Czech, Scottish Gaelic, Lebanese Arabic, Malaysian Malay, Persian, and Western Armenian. The ratings were collected from a total of 173 participants and were highly reliable in each language. We applied the same method of data collection as used in a previous study on 25 languages which allowed us to create a database of fully comparable AoA ratings of 299 words in 32 languages. We found that in the seven languages not included in the previous study, the words are estimated to be acquired at roughly the same age as in the previously reported languages, i.e. mostly between the ages of 1 and 7 years. We also found that the order of word acquisition is moderately to highly correlated across all 32 languages, which extends our previous conclusion that early words are acquired in similar order across a wide range of languages and cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociolinguists who study varieties of language often need to make decisions about whether a particular linguistic element or expression constitutes a feature of the variety being studied. Comparing the specific variety, for instance, a variety of English, with the parent or native form of English is generally carried out to examine for systematic differences between the two forms. The task becomes more challenging when the feature of interest involves figurative meaning such as idioms and idiomatic expressions. In a recently completed project that sought to examine idioms in Nigerian English, questions and issues about methodology were raised. Among these were the questions of how idioms in the regional variety could be identified as distinct from idioms that are originally found in the parent variety, and more importantly, what evidence could be offered to support claims that a particular idiom is a feature of the regional variety. In this article, we discuss the issues connected with the difficulty of examining idioms in a specific variety of English known as Nigerian English, and propose a framework for evaluating the idioms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Motivated by the assumptions that first language (L1) influence was found to be a very strong predictor of foreign accent degree in the pronunciation of second language learners and that increased experience in the second language (L2) may nurture improved recognition of the differences between the L1 and L2 segments, this study examines the effect of L1 and proficiency level on the perception of English monophthongs by Iraqi EFL learners. Iraqi learners of English who speak Baghdadi Arabic as their native language were recruited for the study. Their level of proficiency in English was measured with the Quick Placement Test (UCLES, 2001). Performance in the perception test revealed that Iraqi learners face different levels of difficulty in the perception of most monophthongs in English. The results showed prominent perceptual trends regardless of the learner's proficiency level for some vowels, suggesting strong L1 effect across all proficiency levels. The study also found that the perceptual abilities of EFL learners can be improved with more exposure to the L2. The errors made by Iraqi learners can be explained based on perceived similarity and distance between L2 and L1 vowel spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assumption that performance in second language (L2) speech perception and speech production is aligned has received much debate in L2 research. Theoretical models such as the Motor Theory (MT) and Speech Learning Model (SLM) have described the relation between these two processes based on the assumption that speech is perceived with reference to how it is produced and speech production is in turn influenced by how well speech contrast is perceptible to the second-language learner. The present study aims to investigate this relation with regard to Iraqi learners' perception and production of English vowels, focussing on the role of LI interference and English proficiency level in shaping this relation. The results of the present study showed that accurate perception may not necessarily be a prerequisite for accurate production especially for EFL learners at the elementary level. Perception and production score means were significantly different, revealing an asymmetrical relation between the two processes. The results showed that speech production of L2 learners at the elementary level exceeded their ability in speech perception. However, for the other three proficiency levels, perception and production seemed to develop in synchrony. The level of difficulty encountered in the perception and production tasks could be attributed to LI interference, since the vowels that were better produced than perceived are all found in the LI vowel system, while the only vowel that was better perceived is not in the LI vowel system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the effects of morphemic analysis of Graeco-Latin roots and affixes as a vocabulary learning strategy among Malaysian ESL learners. Three intact classes of undergraduates majoring in health sciences were assigned to three different treatments which are instructions focussing on Graeco-Latin morphemic analysis, general morphemic analysis and use of contextual clues as vocabulary learning strategies. Participants in all groups underwent the instructional intervention which was done biweekly over a five-week period. Each group was taught how to derive word meanings using these three different strategies. A pre-test and post-test comprising three vocabulary tests measuring students' morphemic analysis of general English words, morphemic analysis of Graeco-Latin word parts, and overall vocabulary size respectively, were administered. The scores were analysed using the paired sample T-test and one-way ANOVA to determine if there were improvements made in the three measures within each group, and subsequently whether the magnitude of improvement between the three groups were significant. The results indicated that (a) the group that were taught Graeco-Latin morphemic analysis scored the highest in all three vocabulary measures, (b) the group taught general morphemic analysis also improved in morphemic analysis of general English words but not Graeco-Latin words, and improved slightly in overall vocabulary size, but (c) the group that was taught to use contextual clues showed no improvement in all three vocabulary measures. The findings suggest that morphemic analysis, specifically analysis of Graeco-Latin word parts, may be a better vocabulary learning strategy particularly for the health sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasingly multicultural and multi-national demographics of students in the classroom, teachers find themselves having to face the challenges of teaching students from diverse cultural backgrounds. While much research has been done on individual differences in learning attitudes, learning strategies and learning styles, there is a severe lack of work done to investigate whether differences in the attitudes and values towards learning could be attributed to group differences. This paper reports the findings of a study on the differences in learning culture between Iranian and Chinese-Malaysian students. A questionnaire that measures learning culture was developed using Hofstede's (1980) cultural dimensions. The questionnaire consists of 24 items covering four dimensions, namely, collectivism/ individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity/femininity. One hundred and fifty Iranian and the same number of Chinese-Malaysian undergraduate students participated in the study. The results showed that there is a significant difference in the collectivism/individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity/femininity dimensions between these two groups of students. Implications of the results to the teaching and learning of second/foreign language are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, writing instructors have started to adopt pedagogies that integrate classroom writing with happenings outside the classroom (see Weisser, 2001; Flower, 2008; Mathieu, 2005). The goal of writing instruction is no longer limited to competence in terms of language, style and techniques, but is expanded to encompass civic literacy. This orientation of writing especially at university level intertwines with the aim of higher education to produce individuals who are empowered to contribute towards a better world through participation in public discourse. In a study conducted at Universiti Putra Malaysia, 1,400 students were required to write publicly in an online forum on issues that affect the lives of the students and the community in which they belong. At the end of the course, the students completed a survey aimed at identifying the extent to which the writing course that adopted a public orientation was effective in socialising students towards becoming independent participants of online discussion. Specifically, the study sought to uncover the students' perceptions on whether they had improved in their writing skills, their confidence to write in English in the public sphere, the effect of audience on their writing, the value of participation in online public discussions, their intention to participate in the future, and the reasons for future participation or non-participation. This paper presents the results of the study and discusses the contribution of a public orientation in ESL writing instruction in fostering ability and motivation to participate in public discourse among university students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the first freely available Malaysian English vocabulary size assessment for 4- to 6-year-old Malaysian children: the newly developed Malaysian English Cross-linguistic Lexical Task (MECLT). Using MECLT scores to measure vocabulary development, the study further explores the efficiency of two approaches: the sum of the number of home languages versus a language exposure composite score, in classifying children’s language profiles (monolingual, bilingual, or multilingual). Sixty children who predominantly speak English at home were assessed on their comprehension and production of nouns and verbs. Significant age effects in MECLT scores were observed between 4- and 5-year-olds, as well as between 4- and 6-year-olds, suggesting that the MECLT is a valuable tool for capturing vocabulary growth among Malaysian preschoolers. Furthermore, in analysing predictors of MECLT scores, the study found that the home language model, which includes age and the number of home languages, was the most accurate predictor of vocabulary size. In contrast, the language exposure composite score model, while detailed, did not significantly enhance predictive accuracy and proved to be more complex and time-consuming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the influence of multiliteracy in opaque orthographies on phonological awareness. Using a visual rhyme judgement task in English, we assessed phonological processing in three multilingual and multiliterate populations who were distinguished by the transparency of the orthographies they can read in ( N  = 135; ages 18-40). The first group consisted of 45 multilinguals literate in English and a transparent Latin orthography like Malay; the second group consisted of 45 multilinguals literate in English and transparent orthographies like Malay and Arabic; and the third group consisted of 45 multilinguals literate in English, transparent orthographies, and Mandarin Chinese, an opaque orthography. Results showed that all groups had poorer performance in the two opaque conditions: rhyming pairs with different orthographic endings and non-rhyming pairs with similar orthographic endings, with the latter posing the greatest difficulty. Subjects whose languages consisted of half or more opaque orthographies performed significantly better than subjects who knew more transparent orthographies than opaque orthographies. The findings are consistent with past studies that used the visual rhyme judgement paradigm and suggest that literacy experience acquired over time relating to orthographic transparency may influence performance on phonological awareness tasks., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Yee, Yap, Mahmud and Saripan.)