This study investigated how task difficulty affects cognitive processes during self correction in L2 English oral production. Previous studies have explored this issue based on the taxonomy of self correction behavior proposed by Kormos (1999) which classifies self corrections into different-information repair, appropriacy repair, and error repair. This study sought to determine whether learners focus more on concept, lexis, grammar, or phonology when self corrections occur. English learners were given two direction-giving map tasks: one which is cognitively more demanding in generating message (Task High), and the other cognitively less demanding (Task Low). Each task was followed by a stimulated recall interview to determine the learner’s cognitive processes when a self correction was observed. Their comments were categorized into four cognitive stages: conceptualization, lexical encoding, grammatical encoding, and phonological encoding. We hypothesized that Task High would induce more conceptualization than Task Low. The participants focused on the conceptual aspect more frequently than the grammatical aspect during Task High, while no difference in cognitive process was found in Task Low. The results also revealed that, while there was no significant difference in conceptualization between high-proficient and low-proficient learners, the more proficient learners tended to focus more on grammatical aspects than lexical.
speaking
Network Structures in L2 Oral Performanc: A Learner Corpus Study
Complexity, accuracy, and fluency as dimensions of L2 performance, proficiency, and development have been measured through a small number of measures that researchers arbitrarily choose. L2 performance is never a simplistic structure that can be captured through the reduction of one or two elements. Reductionism practice has overlooked perspectives of how each measure interacts and changes. The current study attempts to describe dynamic relations between various linguistic features, investigate how each element is intertwined, and explore which linguistic features play a central role in L2 oral performance, based on the complexity theory using network analysis. Spoken data were drawn from the NICT JLT Corpus, which comprises English transcriptions uttered by Japanese learners, and were attached their individual proficiency. Two networks of each proficiency group (i.e., low and high) were delineated, and centrality measures were calculated. The results reveal that the network structures in L2 oral performance change to be dependent on the learner’s proficiency. Furthermore, linguistic features that play a central role in the network structure also change with learner’s proficiency. These results are highly suggestive toward L2 oral performance and the relationship among various linguistic features. The significance of the network analysis is also discussed.
Yu Tamura 