Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelen - Volume 35, Issue 1, 1989

This article deals with problems of writing in a foreign language that are caused by language specific characteristics of the target language, in this case Italian. In writing texts in a foreign language, learners of that language have to cope with difficulties that are caused by certain categorial differences between source language and target language. In this article the authors do not deal with differences at a micro-level, like spelling and morphology, but rather with more structural differences at the sentence level. First the target group, its starting position and the teaching aims are described.Then an attempt is made at defining the language specific characteristics the target group has to learn. The teaching materials are based on an analysis of example texts in the target texts and similar texts in the source language. Finally some suggestions for the didactics of writing are given.

This article presents and discusses empirical findings concerning the differences between fathers and mothers as to the language they use in the communication with their children. On the basis of the findings of other research two general expectations were formulated: fathers make higher demands upon their children and therefore adjust less to the language needs of the children than mothers do. For mothers it is the other way around.Data were collected from four fathers and mothers and their child at their homes in two situations: one with a picture book and one in an unstructured play situation with standardized playing materials. The language input - per situation at least 20 minutes were tape-recorded - was analysed as to form and content.The results indicate that there are no significant differences in the kind of language addressed to the child by its father and mother. These findings are interpreted with reference to our modern society, in which generally speaking fathers are more involved in educating their children than in former times.Finally it is proposed to replicate this study with a larger sample and with social class as a variable, in order to ascertain whether social class affects parents' language input.

In order to test whether reaction times to auditory stimuli can be used as a measurement device for hearing impaired subjects, a criterion test was devel-oped with audiometrically normal subjects. It was hypothesized that these normal subjects would recognize a word in connected speech more slowly in an unfavourable than in a favourable sound-noise ratio. To test this hypothesis a pilot was run with this criterion test, consisting of 65 auditorily presented sentences each with a visually presented target. 25 subjects participated in the research. In one third of the sentences a significant correlation was found between S/N ratio and reaction time.The fact that no significant relationship was found in the other sentences may probably be attributed to a combination of factors like differences in individ-ual reaction times and in concentration, different context factors, but certainly also to the presentation of the targetword prior to the auditory signal. Before this test can be used on a larger scale, certain adaptations will have to be made.

The official rules for the orthography prescribe dutchified forms for some loanwords and source language orthographies for others. Experts feel that this deficiency of the spelling system is the most obvious candidate for a forth-coming revision.In this paper we examine a source of variation in orthographies that has received relatively little attention: differences in status of the cultures the source language are associated with. The results of a series of parallel experi-ments are discussed, in which Dutch youngsters gave their opinions about dutchified English and French loanwords. The subjects disliked the adaptation of English words significantly more than the adaptation of French words. We explain this result by assuming a correlation between the high status which the Anglo-American culture has for Dutch adolescents, and a perceived inviola-bility of the words borrowed from the English language.

In this article it is assumed that in speech communication not only the pronunciation by the speaker and the sensitivity and the discrimination facility of the ears of the listener are important factors, but equally the speed of processing. A previous study showed that Dutch students studying French needed more time to recognize target phonemes in spoken French sentences than did French native speakers. Based on this result it was hypothesized that the hearing impaired need more time for word recognition than comparable normal hearing subjects.To investigate this hypothesis two tests were developed:1. A list of cvc combinations, consisting of words and non-words is presented to the subject who has to press a button as soon as he hears an existing word.2. A series of sentences, where target words are presented in highly constraining, normally constraining and not constraining contexts. The subject has to press the response button as soon as he hears a visually presented.Recognition times for the different items measured in a group of 55 hard of hearing subjects were related to the "normal values" obtained in a group of 16 normal hearing young subjects.The tests gave a clear indication that recognition time is a significant personal measure. Besides, a correlation was found between the increase of the recognition time and hearing loss, but not between recognition time and age. It was clear that hard of hearing people needed more time for word recogni-tion and that the use of a hearing aid reduced this time interval. The measure in which the pressure for a fast reaction caused an increase in errors appeared to correlate significantly with the way subjects experienced their handicap, more than with the hearing loss and the discrimination loss as such.

In an experiment two hypotheses were tested:1. learning new words by extracting their meaning from context and by rehearsing them in context, facilitates the use of these words in situations involving the foreign language (e.g. a cloze test)2. learning new words by linking them to mother tongue equivalents and rehearsing them in isolation, facilitates the use of these words involving the mother tongue ( e.g. an isolated word test).Two methods of learning English words by 13 year old Dutch pupils were contrasted. All subjects were presented several English texts containing unfa-miliar word. In one condition they received with every unfamiliar word three English sentences containing the target word. The meaning of the word was to be extracted from the text and the sentences. In the other condition they received with every unfamiliar word the entry from a bilingual dictionary. The translation which best fitted the text was to be chosen. Subjects performed the task individually and at their own speed. Afterwards the teacher provided the translation of each target word.Next the words were rehearsed. In one condition the subjects rehearsed the target words in English sentences. In the other condition they linked the target words to mother tongue equivalents.Two tests were administered. One was a cloze test. Subjects had to fill in the target words in several unfamiliar English texts. The other was an isolated word test. Subjects had to provide the target words, cued by translations. Both hypotheses were confirmed. Type of learning activity and kind of test interacted. Looking for the best method to teach words therefore seems futile. Learning words in a foreign language is a task in which several factors must be taken into account: learner, learning activities, material and test.

In European universities, translation from native to target language continues to be a commonly used testing tool in programs of modern language writing proficiency.The selection of native language texts that are used as source texts in the translation test and especially the question of determining their degree of difficulty are discussed in the first part of this article. Prediction of the difficulty of these texts proves to be rather problematic.In the second part of our article, we discuss and investigate the possible construction of short, efficient translation tests consisting of a relatively small number of items. The selection of these translation items can be based on the statistics that constitute the output of a traditional item analysis; such an analysis has to be performed on the translations of groups of students. Scores on these short tests correlate rather promisingly with the original translation scores. The selected items in the two texts we analysed in this purpose proved to be, for the most part, lexical problems.

Dutch verb spelling is a rather complicated system of rival orthographic pre-scriptions. The spelling of Dutch verbs not only depends on their pronuncia-tion, but also on syntax and semantics. Pupils are often incapable of learning the system, even after many hours of verb spelling instruction. Investigations lead to the insight that a rule-oriented algorithmic method is more effective than traditional methods. But pupils still make a lot of errors.In this study we investigate how computers can improve verb-spelling performance of pupils. A first way could be the use of a word processor with an built-in spelling checker. Spelling checkers find errors in typed text, but existing spelling checkers cannot correct Dutch verbs automatically. Artificially Intelligent spelling checkers will do (but will be expensive for instructional use). A second way of improving spelling performance is the use of tutorial programs. We discuss algorithm-based instructional programs that introduce and train the verb spelling system and its underlying concepts. As a third way to improve spelling performance we introduce the instructional program DT-DUIVELTJE (DT-DEMON).DT-DEMON can be characterized as a half-automatic spelling checker for Dutch verbs. In most cases it can find and correct verb spellings automatically. In the remaining cases DT-DEMON asks the user one or two questions, in order to complete the analysis.The core of the program is a simulation of a human expert in verb spelling. An expert is supposed to find correct orthographic prescriptions as a result of very economic decisions, i.e. based on an analysis of lower-order language regularities. For instance, when the spelling of a verb can be found by analyzing letter sequences, a syntactic analysis can be omitted. In this way an expert writes far more verbs correctly as a result of automatic pattern recognition.Although the internal inference mechanism of DT-DEMON is one of pat-tern recognition, the dialogue with the user is rule-oriented. The program also knows the rule-oriented algorithm for verb spelling.A final remark about the way DT-DEMON internally processes, concerns the number of analyses performed. The program does not just stop searching when it finds a solution, but continues until all solutions are found. The number of successful redundant analyses is an indication of the degree of difficulty of the spelling problem. A lot of solutions means: easy; just one solution means: a less simple problem; not even one complete, automatically found solution means: pay attention, this is a difficult problem.DT-DEMON is suitable for instructional purposes once a pupil has learned the rules that govern verb spelling. The program works like an online spelling checker. When there is a difficult spelling problem, and the program cannot find a complete solution itself, it will ask the student for help. By doing so, it prevents errors due to premature automatization of spelling skills.The use of DT-DEMON is not restricted to precooked exercises, it can handle free language productions.