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The Executive Council of the International Advisory Board

Mr Mitsumasa Aoyama
Director, The Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

Professor June Henton
Dean, College of Human Sciences, Auburn University,
USA

Lord Charles Bruce
Lord Lieutenant of Fife
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Scotland
Trustee of the Historic Scotland Foundation, UK

Professor Michael Hudson
President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term
Economic Trends (ISLET)Distinguished Research Professor of Economics, The
University of Missouri, Kansas City

Professor Donald E. Hall
Herbert J. and Ann L. Siegel Dean
Lehigh University, USA
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and Chair of the Department of English

Professor Koichi Iwabuchi
Professor of Media and Cultural Studies & Director of
the Monash Asia Institute, Monash University, Australia

Professor Arthur Stockwin
Founding Director of the Nissan Institute forJapanese Studies & Emeritus Professor
The University of Oxford UK
Professor Chung-Ying Cheng
Professor of Philosophy, University of Hawai’i atManoa, USA
Editor-in-Chief, The Journal of Chinese Philosophy
Professor Steve Cornwell
Professor of English and Interdisciplinary Studies,
Osaka Jogakuin University, Osaka, Japan
Osaka Local Conference Chair
Professor A. Robert Lee
Former Professor of English at Nihon University,
Tokyo from 1997 to 2011, previously long taught
at the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK
Professor Dexter Da Silva
Professor of Educational Psychology, Keisen University,
Tokyo, Japan
Professor Georges Depeyrot
Professor and Director of Research & Member of theBoard of Trustees
French National Center for Scientific Research(CNRS) & L’Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, France
Professor Johannes Moenius
William R. and S. Sue Johnson Endowed Chair of
Spatial Economic Analysis and Regional Planning
The University of Redlands School of Business, USA

Professor Sue Jackson
Professor of Lifelong Learning and Gender & Pro-Vice
Master of Teaching and Learning, Birkbeck, Universityof London, UK
Professor Sir Geoffrey Lloyd
Senior Scholar in Residence, The Needham ResearchInstitute, Cambridge, UK
Fellow and Former Master, Darwin College, Universityof Cambridge
Fellow of the British Academy
Professor Keith Miller
Orthwein Endowed Professor for Lifelong Learning in
the Science, University of Missouri-St.Louis, USA
Professor Kuniko Miyanaga
Director, Human Potential Institute, Japan
Fellow, Reischauer Institute, Harvard University, USA
Professor Dennis McInerney
Chair Professor of Educational Psychology and CoDirector of the Assessment Research Centre
The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong
SAR
Professor Brian Daizen Victoria
Professor of English
Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies
Professor Michiko Nakano
Professor of English & Director of the Distance
Learning Center, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
Professor Thomas Brian MooneyProfessor of Philosophy
Head of School of Creative Arts and Humanities
Professor of Philosophy and Head of School of
Creative Arts and Humanities, Charles Darwin
University, Australia

Professor Baden Offord
Professor of Cultural Studies and Human Rights & CoDirector of the Centre for Peace and Social JusticeSouthern Cross University, Australia
Professor Frank S. Ravitch
Professor of Law & Walter H. Stowers Chair in Law
and Religion, Michigan State University College of Law
Professor Richard RothSenior Associate Dean, Medill School of Journalism,
Northwestern University, Qatar
Professor Monty P. Satiadarma
Clinical Psychologist and Lecturer in Psychology &Former Dean of the Department of Psychology and
Rector of the University, Tarumanugara University,
Indonesia
Mr Mohamed Salaheen
Director, The United Nations World Food Programme,Japan & Korea
Mr Lowell Sheppard
Asia Pacific Director, HOPE International
Development Agency, Canada/Japan
His Excellency Dr Drago Stambuk
Croatian Ambassador to Brazil, Brazil
Professor Mary Stuart
Vice-Chancellor, The University of Lincoln, UK
Professor Gary Swanson
Distinguished Journalist-in-Residence & Mildred S.
Hansen Endowed Chair, The University of Northern
Colorado, USA
Professor Jiro Takai
Secretary General of the Asian Association for Social
Psychology & Professor of Social Psychology
Graduate School of Education and Human
Development, Nagoya University, Japan
Professor Svetlana Ter Minasova
President of the Faculty of Foreign Languages andArea Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University
Professor Yozo Yokota
Director of the Center for Human Rights Affairs, Japan
Former UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar
Professor Kensaku Yoshida
Professor of English & Director of the Center for the
Teaching of Foreign Languages in General Education,
Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan

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Official Conference Proceedings

ISSN: 2435-7030© The International Academic Forum 2021
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Table of Contents
Teacher-student Communication in Taiwan Senior Education Contexts:
A Focus on Older Learners’ Views
Chin-Hui Chen

pp. 1 - 11

Discourses and Counter-discourses in the Times of the Coronavirus Crisis
Ján Demčišák
Simona Fraštíková

pp. 13 - 27

The Rhetoric of the Freedom Party of Austria in the 2019 National
Council Elections – Lexicon, Pragmatics, Discourse
Simona Fraštíková
Ján Demčišák

pp. 29 - 42

Trilingual Preschool Children’s Cognitive Understanding of Mouth Action
Verbs in Chinese, English and Malay
Hui Jie Yap
Helena Hong Gao
pp. 43 - 56
The Features of Japanese EFL Learners’ Peer Feedback in Written
Compositions
Hiromi Martin
Yoko Shirasu

pp. 57 - 70

How the Acoustic Correlates of English Obstruents Appear in Multivariate
Analysis
Yixin Zhang
Yoshitaka Nakajima
Kazuo Ueda
Gerard B. Remijn
pp. 71 - 77
Business English as a ‘Lingua Franca’ (BELF): Focusing on CrossCultural E-mail Communication
Masako Nishikawa-Van Eester

pp. 79 - 87

Designing Online Language Courses: Lessons Learned from Teaching
Vietnamese Language and Culture for Japanese Learners
Tran Hoang Nam

pp. 89 – 101

Improved Fluency through the Timed-pair-practice Framework
Jason Pipe
Teruaki Tsushima

pp. 103 – 125

Teaching Burmese as a Foreign Language: A Case Study
Lwin Ni Ni Khinepp. 127 – 146

Elimination Mechanism of Glue Variables for Solving SAT Problems in
Linguistics
Ziwei Zhang
Yang Zhang

pp. 147 – 167

Role of Learners’ Subjective Difficulty Rating Toward a System for
Practicing English-Speaking
Harumi Kashiwagi
Min Kang
Kazuhiro Ohtsuki

pp. 169 – 179

Adaptation of COVID-19-related Loanwords into JapaneseJeongsoo Lim

pp. 181 – 193

If You Know What I Mean: Rendering the Causative in Japanese andCroatian
Petra Jaklin

pp. 195 – 207

The Influence of Comma- and Period-pause Duration on the Listener’s
Impression of Speeches Made in Mandarin Chinese
Mingji Lin
Yoshitaka Nakajima
Shimeng Liu
Kazuo Ueda
Gerard B. Remijn

pp. 209 – 216

Gamified Tools in the Development of Communicative Production in
Remote EFL Learning
Lucila E. Quezada
Daniel P. Ripalda
Jessica P. Cuenca

pp. 217 - 232

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Teacher-student Communication in Taiwan Senior Education Contexts:
A Focus on Older Learners’ Views
Chin-Hui Chen, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Taiwan
The Asian Conference on Language 2021
Official Conference Procceedings
Abstract
Senior education has received increasing attention in Taiwan, as an active response to thedramatically ageing population. However, the existing literature has largely ignored thecentrality of teacher-student communication to older learners’ teaching and learning
processes, and the potential improvement of those processes. This survey-based study of 231
older learners therefore focuses on their views of teacher-student communication in senioreducation, including the extent to which they endorse the various communication strategies
employed by their teachers (identified in the author’s previous project, see Chen, 2019) andthe rationales for those strategies having been chosen. The findings reveal some interesting
differences between teachers’ views about appropriate teacher-student communication(captured in Chen, 2019) and older learners’ parallel views. Older learners’ demographic
features also appeared to impact how they preferred to be communicated with in class by
their teachers. Teachers of senior education can use these findings to better accommodate
their teaching to older learners from homogeneous backgrounds.
Keywords: Senior Education, Teacher-student Communication,
Accommodation, Older Learners, Gerontological Sociolinguistics

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Introduction
The present study extends a previous project by the author, on teacher-student
communication in senior-education contexts (Chen 2019), by eliciting older learners’ viewsof teachers’ self-reported strategies for communicating with them. Senior-education
programmes have been heavily promoted in Taiwan as a response to the needs of its rapidly
ageing population. Specifically, this is linked to a widespread belief that active participationin lifelong-learning activities into later life is a key to successful ageing: for example, byimproving people’s capacity to keep up with societal changes (Escuder-Mollon, 2012). The
delivery of high-quality senior education generally relies on how teachers communicate witholder learners (Chen 2019). A number of studies have addressed the importance of language
and communication to students’ learning behaviours (Goodboy & Myers, 2008; Lin, et al.,2017; Mazer & Hunt, 2008; Myers, 2002; Myers, et al., 2014; Rocca, 2004; Roorda, et al.,2011; Witt, et al., 2004). However, these studies have overlooked older learners’ perspectives,a gap that the present study will help to fill.
Literature Review
Unusually, Chen (2019) made a case for systematically explaining the nature of teacherstudent communication in senior-education contexts. However, that interview- and surveybased study only captured data about Taiwanese teachers’ communication-accommodation
strategies when teaching older learners. It categorised these self-reported strategies into fourmain types – secondary baby talk, mitigation, politeness, and code selection – and found thatteachers’ choices from among these four approaches could be governed either by teacherlevel considerations, e.g., communicative aims, or student characteristics: e.g., physicaldecrement in relation to language production and reception; social status; place of origin; age
range; and conversational needs. That study’s detailed findings can be summarised asfollows.
1.
Taiwanese teachers of older adults adjust their communication styles to include
secondary baby talk (repetition, simplification and slow-paced speech) because of theformer’s perceptions that the latter, especially those aged over 75, have low languagereception and language-expression abilities.
2.
Mitigating strategies, characterised by avoidance or humour, are employed by theseteachers to accommodate their students’ painful self-disclosures, as well as what the teachers
see as special communication/conversational needs arising from the fear of death.
3.
Teachers use encouragement and compliments as politeness strategies toaccommodate to older adult students’ conversational need for strong face maintenance.
4.
Loose control of turn-taking in class is used to accommodate older adult students’desire for a relaxing environment for both learning and friendship development.
5.
Showing modesty and reverence is employed as a communication strategy
particularly to accommodate older learners who have a high social status or come from urban
areas. One expression of this strategy is the avoidance of direct correction of mistakes inclass.
6.
Telling jokes or showing playfulness while teaching is a communication strategy
adopted to accommodate older students’ need to learn in a relaxing atmosphere, and is seen as
especially necessary or useful when students are from the countryside.
7.
Teachers choose various forms of address to reflect their own choices of role positions
in relation to their older students, or to demonstrate their politeness, reverence, or closeness.
8.
When teachers are much younger than their students, it is more difficult for the former

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to activate their professional identities, and this leads them to rely instead on age identity
during teacher-student communication. The aim of the corresponding communicationaccommodation behaviour is to emphasise politeness.
9.
Taiwanese senior-education teachers often see themselves as service providers, which
triggers their use of an encouraging, positive and playful tone in their teaching language, aspart of providing a pleasant and satisfying learning environment for their students.
10.
Code-switching is used by teachers of older students to demarcate between theirteaching and social communication.
In addition to teacher interviews, Chen (2019) surveyed a wider pool of teachers about thedegree to which they endorsed the four main types of communication strategy highlighted by
the interviewees. Analysis of the survey data focused on the associations between the teacher
respondents’ age ranges and their use, or non-use, of each strategy. The findings arising fromthat survey are summarised below.
First, regarding communication-strategy choice:1.
The most frequently chosen forms of address for older students were
‘grandpa/grandma’ or ‘older brother/older sister’, rather than ‘student’.
2.
The use of patronising communication styles was prevalent among the majority ofteachers of older students, especially ‘slower pace of speaking’ and ‘repetition’.
3.
The use of politeness strategies was commonplace among the respondent teachers,
especially ‘giving encouragement and compliments’ and ‘telling jokes and being humorous toplease older students’.
4.
Death-related topics were avoided in communication with older students by two-fifthsof the respondents.
5.
Choosing the language code preferred by older students in class was consideredappropriate by most of the respondents.
Second, the associations between teachers’ ages and their use of various communication
strategies can be summed up as follows:1.
The two younger groups of teachers (<39 and 40-60) tended to address older students
in class in ways that reflected intergenerational identities. The very youngest teachers (<39),
meanwhile, were the least likely of the three teacher groups to adopt a professional identity inthe classroom.
2.
Teachers in the middle age group (40-60) were the most likely to use patronisingcommunication styles, while the oldest teachers (61+) were the least likely to do so.
3.
No significant association was found between teachers’ ages and their use ofpoliteness strategies.
4.
No significant association was found between teachers’ ages and their avoidance ofdeath-related topics in communication with older students.
5.
The middle age group of teachers was the most likely to use code-switching forcommunication with older students, while the oldest teacher group was the least likely to doso.
Research Gaps
As briefly noted above, Chen’s (2019) data only represent one side of the teacher-student
communication process. Teachers’ accounts of the communication-accommodation
behaviours they regard as appropriate may not accurately reflect older students’ expectations
or needs, whether because they are over- or under-accommodative. Thus, to enhance the

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practical value of teacher-student communication in senior-education contexts, older learners’
perspectives cannot be overlooked. The present study accordingly explores the level ofconsistency between teachers’ and older students’ views on how they should communicate
with one another during the teaching and learning process. Specifically, it transformed Chen’s
prior findings on (1) the communication strategies, and (2) the perceptions/factors considered
relevant to teachers’ choices of such strategies, into questions for a survey of older learners.
This survey aimed to ascertain which teacher communication strategies these learners
endorsed, and what learner demographic features were linked to such endorsement and otherrelevant attitudes. The present study was guided by the following two research questions.
RQ1: To what extent do older learners endorse the classroom communication strategies selfreported to Chen (2019) by teachers of older learners?
RQ2: How do older learners’ demographic characteristics relate to the extent of theirendorsement of such strategies?
Methodology
The survey’s questionnaire was divided into two main sections. The first elicited theparticipant’s age range (55-65, 66-75, 76-85, or 86+) and health status (very unhealthy,
unhealthy, moderately healthy, healthy, very healthy). The second section consisted of 12
items about the respondents’ level of endorsement of teachers’ various communicationaccommodation strategies. These items, translated from Mandarin into English for the
purposes of the present paper, were: (1) avoiding using jargon and difficult theories; (2)speaking slowly in class; (3) repeating previous teaching content; (4) avoiding referring todeath or ailments in class; (5) using a playful tone for chatting or teaching; (6) avoiding
correcting older learners’ mistakes; (7) not controlling older learners’ talking in class; (8)using an encouraging and complimentary tone when teaching; (9) occasionally using thedialects older learners prefer in class, rather than just speaking Mandarin; (10) maintaining a
humble attitude when communicating with older learners; (11) using various forms of address(i.e., not just ‘Students’) when talking to older learners; and (12) using Mandarin whenintroducing difficult concepts or theories. All were rated on the same five-point Likert scale,ranging from 1=‘very unlikely to agree’ to 5=‘highly agree’.
The associations between demographic factors and degrees of endorsement were examinedstatistically. Means were computed to assess the extent of the respondents’ endorsement of
the 12 accommodation strategies. To identify the impact of older learners’ age ranges andhealth statuses on such endorsement, analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were employed.
Results
As indicated in Table 1, the survey subjects tended to endorse all 12 teacher communication
strategies, with all means being above the middle of the scale (M>3). The three mostendorsed strategies were (5), a playful tone, M=4.17; (8), an encouraging and complimentary
tone, M=4.16; and (12), the use of Mandarin for difficult material, M=4.08. The three leaststrongly endorsed communication strategies were (4), avoidance of references to death orailments, M=3.13; (10), a humble attitude, M=3.55; and (6), avoidance of error correction,
M=3.62.

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Table 1. Older Learners’ Mean Agreement with Communication Strategies
Strategies
Mean(1) Avoiding using jargon and difficult theories
3.96(2) Speaking slowly in class
3.86(3) Repeating previous teaching content
3.75(4) Avoiding referring to death or ailments in class
3.13(5) Using a playful tone for chatting or teaching
4.17(6) Avoiding correcting older learners’ mistakes
3.62(7) Not controlling older learners’ talking in class
3.65(8) Using an encouraging and complimentary tone when teaching
4.16(9) Occasionally using the dialects older learners prefer in class, rather
3.93
than just speaking Mandarin(10) Maintaining a humble attitude when communicating with older
3.55
learners(11) Using various forms of address (i.e., not just ‘Students’) to talk to
3.97
older learners(12) Using Mandarin when introducing difficult concepts or theories
4.08
Relation of Learners’ Age Ranges to their Levels of Strategy Endorsement
As shown in Table 2, ANOVAs indicated that the participants’ levels of endorsement of six
communication strategies varied significantly by age group. These six strategies were (3)(p<.01), (4) (p<.05), (6) (p<.05), (7) (p=.01), (10) (p=.00), and (11) (p<.05).
Table 2. Variation in Learners’ Endorsement of Communication Strategies by Age
Older learners' age ranges
Communication strategies

55-65

66-75

76-85

total

Pearsoncorrelation

Sig.

Mean

N

Mean

N

Mean

N

Mean

N

(1) Avoiding using jargon and difficult theories

4.08

106

3.81

83

3.90

39

3.95

228

(2) Speaking slowly in class

3.80

106

3.83

83

4.03

39

3.85

228

.063 .173(3) Repeating previous teaching content

3.66

106

3.70

83

4.08

39

3.75

228

.110* .049

(4) Avoiding referring to death or ailments in class

2.87

106

3.22

83

3.62

39

3.12

228

.197*** .001

(5) Using a playful tone for chatting or teaching

4.18

106

4.07

83

4.33

39

4.17

228

.026 .346(6) Avoiding correcting older learners’ mistakes

3.45

106

3.61

83

4.08

39

3.62

228

.173** .004

(7) Not controlling older learners’ talking in class

3.50

106

3.63

83

4.08

39

3.64

228

.155** .010

(8) Using an encouraging and complimentary tone when teaching

4.20

106

4.02

83

4.31

39

4.15

228

.006 .461(9) Occasionally using the dialects older learners prefer in class,rather than just speaking Mandarin

3.92

106

3.81

83

4.23

39

3.93

228

.069 .149(10) Maintaining a humble attitude when communicating with older learners
3.25 106

3.61

83

4.15

39

3.54

228

.251*** .000(11) Using various forms of address (i.e., not just ‘Students’) totalk to older learners

3.90

106

3.83

83

4.46

39

3.97

228

.132* .024

(12) Using Mandarin when introducing difficult concepts ortheories

4.07

106

3.98

83

4.33

39

4.08

228

.058 .190-.078 .121

Specifically, post-hoc tests indicated that the main age difference in endorsement of thestrategy of avoiding talking about death or ailments was between the 55-65 age group and the76+ group, with the latter endorsing it significantly more strongly. Similarly, such tests
established that the eldest learners endorsed teachers’ avoidance of correcting their mistakes
significantly more strongly than either the youngest ones (p<.01) or the 66-75 year olds
(p<.05), perhaps indicating that the eldest learners had the strongest face-maintenance needs

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Official Conference Proceedingsof these three groups. Such an idea would also appear to be confirmed by the post-hoc tests’suggestion that the eldest learners endorsed (1) teachers’ avoidance of controlling older
students’ chatting in class significantly more than those in the youngest group did (p<.05),
and (2) teachers’ exhibition of modest attitudes in class significantly more than the 55-65(p<.001) and 66-75 year olds (p<.05). However, significant differences were also observed
between the means of the 66-75 and the 55-65 year olds (p<.05), with the former being
higher. The eldest learners also endorsed teachers’ use of varied forms of addresssignificantly more strongly than either their 55- to 65-year-old (p<.05) or 66- to 75-year-old
counterparts (p<.01). In short, the older the sampled learners were, the greater their selfreported need to be accorded respect by their teachers.
The post hoc tests also suggested that the eldest learners endorsed teachers’ use of students’preferred dialects to chat with them, to a significantly greater extent than either the 55-65(p=.001) or 66-75 age groups (p<.01). This, too, could have been because such codeswitching was seen as polite or even deferential.
Relation of Learners’ Health Statuses to their Levels of Strategy Endorsement
As shown in Table 3, ANOVAs were conducted to investigate the relationships between older
learners’ health statuses – which they self-rated into one of five categories ranging from very
unhealthy to very healthy – and the extent of their endorsement of the various communication
strategies adopted by senior-education teachers. The strategies for which significant healthrelated differences appeared were (1) (p<.01), (2) (p<.001), (7) (p<.01), (8) (p<.01), (9)(p<.01), (10) (p<.05), (11) (p<.05), and (12) (p<.01).
Table 3. Variation in Learners’ Endorsement of Communication Strategies by Health Status
Older learners' health status
Communication strategies

Very
Moderatley
Unhealthy
unhealthy
healthy

HealthyVeryhealthy

Total

Sig.

Mean N Mean N Mean
3.75 8 3.56 9 3.72
3.75 8 4.11 9 3.47
4.25 8 3.56 9 3.47

N Mean75 4.00
75 3.89
75 3.74

3.50

8

3.56

9

2.87

75 3.01 80 3.53

57

3.13 229.082 .216

4.13

8

4.00

9

3.96

75 4.26 80 4.35

57

4.17 229.115 .082

3.50

8

3.67

9

3.45

75 3.62 80 3.86

57

3.62 229.104 .117

4.13

8

3.56

9

3.17

75 3.69 80 4.18

57

3.65 229.201** .002

3.88

8

3.67

9

3.99

75 4.18 80 4.47

57

4.16 229.174** .008

4.25

8

3.78

9

3.55

75 3.98 80 4.37

57

3.93 229.190** .004

(10) Maintaining a humble attitude whencommunicating with older learners

4.00

8

3.67

9

3.01

75 3.79 80 3.82

57

3.55 229.148* .025

(11) Using various forms of address (i.e., notjust ‘Students’) to talk to older learners

4.00

8

4.00

9

3.63

75 4.06 80 4.30

57

3.97 229.158* .017

(12) Using Mandarin when introducing difficult
concepts or theories

4.00

8

3.67

9

3.83

75 4.13 80 4.44

57

4.08 229.189** .004

(1) Avoiding using jargon and difficult theories(2) Speaking slowly in class(3) Repeating previous teaching content(4) Avoiding referring to death or ailments inclass(5) Using a playful tone for chatting orteaching(6) Avoiding correcting older learners’
mistakes(7) Not controlling older learners’ talking
in class(8) Using an encouraging and complimentarytone(9) Occasionally using the dialects older
learners prefer in class, rather than justspeaking Mandarin

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N Mean N Mean N
80 4.30 57 3.96 229
80 4.30 57 3.86 229
80 4.11 57 3.75 229

Pearsoncorrelation.177** .007
.204** .002
.124 .062

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Post-hoc tests indicated that very healthy learners agreed that teachers should speak slowly inclass significantly more than those whose health was good (p<.05) or moderate (p<.001).
Healthy learners also showed the same pattern, as compared to those whose health wasmoderate (p<.05). Endorsement of teachers’ repetition of previously discussed teachingcontent was also significantly stronger among very healthy learners than among theirmoderately healthy counterparts (p<.01). This seems to imply that healthier the sampledlearners were, the more likely they were to endorse their teachers’ use of secondary baby talkand patronising communication styles.
The post-hoc tests for the item on teachers’ loose class management indicated that the maindifferences were between (1) very unhealthy students and those whose health was moderate(p<.05, with the very unhealthy ones endorsing this style more strongly); (2) healthy ones andthose whose health was moderate (p<.01, with the healthy ones agreeing more); (3) between
the very healthy ones and those whose health was moderate (p<.001, with the very healthy
ones agreeing more); and (4) between the very unhealthy ones and those who were very
healthy (p<.05, with the very healthy ones agreeing more). Generally speaking, in otherwords, older learners who were in better health were more likely to endorse teachers’ flexible
class management, but those in the worst health also strongly demanded flexible learning
environments from their teachers.
The post-hoc tests for the item on code-switching suggested that very healthy learners
endorsed this practice significantly more than healthy ones (p<.05) or moderately healthy
ones did (p<.001). Learners whose health was above average also endorsed code-switchingsignificantly more strongly than those whose health was moderate (p<.05). That is, learners
with better health were more likely to demand more flexible codes from their teachers inclass.
The post-hoc tests for the item on teacher humility suggested that very healthy learners(p<.001), healthy ones (p<.001) and very unhealthy ones (p<.05) all endorsed teacher’s
showing modesty in class significantly more than those whose health was moderate did.
Learners who were healthy (p<.05) and very healthy (p<.01) exhibited significantly greateragreement with teachers’ use of various forms of address in class, as compared to theirmoderately healthy counterparts.
As to the main difference involving to the use of Mandarin for difficult concepts or theories,
very healthy older learners endorsed this communicative approach significantly morestrongly than those whose health was moderate (p<.01).
Discussion and Conclusion
On the whole, the sampled older learners strongly endorsed the communication strategies
senior-education teachers told Chen (2019) they adopted. However, these learners did notappear to consider teachers’ showing respect to them, or avoiding references to death andailments, as critical to fostering pleasant learning or communicative processes characterisedby humour, fun and relaxation (see the strategy of using playful tone to chat or teach in thesurvey).

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Age was previously found to be a significant predictor of teachers’ communicationaccommodations when teaching older people (Chen, 2019). The present study’s results revealthat teachers particularly need to communicatively accommodate learners aged above 75,
who appear to have the strongest face and politeness needs. Such accommodation could takevarious forms, including avoiding death-related taboo topics; attending to politeness andrespect, as defined by not correcting them; maintaining relatively loose classroom control;choosing appropriate forms of address; demonstrating humility; and using their preferredlanguage codes when interacting with them socially (but perhaps not when teaching). Thisechoes Chen’s (2019) findings regarding the opinions of teachers of senior education, who
further ascribed the need for communicative accommodation to learners 75+ to physicaldecline, and therefore regarded patronising communication styles to be appropriate. However,the present study did not find that strategies such as slower teaching or repetition of taught
information were significantly more strongly endorsed by learners 75+ than by those aged
55-74.
Among the learners in this study, health status also seemed to have an impact on howteachers’ communication-accommodation behaviours were viewed. First, contrary to theresearcher’s expectations, teachers’ employment of patronising communication styles wasstrongly endorsed by learners whose health was below the average, perhaps because theirhealth conditions negatively affected their reception and/or comprehension of information.
However, learners who self-reported the worst health did not endorse such communicationstyles to a greater extent than those whose health status was better than the average. Indeed,those learners who reported good health endorsed these patronising styles the most clearly.
This may have reflected the healthy learners’ generally more demanding attitude toward
teachers’ communication accommodations: e.g., they also agreed that teachers should givethem more autonomy of talking in class, use code-switching to facilitate their learning as well
as social purposes, show them respect via being humble, and address them in appropriate
ways.
The above results confirm the diversity of older learners’ perspectives, as well as someslippages between students’ and teachers’ views of the latter’s stereotypical or patronisingcommunication-accommodation strategies (cf. Chen, 2019). Teacher-student communication
processes in senior education in Taiwan would therefore appear to be more complex thanteachers of older learners tend to imagine. And such learners’ demographic characteristics,
notably age and health status, should add additional nuance to teachers’ calculations of how
they should communicate in senior-education classes. Future research comparing teachers’
and older learners’ perceptions of what communication strategies are appropriate in suchsettings should take account of further demographic factors.

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Discourses and Counter-discourses in the Times of the Coronavirus Crisis
Jan Demcisak, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, Slovakia
Simona Frastikova, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, Slovakia
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Abstract
The situation of the global coronavirus crisis affects different areas of human life and also
influences the use of language. A new kind of discourse is emerging, in which politics, healthcare, the media and many other actors participate. In our article, we deal with the"coronavirus discourse" from the point of view of right-wing populist parties who create a
special narrative that is often directed as a counter-discourse against the rhetoric of official
political decision-makers or the mass media. This constellation of speech and counter-speech
can be examined methodologically from the position of critical discourse analysis in thesense of Michael Foucault. In addition, the performative aspect of linguistic utterances in the
tradition of John Austin can also be considered in this context. In a combination of the two
methodological approaches, our study examines which effects, with which linguistic means
and with which intentions are constructed by language in this pandemic situation.
Keywords: Covid-19, Right Wing Populism, Political Discourse, Frequency Analysis,Contextual Analysis

iafor
The International Academic Forumwww.iafor.org

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Introduction
This short study is part of a larger research project dedicated to a broader analysis oflanguage strategies among right-wing populist parties at the level of lexicon, text anddiscourse. Our contribution is derived from an analysis of postings published in the Freedom
Party of Austria’s (FPÖ) Facebook page, which focuses on them complemented with visualmaterial. It takes a look at the specific discourse led by the FPÖ after the outbreak of the
COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Out of a total 388 text-image units appearing between
January and December 2020, 195 mention the pandemic, political solutions thereto and theimpact on society. Even though the coronavirus was only discussed for the first time on the
FPÖ’s Facebook page in February 2020 and it can theoretically cover almost the entire
calendar year, the pandemic cannot be seen as clearly dominant because of the relatively
large space devoted to other themes (identified in the remaining 193 examined units), with
migration, immigration and Islam having been by far the issues most frequently discussed. In
some cases, as will be shown later, they even overlapped with the COVID-19 pandemiccrisis. In addition to the two thematic areas mentioned, some specific political situations
within Austria (mostly associated with criticism from opponents) and very marginalenvironmental issues sporadically appear.
Within the examined units themselves, we concentrated on messages that had been included
in graphics or images because they were supposed to attract the attention of recipients. These
text units – predominately passwords, short sentences and word combinations – were thentranscribed, evaluated for frequency and interpreted from narrower thematic contexts withinformation from accompanying posts contributing to the interpretation. Once they had been
analysed for frequency and context, we then sought to draw attention to the performative
aspects of language conversations and at the end analyse from the perspective of critical
discourse and an ideologically critical view of the phenomena that has appeared over thecourse of the present coronavirus crisis.
Frequency Analysis
A frequency analysis of individual words in a graphic or image show the most commonlyused terms (excluding articles, prepositions, auxiliary verbs, and similar non-meaningful
terms) to be schwarz (“black” in 7th position), nicht (no, not – 10th position) and Österreich(Austria - 11th position). The term Corona was found in 13th position, followed by theexpressions ÖVP (Austrian People’s Party, 15th position) and grün (green, 21st position).
Examining how often words occur from the perspective of expanding semantic fields, thefollowing expressions dominate (see Table 1). These frequencies empirically affirm existing
characteristics and findings concerning the language of right-wing populism (see for example
Decker & Lewandowsky 2017, Štefančík & Dulebová 2017, Müller 2019, Schuppener 2019and others). First and foremost, it includes political and populist rhetoric toward building
identity based itself on opposition to a political adversary. Logically differentiating us versus
them should, as a rule, be accompanied by the semantic principle of negation. This field
could be theoretically expanded to include other expressions with negative connotations that
relate to the actions and decisions of a government and its political parties such as versagen(deny) Verdacht (suspicion) and Skandal (scandal).

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Semantic field
1. competing political parties,
expressed by theirabbreviations and symbolic
colours
2. negative expressions
3. own identity
4. migration, refugees, asylum,Islam
5. Austria
6. corona

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Expressions
schwarz, grün, ÖVPOccurrences
171

nicht, nichts, kein, nein, gegen, niemals
FPÖ, wir, uns, unser … (excl. party
logo)
Migranten, Migration, Flüchtlinge,
Flüchtlingspolitik, Asyl, Asylwerber,
Islam, Islamismus, Muslime …
Österreich, Österreicher…
Corona, Coronavirus, Covid…

135
95
79
76
56

Table 1: Word Occurrences (Semantic Fields)
An essential component in the identity of populist parties is their patriotic nature andcloseness to the people, where they are understood to be primarily a national entity. For thisreason, too, it is understandable for national identity (Austria, homeland) to be among themost frequently cited topics. National self-confidence, like party identity, is formed from its
relationship to anything foreign. Migrants, asylum-seekers, refugees and adherents of Islam
constitute a unified set of ideas that describe something “foreign”, over which own identity
and nationality is triumphing (on the problem of Islam in right-wing populism cf. Schuppener
2020 or Fraštíková 2019). This method of creating subjectivity corresponds to the theory
expressed by Jacques Lacan and his psychoanalytical clarification of identity and subject
formation in the so-called “mirror stage”, in which the constellation of “I” and “other” play a
critical role (Horatschek 2013).
A certain paradox is apparent at first glance in connection with the coronavirus discourse, tobe pursued further here. Even though about half of the analysed units could have been
assigned to this thematic area, the frequency analysis showed the semantic field to be smaller
in comparison to the others and not to correspond to the frequency of the topic as such. A
closer contextual analysis and identification of the themes and subthemes associated with theexamined discourse could shed light on why this is the case.
Contextual Analysis
Mention of the COVID-19 pandemic was first posted by the FPÖ on its Facebook page in
Figure 1, with Chairman Norbert Hofer predicting that, were it to reach Austria, it would
already be too late. The illocutionary act of his utterance was a certain warning, or rather achallenge, to provoke a perlocutionary act of action and response to the situation. The party
simultaneously published a survey (Figure 2), asking respondents whether the government
was currently putting adequate measures in place against the pandemic. Yet the question
itself rather seeks to cast doubt about the government's ability (illocution) and expects suchan attitude from recipients of the message (perlocution).

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Figure 1

Figure 2

Postings that immediately followed the two above confirmed this intention. The party was
now proposing its own solutions, such as border controls (Figure 3) and then joined bothpremises together (casting doubt about what the government’s actions and proposing its own
solutions) (Figure 4).

Figure 3

Figure 4

The connection between them intensifies the narrative that has been created and, in its own
way, multiplies the possible perlocutionary acts. Here the binary of thinking andcontradiction are used to the fullest, thereby contrasting the government’s actions and thecoronavirus threat, and so verbalised in the phrase trotz großer Gefahr (in spite of the grave
danger). Simultaneously, other logical conclusions are implied. The expression Gefahr(danger), while bound primarily to the coronavirus, is transmitted in parallel to the word
combination of “offene Grenzen” (open borders), hence the danger becomes open borders andnot COVID-19 as such. In addition, the binary logic system arranges these oppositions on a
vertical axis. The lexical unit etw. über etw. stellen (superimpose sth. on sth.) evokes agovernment putting its open border policy before the welfare of its citizens. In this case,
Austrian citizens (the recipients of the message) have been now positioned at the bottom of
the hierarchy, with open borders, COVID-19 and the danger stacked above them. Thisdevelopment comes together with a government which, by virtue of its governance alongwith the power to make decisions and privilege certain elements, such as open borders before
people, now stands above the people and occupies the same level as COVID-19 and thethreat of contracting it. By evoking one of the basic features of populism in the context of
COVID-19 discourse, thematising and recalling the constellation and popular opposition (asthe FPÖ acts on behalf of the people) while pitting it against the ruling elite in thinking us
versus them, such an environment of competition becomes, as our frequency analysis aboveshows, the number one thematic unit.

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The basic strategy leading to such an objective combines partial and seemingly isolated
phenomena and problems into higher thought units, which can produce several logicalconclusions depending on the chosen thought process. This enables thematisation andaddresses one agenda with another. The FPÖ's first solution to the COVID-19 outbreak –border controls – is not entirely without precedent. The thematisation of national borders and“protecting” them had been one of the main topics of the pre-COVID-19 period, as
documented in Figure 5. In this context, the border becomes a symbolic boundary for one’s
own national, cultural and religious identity, with right-wing populist rhetoric describing
foreigners – migrants and asylum seekers – as a clear and present danger. Addressing theissue in the wake of the new threat of global pandemic enables the FPÖ, in a simplified andfigurative way, to “kill two birds with one stone”.

Figure 5

Figure 6

In terms of frequency, it is even found among the topics most represented in creating thecontextual framework for the coronavirus discourse. Several narratives can also be identified
therein. Following up on the symbolism of the border, passage across it becomes two-way –open to asylum seekers but closed to Austrian residents (Figure 6). In this case, the expected
perlocutionary act is acquiring a sense of injustice and unequal treatment. Like the example
in Figure 4, the government is again referenced as having originated the situation andresulting vertical stratification. Besides becoming an intermediary in feelings of injustice andprivilege, foreigners appear now in another narrative to be a direct epidemiological threat,
carrying a dangerous disease, with action needed to be taken against shelters as sources forthe outbreak of infection (Figure 7 and 8). Such active discourse mechanisms thereby
contribute toward the creation of a clear stigma reminiscent of how migrants and asylum
seekers were earlier stigmatised as terrorists and rapists. This is because both stigmas pose an
immediate threat to life and limb. The force and intensity of such stigmatisation can bejustified, among other things, by its direct relationship to the Foucault term “bio-power”.

Figure 7

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As a modifier at other levels, the COVID-19 crisis starts appearing in the migration andasylum policies that are the FPÖ’s main platform. The significantly accelerated digitisation ofvarious areas of society now allows applications for asylum to be submitted electronically, adevelopment right-wing populist see as a new potential issue to exploit – Cyber-Schlepperei(cyber-smuggling of aliens) and which of course they refuse to countenance (see Figure 9).
The end result is COVID-19 seen as a cover-up manoeuvre and distraction from “true”
problems, such as the violence the FPÖ blames on migrants. Here, the connection becomesapparent only secondarily in the accompanying posting.

Figure 9

Figure 10

Throughout 2020, asylum seekers; migrants and, in direct connection, Islamism wereaccomplices in the FPÖ’s political discourse, even separate from COVID-19, with clear
escalation after the terrorist attack that took place in Vienna on 2 December.
Returning to the COVID-19 discourse and the focus on identifying other contexts andthematic links, the main points of discussion in this paper, the economic impact of thecoronavirus pandemic can be described as significantly resonant and the most commonlyoccurring subtopic. The high frequency is quite understandable because the economic aspect
directly affects ordinary people and offers a strong potential not only for criticising thegovernment as the main “enemy” but also enables formation of a strong coalition of thedissatisfied. In response to such dissatisfaction, the FPÖ turns mainly to emotional strategies
based on (pseudo-) empathy and solidarity. Word combinations they use include expressions
such as “the government doesn’t make it easy”, “the government is destroying jobs”, “thegovernment mustn’t touch our savings”, “there’s a new wave of poverty coming”, “they’ve
ruined our economy”, “they’re bringing people to their knees” and more. The
instrumentalisation of emotions can be documented in the following two postings, which
concurrently point out the internal conflict between the emotional and rational sides of thisstrategy. Figure 11 criticises government measures, hyperbolically likening them to a tsunamithat may ultimately create among recipients of the message a sense of danger and panic,
which the poster wants to see stopped. The paradox of this utterance is that the locutionary
act itself denies having incited the perlocutionary act. In the same way, the utterance
deconstructs itself. Figure 12 once again characterises the pathos of the climax (Only after
the last person has lost their job and the last inn has been closed down) and accordingly theparadox of the climax culminates in an event that preceded its first two stages (when theylearn that Chancellor Sebastian Kurz should never have been elected to the post), so initiating
the entire climax.

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Figure 11

Figure 12

A similar example involves the creation of logical connections in situations where they would
not be expected. Both of the postings in the next row (Figures 13 and 14) do not directly
thematise the COVID-19 crisis. It is only referenced in the accompanying text. Yet theysuggest lifting the ban on smoking in restaurants and payment in cash will alleviate the crisisin the restaurant and catering industry (because of the coronavirus crisis). In both cases, theirmain argument is the invocation of civil liberties, guaranteeing people a choice of whether or
not to eat at a restaurant where people smoke and whether or not to use something other thancash. Both trends (no smoking and the spread of noncash payments) are seen here as
detrimental to businesses.

Figure 13

Figure 14

While the use of unusual or paradoxical logic may have no significant impact on thosereceiving the message, Figures 15 and 16 are nevertheless unambiguously stigmatising. As
analysed earlier, these examples seek to create complex thematic links, stating that theeconomic impact of the COVID-19 crisis on people in Austria and Europe has a connection
with people living in other regions of the world (such as Africa and Syria in the Middle East).
The aim here is to evoke a sense of outrage that, even though “we” in Europe are having it
bad enough (every penny is needed, there is a lot of unemployment here), others are getting
financial support and profiting at “our” expense.

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Figure 15

Figure 16

Activating the scheme of “us” versus “them” can arouse envy, i.e. provoke a perlocutionary
act. But even at the bio-power level, it can initiate the “natural” instinct of self-preservation.
Nonetheless, direct biological metaphors are also used in the complex relationship between
the economy and the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on it. For example, Figure 17 sends a
message about the death knell of the restaurant industry and Figure 18 calls members of thegoverning ÖVP-Green coalition the gravediggers of Austria, where the context of the latter
posting speaks not only about the economy, but also education and the rule of law, which thecoalition government is allegedly burying.

Figure 17

Figure 18

Both of these areas can be considered further thematic subheadings appearing in connection
with the COVID-19 discourse. The issue of education can be more or less narrowed down
exclusively to whether schools should remain open or be closed (denying children the right toeducation) and if children in school should be required to wear masks. Again, monitoring theplane of their reasoning is rather intriguing in the examination of their explanation of why thewearing of masks would not be appropriate. The reason is rapid fatigue in children andworsened concentration, or as Figure 19 shows, to give children the opportunity of learning
how to recognise mimicking behaviour. Two postings with different aspects seek toguarantee these two points. The first of them shows two women holding doctorate degrees
and refers to mothers, while the other posting points out that neither of the government
coalition leaders have children of their own, so they lack the competence to decide about
them. Hence, the FPÖ utilises biology and the weight of authority to bolster their argument,
yet they are only based on the social roles of these doctorate mothers (one a lawyer and theother a medical physician) and not on verifiable facts.

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Figure 19

Figure 20

Figure 21

Figure 22

Obviously, adults have also been caught up in the issue of wearing face masks and especiallyin western countries this symbol can be compared to the face of the god Janus. While theface in one direction is beaming at the solidarity of people as they combat the pandemic, theface in the other direction is concerned about civil liberties limited by forced government
measures. This duality can also be observed in the FPÖ’s changing rhetoric. While in theinitial phases of the pandemic in March 2020, masks were displayed neutrally either with noconnotations whatsoever or positively (vitally important medicinal products) (see Figure 21),it had turned by sometime after May 2020 into a rejected artefact (Figure 22). Interestingly
enough, right-wing populists can equally instrumentalise both positive and negative
connotations to make them tools for strengthening patriotism. Patriotism likewise plays amajor role in connection with the earlier outlined context of the COVID-19 pandemic’s
impact on the economy, mainly in calls directed to support the national economy and also toreinforce self-sufficiency, particularly in the food industry. Notwithstanding, the pandemic
has fuelled the expansion of the right-wing populist agenda into health, which now ranks firstin the list of outlined focal points, such as in Figure 23 (Protect Austria. Health. Jobs
Economy).

Figure 23

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However, the patriotic and national aspect, as evidenced in the frequency analysis, still “plays
second fiddle” to the political aspect, primarily the definition of the party’s own identity incontrast to the political competition and government elites. The preceding analysis of theeconomic context has in turn hinted at the exploitation of these problematic situations and the
population’s dissatisfaction with the government and its actions to combat the pandemic, inorder to build a common alliance and win the sympathy of potential voters by taking theirside and finding a mutual enemy. A much broader area for populists, outside of the economic
impact of the COVID-19 crisis and the arrival of the opportune moment to criticise thegoverning coalition, is the opportunity to establish a grassroots alliance aimed at combating
the state’s overall intervention in people's daily lives. This chance comes and can be seized
because, during a crisis or national emergency, government’s power and options naturally
escalate the constellation of us (the defenceless and powerless) against them (the virtuallyomnipotent). In times of crisis, a populist politician will enter the scene as a saviour, like theman in Figure 24 analogous to the messianic feature found in populism. He not only brings
solutions, but also bears the truth (Figure 25), which can catch fire and spread, provided
freedom of opinion and expression can be guaranteed (Figure 26).

Figure 25

Figure 26

Accordingly, it represents rationality and common sense in contrast with us versus them (withus being the right-wing populists). Now the government, cast in the role of “them”, standaccused of deception, illogicality, madness and chaos in their decisions and regulations,raising questions about legitimacy. It is exactly in such extreme situations that populism
returns to its key concept, the people. Talking directly about government of the people(democracy) in the depths of the COVID-19 crisis, populists thematise the boundaries of
democracy and reach for lexical units such as “Parlament entmachten” (parliament strippedof its powers), Propaganda and Diktatur (dictator), highlighting the dysfunction of
fundamental government institutions such as Parliament, the Austrian Government and thePresident (see Figure 27 – 30).

Figure 27

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Figure 29

Figure 30

Various examples of government exercising its power, by forcing people to wear masks andto undergo vaccinations, testing and lockdowns, are joined along with lexical units such as“chicanery”, “duress”, “betrayal”, “intolerance”, “failure”, “misfortune”, “chaos”,“scandal”, “inability” and “neglect”. These are negative connotations that correspond withoften-used negative expressions, as it also developed at the beginning of the frequency
analysis. All of these expressions simultaneously characterise political adversaries and thegovernment elite, attributed to social coldness. The posting in Figure 31 poetically points out
the parallel between the first letters of the German words soziale Kälte and the initials ofAustrian Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz, tagged at the end of 2020 along with his interior
minister with the title of “Kerkermeister der Österreicher” (jailer of Austria) in Figure 32.
The text accompanying the posting radically compares the restrictions on freedom of
movement and the health policy to the apartheid system that once existed in South Africa.

Figure 31

Figure 32

Conclusion
Looking at the analysed material as a whole, it could be said that it creates a narrative arc.
The story begins with affirmative utterances highlighting the need to act, followed by appeals
from the FPÖ for cohesion and asking people to stand together. Exceptionally, it even
exemplifies their failure to comply with government measures to stem the outbreak as areckless threat to others. The feeling of solidarity is multiplied by numerous thanks to various
professional groups for their work and the struggle against the pandemic. Nevertheless, thecoronavirus discourse was linked even at this very early stage to the party’s own political
agenda, with migration, asylum policy and Islam forefront issues in contrast to their own
national interests and patriotic attitudes. In this respect, it became subject to strategic recontextualisation and political instrumentalisation. Some authors have pointed out that someof the exaggerated panic in response to the COVID-19 pandemic was strongly incited by
racism, for example when COVID-19 itself was called a Chinese virus (Agamben 2020, on
the other hand cf. Žižek 2020). Our analysed examples accuse foreigners and representatives

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into a narrative that exacerbates the conflict between ordinary people and Austrian citizens on
one side and the ruling elite on the other. Where the initial act of illocution was a call to act
quickly and respond to the pandemic threat, there was an ever-growing discourse toward
criticising and permanently negating any act of state power, with the right-wing populists
seeking to form an alliance with the dissatisfied and attempting to win them over. At thesame time, they were purposefully using emotional strategies and activating the logic ofhierarchal opposition. What they primarily underscore is suppression of rights and liberties,
bullying by the state, the creation of different categories of the population, double logic in thegovernment's failure to comply with measures they put in place themselves and finallyclassifying asylum seekers as common enemies. In general, the discourse is dominated bynegatively connotated lexical units. Thus, the entire narrative arc shifts the need forprotection from the coronavirus to the government itself and its measures, transforming a
biological and natural danger to a political threat. Yet in both cases, right-wing populists
have the opportunity to express their messianic traits and offer a path to salvation. In essence,
populist discourse creates a counter-discourse to the existing government discourse, but
without itself acting subversively toward deconstruction of power because it is essentiallyitself pursuing objectives of power, instrumentalising individual elements and components ofthe discourse. Upon a closer analysis of right-wing populist language and rhetoric, it isnoticeable that lexical units are often used ambivalently and evoke at once both positive andnegative connotations, depending on whether they relate to “us” or to “them”. Accordingly,
they are used to connect thematic units to more complex units utilised to activate andmultiply a wider spectrum of perlocutionary acts and also to mask their own logicalinconsistency.
Penetration into geopolitical and historical discourse likewise plays a certain role here, when“modern” dictatorships and propaganda are compared to practices of states designated as East
Bloc or to dictatorial and racist practices of the past.
From a comparative perspective, the study provides further space to compare Austrian
discourse specifically with the situation and developments in other countries. Because theauthors of this study come from Slovakia, there is no failure to notice several parallels with
its own domestic political scene in terms of both general rhetoric and specific details(thematically summarised in government measures for the restaurant industry, fitness centres
and in the conduct of weddings and funerals, as well as by scandals caused by government
officials failing to comply with their own measures, two-metre social distancing, the threat to
traditional and Christian holidays and the contradiction and illogicality of decisions, among
other things). These aspects may be the subject of further research.
Acknowledgements
The study is part of the project APVV-17-0128 Language strategies of right-wing populists incomparison (Germany – Austria – Czech Republic – Slovakia): lexis – texts – discourses
founded by The Slovak Research and Development Agency.

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References
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Figure 5. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/fpoe/photos/1566656806808916 [202101-02]
Figure 6. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/fpoe/photos/1619459204862009 [202101-02]
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Figure 10. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/fpoe/photos/1702673293207266[2021-01-02]
Figure 11. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/fpoe/photos/1765035553637706[2021-01-02]
Figure 12. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/fpoe/photos/1789149027893025[2021-01-02]
Figure 13. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/fpoe/photos/1669246946549901[2021-01-02]
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Figure 16. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/fpoe/photos/1638670796274183[2021-01-02]
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Figure 21. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/fpoe/photos/1614015908739672[2021-01-02]

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Figure 22. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/fpoe/photos/1671691026305493[2021-01-02]
Figure 23. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/fpoe/photos/1706460542828541[2021-01-02]
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Figure 25. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/fpoe/photos/1617481831726413[2021-01-02]
Figure 26. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/fpoe/photos/1750680898406505[2021-01-02]
Figure 27. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/fpoe/photos/1782248791916382[2021-01-02]
Figure 28. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/fpoe/photos/1874374086037185[2021-01-02]
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Figure 30. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/fpoe/photos/1867690373372223[2021-01-02]
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Contact email: jan.demcisak@ucm.sk
simona.frastikova@ucm.sk

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The Rhetoric of the Freedom Party of Austria in the 2019 National Council Elections –Lexicon, Pragmatics, Discourse
Simona Fraštíková, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, Slovakia
Ján Demčišák, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, Slovakia
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Abstract
Our study deals with the language of the Freedom Party of Austria in the early elections to
the National Council in 2019. It analyzes the party's rhetoric after the corruption scandal that
led to early elections. The linguistic analysis takes place in three stages. First, the lexicallevel of the language is examined - in particular the choice of topics and the associated flagwords and stigma words. Then the pragmatic aspect should be discussed - the intentionality
and the effect of language, especially the rational and emotional appeals in comparison, areanalyzed. Finally, the party's rhetoric is viewed in the context of general political discourse,which is about claims to power and manipulation. The analyzes and discussions should help
to better understand the mechanisms of right-wing populist rhetoric.
Keywords: Right-wing Populism, Early Elections, Lexical Analysis, Flag and Stigma Words

iafor
The International Academic Forumwww.iafor.org

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Introduction
Election campaigns provide space for a political party to muster its forces and a wide range
of options exist not only for influencing undecided voters as effectively as possible, but also
to strengthen their already existing electoral base. Every political party is equally aware that,
if a strong bond exists, its constituents can keep a political party in parliament for a longer
period of time and the party becomes more resilient in the face of any scandals and attacks
upon it. One of the most intrinsic and at the same time most accessible methods forapproaching voters is communication, so it is no wonder that language plays a critical role inpre-election campaigning. The way a political party speaks to voters either directly or
through intermediaries, how it thematises current issues and verbally puts forward
suggestions for resolving them, and how it formulates its promises all have an impact on thevoters the party is addressing and its message. Therefore, the language patterns any politicalparty uses in a pre-election campaign will be among its pinnacle efforts, linked to strategicintermediate steps and the targeting it undertakes throughout the entire campaign process.
A stable and responsible electoral base is the prerequisite for any political party to be
successful in elections, at the very least at remaining in parliament over several terms. Of
course, any political party can be both incredibly successful and yet remain more or lessstagnant. The Freedom Party of Austria’s (FPÖ) constituency, discussed in this study, formed
slowly and in stages like other right-wing populist parties that have evolved in Europe, suchas the Alternative for Germany (AfD), People’s Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS) and Freedom andDirect Democracy (SPD) in the Czech Republic. Graph 1 maps out the popularity Austria’s
political parties have seen over its post-war history and it particularly makes clear the moreturbulence these parties have encountered in elections since 1983. Starting in 2002 (seeTable 1), the FPÖ’s political fortunes were rising, a trend that was cut short in 2019, when
the so-called “Ibiza Affair” sparked an early election for the National Council (Nationalrat),
the lower house of the Austrian Parliament.

Figure 1: National Council Elections in Austria (1945-2017)(https://www.vienna.at/die-nationalratswahlen-von-1945-bis-2017-chronologie/6312532)
Elections to the
2002
2006
2008
2013
2017
2019
National Council
FPÖ’s share of 10.01% 11.04%
17.5%
20.5%
26%
16.2%
the vote
Table 1: Percent of the Votes Won by the FPÖ Won in National Council Elections Held since
2002(https://www.bmi.gv.at/412/)

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Examining the percent of the vote the party had received, it is visible that the FPÖ wasenjoying extraordinary success in its most recent campaigns prior to the Ibiza Affair.
Although the party experienced a significant drop in support in the 2019 parliamentaryelections, from a longer-term perspective it was able to retain a permanent base of supporters
who still strongly identify with the party, even with the various type scandals that haveembroiled the FPÖ.
This study focuses on the campaign period prior to the 2019 elections and the necessity forcalling early elections after a video recording was published by the Süddeutsche Zeitung andSpiegel Online on 17 May 2019 that showed then party boss Heinz-Christian Strach anddeputy leader Johann Gudenus, an FPÖ Member of Parliament, discussing corrupt activities
and illegal financing in the run-up to the 2017 parliamentary election (for more information,see
https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/oesterreich-ibiza-video-berlin-101.html;
https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article 193794769/Strache-Affaere-in-Oesterreich-Waswissen-wir-ueber-das-Ibiza-Video-wissen. html). The conversation between them and awoman posing as the niece of Russian oligarch Igor Makarov, who would have supposedly
become a partner in these illegal activities, was captured during a meeting on the island of
Ibiza (hence the Ibiza Affair) and the video was released almost two years later. In the wakeof the Ibiza affair, the coalition between the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the FPÖ
collapsed in May 2019. Nonetheless, there were also questions raised about the further
direction of the Freedom Party which were primarily associated with the need for it torespond quickly to the scandal with appropriate changes in its internal structure as it prepared
for the early elections announced for 29 September 2019. This analysis stresses the last
aspect, which is also reflected in the first. Considering the vigorous inference ofconsequences to be drawn from the Ibiza Affair on the level of changes in the government’s
structure and the rhetoric connected therewith, there was anticipation that certain changes in
the FPÖ’s approach would be taking place during the election campaign. The early elections
were marked by a different dominant theme from previous elections. The main issue was now
climate change and policies to combat it. (https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/oesterreichwahlkampf-105.html). An analysis of empirical material shows the extent the FPÖ was able
to brush aside the refugee issue, removing it from the spotlight.
The objective is to highlight the verbal patterns focusing on content and sub-aspects thatsomewhat “caught the eye” in the FPÖ’s early election campaign. Here, language is either
key or, in connection with the visual element, an accompanying but no means less importantelement in deliberately sharing certain content. The analysis accordingly includes a lexicon
concentrating on identifying flag and stigmatising words. Considering how strongly
persuasive language can be in an election campaign, the choice of lexicon and the applicationof other, primarily linguistic elements in correlation with visuals, will point in a similar way
to a strategic and intentional process aimed at reinforcing lasting trust in the FPÖ andwinning back the confidence of voters it had lost in the scandal.
One device commonly used in the election campaign was campaign posters and leaflets.
Sharing them (also) on social networks let the material receive mass coverage and enabled
the FPÖ to reach out to their constituents, while also making these flyers and posters easily
accessible in relative terms for various types of analysis. This type of empirical material isused in the analysis conducted for the study. Specifically, it concerns campaign posters
shared on the FPÖ’s official Facebook page between the time when the Ibiza Affair broke
and the September 2019 elections (https://www.facebook.com/fpoe/). There are a total 144
posters and leaflets from this period covered by the database.

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Theoretical Background for Analysis of the Right-wing Populist Language Used by the
FPÖ in the 2019 Election Campaign
The FPÖ’s Ideological Pillars and Strategy
Populism in general, like right-wing populism, is a favourite topic of discussion even amongprofessionals. Many political parties show elements of populism, especially during the run-up
to elections, despite vehement denials of any consideration of them as populist. Yet this isbecause right-wing populist parties have been particularly successful in recent years. This is
why the origin of their success has been and still remains the subject of discussion, not at allperceived in a positive light from the standpoint of all experts.
Given the nature of the study, and also in order to grasp the empirical material morecomprehensibly, this analysis will divine at least the FPÖ’s ideological direction and thestrategies practised by it. At present, a detailed characterisation of right-wing populism canbe found in the literature, which makes it not so challenging to identify the political approachtaken by the parties identified with it. The following central ideological elements andstrategies found in right-wing populist parties have been described by Decker/Lewandowsky,
2017; Prantl, 2017; Priester 2017, 2012; Spier, 2006; Taggart, 2004 and others:•
Appealing to “down-home” values and common sense•
Patriotism derived from religion, ethnicity and culture Emphasising “us/our
country/ours” versus “them/foreigners/the enemies out there”•
Fostering anti-establishment (anti-elite, anti-intellectual) attitudes that are aversive tohateful toward supranational institutions)•
Taking the point of view of “us” instead of “me”•
A charismatic leader at the head of the party•
Fairness a key value•
Extraordinary level of social engagement•
Simplification of complex issues, naming them directly and advocating radical
solutions•
Emotional appeals to voters•
Use of different kinds of statistics to make points•
Polarisation and moralisation
Persuasiveness of Language and Its Domination in Election Campaigns
Language and its use in politics are characterised by certain functions that reflect a
politician’s or political party’s intentions. They are fulfilled depending on how language isused in the corresponding political reality and characterised by the specific relationshipbetween the political party as either the ruling or representative element with the population
as the controlled element. In such an environment, there are corresponding competencies,
types of texts and situational contexts. By their nature and the different ideologies along thepolitical spectrum, election campaigns fall into a segment of political reality characterised bypolitical advertising and propaganda (Girnth, 2015, p. 47; Dieckmann, 2005, p. 25). Because
advertising’s role is generally an attempt to influence its target audience, playing upon theirattitudes, judgements and actions so they favour whoever is broadcasting the advertisement(not necessarily the creator), it becomes clear that political advertising is pursuing a similarintention. However, persuading whomever the advertisement seeks to influence and then

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influencing them is meant here to be in the sense of how a political party broadcasts its
platform. Unlike commercial advertisements, political parties have no desire to sell a product,but rather they are seeking to gain sympathies and win votes. Similarly, language and thefrequently expressive nature of its use have to be seen through this prism as a strategic meansof consciously persuading and influencing voters and their opinions. The function language
fulfils here is informative and persuasive. Even though the function combines two subelements and, in certain situational contexts and even on posters the informative component
may also stand out, it is precisely the objective of persuasion that the language seeks torealise, albeit often in a very sophisticated way.
In the run-up to an election campaign, political parties have ample scope to consider any
effective means of persuasion. Therefore, the choice of how to verbally render shared content
also takes place (not only) as election campaign posters and flyers are structured consciously
and intentionally. Selecting language units and connecting them with others into morecomprehensive units, or in some cases half-sentence and sentence constructions, narrows
their potential as expressions. At the level of setting up language units in situational contexts,
their specific meaning is updated. Notwithstanding, this step is quite critical and reflects upon
the speaker’s (and also the broadcaster’s and creator’s) intentions, too. The use of language incommunication, all the more so politically, requires looking not only at how verballyrendered content was broadcast, but always at how the broadcaster had conceived it. As an
example, the targeted use of a pejorative expression may reflect the broadcaster’s negative
attitude (e.g. concern, fear, aversion and loathing) toward something or somebody, although
it may accordingly be a signal or an appeal to the target audience also to contemplate theirown attitudes toward the broadcaster.
Flag Words, Stigmatising Words and Expressive Language
Taking the above into account in analysing the verbal patterns of content shared in election
posters and leaflets, the focus is mainly on those language units falling into the politicallexicon category referred to as “ideological vocabulary”, namely flag and stigmatizing words(Dieckmann, 2005; Girnth, 2015, p. 59-65; Niehr, 2017, p. 150 et seq.). Flag words are
positively connotated expressions that reflect either directly or symbolically the values
professed by the party on its ideological background (Girnth, 2015, p. 63 et seq.). Politicalparties utilise them to share or defend their positions among the people they are addressing.
Standing in opposition to them are negatively connotated stigmatising words. Their job is tocause harm or damage to an enemy (Girnth, 2015, p. 64). Like the party’s flag words,
stigmatising words are expressions that constitute a political party’s attitude, but theirprimary function is to verbally mould the enemy’s contradictory position on a certain issue.
In both cases, their use is carefully thought out in order to achieve the intended effect.
Besides these units, the study also notes such language units that fall under general
vocabulary, but were semantically “charged” during the election campaign and thus acquired
a new meaning (expanding the semantic structure) and possibly an evaluative element,
although it is often bound only to a specific context.
The prerequisite for successful advertising is for the advertisement to be singular, imaginativeand provocative. These are attributes also found in connection with the expressiveness ofspeech. Expressive speech likewise shows elements that catch the eye or ear, are crisp andlean toward extravagance. Examining the analysed empirical material, not only can certain
terms be expressive, such as inherent, adherent, contextual expressiveness (Findra, 2004;

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Zima, 1961), but the sentence constructions are also unusually structured. If the analysis
identifies expressive words that require attention, a specific example will be used to draw
attention to them.
The 2019 National Council Elections – Analysing Election Posters and Leaflets
It is typical for the right-wing populist FPÖ to be extremely active on social networks,
intensively spreading and promoting the values it professes. It also responds regularly tocomplaints from its adversaries from various ranks. In both cases, the party shares its
attitudes, albeit through different linguistic means and with different and otherwise partial
intents. Due to the nature of these resources and the purpose behind sharing them, only aminimum number of neutral posters and leaflets are ever designed.
The entire database of empirical material can be divided into two groups:
1.
Party ideology exclusively represented by the party’s verbal and verbal-visual
patterns in its posters and brochures, referred to hereafter as contributions). There is no
mention of an opposition and the presence of flag words and other positively connotatedlanguage draws in this case accordingly a positive connotation;
2.
The party’s attitude, shared through its verbal and verbal-visual patterns in its posters
and brochures and nevertheless against the background of disparaging its opponents, isevident in the presence of stigmatising words and other negatively connotated language.
Both groups can be broken down further by thematisation. The next step is to state theirpreferences. If they cover the same areas and events, they will be exemplified by comparison.
One of the first pieces of information the FPÖ shared on its official Facebook account,
shortly after the Ibiza Affair became a media sensation, was the conclusions the party’s
highest ranks had drawn therefrom and the lessons they had learned. Heinz-Christian Strach
was swiftly replaced in the party’s top post by Norbert Hofer. To be the face of the party
externally, it was critical for whomever the party chose to be able not only to represent it, butalso to defend the interests of “ordinary people”. Figure 2 expresses this point in the slogan
Norbert Hofer also neuer FPÖ-Obmann einstimmig designiert! (‘Norbert Hofer unanimously
named new FPÖ Chairman!’), making it clear to readers that Norbert Hofer’s election had
been endorsed by all of the party’s members. Simultaneously, it signals cohesion within theparty and tells those outside the party that Mr Hofer is a trustworthy person who will not
disappoint them. The verbal rendering of the transmitted signal shows no exceptional
elements of conspicuousness. Its sentence construction elides the auxiliary verb to make the
combination “einstimmig designiert” stand out. In the relevant situational context, theintention behind this combination is to give the impression of a positive result, with the party
guaranteeing that it will continue to uphold the values it professes.

Figure 2

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Figure 4

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Figures 3 and 4 show other contributions the party shared over the same period, all of whichrefer to what happened after the Ibiza Affair. The resignations of top coalition leaders, the fallof the government and the naming of a caretaker government understandably broughttensions between the former coalition partners to a boil, at least initially. The behaviour of theÖVP, the FPÖ’s former coalition partner in the government, and its leader Sebastian Kurz
was also thematised (Figure 4) and the choice of language evident in both Figures 3 and 4
show much more creativity. In both examples, the word “Macht” (in English, ‘might’ in themeaning of great power or force) appears either alone or as part of composites as a
stigmatising expression. The compound word “Machtbesoffenheit” (‘drunk on power’) shownin Figure 3 is in itself a derogatory expression that depicts the ÖVP’s own approach to the
Ibiza Affair in conjunction with the adjectives “kalte und nüchterne Machtbesoffenheit”(‘cold and callously drunk with power’ – in a sense drunk and sober at the same time) tointensify the power of the word Machtbesoffenheit. Figure 4 is similarly directed, whereagain another stigmatising expression “Machtrausch” is used, an untranslatable German wordthat describes somebody so intoxicated with power that they have absolutely no desire to giveit up. Fulfilling the function of dramatising the shared content is the rhetorical question “Istdas Demokratie?” (‘Is this democracy?’). The ideologically polysemic expression“Demokratie” is contrasted to the expression “Machtrausch”, whose meaning denies
governance in the spirit of democracy. The appeal “Macht Euch selbst ein Bild…” (Picture
this yourself...) and the simultaneously following points of contention call upon the reader
not to support such a government.
Other Facebook postings cast both the party’s political rivals and supranational institutions as
the “enemy”. Even while several different thematically and verbally interesting relationships
can be singled out, the issue of immigrants still proves to be one of the dominant topics, if not
the most dominant. Figures 5-10 are exemplifying contributions, with the FPÖ strategicallypolarising attitudes, highlighting its own thoughts and those dividing the parties in Figures 5
and 6. Standing on one side is the flag word “Grenzschützer” (‘border guards’ or anybody
protecting borders), accompanied by an attribute in the form of an adjective representing theparty’s traditional colour blue. But it could be very well replaced with the expression“Heimatschützer” (‘homeland guards’ or anybody protecting the homeland) in contrasting
opposition to the stigmatising word “Grenzöffner” (anybody seeking to open the borders),
again accompanied by the colours associated with the ÖVP (black) and the Green Party.
This now produces a conflict of opinions about immigration and refugees. While the FPÖ
wishes to protect Austria and its borders against “outsiders”, the black-green coalition is
portrayed as willing to allow immigrants into the country. Figure 6 contrasts the two parties’
own political activities, with the FPÖ seeking bills to prevent illegal migration, with the twowords becoming a stigmatising expression, while the ÖVP fights against plastic bags
(Plastiksackerl). Interestingly enough, despite climate policy having become the leitmotif in
the early elections, which could have been reflected in the battle against plastic bags, the FPÖ
decided here to gamble on the persisting relevance of the refugee issue. Figures 7-10 exhibit
verbally the approach taken by the opposing parties toward the refugee issue to the exclusionof everything else. Figure 7 “Schwarz-Grün oder Schwarz-Rot bedeutet eine Aufweichungder Migrationspolitik!” (‘Black-green or red-green means softening the migration policy!’) isa stigmatising expression because the FPÖ is calling for compliance with the current rules
governing refugees, if not to tighten them further, while Figure 8’s “Es geht schon los…
Grünen-Politiker verlangt Abschiebestopp, Bei der Forderung mit dabei: SPÖ & NEOS”(‘Green politicians demand a stop to deportations, with both SPÖ & NEOS going along withthem.’) In this case, Abschiebestopp becomes the stigmatising code word because the FPÖ iscalling for the expulsion of refugees that do not meet the requirements for legal migration.

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Meanwhile, the statement “SCHWARZ-GRÜN steht für Einwanderung und Asylmissbrauch”(‘Black-green stands for immigration and asylum abuse’- Figure 9) stigmatises both thewords “Einwanderung” and “Asylmissbrauch” because the party is combating immigrationand yet accepts asylum if applicable legal conditions are met. Figure 10 points the finger
indirectly at the influx of refugees into the country as the main culprit, specifically with thestigmatising word “Zwangsverteilung” (‘forced distribution’). Here, the party formally andverbally expresses its disagreement, demanding “Schluss mit der Zwangsverteilung vonMigranten!”

Figure 5

Figure 6

Figure 7

Figure 9

Figure 10

Figure 8

The refugee crisis in general and illegal migration in particular is often thematised in thevalues the FPÖ espouses. Figures 11-17 exemplify the issue’s various partial aspects. The
emphasis in Figure 11 is on the word “Schutz” (‘shelter’), a flag word relative to one’s own
country that embodies a defensive attitude toward it as a homeland, territory, population andculture. Generally, the word has an inherently positive connotation. In this example, however,
the word takes on the double meaning of Austria sheltering refugees and sheltering Austria
from refugees in the sentence “Da kommen Menschen nach Österreich und wollen Schutz unddann müssen wir vor ihnen geschützt werden!” (‘People are flooding into Austria and theywant to be sheltered and then we have to shelter ourselves against them!’). There are no
pejorative expressions verbally stating the negative consequences of Austria’s migration
policy. Only ordinary vocabulary is used. Nonetheless, it puts their position aptly into
context. Refugees – THEY WANT TO BE SHELTERED from us, but WE HAVE to be
SHELTERED from THEM. The modal verbs “wollen” (want) and müssen (must)emphatically contrast “desire” and “necessity”, which are themselves two entirely different
positions to take.
Figures 12 and 13 have a broadly interpretive framework. On one side, the expressions“Kriminellen Schlepperbanden muss ihr schmutziges Handwerk konsequent unterbunden
werden!” (‘Criminal human-trafficking gangs must be uncompromisingly kept from carryingout their dirty work!’) in Figure 12 and “Wir brauchen einen richtigen Grenzzaun, kein
Hasengitter!” (‘We need a true border fence, not chicken wire’) in Figure 13 can beunderstand as a statement of necessity (something that has to be stopped – müssen) as
opposed to something that needs to be stopped – brauchen), yet on the other hand a statement

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Official Conference Proceedingsin the sense of “We should do this, this is our position respecting your concerns, fears anddesires!” likewise can be an appeal to the government, even though nothing or no one hasever been specifically named. Both examples signal the occurrence of explicit expressions
with inherently and adherently negative connotations, such as “kriminelle Schlepperbanden”,“ihr schmutziges Handwerk” in Figure 12 and the contrast between “Grenzzaun” and“Hasengitter”. The expressions in Figure 13 stigmatise, while “Grenzzaun” is a flag word.
Figures 14 and 15 zoom in on the refugees’ religious belief as another thematic aspect.
Although the party’s portrayal of its rejection of Islam is relatively peaceful, it neverthelessseeks to add the political perception of the religion. Clearly in the foreground are theexpressions “Kultur” (culture) and “Geschichte” (history), which even minus the frequent
association with the possessive pronouns “mine/ours” become flag words that express theparty’s patriotic feeling. Islam’s position is defined quite clearly in Figure 14 with “Islam”
itself a stigmatising word: “Der Islam ist kein Teil unserer Kultur, kein Teil unserer
Geschichte und wird das auch niemals sein!” (‘Islam is not part of our culture, nor of ourhistory, and it never will be!’). Figure 15 indeed stigmatises it with the German translation of
the Salafist doctrine in Sunni Islam, which the party categorically rejects.
The code word is the burqa, associated with the ideology of political Islam. Like Islam, itsfeatures of any nature are rejected by the FPÖ. Special attention is paid to girls and women
wearing burqas in schools and school facilities, with the party constantly sharing during the2019 election campaign the country’s burqa ban and even advocating an extension of its
scope in Figure 16: Kopftuchverbot an Schulen erweitern! (‘No headscarves in schools!’).
The poster advocates banning children above 14 and teachers from wearing them. The
expression “Kopftuchverbot”, indicating a ban on wearing burqas and headscarves, is the flag
word here and expresses the party’s attitude toward eliminating as many elements of political
Islam as possible.
Figure 17 illustrates the immigration issue’s relevance and perhaps even indirectly justifies tosome extent the dominant sharing of its various aspects. Here, the FPÖ refers to an EU
Commission study pointing out that Europeans are more concerned about immigration thanclimate change. Asking the question “Du auch?” (‘You, too?’) seeks to draw reader attention
toward the former.

Figure 11

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Figure 13

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Figure 14

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Figure 15

Figure 16

Figure 17

In spite of the change in the 2019 election campaign’s major issue, which as earlier
mentioned had turned toward climate policy, there were relatively few posters or leaflets
about it from the FPÖ. But the example below pointing out the position of its political
adversaries illustrates the contradiction between the party’s values and its actions. From theverbal perspective, it can be characterised as a statement without much hint of expression –“Grüne sind die Vielflieger im Bundestag…” (‘The Greens have many frequent fliers in theFederal Council’), but from the point of view of sharing intentions, it adds considerable
illocutionary force.

Figure 18
When talking about the Green Party’s ideology, Figure 19 transforms the perception ofconservation – protecting nature – to protecting the homeland with the slogan “Naturschutz
ist Heimatschutz!” (‘Protecting nature is protecting the homeland!’). Besides turning“Naturschutz” and “Heimatschutz” into flag words, they also express the FPÖ’s patriotism.
Similarly, Figures 20 appeals to everybody’s obligation to protect Austria’s environment “Es
ist unsere Pflicht, alles dafür zu tun, damit Österreich das Land bleibt, das wir alle kennen
und lieben!” (‘It is our duty to do everything we can to ensure Austria remains the country we
all know and love!’). In this example, Austria embodies the homeland, “our own” country
and fulfils the role of a flag word.

Figure 19

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In order for a political party to present and represent its ideology effectively, it ordinarily opts
solely for positively connotated expressions, whether they are flag words or also
semantically, positively charged attributes. Figures 21-29 have flag words on their election
posters and flyers stating their intentions. These include the words fair/Fairness (in the
English language meaning of “honest” and “impartial), heimatreu/Heimattreue (in thiscontext, loyalty to one’s home or homeland), Sicherheit (der Heimat) (a secure home, a safecountry), Österreich (Austria), Zusammenhalt (cohesion), zusammenhalten (closing ranks,
sticking together), Familie (family), patriotistisches Österreich (patriotic Austria),
Patriotismus (patriotism), Herz (heart) Schutz (shelter or protection), Werte (value or worth),
Zukunft (future), unser(e) (our, ours), Leidenschaft (passion, zeal). These flag words arefound in other posters and leaflets because they form the central elements of the FPÖ’s
political and ideological orientation.

Figure 21

Figure 22

Figure 23

Figure 26

Figure 24

Figure 27

Figure 25

Figure 28

Figure 29

Conclusion
This paper discusses verbal patterns found in the FPÖ’s 2019 election campaign, which washeld in the backdrop of an early election called in the wake of the so-called “Ibiza Affair”.
The parties grappled in the campaign with an altered electoral landscape, one that had
become more focused on policies to combat climate change. Based on this development, it
was also expected for the FPÖ to focus its campaign more widely on the relevant aspects ofclimate policy. But an analysis of empirical material showed that, in spite of having acceptedthat the election would turn on the climate change issue, it was still not the dominant elementin the party’s campaign. Like in recent election campaigns, the FPÖ still tended mostfrequently to thematise aspects of the immigration crisis.

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Overall, the election campaign led by the FPÖ’s new chairman, Norbert Hofer, could be
described as relatively peaceful, especially when compared to the rhetoric experienced inrecent elections contested with its former charismatic leader, Heinz-Christian Strach(Fraštíková, 2020; 2019). In this quieter campaign environment, the party endeavoured tounderscore its feelings and attitudes, define itself against its opponents in opinions anddiscredit its adversaries in a targeted manner. The choice of language was tailored to these
sub-intentions. Its self-presentation was dominated in the empirical material by the presenceof flag words highlighting the party’s patriotic feeling and its sense of justice, fairness andsocial sensitivity (fair, heimattreu, Sicherheit, Österreich, Zusammenhalt, Familie,
patriotisitisches Österreich, Patriotismus, Herz, Schutz, Naturschutz, Werte, Zukunft,
unser(e), Leidenschaft, Gerechtigkeit, Grenzzaum, Gerechtigkeit, sozial), with polarising
opinions reflected in flag words such as Grenzschützer, Grenzzaun and Kopftuchverbot andstigmatising expressions like Grenzöffner, illegal Migration, Abschiebestopp, Aufweichung
der illegalen Migration, (politischer) Islam, Salafismus and Zuwanderung, which were often
used to contrast Grenzschützer to Grenzöffner and extremely imaginative words commonly
selected to discredit the opposition (kalte und nüchterne Machtbesoffenheit, Machtrausch,
Kurz-Fest and more).
Examining both the lexical and syntactic subsystems of the language used, a summary can bemade of the tendencies that were visible in the FPÖ’s campaign. There was a high degree ofsingle-noun sentences whose base was both verbal (indefinite verbs) and nonverbal(especially nouns). Slogans appeared in the imperative mood or as desires, alongsideinterrogative sentences, asking of rhetorical questions and deliberately contrastive words.
The choice of language is understandably related to the type of text and resources from theelection campaign, with election posters and leaflets being the only, yet most effectivemeans. It remains to be considered whether the minimal focus on content during the
campaign may have varied or at last partially deviated had other types of empirical material
been taken into account. Compared to previous election campaigns and with respect to thetype of empirical material studied, so far there has been evidence of a similar strategy having
been chosen.
Acknowledgements
This study originated from APVV-17-0128: Language strategies of right-wing populists incomparison (Germany – Austria – Czech Republic – Slovakia): lexis – texts – discourses.

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References
Dieckmann, W. (2005). Demokratische Sprache im Spiegel ideologischer
Sprach(gebrauchs)konzepte. In: J. Kilian (Eds.): Sprache und Politik: Deutsch im
demokratischen Staat (pp. 11-30). Dudenredaktion.
Findra, J. (2004). Štylistika slovenčiny. 1. vyd. Martin: Osveta.
Fraštíková, S. (2020). Emocionálnosť vo vybraných prostriedkoch (pred)volebnej
kampane. In: R. Štefančík (Ed.): Jazyk a politika: na pomedzí lingvistiky apolitológie 5 (pp. 59-68). Bratislava: EKONÓM.
Fraštíková, S. (2019). Antiislamistický postoj a jeho jazykové stvárnenie vo vybraných
textoch pravicovej populistickej strany FPÖ. In: R. Štefančík (Ed.): Jazyk apolitika: na pomedzí lingvistiky a politológie 4. (pp. 282-295). Bratislava:EKONÓM. Girnth, H. (2015). Sprache und Sprachverwendung in der Politik. Eine
Einführung in die linguistische Analyse öffentlich-politischer Kommunikation.
Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter. Niehr, Th. (2017). Lexik – funktional. In: Th. Niehr, J.
Kilian, M. Wengeler (Eds.): Handbuch Sprache und Politik, Bd. 1 (pp. 149-168).
Bremen: Hempen.
Prantl, H. (2017). Gebrauchsanweisung für Populisten. Wie man dem neuen Extremismus das
Wasser abgräbt. 1. Aufl. Salzburg, München: Ecowin.
Spier T. (2006). Populismus und Modernisierung. In: F. Decker (Ed.): Populismus (pp.
33-58). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.
Taggart, P. (2004). Populism and representative politics in contemporary Europe. Journal of
Political Ideologies, 9:3, 269-288.
Zima, J. (1961). Expresivita slova v současné češtině. Praha: ČSAV.
Digital References“Das Syndrom des Populismus” by Karin Priester (2017) [cit. 01.01. 2021]. Available on:www.bpb.de/system/files/pdf_pdflib/pdflib-241384.pdf“Wesensmerkmale des Populismus” by Karin Priester (2012) [cit. 01.01. 2021]. Available
on: https://www.bpb.de/politik/“Rechtspopulismus: Erscheinungsformen, Ursachen und Gegenstrategien” by Decker, F. /Lewandowsky, M. (2017) [cit. 01.01. 2021]. Available on:https://www.bpb.de/politik/extremismus/rechtspopulismus/240089/rechtspopulismuserscheinungsformen-ursachen-und-gegenstrategien

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Figure 2 – 29: from the official Facebook page of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) [cit.
01.01. 2021]. Available on: https://www.facebook.com/fpoe/ National Council
elections in Austria (2002-2019) [cit. 01.01. 2021]. Available on:https://www.bmi.gv.at/412/
National Council elections in Austria (1945-2017) [cit. 01.01. 2021]. Available on:https://www.vienna.at/die-nationalratswahlen-von-1945-bis-2017chronologie/6312532
https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/oesterreich-ibiza-video-berlin-101.html [cit. 01.01. 2021].
https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/oesterreich-wahlkampf-105.html [cit. 01.01. 2021].
https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article193794769/Strache-Affaere-in-Oesterreich-Waswissen-wir-ueber-das-Ibiza-Video-wissen. html [cit. 01.01. 2021].
Contact email: simona.frastikova@gmail.com
jdemcisak@gmail.com

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Trilingual Preschool Children’s Cognitive Understanding of Mouth Action Verbs in
Chinese, English and Malay
Hui Jie Yap, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Helena Hong Gao, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
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Abstract
This paper examines how Malaysian Chinese trilingual preschool children used their
linguistic and cognitive knowledge to associate the actions depicted by eating and drinking
verbs with various types of food. Eight commonly used Chinese eating and drinking verbs(吃 “eat”, 喝 “drink”, 咬 “bite”, 吸 “suck”, 嚼 “chew”, 吞 “swallow”, 啃 “nibble”, 舔 “lick”)
were selected as target verbs and tested 80 preschool children aged between 5 and 6 (Mean:
5.92) from Malaysia. The results show that the extent to which the children understood andused the verbs and other related words reflected their life experience and cognitive
understanding of the physical eating and drinking actions in relation to the types of food. It
was also found that the children’s cognitive skills and language proficiencies in the threelanguages were closely related to their family background and sociolinguistic environment.
The results of the study, though limited to trilingual children in Malaysia, can be viewed as areflection of the general trend of trilingual development in children and may serve as areference for educators and parents in their teaching and parenting trilingual children.
Keywords: Eating Verb, Drinking Verb, Child Language Acquisition, Cognitive
Development, Trilingualism, Chinese, English, Malay

iafor
The International Academic Forumwww.iafor.org

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Introduction
Malaysia is a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multilingual society, with Malays, Chinese andIndians making up the majority of its population. According to the Department of Statistics
Malaysia, the country's population in 2020 is estimated at 32.7 million, which comprises of
29.7 million (90.8%) citizens and 3.0 million (9.2%) non–citizens. Among all the ethnic
groups in Malaysia, the Chinese is the second largest. The majority of the Malaysian Chinese
descended from those provinces in the south east coast of Mainland China, such as Fujian,Guangdong, and Hainan provinces. As the national and official working language ofMalaysia, Malay is a compulsory subject in schools. As a foreign language, English is also acompulsory subject in schools. Both languages serve as common languages of different
ethnic groups to communicate with each other. Apart from its dialects, such as Hokkien,
Cantonese, Hakka, Teo Chew, and Hainanese, Mandarin Chinese is vigorously promoted by
and widely spoken by the members of the Chinese community. Their common goal is tomake Mandarin Chinese the medium of instruction in schools.
With the great effort of the Chinese community for more than half a century, Malaysia now
has the most complete Chinese education system other than Mainland China, Hong Kong,
Macau, and Taiwan. According to the Ministry of Education Malaysia, as of 2021, Malaysia
has 1,298 National Type (Chinese) primary schools1 and 60 Chinese Independent Secondary
Schools. Malaysian Chinese parents normally send their children to Chinese-medium primaryschools, which provide five to six hours of Chinese lessons per week. After completing
primary education, students from National Type (Chinese) primary schools may attend
Malay-medium National secondary schools, National Type secondary schools, or Chinese
Independent Secondary Schools. The differences between National and National Typesecondary schools are that the latter comprises of mostly Chinese students who receive 2.5 to
3.3 hours of Chinese lessons per week, while the former have fewer Chinese students andChinese is an elective subject with a 2-hour lesson per week. Chinese-medium Chinese
Independent Secondary Schools2 emphasize mother tongue education and provide students 5hours of Chinese lessons per week, while they also learn Malay and English.
Pre-schooling is not obligatory in Malaysia and the curriculum of preschools is
unstandardized. The curriculums of those MOE preschools can be different from those ofother private agencies. On average, children spend 4 hours per day in preschools. Deducting
the time periods for science, mathematics, and aesthetics subjects, children are left with very
little time learning language subjects. Hence, the language learning of preschoolers mainly
rely on the language environment in their daily life, such as interactions with family members
at home or teachers and peers at school. This type of bilingual and multilingual learning istypical among all ethnical communities in the multilingual society of Malaysia. Such amultilingual environment can be advantageous for young children if their learning is mostly
through the “acquired system” but not the “learned system” (Krashen, 1987). However, withthe pressure for early development of multilingual skills, parent and kindergarten reenforced
formal learning of three languages has become common among Malaysian children before
school age. What factors are involved in trilingual development in preschool children and1Primary schools in Malaysia are divided into two types: National School and National Type School(vernacular schools). The former uses Malay and the latter uses either Chinese or Tamil as the medium of
instruction. The curricula used are standardized by the Ministry of Education (MOE), with Malay and English
provided as compulsory subjects in all schools.
2Chinese Independent Schools are funded by the Malaysian Chinese communities. There is a total of 60
Chinese Independent Schools in different states of Malaysia.

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whether their use of commonly used words in daily life in the three languages show any
positive language transfer or difficulties due to language interference are the questions worth
the effort to find out answers to. This study recruited 80 Chinese dominated trilingual
children in Malaysia and tested their use of 8 drinking and eating verbs in Mandarin Chinese,
English and Malay with a picture-elicitation method. Our objectives were to examine thedifferences in the children’s performance in their first (Mandarin Chinese), second (English),and third (Malay) languages, and to identify the factors that might have affected their masteryof their first language and competence in their second and third languages.
1.

Studies on Children’s Use of Action Verbs

Before children were able to utter meaningful sentences, they must have acquired the words
that could build up the sentences. But how children learn to speak a language has been a
research question that has been answered many times and in many ways. According toMoskowitz (1978), “it seems that they do so in a highly methodical way: they break thelanguage down into its simplest parts and develop the rules they need to put the parts together”(p. 131). To follow this assumption, we tend to believe that one of the most important parts
within a sentence is the verb structure, or the lexical meaning of the verb, which can be anindicator for measuring children’s language development. For example, the verb island
hypothesis (Tomasello, 1992) proposed that the verb-specific predicate structures are
acquired by children through their understanding of the functions of the verb and its related
nouns. That is the “functionally based distributional analysis” (Tomasello, 1992, p.28) of thelanguage children are exposed to starts from verb structures.
Studies on the early verb use by children show that by the age of 2 children start to produce
more varieties of verbs and most of them are action verbs (Mu, & Deng, 2009). This accords
with the findings in Gao’s (2001, 2015) studies on children’s production of physical action
verbs (PA verbs). The types of PA verbs produced by the Chinese, English and Swedish
children in her studies include verbs of different body part actions, such as looking, eating,drinking, licking, kissing, carrying, taking, kicking, etc. Among children’s early productions,drinking and eating verbs are found.
Kong et al. (2004)’s investigation on 1- to 5-year-old Chinese children’s notional words
acquisition found that there were 334 action verbs in 408 verbs produced, among which 吃“eat” and 喝 “drink” were first produced between the age of 1;0 and 1;2. 咬 “bite” wasproduced at 2;0 and 啃 “nibble” after 3;6. Gao (2001)’s study on Chinese, English andSwedish children found that Chinese children produced 咬 “bite” at 1;9.21, English children
produced lick and bite at 1;7.0 and 1;11.0 respectively and Swedish children produced bita
“bite” and slicka “lick” at 1;11.17 and 2;3.3 respectively. The children in these studies
produced the words at around the same age and they were used in similar contexts. Thisshows that children are able to use more difficult mouth actions, besides eat and drink after
1.5 years old.
Language development in bilingual or multilingual children similar to that in monolingual
children to some certain extent, but more complex. For example, the proficiency of one
language is faster than the other or another, which means one of the two or three languages
become dominant (Yip, 2006). Smith (1931, 1935) was the first who studied on EnglishChinese bilingual development. The results of the study revealed that the size of the English
vocabulary of the bilingual children was smaller than that of monolingual children of thesame age and language mixing occurred often. Sinologist Timothy Light (1977)’s study on

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his daughter who was born to a Cantonese-speaking environment till moving to the UnitedStates at 16 months old revealed that language environment affects bilingual development inyoung children at all levels.
Singapore and Malaysia are both multilingual societies. Children learnt a second and even athird language before entering preschools. Studies on bilingual development in preschool
children were conducted in the Bilingual Development Lab, Nanyang Technological
University. These studies were mostly on language and cognitive development in bilingual
children with the impacts of various social factors (e.g., Puah, 2016; Wang, 2014; Low, 2014).
For example, Low (2014) examined word production of trilingual (Chinese, English andMalay) Malaysian Chinese children aged 3-5 and found imbalance in their trilingual
development due to their language environment and other social factors. Chin & Gao(2014)’s study on the use of 拿 “take” action verbs by Chinese Malaysian high school
students showed that the Chinese speaking bilingual school children had certain preference intheir word use and their Chinese vocabulary development was affected by other languages.
Studies on language development in trilingual children are not many. Hence, this study
explored trilingual word use by children aged 5-6 in Malaysia. The focus was on the use ofeating and drinking verbs in Chinese, English and Malay. Previous studies on eating anddrinking verbs with a comparative approach mostly involve only two languages and they are
more theoretical than empirical (e.g., Yang, 2007; Sun, 2013; Zhang & Wei, 2013; Jia & Wu,
2017).
2.

Methodology

2.1.

Participants

80 preschoolers aged between 5;0.4 and 6;10.4 (Mean: 5.92) were recruited from Malaysia(See Table 1) for the study.
Participants
5 Years Old
6 Years Old

Boys
Girls
Total
21
22
43
19
18
37
40
40
80
Table 1. An Overview of Trilingual Participants

Mean Age
5.55
6.29
5.92

The children were from middle class native Malaysian Chinese families, enrolled inpreschools in Malaysia. Their mother tongue is Chinese and their English and Malay were
simultaneously learned. Most of their English and Malay language proficiencies are lower
than their Chinese. They attended mainly Chinese-medium preschools. On average, theyspent four hours per day in preschools and each of the language subject lessons was about
one hour per day.
2.2.

Eating and Drinking Verbs in Chinese, English and Malay

Based on Gao (2001)’s classification of mouth actions verbs, a total of eight eating anddrinking verbs (eat, drink, bite, suck, chew, swallow, nibble, lick) commonly used inchildren’s daily life were selected for this study. Table 2 shows the meanings and examplesof these words in the “Modern Chinese Dictionary (7th Edition)”:

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Chine
吃
se
Dictio 把食
nary
物等
Definit 放到
ion
嘴里
经过
咀嚼
咽下
（包
括
吸、
喝）
。

喝

咬

吸

嚼

吞

啃

舔

把液
体或
流食
咽下
去。

上下
牙齿
用对
着
（大
多为
了夹
物体
或使
物体
的一
部分
从整
体分
离）
。
咬紧
牙关,
用嘴
咬住
绳子,
让蛇
咬了
一口,
咬了
一口
苹果
Bite

物体
把液
体、
气体
等引
人体
内。

上下
牙齿
磨碎
食
物。

不嚼
或不
细阳
个幽
或成
块地
咽下
去。

一点
儿一
点儿
地往
下
咬。

到用
舌头
接触
东西
或取
东
西。

呼吸,
吸烟,
吸毒,
吸奶
汁, 深
深地
吸了
一口
气

细嚼
慢咽,
肉没
有烧
熟, 嚼
不烂

囫囵
吞枣,
狼吞
虎咽,
把丸
药吞
下去

啃骨
头, 啃
老玉
米

舔盘
子, 猫
舔爪
子

Suck

Chew

Swallow
To put To
To use To
To bite To
food in take
your
take
food
make
your
liquid teeth
liquid, intofood,
mouth, into
to cutair,
small
drink,
bite ityourinto or etc.
pieces etc. go
andmouth throug into
in your down
swallo andhyourmouth your
w it.
then
someth mouth withthroat
down
ing.
by
your
into
your
using
teeth
your
throatthetostomacinto
muscle make
h.
your
s of
it
stomacyoureasierh.
lips.
toNibbleLick

To eatsomething bytakingsmall
bites.

To
move
your
tongueacrosssomething.

Examp 吃饭,
le
吃奶,
吃药

喝水,
喝茶,
喝酒,
喝粥

English
Dictionary
Definition

Drink

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Eat

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Examp Wholeate allthebiscuits?

Hepickedup thebread
and bitinto ithungrily.

She
wasnoisilysucking up
milk
throughastraw.

swallow.
He isalwayschewing gum.

It’s
The
The
easier bread
child
to
had
lickedswallo beenthew pills nibble spoon
if you d byclean.
take
mice.
them
with
water.
Malay Maka Minu Meng Menye Meng Menel Meng Menjil
n
m
gigit
dut
unyah anunggis at
Dictio Mema Meneg Menga Menari Melum Mema Mengg Merasnarymahuk atau pit
sukkan igit
k
atkan
a
Definit serta
menela (meng masuk (meng (maka sedikit (mengionmenela nacip,(kehancur nan
ambil)
sesuat menye dalam) kan)dll) ke sedikit, makannmakan u yang pit,
dengan makan dalam menge an dll
an,
cair.
dsb)
kekuat an
perut
rip,
denganmengu
dengan andalam melalu menge lidah.
gigi.
i
nyah
udara
mulut
rumit.
(menel(denga dengan kerong
kong.
an,
n
gigi
melulumulut, sebelur,hidung mmengh, dll),
menelaisap,
mengh nnya,
dll)
irup,
mema
sesuatmengh mah.
u.
isap.
Examp Jemput Minu
Kaki
Dia
Tanga Makan Tikus
Susu
le
lah
m air, pencur menge nku
an ituituyangmakan susu,
i itu
satmenyu pun
mengu tumpa
kuih
dll.
digigit ngesat ap nasi dikuny nggis
h itu
ini.
anjing. air
lagi,
ahnya, roti
habis
matam mulutk kemad yangdijilatata
uian
ditingg kucing
dengan mengu barula alkan.
mengy nyahhdi atasedut
perlah ditelan meja.
airannya.
yang
lahan.
keluardari
hidungnya.
Table 2. Eating and Drinking Verbs in Chinese, English and Malay

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We satdrinkingcoffeeandchatting forhours.

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The definitions of the verbs are from Xiandai Hanyu Cidian “Modern Chinese Dictionary”,
7th Edition, Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, and Kamus Dewan, the Fourth Edition. They are
all rather simple but we assume that children acquired the words in the three languages
through real life experience rather than formal learning.
2.3.

Data Collection Methods

Two methods were used for the data collection: A questionnaire completed by the children’s
parents and an experiment conducted with the 80 children. The parents’ responses andchildren’s performances were coded and analyzed afterwards.
•

Questionnaire“Parent Report Form for the Studies of Lexical Development in Bilingual Children in
Singapore” designed by Gao (2015) was used for parents to provide demographic and otherrelevant information of their children (e.g. family background, language(s) spoken at home,family activities, etc.)•

Experiment

The physical actions depicted by the abovementioned eight eating and drinking verbs
matched with 30 kinds of food were prepared in pictures or video clips as visual stimuli forthe experiment. As shown in Table 3, each action shown in pictures or video clips wasmatched with at least six kinds of food or drink that included (1) correct match of action andfood, (2) incorrect match of action and food (marked with “*”), and (3) controversial matchof action and food (marked with “?”). The controversial match of action and food refers to
the action that can be applied to the food in terms of function, but merely found in reality (e.g.
drink oil, lick milk, etc.).
VisualStimuli for
Teaching
eating ricedrinkingwater
biting apple

Visual Stimuli for Experimentchocolateporridge

pill
oil?

grapes?

“sucking”
milk
chewing

noodlesorangejuice
chickendrumstickorangejuice
peanutorange*egg*

chili?

porridge*
icecream*
rice*

noodlesoil?

jelly?

sausage*

rice

tofu

ice?

tangyuan?

grapes?

fishball?

cottoncandy*
jelly?

swallow

pill

pill*

hamburger*“nibbling”
bread
apple
durianlollipop?
pill*
corn
licking ice- lollipop
cake?
ice?
milk?
potato*cream
Table 3. Visual Stimuli – Action and Food/Drink Combination
The visual stimuli were shown to the children individually, following with relevant questions.

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Before the experiment, parents of the recruited children were briefed the details of the study
and signed the consent forms for their children’s participation and for them to be video- or
audio-recorded during the testing. The experimenter started with a warm-up session with thechildren individually and told them that they would be invited to play a game in which there
were no right or wrong answers to the questions and they could take a break or end the gameat any time they wanted to. Then the experiment started with the following procedures in
Chinese which is the mother tongue of all the participants:
Part 1:
Experimenter: Can you tell me what this is in Chinese/English/Malay? (Experimenter
pointing at the pictures of food.)Child: Mifan/Rice/Nasi. (or, I don’t know.)
Part 2:
Experimenter: Please take a look at this picture/video. Can you tell me what he/she is doing?
(Experimenter pointing at the picture/ video.)Child: He/She is drinking (or any other verbs in Table 3) water (or any other food in Table 3).
Experimenter: Yes, this action is “drink” (verb). Can you remember this action? This action
is “drink”.
Child: Yes.
Part 3:
Experimenter: Please take a look at this picture/video (a glass of orange juice or any otherfood in Table 3). Can you tell me what this is?
Child: It is orange juice.
Experimenter: Can we apply that action to orange juice?
Child: Yes (or No).
Experimenter: How do we say that in Chinese? (if the child answers Yes to the above
question)Child: Drink orange juice (or any other eating or drinking verb + food/drink)Experimenter: Can you tell me why? (if the child answers No)
Child: Because ……
The experiment ended after all the pictures (action (verb) + food/drink (noun)) were asked,
which lasted about 30 minutes.
3.

Results and Discussion

Children’s responses in Chinese collected from the experiment were transcribed andchildren’s answers were coded in “V+N” format which represents a verb phrase. A point
scale with 30 as the maximum was used to quantify the children’s answers. Each correct V+
N match is worth one point. A correct match with an incorrect use of a word is given half
point. A wrong match has zero point.
In the data analysis, we assumed that a child understood the meaning and usage of a verb if
he or she uttered it and used it in a correct V+N structure.
We analysed the data in two ways: the naming rate and the application rate. The naming rate
refers to the rate of the target verbs that the children used in response to the experimenter’s
first question. The results are shown in Figure 1 and Table 4. The application rate refers to

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the rate of the verb phrases (V+N structure) that the children produced. The results of thistype are shown in Figure 2.
3.1.

Naming Rate

Figure 1: Naming Rate of Chinese Eating and Drinking Verbs (%)
Chinese Eating and Drinking
Number of Children who
Percentage (%)
Verbs
Produced the Word
80
100
吃 “eat”
80
100
喝 “drink”
68
85
咬 “bite”
46
58
吸 “suck”
00嚼 “chew”
72
90
吞 “swallow”
00
啃 “nibble”
15
19
舔 “lick”
Table 4. Number of Children Who Produced the Target Verbs
As shown in Figure 1 and Table 4, both 吃“eat” and 喝“drink” were used by all children
correctly. According to the framework of lexical typology, words related to eat and drink arebasic words in all languages, as they express the basic human needs. Generally, basic words
occurred early in a language as they are essential in daily communication since ancient times(Fu, 2004). Thus it is not surprising that all the children used the verbs 吃“eat” and 喝“drink”
correctly.
The other six eating and drinking verbs 咬 “bite”, 吸 “suck”, 嚼 “chew”, 吞 “swallow”, 啃“nibble” and 舔 “lick” were hyponyms of “eat” and “drink”. Hyponyms can be seen as the
subclasses of a hypernym, conversely, a hypernym is the superclass of hyponyms (Liu, 2005).
A hypernym describes a broader term, while a hyponym is a more specialised and specific

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word (Fu, 2004). Hence, six of these eating and drinking verbs are more specialised verbs
compared to “eat” and “drink”.
Children learn the most basic words early and more easily. The lexical expansion from basic
words to specialised ones is usually age related. The results of this study show that the usage
rate of the Chinese eating and drinking verbs produced by the children of the 6-year-old
group was higher than that of the 5-year-old group. Cognitively, this can be explained by
Piaget’s (1964) view that children’s production of words increase with more life experience.
As shown in the result, the usage rate of 舔“lick” was only 18.75% (15/80). Gao (2001)’s
study found that English children produced the word lick as early as 1;7.0 and Swedish
children produced the word slika “lick” as early as 2;3.3, but there was no use found of 舔
“lick” by Chinese children before 2 years of age. It might be due to the difficulty inpronouncing the word with the consonant [t] that requires an aspirated stop followed by thevowel [ian] that is a nasal final. But the main reason might be that the action of licking israrely seen. However, 嚼“chew”, the action that all children do after infancy was not used byany children. We can also assume that it was because of the difficulty in pronouncing theword but the fact might be that although we chew food every day, but it is a more specialised
verb to describe the manner of eating, which is not commonly used in everyday life. No input,
no output.
3.2 Application Rate

Figure 2: Application Rate of Chinese Eating and Drinking Verbs (%)
In Figure 2, eight eating and drinking verbs were sorted from the most frequently to the least
frequently used words, from left to right, based on the “Dictionary of Modern Chinese
Frequency”, but some of the results were unexpected. The application rate of the verbs by thechildren from the higher to the lower, was: eat (97.93%), drink (96.79%), lick (93.89%),swallow (90.45%), suck (79.24%), nibble (77.33%), chew (69.01%) and bite (62.30%).
In accordance with the naming rate, both 吃“eat” and 喝“drink” had the highest application
rate, which was 97.93% and 96.79% respectively. This shows that these two basic words are

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more general in meaning and have a wider range of usage as compared to other eating anddrinking verbs. Children tend to acquire the basic word of a class of words first before theyacquire other class members whose lexical meanings are more specialised (Gao, 2001).
The naming rate of both “lick” and “swallow” was low, but their application rate was as highas 93.89% and 90.45%. It might be due to the more specific meanings and features of thewords. The meaning of lick is to move the tongue across the surface of something to getsomething and the meaning of swallow is to cause food to move from mouth into stomach
without chewing. The actions depicted by the verbs are specific and easy to imitate and thus
easy to apply once the children acquired the word meanings.
The application rate of 吸“suck” was 79.24%. 95% (76/80) of children failed the applicationof 吸“suck” to 面条 “noodles”. Most thought that one could only eat noodles but not sucking
noodles. It is indeed true that people normally do not eat noodles by sucking but it doesn’tmean that functionally it is not possible. The children failed to take the cognitive perspective
to understand the action depicted by the verb. It may also be due to language interference as
the trilingual children acquired the English suck and the Malay menyedut. The sucking
concept in the three languages may not be the same in the mapping to the lexical meaning.
For example, eating Chinese noodles does involve certain manner of sucking, while eating
Western noodles does not. The trilingual children’s judgment might have also been affectedby the picture of a child drinking milk using a straw in one of the teaching pictures. They
might have thought that a sucking action must be done using a straw and it could only beapplied to liquid food. Preschool children are found to be more influenced by visual stimuli
than linguistic input (Gao et al., 2014).
Overall, the application rate of target verbs among the 6-year-old children was higher than
the 5-year-old children. This result was consistent with their vocabulary sizes of the threelanguages.
Conclusion
Eight Chinese eating and drinking verbs (吃 “eat”, 喝 “drink”, 咬 “bite”, 吸 “suck”, 嚼“chew”, 吞 “swallow”, 啃 “nibble”, 舔 “lick”) were selected for the experiment conductedwith Malaysian preschoolers aged 5-6 to investigate their cognitive understanding of word
use and the characteristics of child trilingual acquisition with Chinese as the first language.
The overall performance of the 6-year-old children was better than that of the 5-year-old in
both the naming of the target verbs and the applications of the verbs with various types offood words. The results support Piaget (1964)’s theory of cognitive development thatchildren’s language proficiency improves with more life experience.
Specifically, children’s early trilingual vocabularies reflected their life experience. In otherwords, children gained their language and cognitive skills through experience in life.
Children’s perception and cognition for the understanding of human physical actions inrelation to linguistic expressions are verified again to have achieved and conceptualized
through imitation and experience. Using visual stimuli, we found that the children’s cognitive
perspective and language use were heavily influenced by their language and social
environment. The imbalanced language proficiency of the trilingual children in this study arefound to be due to the influence of their home language, the medium of instructions inpreschools, and the habitual code mixing of Chinese, Chinese dialects, English and Malay. It
is worth to mention that code mixing is a common phenomenon in Malaysia.

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The results of this study were insufficient to represent the whole of Malaysian children aged
5-6, but it reflected the general trend of trilingual development of children. We wish that thisstudy may serve as a reference to educators and parents, as well as reference and basis to
future studies related to children language development in Malaysia.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank 3Q MRC Kindergarten, Smart Junior Kindergarten, Smart Genius
Kids Kindergarten and Sing Hwa Kindergarten for their kind support in this study. We would
also like to thank Mdm. Ong Siok Mei, and Ms. Chua Lan Lan for their help in participant
recruitment. Our sincere gratitude goes to all parents and children who have taken part in thisstudy.

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References
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S-Y. Wang, & C. Sun (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Linguistics (pp. 654665). Oxford University Press.
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Jia, Y., & Wu, F. (2017). Cihui leixing xue shijiao de hanyu chi he lei dongci yanjiu [Lexicotypological study of Chinese eating and drinking verbs]. Chinese Teaching in theWorld, 31(3), 361-381.
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Liu, S. (2005). Hanyu miaoxie cihui xue [Descriptive lexicology of Chinese]. Beijing: The
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Moskowitz, B. A. (1978). The Acquisition of Language. Scientific American, 239(5), 92-109.
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The Features of Japanese EFL Learners’ Peer Feedback in Written Compositions
Hiromi Martin, Komazawa University, Japan
Yoko Shirasu, Yokohama College of Commerce, Japan
The Asian Conference on Language 2021
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Abstract
This study investigated how corrective peer feedback between peers is related to Japanese
university learners’ noticing in their foreign language acquisition. In this research, 12
students written composition data was collected from the following three stages: (1) essay
writing, (2) corrective feedback with peers and (3) self-revision. In the process of the peer
feedback, the learners paid attention to the lexical, syntax and organization of their essay
writing. The results indicated how the learners revised their errors in two forms: error
correction and reformulation, and how they improved their essay writing after receiving peercomments. In addition, the findings showed the tendency of Japanese EFL learners’ linguistic
views with EFL writing instructions where and which points the learners noticed and revised
their English compositions as an output process. The effects of the peer feedback caused thelearners to recognize and uptake in their revised writing. On the other hand, the data pointed
out that common grammatical, lexical and discourse errors remained, including the influenceof Japanese EFL writing classes conducted in Japan. These results raise potential suggestions
for further research of the corrective feedback with SLA instructions and writing activities in
EFL classes.
Keywords: Corrective Feedback, Noticing, Peer Feedback

iafor
The International Academic Forumwww.iafor.org

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Introduction
Feedback on EFL student writing has been shared in various ways. In Japan’s current English
education, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology hasemphasized four skills: speaking, writing, reading, and listening. These are key English
communication tools in the 2020 revised Course of Study guidelines forelementary
schools, 2021 junior high schools, and 2022 high schools. Traditionally, in English classes inJapan, teachers focused on grammar and vocabulary. Therefore, the Japanese entrance
examinations for high school or university were conducted mainly based on reading andlistening skills assessments, with multiple-choice tests to measure lexical and syntax
knowledge. Although academic writing has become an important issue in Japanese language
education, there has been almost no instruction in English writing in secondary schools(Miyata, 2002). Mainstream English writing in the classroom largely consists in writing
single sentences; there is almost no paragraph-length writing practice.
Since high school EFL classes in Japan are often grammar-intensive, students have few
opportunities to practice free or creative writing exercises and do not learn the process ofwriting a paragraph. As a result, they lack opportunities to receive writing feedback fromclassmates or instructors. However, the Ministry’s curriculum reform suggested that English
education in Japan should become more active, with students using more communication
skills to achieve their output abilities, such as speaking and writing in the classroom. This
research proposal focuses on how EFL instructors should approach teaching effective writing
skills and provide students the chance to improve their writing in the process of interlanguage
and error corrections from peer feedback based on the noticing hypothesis of Second
Language Acquisition theories.
Previous Studies
1)

Output and Noticing Hypothesis

In the output and noticing hypothesis, second language learners notice their errors andlinguistic problems in their output products, they repeat them. Noticing occurs in producing atarget language. Schmidt (2001) states “appears necessary for understanding nearly every
aspect of second and foreign language learning” (p.6). In his noticing hypothesis, awarenessis necessary for noticing which in turn is important for learning. The claim is that “intake isthe part of the input that learner notice.” (1990, p.139).
2)

The Role of Writing in Second Language Acquisition

Harklau (2002) argues that it is important for students to learn writing in a second language.
The paper mentioned the notion of a learner, target language variation, multimodality andlanguage socialization, and interactional approaches. In second language learning classroom
settings, learners acquire morphology and syntax through their input, interaction, task
structure and negotiation (Long & Robinson, 1998). According to collected empirical data onclassroom research (Allwright &Bailey, 1991), students learn through the inter-relation ofinteraction.

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3)
Previous Studies in Peer Feedback in English as a Second Language / English asa Foreign Language Writing
Paulus (1999) investigated the positive effects of peer feedback in writing. He found that ESL
students gave surface-level peer feedback for revisions, such as spelling, tense, plural or
singular and punctuation. In addition, Suzuki (2008) examined the feedback differences
between self-revision and peer-revision in terms of negotiation in writing. These studies
founded that learners tended to focus on forms and the, morphological, and lexical levels in
self-revision. In peer negotiation, they paid more attention to the content of writing such as a
topic or idea. Findings indicated that the learners used more metatalk during peer revisions
than during self- revisions. Furthermore, Wang (2014) used a rubric table for assessing
writing compositions in peer feedback as a usefulness criteria reference for Chinese students
to examine several issues: (1) the students’ limited English proficiency with using a rubric
criterion, (2) the students’ attitudes towards peer feedback practice, and (3) the students’interpersonal relationships. Rollinson (2005) stated that peer feedback in EFL/ESL writing
facilitated the students’ audience awareness. The learners probably feel that these are lessbeneficial interactions because their classmates’ English proficiency level is nearly same astheirs.
Research Focus
This study addresses the following research questions: 1. How do Japanese EFL learners givepeer feedback on their writing essays? - Do the Japanese EFL learners notice the processes of
output products when they receive CF (Corrective Feedback) in the form of either
reformulation or error correction in peer feedback? 2. How do Japanese EFL learners
organize paragraphs: topic, support, and conclusion? - How do they notice and revise theirwriting after receiving peer feedback?
This research sought to determine the effects of the interaction in peer feedback and tounderstand at what points Japanese students focus on feedback correction, addressing thequestion of how learners show their weakness in correcting peer essay writing, and how these
corrections affect their revising processes. Their language features and interaction could
illustrate learners’ metalanguage or interlanguage skills in the process of second language
learning. In addition, how should we as language instructors approach peer or group work in
the classroom? Assuming that psychological barriers affect peer feedback, language
instructors should train learners how to assess peer feedback in the classroom. Learners
initially hesitate to mark corrections on other students’ papers. On the other hand, written
feedback or comments could be evidence of the benefits of oral feedback.
Data Collection
1)

Participants

To gather data on Japanese EFL learners, I collected and analyzed the data from myuniversity class with consent written permission for taking written composition data from thestudents. The course is a mandatory English course. The students take a placement test in the
beginning of the academic year, and are divided into their English proficiency level by a
CASEC (Computerized Assessment System for English Communication) test. The CASEC
test consist of two parts, listening and writing skills. The score band is from 0 to 1000 points.
The score is also approximately converted into a TOEIC (Test of English for International

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Communication) score. The students take the test on computers and choose from multiple
answers for each question. The university has two compulsory English courses; “speaking
and listening” and “reading and writing” for freshman and sophomore students. The courses
are divided into four proficiency level classes based on the results of the CASEC test score;
beginner (under 299 points on CASEC / under 240 points on TOEIC Listening and Readingtest), intermediate (300 -450 points on CASEC / 240 - 355 points on TOEIC),
upper-intermediate (451 - 599 points on CASEC / 355 - 545 points on TOEIC) and advanced(over 600 points on CASEC / 545 points on TOEIC).
For this study, we collected the data from an advanced level English course of “reading andwriting” freshman students from the politics department. The class consisted of 22 students.
From them, 12 writing compositions were collected randomly for a qualitative analysis. The
English levels ranged from 451 to 599 points in the CASEC test, which is equivalent tobetween 355 and 545 points in the TOEIC Listening and Reading test.
2)

Procedures

The research was conducted in the reading and writing class during the semester. The classtime setting is 90 minutes. Twelve essays were randomly collected from among the 22
students. The data derived from eight female and four male students.
In this study, students had 25 minutes to write their essays by hand without the aid of adictionary or the Internet. The topic of this essay was based on a quote from a study ofJapanese student essay writing (Okugiri, Ijuin, & Komori, 2015). Specifically, the students
were required to write an essay in response to the statement: “Currently, people worldwide
are able to use the Internet. Some people say that since we can read the news online, there isno need for newspapers or magazines, while others say that newspapers and magazines will
still be necessary in the future. Please write your opinion about this issue. “This statement
was used because the topic was universal and familiar to everyone.
Table 1 shows the procedure of this empirical study. The participants engaged in athree-staged process. First, during Stage 1, the instructor explained the process of feedback.
In Stage 2, the participants wrote their essay for 30 minutes. They were then they wererequired to give corrective feedback to their peers. For Stage 3, the corrective peer feedback
time was for 20 minutes. During the correction time, the students could ask questions about
their English grammar or contexts, or discuss the corrections in both Japanese and English.
They checked their peers’ writing compositions for “lexical features, spelling and form,”“syntax, grammatical order, missing words,”, and for “context, in appropriate sentences withthe theme”, and for organizational parts, such as “topic sentence,” supporting sentences,” and“conclusion sentences.” Finally, in Stage 4, the corrective peer feedback was returned to theoriginal student writers and they rewrote their revisions for 15 minutes. Table 2 presents the
instructions of the corrective feedback by the instructor. The students noted each code, line,
or words for their corrective peer feedback time.

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Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

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Peer feedback group15 minutes
Instruction by a teacher
30 minutes
Writing an essay
20 minutes
Feedback with peer
15 minutes
Revise the essay
Table 1: Flow of the Writing Class with Peer Feedback

Checking points

the way of feedback1.

lexical features; spelling, form___ + corrections2.

syntax; grammatical order, missing word(s)～+ corrections

3.

context; inappropriate sentences with the theme〇+ corrections

4.

topic sentence (s)T5.

supporting sentence (s)S

6.

conclusion sentence (s)C

Table 2: Instructions by a Teacher for the Peer Feedback
Data Analysis
First, to analyze the peer feedback, Table 3 shows that a T-unit analysis was used formeasuring writing compositions in this study. By definition, a T-unit has a main clause with asubject and verb, where subordinate clauses are attached to or embedded within it (Hunt,
1965). Syntactic development can also be seen by analyzing T-units. Using error-free T-units
is a more precise way to measure syntactic development for nonnative speakers thanstandardized tests, teacher evaluations, or placement tests with written data. Table 3 shows
the definition of T-units. Based on the definition of a T-unit, each student’s sentences werecounted. The T-unit analysis all showed the learners’ syntactic development to be checked
more exactly (Gass, & Selinker, 2008).
1.

I did my homework.

T-unit2.

I did my homework, although I was sleepy.

T-unit3.

although I was sleepy.

Non-T-unit

Table 3: Definitions of T-units
Second, in the analysis of the noticing process in corrective feedback, various codes on
noticing and uptake referenced (Santos et al., 2010). Table 4 represents the corrective
feedback codes in this study, which were categorized into eight items in the students’ writing
compositions. Five codes were categorized for the corrective peer feedback: CC (completelychanges), PC (partially changed), UC (completely unchanged), NA (non-applicable), and
ADD (the participants added new words or sentences after the feedback). Each code
definition is given in Table 4 below. In addition, Table 5 presents examples of both theoriginal and the revisions.

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Code TypeDefinitionCC:
completely All errors had been corrected.

1.
changed2.
PC:
partially At least one error had been changed in the directionchangedof the feedback provided.
3.
UC: completely The T-unit still had all the errors shown in theunchanged
original version
4.
NA:
The original T-unit had no errors.
non-applicable
5.
ADD
New words or sentences were added after thecorrective peer feedback
Table 4: Corrective Feedback Categorized Codes and their Definitions
Student
Original
S1

T-UNIT
text First, the news online has swift imformation.

Revised S1
Original
S2

CodeFirst, the news online has swift information.

CC

text I’m going to sugest the reason and point paper
devides good points and bad points.

Revised S2

I’m going to represent the reasons and point paper CC
media’s good points.

Original S6

Newspapers will be trush next day, but theInternet is not trush.

Revised S6

Newspapers will be trush next day, but the PC
Internet will not be trush.

Original S5They are not good for enviroment.

Revised S5They are not good for enviroment.

Original S8

Second, when you read the news and manga
online, your eyes are very tired but newspapers
and magazines don’t have this bad point.

Revised S8Second, when you read the news and manga NA
online, your eyes are very tired but newspapers
and magazines don’t have this bad point.

Original S10

no sentence(s)Revised S10

Finally, many people should use Internet.

UC

ADD

Table 5: Examples of Revision and Error Correction with Coding of T-units
Finally, to gain more insight into the details of CC (completely changed) and PC (partiallychanged) corrective feedback, the results were divided into error corrections andreformulations in their revised essay writing compositions. From the previous study (Santos,& Manchon, 2010), the definitions of error corrections and reformulations are as shown in
Table 6.

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Error correction
Original text: First, the news online has swift imformation.
Reformulation: First, the news online has swift information.
Reformulation
Original text: I’m going to sugest the reason.
Error Correction: I’m going to represent the reasons.
Table 6: Definitions of Error Corrections and Reformulation
Discussion
To summarize the answer to our first research question, our participants paid more attention
to the lexical and forms of second language. Suzuki (2008) categorized language-relatedchanges (LRCs) into three main levels: word-level text changes, sentence-level text changes,
and discourse-level changes. Participants gave more error corrections than reformulations intheir peer feedback, which showed that the learners paid more attention to morpheme levels,
verb usages and lexical forms, such as tense, third person singular-s, singular and pluralforms, and spelling. These findings suggest that Japanese English learners have learned more
syntax and lexical knowledge in their secondary school EFL courses. It was easy for them topoint out these concerns, but they were weaker in paraphrasing words or phrases in English.
In addition, during their revision time, the participants reconsidered the structures of eachsentence. Therefore, they revised their original sentences with syntactic knowledge. As aresult of the feedback, the number of T-units increased slightly over the original composition,
including that the learners improved their syntax knowledge through non-forced feedback(Van Beuningen et al,2012).
Regarding the five categorizations of feedback, the learners remained at 20.2 % UC
(Completely Unchanged) which suggests that the learners did not notice how to correct orrevise these sentences. In L2 classrooms, instructors should also give feedback where learners
did not notice language errors and mistakes.
As for the second research question about skills in organizing essays, the participants gavecorrective feedback about the writing compositions in the peer feedback time. Interestingly,
only 10.4 % of the feedback was about the conclusions, suggesting that they did not know
how to write a “conclusion” or had no time to write it in Stage 2. The participants noticed
their missing conclusions during their peer feedback time, only then adding “conclusions”
after the peer feedback and in their revisions. These results indicate that L2 learners noticed
some features and forms of the language through the corrective feedback, and then revised
their compositions to be better than the original versions.
Results
The first question asked how the Japanese EFL learners give feedback on their writing essays
and if they notice the processes of output products while receiving CF (Corrective Feedback)or not. For one aspect of this question, we counted the number of words before and after thepeer feedback to see how the learners add more words, phrases, or sentences after reading
their peer’s essay writing and how they were stimulated in revising their writing
compositions. Table 7 shows the number of words in their original version and their revisions,
before and after the peer feedback. It shows that the number of words slightly increased,
101.6 words to 107 words on average.

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Student ID (n=12)

Original

Revised

S1

91

93

S2
S3

109
101

94
90

S4

95

141

S5
S6

160
113

165
115

S7

100

107

S8
S9

84
99

84
97

S10
S11

74
76

85
96

S12

117

117

M

101.6

107.0

SD

21.8

23.4

Max.

160

165

Min.
74
84
Table 7: The Number of Words After Peer Feedback
Table 8 shows the number of T-units, original and revised versions, including the syntactic
development of learners. Each learner increased T-unit by a small number after peer feedback.
The mean score was 8.1 to 9.3 and the standard deviation was 2.6 to 2.7.
Student ID (n=12)

Original

Revised

S1
S2

7
6

10
7

S3

7

9

S4
S5

8
16

11
17

S6

9

9

S7
S8

8
6

9
6

S9
S10

7
8

8
10

S11

6

7

S12
M

9
8.1

9
9.3

SD
2.6
Table 8: The number of T-units

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They then answered the second research question about how Japanese EFL learners
organized their paragraph writing (i.e., topic, supporting and conclusion parts), and how they
noticed and revised after peer feedback. Table 9 shows the number of topic, supporting, andconclusion sentences in the peer feedback, which the participants marked as “T,” “S,” and“C,” reprehensively, during peer feedback. Figure 1 shows that the participants put down “T”
12 (25%), “S” 31 (64.5%), and “C” 5 (10.4%). Everyone wrote topic sentences andsupporting sentences, but not everyone wrote conclusion sentences.
T

S

C

S1

1

3

0

S2

1

3

0

S3

1

2

1

S4

1

2

0

S5

1

3

1

S6

1

2

1

S7

1

3

0

S8

1

3

0

S9

1

3

1

S10

1

2

0

S11

1

2

0

S12

1

3

1

Total

12

31

5

M

1

2.6

0.4

SD
0 0.5 0.5
Table 9: The number of topic, supporting, and conclusion sentences in peer feedback

Conclusion, 5(10.4%)

Topic, 12 (25%)

Supporting, 31(64.6%)

Figure 1: The Number of Topic, Supporting, and Conclusion Sentences in Peer Feedback
Finally, the individual categorizations of peer feedback groups are shown in Table 10. To
analyze the participants’ revisions, five codes were applied regarding the revisions of theiressays after peer feedback, as shown in Table 11 and Figure 2: CC (Completely Changed) 29

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S1

CC
3

PC
1

UC
4

NA ADD
1
1

S2
S3

1
4

1
2

2
0

1
2

2
2

S4

2

0

0

6

4

S5
S6

5
1

0
1

0
4

9
3

0
0

S7

2

0

4

2

1

S8
S9

2
0

2
1

0
4

2
4

1
0

S10
S11

1
1

3
1

3
1

1
3

2
1

S12

5

0

1

3

0

Total
M

29
2.4

11
0.9

22
1.8

39
3.3

8
0.7

SD
1.7 0.9 1.4 2.4
1.0
Table 10: Individual Categorization of Peer Feedback Groups
n

%
26.6
10.1
20.2
35.8
7.3

Mean
2.4
0.9
1.8
3.3
0.7

SD
1.7
0.9
1.4
2.4
1.0

CC
PC
UC
NA
ADD

29
11
22
39
8

Total

109
100
9.1
Table 11: Categorization of Peer Feedback Groups

40.0
35.0
30.0
25.0
20.0
15.0
10.0
5.0
0.0

NA 35.8
CC
26.6
UC 20.2
PC
10.1

ADD
7.3

Figure 2: The Categorization of Peer Feedback Groups

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To analyze the data in greater details, we analyzed the CC (Completely Changed) and PC(Partially Changed) into the categories of error corrections 18 (54.5%) and reformulations 15(45.5%), as shown in Table 12 and Figure3.
Error

Reformulation

S1
S2

0
1

4
1

S3

2

3

S4
S5

2
3

0
3

S6
S7

2
1

0
1

S8

1

2

S9
S10

1
2

0
2

S11

0

2

S12
Total

0
15

0
18

M
1.25
1.50
SD
0.92
1.32
Table 12: The Number of Error Corrections and Reformulations

Reformation
15(45.5%)

Error correction
18 (54.5%)

1

2

Figure 3: Error Correction vs Reformation
Conclusion, Suggestions for Future Study
In reviewing studies of writing feedback, Storch (2002) discussed equality and mutuality instudies of ESL pair work. To provide effective pair work, the learners should work equalamount and cooperatively. More importantly, the learners will notice their errors and improvetheir essays by giving other feedback. Peer feedback activities in ESL tend to lead to morelearner-centered class. Izumi (2016) also emphasized that “noticing” in the EFL classroom isan essential factor effectively focus on form. In pair work, the learners have audience to raise

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Official Conference Proceedings“audience awareness” about writing. In the process of sharing feedback, they interact witheach other, correct errors, and ask questions about the content of their essays. The processbrings collaborative learning and scaffolding to EFL classrooms. In the corrective feedback
process, each learner might have a different proficiency level. Learners notice different errors
or acquire new language knowledge individually (Hanaoka, 2007). However, it takes time tomake Japanese EFL university students feel free to speak and correct errors. They rarely
share opinions with one another at the beginning of the term. Wang (2014) found thatpsychological matters could be seen in peers’ rubric evaluation. The learners needed to havean interpersonal relationship to give evaluation rubric points to each other and this affected
the usefulness of peer feedback. Therefore, learners need more practice giving feedback in
written compositions in EFL classes.
In general, most of the students enter university based on multiple choice type proficiency
examinations. During high school, most students learn English more through analytical thanexperiential learning (Izumi, Shiraku & Okuda, 2011). Therefore, the instructor, who teaches
reading and writing courses, should give the learners clear assessment points in the class andtrain the students to compare sufficient and insufficient essays through reading textbooks orteachers’ models as input enhancement (Hanaoka, & Izumi, 2012). It would be difficult orchallenging for the learners to give comments to each other without knowing evaluation
points established by the teacher. In the curriculum, the teacher is also required to consider
the effect of peer or group work. The practice of peer feedback should not only focus onforms of grammar, but also on meaning (Izumi, 2016). The teacher should guide learners how
to write their compositions logically, with three main points: topic, supporting paragraphs,
and conclusion. Then, the learners would review their writings by themselves and give
feedback to others.
In the reading and writing course, giving sufficient input and output activities would be
essential. In giving peer feedback, EFL teachers create an interactive environment for
students to focus on teaching or stimulating L2 learners’ undiscovered knowledge. Thisapproach of “noticing corrective feedback would raise awareness of L2 students’ language
features. More investigation is needed to see how EFL learners notice their writing throughspontaneous attention to the written form. Further empirical research is also needed to see
how L2 learners produce their output and what types of feedback could be used in L2 writing.
To improve the output products, we can see more L2 learners engaged in IL (Interlanguage),intake, and uptake in the process.

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References
Allwright, D., & Bailey, K. M. (1991). Focus on the language classroom: An introduction toclassroom research for language teachers. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gass, S., and Selinker, L. (2008) Second Language Acquisition: An Introductory Course,
Second and foreign language data (pp.73-74). New York: Cambridge University Press.
New York, NY: Routledge.
Hanaoka, O. (2007). Output, noticing, and learning: An investigation into the role of
spontaneous attention to form in a four-stage writing task. Language Teaching
Research 11,4, 459-479.
Hanaoka, O.&Izumi, S. (2012). Noticing and uptake: Addressing pre-articulated covert
problems in L2 writing. Journal of Second Language Writing,21:4, 332-347.
Harklau, L. (2002). The role of writing in classroom language acquisition. Journal of Second
Language Writing 11, Issue 4, 329-350.
Hunt, K.W. (1965). Grammatical Structures Written at Three Grades Levels (NCTE Research
Report no.3). Champaign, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
Izumi, S. (2016). Focus on form to CLIL no Eigojyugyou [ English class with Focus. form
and CLIL]. ALC, Tokyo.
Izumi, S, Shiwaku, R., & Okuda, T. (2011). Beliefs about language learning, learning
strategy use, and self-efficacy/confidence of EFL learners with and without
living-abroad experience. Sophia Linguistica,59,151-184.
Long, M., & Robinson, P. (1998). Focus on form: Theory, research, process. In C. Doughty& J. Williams (Eds.), Focus on form in classroom second language acquisition.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Miyata, M. (2002). “Kokomade Tsuujiru Nihonnjinn Eigo-Atarashii Writing no Susume”[Japanese English-New Way of Writing]. Taishukan. Tokyo. (in Japanese).
Okugiri, M., Ijuin, I., & Komori, K. (2015). Nihonjin eigo gakushūsha niyoru ikenbun noronri tenkai: gengo keishiki to sono gakushūsha ni chakumoku shita [A case study of
the rhetorical patterns in argumentative writings by Japanese learners of English].
Proceedings of the 17th Conference of the Pragmatic Society of Japan, 243-246.
Paulus, T. (1999). The effect of peer and teacher feedback on student writing. Journal of
Second Language Writing, 8(3), 265-289.
Rollinson, P. (2005). Using peer feedback in the ESL writing class. ELT Journal, Volume 59,
Issue 1, 23-30.

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Santos, M., López-Serrano, S., & Manchón, R. (2010). The Differential Effect of Two Typesof Direct Written Corrective Feedback on Noticing and Uptake: Reformulation vs.
Error Correction. International Journal of English Studies vol. 10(1), 2010,
pp.131-154.
Suzuki, M. (2008). Japanese learners’ self-revisions and peer revisions of their written
compositions in English. TESOL Quarterly, 42(2), 209-233.
Schmidt, R. (1990). The role of consciousness in second language learning. Applied
Linguistics,11,129-158.
Schmidt, R. (2001). Attention. In P. Robinson (Ed.), Cognition and second language
instruction (pp. 3–32). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Storch,N.(2002). Patterns of interaction in ESL Pair Work. Language Learning, A Journal of
Language Studies, Vol 52, 119-158.
Suzuki, M. (2008). Japanese learners’ self-revisions and peer revisions of their written
compositions in English. TESOL Quartely,42 (2), 209-233.
Yoshihara, M. (2004). “Amerika no Daigakuinn de Seikou Suru Houhou” [How to succeed in
the Graduate Schools in America] Chuokoronsha. Tokyo. (in Japanese).
Van Beuningen, C. G., De Jong, N. H., & Kuiken, F. (2012). Evidence on the effectiveness ofcomprehensive error correction in second language writing. Language Learning, 62(1), 1-41.
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A longitudinal inquiry. Assessing Writing, 19, 80-96.
Contact email: educ0153@komazawa-u.ac.jp

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How the Acoustic Correlates of English Obstruents Appear in Multivariate Analysis
Yixin Zhang, Kyushu University, Japan
Yoshitaka Nakajima, Sound Corporation, Japan
Kazuo Ueda, Kyushu University, Japan
Gerard B. Remijn, Kyushu University, Japan
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Abstract
Multivariate analysis of the acoustic characteristics of speech can provide insight into English
phonology. To identify the acoustic correlates of obstruents, we here performed an
origin-shifted factor analysis of English speech samples. Our multivariate analysis of spectralchanges of speech demonstrated that one extracted factor, the so-called “mid-low factor” withhigh factor loadings around 1100 Hz, was strongly associated with vowels and sonorantconsonants. Obstruents never went into the positive direction on this spectral factor. By
contrast, two other spectral factors showed some association with obstruents, i.e., a “highfactor” with high factor loadings above ~3300 Hz, and a “low & mid-high factor”, with highfactor loadings around 300 Hz and 2300 Hz. We focused on two general categories of English
obstruents: fricatives/affricates and plosives in more detail. The results showed that six
fricatives/affricates (/s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/) occupied the positive direction only on the “highfactor”, while five other fricatives/affricates (/θ/, /ð/, /f/, /v/, /h/) occupied the positive direction
on both the “high factor” and the “low & mid-high factor”. All plosives (/p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, /g/)also occupied the positive direction on both these two spectral factors, but seemed mainly
distributed on the “high factor”. Overall, if we assume that the “mid-low factor” is correlatedwith what is called sonority, our factor analysis provides corroborating evidence for a
widely-accepted idea in phonology: In the sonority hierarchy, obstruents are given the lowest
rank, with plosives located at the bottom, and they do not constitute syllable nuclei.
Keywords: Speech Perception, English Phonemes, Factor Analysis, Sonority

iafor
The International Academic Forumwww.iafor.org

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Introduction
When we pronounce or perceive English speech, we prefer to combine several phonemes into
a combination of sounds called a syllable. Syllables play a prominent role in theories thathave proved useful in describing many prosodic phonological features of different languages[1]. In its common typology, a syllable is divided into three parts: the onset (or beginning),
the nucleus (or peak), and the coda (or end). The nucleus is the most obligatory part in asyllable, and a syllable may even consist only of a nucleus, e.g., the first syllable in thedisyllable word about. The nucleus is typically a vowel, while the onset of the coda is often
made up of consonants [2]. This reflects a principle that is used to classify English phonemes:
the sonority hierarchy. A high position in the sonority hierarchy represents a close proximity
to the syllable nucleus. Vowels occupy the highest position in the sonority hierarchy,
followed by sonorant consonants (glides, liquids, nasals). Obstruents (fricatives/affricates,
plosives), formed by obstructing airflow, occupy the lowest position in the sonority hierarchy[3]. Thus obstruents are always considered as the syllable boundaries, while vowels always
have a position on the syllable nucleus.
It has been argued that multivariate analysis of acoustic characteristics of English speechsounds can be related to phonological features. In one of the most recent studies using theclassic factor analysis, Ueda and Nakajima (2017) found that multivariate analysis of speechsamples from eight languages/dialects universally showed three spectral factors that appearedin four frequency bands [4]. Nakajima et al. (2017) further showed that the distributions offactor scores of English vowels, sonorant consonants, and obstruents, respectively, went fromhigh to low on a spectral factor with high factor loadings on a frequency range around 1100
Hz. This tendency was highly related to the sonority hierarchy [5]. Furthermore, in our recent
study, we have shown that the distribution of obstruents in English speech is related to two
spectral factors: one is a bimodal factor with high factor loadings around 300 Hz and around2300 Hz, and the other is a factor with high loadings on a frequency range around 4100 Hz[6]. In these studies, however, an English speech database was used in which the labeling ofsome phonemes was incorrect, and for this reason samples were omitted. To further
investigate how acoustic characteristics of English and phonology are related, a new English
speech database was created. In the present study, we performed a newly-developed type offactor analysis over speech samples from this database to confirm the previous findings, andto identify the acoustic correlates of English obstruents in more detail.
Methods
Speech Samples
First, a new English database was created, which contained 100 sentences uttered by one
male and two female native-English speakers. The speech samples in the database wererecorded with a sampling frequency of 44100 Hz and 16-bit linear quantization. The speech
signals of all the spoken sentences ..... segmented into individual phonemes and were labeledutilizing the International Phonetic Alphabet, with the Cambridge Advanced Learner's
Dictionary as pronunciation reference [7]. A total of 11935 English phonemes was used as
analysis samples.

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The Origin-shifted Factor Analysis
The speech samples were analyzed with the origin-shifted factor analysis, that has been
recently developed [8]. This method is potentially suitable to resynthesize speech, because
every starting point of the data is moved from the gravity center to the origin, so that all silent
parts in speech signals would remain silent. In our recent study [6], we compared a classic
factor analysis and the origin-shifted factor analysis and focused on the two main differences
between these multivariate analysis methods: the origin shift and cepstral liftering. Cepstral
liftering is a smooth processing of the signal and applied to the analysis of speech [9]. Weargued that multivariate analysis with cepstral liftering would not relate to the real auditory
signal quality, since it will smooth the speech signals and may weaken the features of speech. It
was concluded that the origin-shifted factor analysis without cepstral liftering is more
recommendable for speech analyses, and we therefore used it in the present analysis.
The two-dimensional axes derived from the origin-shifted factor analysis were rotated byvarimax rotation [10]. As a result, similar to our previous study [6], three main spectral factors
were extracted and their factor loadings were obtained. All analysis samples of English
phonemes were divided into three categories: vowels, sonorant consonants, and obstruents. In
total, 4528 vowels, 2467 sonorant consonants, and 4940 obstruents were used. The factor
scores of the central midpoints of time for all the labeled phoneme samples were calculated. To
observe the acoustic correlates of obstruents in more detail, the distributions of all English
phonemes were analyzed. We focused on the distributions of obstruents in particular (4940 intotal), as represented in the two-dimensional factor space.
Results
Factor Loadings of the Three Spectral Factors
Figure 1 shows the factor loadings obtained by the origin-shifted factor analysis for all the
English speech samples spoken by three native speakers. The cumulative contributions of thethree spectral factors were around 47%. Four main frequency bands were obtained. Theirfrequency ranges are indicated by the center frequencies on the horizontal axis in Figure 1. The
first band was a low-frequency band, from about 50 to 600 Hz. The second band was a mid-low
frequency band, around 600 to 1700 Hz. The third band was a mid-high-frequency band, fromabout 1700 to 3000 Hz. The fourth constituted a high-frequency band, which was above 3000
Hz. These four frequency bands were related to three spectral factors. One factor, the “low &mid-high factor” (Figure 1, red line) was bimodal, because it showed high factor loadings on
two center frequency ranges around 300 Hz and around 2300 Hz. Although the second peak ofthis factor did not appear very prominently, we considered it to be similar to the shape of the“low & mid-high factor” as found in our previous study [6]. The second factor, the “mid-low
factor”, was related to the frequency range around 1100 Hz (Figure 1, black line). The third
factor, the “high factor”, was related to the frequency range around 4100 Hz (Figure 1, blueline).

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Figure 1: Factor Loadings of the Three Extracted Spectral Factors of 100 English Speech
Samples from Three Native Speakers with the Origin-Shifted Factor Analysis.
Factor Scores of the Three Spectral Factors
The factor scores of all English phonemes were obtained and distributed into three
categorical areas in the factor space, i.e., vowels, sonorant consonants, and obstruents. On the“mid-low factor” with a center frequency range around 1100 Hz, the highest factor scores wereobtained by vowels, followed by sonorant consonants, and obstruents. Moreover, most of the
obstruents occupied a position very near to or below zero on the “mid-low factor”. Instead,obstruents were associated with the two other spectral factors: the “low & mid-high factor” andthe “high factor”, similar to the result in our earlier research [6].
To get more insight into the distributions of individual obstruents in the factor space, moredetailed analyses of obstruents on the “low & mid-high factor” and the “high factor” were
performed. Figure 2 shows the distributions of the factor scores of individual obstruents
divided into eleven fricatives/affricates in Figure 2(a), and six plosives in Figure 2(b). The
distributions show that five fricatives/affricates (/θ/, /ð/, /f/, /v/, /h/) were close to the origin
and both located on the “low & mid-high factor” and the “high factor”, while six
fricatives/affricates (/s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/) were distributed on only the “high factor”,
occupying a relatively wide distribution and high position. Furthermore, all six plosives (/p/,/t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, /g/) occupied a position above zero on the “low & mid-high factor” and the“high factor”. Two plosives (/t/, /g/) occupied a wider distribution and reached the highest
positions near fricatives/affricates (/ʃ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/) on the “high factor”.

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Figure 2: The Distributions of the Factor Scores of Obstruents Divided into
Fricatives/Affricates (A) and Plosives (B) in the Two-Dimensional Space of the “Low &Mid-High Factor” and the “High Factor”.
We further observed the distributions of the average factor scores of the fricatives/affricatesin Figure 3(a) and of the plosives in Figure 3(b), in the two-dimensional space of the “low &mid-high factor” and the “high factor”. In Figure 3(a), the five fricatives/affricates (/θ/, /ð/, /f/,/v/, /h/) were close to the origin and on both the “high factor” and the “low & mid-high factor”.
The distributions of the six fricatives/affricates (/s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/) were almost parallelto and only located on the “high factor”. In Figure 3(b), all six plosives (/p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, /g/)were close to the origin and on both the “high factor” and the “low & mid-high factor”, butthey were mainly distributed on the “high factor”.

Figure 3: The Distributions of the Average of the Factor Scores of Obstruents Divided into
Fricatives/Affricates (A) and Plosives (B) in the Two-Dimensional Space of the “Low &Mid-High Factor” and the “High Factor”.

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Conclusions
In the present study, the origin-shifted factor analysis was applied to English speech samples.
The samples were taken from a newly-recorded database that contained 100 sentences each
spoken by three native speakers of English. In total, 11935 individually-labeled English
phonemes were used as analysis samples. The analysis showed that the distributions of theobtained factor scores in the factor space well reflected the phonological roles that English
phonemes are considered to have.
Confirming earlier research [5, 6], our analysis proved again that the “mid-low factor”, withhigh factor loadings on a frequency range around 1100 Hz, was only related to vowels andsonorant consonants. Vowels, sonorant consonants, and obstruents were separated veryclearly on this factor. Vowels had the highest position on the “mid-low factor”. Always
playing the roles of syllable nuclei in English, vowels are high in the sonority hierarchy.
Sonorant consonants occupied the middle position on the “mid-low factor” factor. They arealso in the middle position in the sonority hierarchy, indicating that sonorant consonants playroles close to those of vowels, in that some of them also can be syllable nuclei. For example,
the nucleus of the first syllable in the word little is the vowel /i/, but the nucleus of the secondsyllable is the sonorant consonant /l/ [2]. Obstruents had the lowest position on this “mid-low
factor”. They also have the lowest position in the sonority hierarchy, indicating that
obstruents can hardly be treated as syllable nuclei. Given these findings, we can therefore callthe “mid-low factor” the “sonority factor”, confirming previous results [5, 6].
Secondly, we investigated the acoustic natures of English obstruents in the other two spectral
factors as also extracted in our early studies [6], i.e., the “low & mid-high factor” with bimodal
frequency ranges around 300 Hz and around 2300 Hz, and the “high factor” with a frequency
range around 4100 Hz (Figure 2, Figure 3). In an English syllable, obstruents typically occupy
a low position on the sonority hierarchy. This was clearly reflected in our analysis: obstruents
never went into the positive direction of the “mid-low factor” - the “sonority factor”. By
contrast, obstruents were only distributed on the “high factor”, or on both the “low & mid-highfactor” and the “high factor”. Fricatives/affricates occupied a wider distribution than plosiveson the “high factor”. These pieces of evidence confirmed that obstruents do not constitute thesyllable nucleus.
With the present multivariate analysis, we thus connected acoustics and phonology, byextracting spectral factors that seem to represent sonority features of English speech sounds.
To further identify the acoustic features of obstruents, the newly-recorded English database
will be used for more analyses about the categorical perception of English phonemes.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 19H00630. Y.Z. is supported
by a MEXT Super Global University Project scholarship from the Japanese Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

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References
Féry, C., Vijver, R. (2003). The syllable in optimality theory. Cambridge University Press:
Cambridge, UK.
Gordon, K. M. (2016). Phonological typology. Oxford University Press, UK.
Spencer, A. (1996). Phonology: Theory and Description. Blackwell Press: Oxford, UK.
Ueda, K., Nakajima, Y. (2017). An acoustic key to eight languages/dialects: Factor analysesof critical-band-filtered speech. Scientific Reports, 7, 42468.
Nakajima, Y., Ueda, K., Fujimaru, S., Motomura, H., Ohsaka, Y. (2017). English phonology
and an acoustic language universal. Scientific Reports, 7, 46049.
Zhang, Y., Nakajima, Y., Ueda, K., Kishida, T., Remijn, G.B. (2020). Comparison ofMultivariate Analysis Methods as Applied to English Speech. Applied Sciences, 10(20), 7076.
McIntosh, C. (2013). Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 4th Edition.
Kishida, T., Nakajima, Y., Ueda, K., Remijn, G.B. (2016). Three factors are critical in orderto synthesize intelligible noise-vocoded Japanese speech. Frontiers in Psychology, 7,
517.
Awan, N.S., Giovinco, A., Owens, J. (2012). Effects of vocal intensity and vowel type on
cepstral analysis of voice. Journal of Voice, 26, 5, 670.e15–670.e20.
Kaiser, H.F. (1958). The varimax criterion for analytic rotation in factor analysis.
Psychometrika, 23, 187–200.
Contact email: 3DS20005M@s.kyushu-u.ac.jp
remijn@design.kyushu-u.ac.jp

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Business English as a ‘Lingua Franca’ (BELF): Focusing on Cross-Cultural E-mailCommunication
Masako Nishikawa-Van Eester, Nishogakusha University, Japan
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Abstract
Business English as a ‘Lingua Franca’ – BELF – has been getting more and moreinternational attention recently in the field of TESOL because global business has becomecommon and normal by now. The article focuses on aspects relevant to English business email as it is the cornerstone of international business communication. It is often assumed thatwriting English e-mail messages is in the first place a question of vocabulary and grammar,
but experience is pointing to a much more important aspect that Japanese students andteachers tend to overlook: paragraph writing. The article offers insights into the reasons why
paragraph writing is so important for Japanese students. Among others it will be pointed outthat the different styles of logical thinking that are pervasive in various cultures ("cultural
thought patterns") influence how arguments are built up in each language. In order to be able
to write an understandable English business e-mail message, Japanese students need torealize this and learn how to apply English logic.
Keywords: BELF, Business English, Lingua Franca, E-Mail, Cultural Thought Patterns,
Paragraph Writing,iafor
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Introduction
BELF, or Business English as a ‘Lingua Franca,’ has been getting more and more attention in
the TESOL field. What is the definition of “Lingua Franca” then? According to Oxford
Learner’s Dictionary, it is explained as “a shared language of communication used between
people whose main languages are different” with an example sentence as “English has
become a lingua franca in many parts of the world.” Kankaanranta and Louhiala-Salminen(2013) traced back the origin of the concept of “lingua franca,” by citing Knapp andMeierkord, that it was a language variety used in the Mediterranean between the 15th and19th century which enabled trade between people who did not share the native language.
Regarding the English language as a lingua franca, Crystal (2003) pointed out, in his work
“English as a Global Language,” that the consciousness of “a strong need for a lingua franca
for the whole world emerged only in the twentieth century, in the 1950s in particular (p. 12).
As more and more nations began joining global bodies such as the United Nations (since1945), the World Bank (also 1945), UNESCO and UNICEF (both 1946), the World HealthOrganization (1948) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (1957). Furthermore, at amore restricted level, multinational and political organizations such as the Commonwealthand the European Union needed a single lingua franca for mutual understanding andcommunication.
As the need for more global communication in diverse fields, the English language has
become the major language of the world. In Crystal’s description (p. 13), it is getting quite
normal that we can imagine a situation where a Japanese company director arranges
interpreters and a venue to meet his German and Saudi Arabian contacts in Singapore to plana multi-national deal. Or you could also imagine that they are going to just plug in to a 3-way
online support system from where they respectively are. However, the most comfortable andleast complicated alternative is to make use of just one language, English. Not only Crystal(2003) but also McKay (2002) pointed out that the need for a global language, a lingua
franca, is particularly appreciated by the international academic and business communities.
On the other hand, Kankaanranta and Planken referred to the ambiguity in studying of thisspecific field, explaining there has been relatively little systematic research that has focusedon “how and why it matters” (p.3).
In any case, the English language teaching (ELT) business has become one of the major
growth industries around the world (Crystal, p.112). From that perspective, Nishikawa-Van
Eester and Van Eester researched BELF focusing on actual cross-cultural business scenes inJapan with an intention to report some pedagogical implications in realistic teaching/learning
contexts (2021). This is to be discussed later in this article.
World Englishes and Cultural Thought Patterns
As seen in the previous section, English is not only the language of English-speaking
countries such as the USA and the UK anymore; the dominance of English has penetrated
nearly all global economic activities so that, as a factor for successful business development,
it is absolutely necessary to consider and strategize how each individual’s actual and practicalEnglish proficiency could be optimized (Kankaanranta and Planken, p.9).
Kachru categorized that there are basically three groups in the world from the perspective of
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outer/extended circle,’ and 3) ‘the expanding/extending circle’ (Crystal, pp. 60-61). He
defined these three circles as following: 1) refers to the countries where English is theprimary language; 2) involves the earlier phases of the spread of English in non-native
settings, where the language has become part of a country’s chief institutions, and it plays animportant ‘second language (ESL)’ role in a multilingual setting, and 3) involves the nations
which recognize the importance of English as an international language though they do nothave a history of colonization by members of 1), nor have given English any special
administrative status. In this group, English is taught as a ‘foreign language (EFL); There aresome seventy-five territories in which English has held or continues to hold a special place,as a member of either 1) or 2).

Figure 1: ‘Three Circles of English’ by Kachru’ from “English as a Global Language”
by Crystal (2003, p.61)
According to Saraceni (2015), the notion of ‘World Englishes (WE)’ has made us realize theemergence of different varieties of English as a consequence of the language having spreadall over the world (p. 79). He also noted that the field of WE is a descriptive, empirical studyof ‘nativized’ varieties of English in Kachru’s ‘Outer Circle’ (p. 5).
Thus, a large, non-English-native population, everywhere in the world, has to learn and use
English. However, there is a lot of variety in these “Englishes.” As shown in Kachru’s
categorization, different groups from diverse cultural, historical, geographical, and linguistic
backgrounds use English in order to communicate with the rest of the world.
Kaplan stated (1966) that we think in a specific thought pattern, linked to the language that
we use as our first language. He also described the thought patterns inherent in different
language groups (see the graphic below).

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Figure 2: Kaplan, 1966
Presumably, a number of professional English teachers (especially those with ESL
experience) have experienced Kaplan’s findings for themselves. Now, based on this analysis
by Kaplan, we can imagine what could happen if a Japanese native speaker with little trainingof doing so in English writes a business e-mail or gives a presentation. The reaction by anative or near-native speaker of English would be “What’s the point?” or “Can you please
explain it again?” Due to the nature of the Japanese way of thinking that avoids being linear
and straight, the English (near-)native speaker gets confused. In order to overcome thisshortcoming, it is effective to implement trainings to write based on the concept of paragraphwriting.
Paragraph Writing
A number of English-speaking universities worldwide have their own institutions such as“Writing Center” and “Writing Tutorial Services” at which they guide and coach theirstudents how to write papers in classes as “Academic Writing” 1 by using the method ofParagraph Writing. They all explain repeatedly the importance of Paragraph Writing whenwriting in English. This benefits the non-native speakers of English because they can learn, in
its framework, how English logic flows and functions.
Regarding Japanese native speakers’ writing in English, Okada’s study pointed out that there
are two major problems. One is their tendency to explain things randomly and focus on theiremotional reactions, and the other is that they tend to express things ambiguously without
presenting detailed facts or reasons due to a Japanese cultural tendency to avoid conflict(2018). Citing Hirose (2003) in her article, Okada described a phenomenon that the Japanese
rarely practice expository or argumentative writing while they usually write about theirpersonal experiences or impressions.
As presented in the graphic earlier in this article, this is a rhetorical feature of Japanese(Oriental languages). In order to avoid conflict, they are not logical or critical in their writing
even when in English (Okada, p. 74). Okada further argued that this could be improved by
explicitly teaching the English rhetoric to the Japanese students.
Paragraph writing techniques are of crucial importance in business e-mails, a criticalcomponent of the BELF environment. A sound logic flow in English e-mails is crucial for
creating an equal and trusted long-distance business relationship.

1

Indiana University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Technology Sydney, andUniversity of Toronto.

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E-mail Communication in BELF
According to the study of Van Horen (2009), numerous researchers have been reporting
American and Japanese business partners exchanging correspondences in English. From thecross-cultural perspective, he introduced Stanlaw’s detailed documentation in 2004,
concerning the strategic way English is used in the Japanese advertising industry. In this way,
the use of English has become a target of analyses to TESOL/BELF researchers.
Nishikawa-Van Eester and Van Eester stated that BELF is at the core of the daily practice intheir business operations and management, and that most of the communication between
mainly European companies and their Japanese counterparts is done by English (2021). They
pointed out that, contrary to other fields of WE, the correctness of the English language itself
is not necessarily of importance in a BELF setting. Instead, what matters most is that thecommunication is correctly understood. They insist that, in BELF contexts, the English
language is not a ‘goal,’ but just a ‘tool’ to use in order to achieve holistic and smoothinteractions for mutual benefit.
From that viewpoint, Nishikawa-Van Eester and Van Eester argued how English should betaught, by presenting actual examples. The goal is again not to learn English itself but toacquire the ability to use English, optimized for fluent communications in BELF.
Discussion
Here are two e-mail message interactions used as example by Nishikawa-Van Eester and Van
Eester.
Example 1
A.
(European non-English native speaker, company X):
I am XXXXX XXXXXXXX, working for X here in Tokyo. I got your mail via XXXXXXXX.
Sorry for writing this mail in English, my written Japanese is not as good as my spoken
Japanese.
We are interested in following up further on your request, but we would like to understandbetter what you need.
The easiest would be for me to come to your office so we can talk about this.
I can make myself available any of the remaining working days of the year except for Th
12/18 and Fri 12/19.
If you are interested, please let me know which date/time suits you best and which
XXXXXXXX office you are located at.
B.
(Japanese native speaker, company Y):
Thank you for sending an email to me.
I didn't know X is in Tokyo.
And I please to hear your schedule this week.
I share your information with engineering side. And I have checked their schedule.
It is better to set a meeting 10am-12am December 19 XXXXXXXX
However I couldn't check all attendance's schedule. So the limited attends will join To themeeting.
Anyway we expect to meet you next Friday. If you can send any information in advance, We
read it, and we prepare any questions to you.

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Have you ever been XXXXXXXX I attached the file of guide to XXXXXX
I look forward to meeting you.
Example 2
A.
(European non-English native speaker, company X):
We would like to do the call on Friday January 9 at 17:00 JST (9:00 CET).
If that date/time is OK for you, I will come to your office and we can do the call together.
C.
(Japanese native speaker, company Z):
I agree with your proposal.
I will reconfirm with you this conference call, in new year.
In the first example, it is obvious that something went wrong. There is a major
misunderstanding between these two businesspeople. A suggested to meet each other for
further business opportunities by giving actual dates. He told explicitly that he would not be
available on December 19, however, B scheduled the meeting for that day. It was obviousthat B’s English proficiency was not high enough to understand the meaning of ‘except for,’on the other hand, A should/could have used much simpler expressions, by realizing thepossible language limitations of Japanese English-users.
The second example is a good one as far as the aspect of BELF is concerned. Although
English is not always correctly used in this situation, the meaning is perfectly clear. The‘errors’ observed in the context do not hinder the communicators’ interactions probably
because all expressions are straightforward, and the flow and communication are established
as a whole.
BELF is a genre that has not been studied and explored deeply and widely enough. We needto deliberately think what we should teach in BELF classes and how we should teach them inJapan. One certain point is that BELF should be regarded as one of ESP, or English forSpecific Purposes, and the target students should learn BELF in the class of Business
English, not Literature nor English Grammar.
Naturally and consequently, the teaching material for them have to cover appropriate
business scenes and manners. The students need to acquire proper way of behaviors in
multicultural contexts, and thus, the teaching materials need to be basically authentic
reflecting the reality in cross-cultural business scenes. The students also need to learn morethan just the English language. They are required to understand the situation itself in which
they are supposed to react and interact in an appropriate manner taking the languagecapabilities and cultural context of the counterpart into consideration.
Conclusion
It is interesting to see that, in BELF contexts, it sometimes does not matter if the language
usage itself is correct. For instance, lexical or syntactical correctness might be merely asecondary issue. Therefore, teaching learners to be able to operate in BELF situations
requires a different approach from teaching English for the sake of English.
That might be the crucial and determining aspect in the Japanese educational system because,
as reported by Taguchi, Magid and Papi (2009), Japan is a country where English is in the

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first place considered to be one of the most important school subjects, instead of being
regarded a communicative tool in the real world.
It would be beneficial for Japanese learners of BELF if the classroom is an actual site where aholistic approach can take place as the entire milieu itself provides people with moreauthentic examples in daily life.

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References
Crystal, D. (2003). English as a Global Language (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press.
Indiana University Writing Tutorial Services, Writing Guides. Paragraphs & Topic
Sentences. Retrieved on March 20, 2021, from: https://wts.indiana.edu/writingguides/paragraphs-and-topic-sentences.html
Kankaanranta, A. & Louhiala-Salminen, L. (2013). “What language does global businessspeak?” – The concept and development of BELF. Ibérica 26. 17-34. Asociación
Europea de Lenguas para Fines Específicos Cádiz, España. Retrieved on November 3,
2020, from: https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/2870/287028373002.pdf
Kankaanranta, A. & Planken, B. (2010). BELF competence as business knowledge ofinternationally operating business professionals. Journal of Business Communication,
Special Issue of Language Matters, Part 2, 47(4), 380-407.
Kaplan, R. (1966). Language Learning, 16. (1-2). Cultural thought patterns in intercultural
education. Retrieved on October 1, 2020, from:https://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/~djohnson/6750/kaplan.pdf
lingua-franca noun - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes. Oxford Advanced
Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com Retrieved on November 3,
2020, from: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/linguafranca
McKay, S. L. (2002). Teaching English as an international language. New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press.
Nishikawa-Van Eester, M. & Van Eester, D. (2021). BELF, or "Business English as a Lingua
Franca": focusing on TESOL in Japan. Journal of International Politics andEconomics, 27, 121-131. Tokyo: Faculty of International Politics and Economics,
Nishogakusha University.
Okada, R. (2018). Challenges in Teaching Japanese EFL Students to Express Themselves
Logically. Asian Education Studies, 3(1), 73 – 82.
Saraceni, M. (2015). World Englishes. London: Bloomsbury.
Taguchi, T., Magid M., & Papi, M. (2009). The L2 Motivational Self System among
Japanese, Chinese and Iranian Learners of English: A Comparative Study. In Dörnyei,
Z. & Ushioda, E.(Eds.) Motivation, Language Identity and the L2 Self. Bristol:Multilingual Matters. 66 – 97.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The Writing Center, Paragraphs. Retrieved on
March 20, 2021, from:https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/paragraphs/

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University of Technology Sydney, Paragraph level writing, Retrieved on March 12, 2021,
from: https://www.uts.edu.au/current-students/support/helps/self-helpresources/academic-writing/paragraph-level-wrinting
University of Toronto, Writing Advice. Paragraphs. Retrieved on March 15, 2021, from:https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/planning/paragraphs/
Van Horen, S.Y. (2009). World Englishes and Global Commerce. In Kachru, Braj B.,
Kachru, Y., & Nelson, C.L. (Eds.) The handbook of world Englishes. Malden, MA:
Blackwell, 620 – 642.
Contact email: masako.nishikawa@gol.com
m-nishik@nishogakusha-u.ac.jp

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Designing Online Language Courses: Lessons Learned
from Teaching Vietnamese Language and Culture for Japanese Learners
Tran Hoang Nam, Tokushima University, Japan
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Abstract
This paper shows the lessons learned after several courses on “Basic Vietnamese language
and culture” targeting Japanese university students and adult learners, which have been
conducted in 2020. Influenced by the Covid-19 pandemic, the materials and methods
prepared for conventional classroom have been adapted and modified to suit the online
platform. Although intended for beginners, these courses have applied and integrated
approach for teaching a language and its corresponding culture in line with principles of adultlearning, active learning, and problem-based learning. The lessons were designed using awide range of techniques such as videos, pictures, anecdotes, crosswords, open-ended
question, quizzes using multiple choice answers followed by analysis of each choice, online
test. For each lesson, the learners were introduced to new vocabulary and basic expressions
related to a socio-cultural theme such as history, national character, medical system,sightseeing, business etc. Looking from the perspective of both learners and teachers by
evaluations and reflections, these courses have shown some positive experiences andsuggested points for improvement of online language classroom in the future.
Keywords: Language Course, Online, Vietnamese, Culture, Adult Learning, Covid-19

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Introduction
There is an increased socioeconomic relationship and cultural exchange between Japan and
Vietnam since 2008, after two countries signed the Japan-Vietnam Economic Partnership
Agreement (MOFA, 2021). More and more people and companies from Japan goes toVietnam for expanding their business while providing local Vietnamese with more
employment opportunities and a working medium of Japanese language (Froese & Kishi,2013). Furthermore, tourism and cultural exchange activities are also booming in both
directions (Hoi & Cooper, 2020).
In Japan, foreign technical trainees, technical workers, and other work-linked visa holders
saw a sharp rise. Among whom, number of Vietnamese students and trainees is increased
drastically (Tran & Matsuura, 2020). As of the end of October 2020, 443,998 Vietnamese
accounting for 25.7% of the total number of foreign workers in Japan, surpassing China(MHLW, 2021). Most of young Vietnamese, especially who come to Japan for work on
trainee visas cannot communicate in Japanese at a sufficient business level. On the other hand,very few Japanese could speak Vietnamese at a sufficient proficiency level that could
effectively communicate with Vietnamese. This mis-communication phenomenon poses alanguage communication gap between local Japanese and foreign workers (Zhang et al.,2021).
In recent years, the number of Japanese who are interested in learning Vietnamese language
is rapidly increasing. This could be mainly due to the increased number of Vietnamese cometo Japan for work and study, and vice versa, creating the needs for higher level ofcommunication for business and exchange as well and for intercultural understanding.
Vietnamese language courses, either academic or non-academic are being offered in Japan.
Several universities in Japan (including Osaka University, Tokyo Foreign Languages
University, Kanda Foreign Language University) already have undergraduate degree
programs with major in Vietnamese language. Vietnamese language courses and private
lessons are also being offered by numerous language centers and private tutors in Japan.
Regardless of the purpose of learning Vietnamese, either for professional use or just for a pasttime, the need for learning Vietnamese language among Japanese still seems to be increasing(Multilingirl, n.d.).
Vietnamese is a tonal language with six tones. According to Foreign Service Institute, it isclassified as Category III languages or 1100 class hours for English speakers (USDS, n.d.).
Vietnamese language is characterized with its Romanized alphabet, mostly short, 1-2 syllable
words, containing no gender, no verb conjugation, and almost no tense, and no plural forms.
Vietnamese grammar seems extremely simple (SVO). Based on its historical evolution,
Vietnamese language consists of many Chinese-based words. The key to learning Vietnameseis to practice its "pronunciation". There are 11 single vowels (Japanese has only 5 vowels), 3
diphthongs, and 19 consonants. For Japanese learners, being able to differentiate theoverwhelmed number of different syllables of Vietnamese by tone, vowel and consonant at
the beginner level is very challenged. Although, Japanese learners have some advantage inlearning Vietnamese, since both languages have a significant number of Chinese-origin words
in common, slightly differ in meaning and pronunciation.
Practicing pronunciation is the most difficult and tedious part of learning Vietnamese(Ishizaka, 2020). Even in the degree courses at Hanoi University of Vietnam National
University, undergraduate students who major in Vietnamese almost take their first year only

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for acquisition of pronunciation and basic grammatical items (Hanoi University, n.d.).
Vietnamese classes are offered widely in Vietnam for foreigners come to work or study about
the country. Although an impressive number of learners entering these beginner courses, avery few remain to study after 1-2 month of study and very few learners could reach theeffective communication level (Cu, 2017). Many quitted the class before they can master100-200 basic vocabulary and some basic conversation patterns. For the learners who
attended conversation classes, the most common reason for quitting Vietnamese class at theearly beginning is to be bored by extensive pronunciation exercises. Losing motivation isbelieved to be the main reason for high drop-out rate among beginner classes.
There are already many kinds of textbooks for studying Vietnamese language available on themarket. Some of the textbooks focus mainly on daily conversation or sentence patterns, while
the others focus on grammar and pronunciation practice. However, although very
well-written and supplied with audio CD, the learners seem to have difficulty to use theseresources for self-study without attending a class and a constant conversation partner. Unlike
studying English or Japanese, which have many standard testing and assessment systems
such as TOEIC, JLPT etc., lacking such for Vietnamese language learners also make itchallenging for continuing study.
At Tokushima University (TU), several non-credit courses for Vietnamese language werebeing conducted since 2018. These courses targeted not only students but also a wide scopeof adult learners who wants to improve their understanding about Vietnam’s culture alongwith some basic Vietnamese conversation skills for actual exchange activities. Many of thelearners of these courses have experience traveling and work in Vietnam or involving withsocial activities with foreigners in Japan. Furthermore, there were also Vietnamese courses
designed for students who are interested in learning more languages, gaining multiculturalexperiences and short-term study abroad.
In 2020, after the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, all courses had to shift into online
platforms. The planned courses on Vietnamese language were also conducted online. By
analyzing the results of courses on Vietnamese language and culture conducted at TU in 2020
comparing to the courses conducted in the previous year, this paper is aiming to explore: (1)effectiveness of application of teaching techniques in online classes such as videos, pictures,
funny stories, crosswords, open-ended question, quizzes, online tests etc., (2) effectiveness of
introducing socio-cultural elements related to history, national character, medical system,sightseeing, business, environment etc. in activating learners’ motivation at the beginnerlevel.
MethodThis paper analyzes the results of the course “Basic Vietnamese language and culture” forstudents and general adult learners conducted online from August – September 2020. The
course was designed and implemented as a non-credit course for beginner level of learners
who have never learned the language before, or who already have some exposure to it. It was
designed as a short course with a total about 22 class hours, divided into 11 lessons at thepace of 1-2 times per week, for a small group of less than ten participants.
The syllabus included topics of highly practical use with some flexibility, but generally
arranged as following: (1) Time, month, day, year; (2) Seasons and weather; (3) Meals and

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cooking; (4) Hobbies and arts; (5) House and family; (6) Body, hospital, and troubles; (7)History and modern issues; (8) National character and personality; (9) Shopping and goods;(10) City walk and sightseeing; (11) Review and final test. Each lesson was divided into thefollowing parts: (1) Warm up and review; (2) New vocabulary with about 10 words; (3)Conversation patterns with about 1~2 patterns for practicing the new vocabulary; (4) Cultural
knowledge (story, video, quiz, question etc.) which is mainly conducted in Japanese; (5) Testand review of test answers; (6) Wrap up and reflection; (7) Homework assignment including
pre-recorded audio and pdf handout of the current lesson for self-review at home. The steps(2) ~ (4) was supposed to be repeated if there was time left.
This course including study materials and course syllabus were designed independently by
the trainer while taking several beginners’ textbooks as reference materials. No textbook wasfound to include socio-cultural elements as study tools. The materials and stories were chosen
to fit the lessons’ topic and objectives, then adapted by the trainer to a simplified text
containing only basic vocabulary and grammar structure. Sources for socio-cultural elements
are materials freely available from internet such as videos, pictures, news articles, research
articles, icons etc. Major parts of the contents were developed and actually used for theoffline course in 2019, then had been adapted again for online course in 2020.
This course was conducted online using Google Meet platform for lecturing and discussion,and Google forms for testing and evaluation. All lessons were prepared on PowerPoint for
online screen sharing. Data for analysis was collected from entry questionnaire, observationof reactions of the learners during the course, contents of discussion, opinion exchange andreflection during classes, test results and final evaluation questionnaire and feedback fromlearners.
Results
Characteristics of ParticipantsParticipants were requested to apply online through link on a poster or from the recruitment
homepage. Eight participants were recruited, including 3 university students (~20-year-old)and 5 general adult learners (40-70 years old) who are involved in teaching Japanese, social
volunteer activities, and private business. All participants were native Japanese, having someEnglish proficiency and a little experience of learning Vietnamese. The participants statedtheir purposes of learning Vietnamese for international exchange activities, travel and making
business. By attending this course, participants expected to achieve some daily conversationand practical skills in Vietnamese, learn more about Vietnam including culture, national
character, customs etc., and to know the differences of Vietnam from Japan.
Application of Teaching Techniques in Online ClassFor the beginners, practicing pronunciation, listening and differentiate syllables that does nothave corresponding sounds in Japanese is the most challenging part. At this stage, it is needed
to build a basic vocabulary for practicing pronunciation and conversation. The number of
new vocabularies for each session was limited to about five words or less, and several times
of practicing speaking and listening those new words were ensured before it could go to thenext session. The following figures represent the slides used during the online class. For eachlesson, the participants were introduced to new vocabulary and basic expressions related to atheme.

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Figure 1: Introducing new vocabulary using visual icons.
Figure 1 shows a group of commonly available household commodities. The participants
have tasks to repeat after the instructor every sound while look at the corresponding word in
the slide. After doing this several times, participants were asked to identify the wordcorresponding to its sound pronounced by instructor. After that, participants were asked toread out the words and their pronunciation is corrected by the instructor. Finally, instructor
introduced a sentence pattern and participants were asked to replace a word from the sample
sentence using the vocabulary learned. Although looks simply, this exercise was very tediousfor the beginners, taking time to focus on individual participants who lagged the process. For
Japanese learners, it needs to focus on practicing the correct pronunciation of sounds such as“phở” (rice noodle) as all the vowels o, ô, ơ have the same sound “o” in Japanese. Anotherexample, it takes a certain time to make a correct pronunciation of “bây giờ” (now) and “bảygiờ” (7 o’clock) since Japanese language can’t make difference between tones such as “bây”
and “bảy”. Making difference between consonants such as “trứng” (egg) and “chợ” (market)
was also sometimes difficult. During those exercises, younger students appeared to be moresound-sensitive since they could identify sounds and read out words faster and more proper
than the older learners did.

Figure 2: Introducing new vocabulary using real-life photos.
Figure 2 shows a slide using a real-life photo instead of icons. At first, participants had a task
to make comments about the picture, then all participants can discuss what they were seeing.
In this case, because only half of the photo was being shown, they should discuss on what
was the man in the photo doing. The discussion could be made in Japanese, or English. Thenas the full photo were uncovered, the whole group realized that the new vocabulary inquestion is “cầu lông” (badminton) which is a popular street sport in Vietnam. Then
participants worked on cognitive learning of the word and making sentences using the word,

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as described previously. Through this kind of exercise, street life culture of Vietnam is subtly
introduced to learners. In class, participants often gave very positive responses to this kind
exercise in case the photo was the topic of their interest.

Figure 3: Introducing new vocabulary and cultural topic using quiz.
Figure 3 shows new vocabulary introduced in the form of quiz. Tasks were assigned to theparticipants to read out the question and the choices, then to identify the words by sound,then to answer the quiz and to discuss the topic in Japanese. Like the above, someparticipants could be activated by this kind of exercise in case the topic (boardgame) was
attractive to their interest.

Figure 4: Introducing new vocabulary and cultural topic using videos.
Figure 4 shows new vocabulary introduced in the form of video. Tasks were assigned to theparticipants to watch the video while trying to notice as many times as possible the sound“vật” (wrestling). Then the participants were asked to discuss topic of the video in Japanese.
Like the above, some participants could be activated by this kind of exercise in case the topic(traditional Vietnamese wrestling) attracted their interest.

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Figure 5: Introducing a social topic with vocabulary.
Figure 5 shows a new variant for introducing new vocabulary. Taken for example a recent
survey about the priorities in life of young Vietnamese, which is freely available on internet,
the content is simplified by instructor. The tasks given were like previous exercises, ask theparticipants need to spend sometimes to learn the new words. Then the participants wereasked to discuss the survey results in Japanese, comparing with what young Japanese people
may think about their priorities. Addressing a modern social topic, such an exercise wasreceived very good feedback from participants, since it could help to understand thementality and behavioral patterns of Vietnamese people.

Figure 6: Exercise for reading numbers with a Covid-19 topic.
Mastering numbers was one of the learning goals that the learned were expected to achieve
during this course. Figure 6 shows a new variant for practicing numbers. As Covid-19 was
the topic of concerns for most of the people, the instructor cited the number of new infectedor patients under treatment in Vietnam extracted from the news then showed it to participants
on a slide. The participants had to read out the numbers, then make sentences using provided
patterns. In the final discussion in Japanese, they were asked to make comment to the graphs,
discuss about the situation of Covid-19 in Vietnam, and to compare that with the world andwith Japan. This exercise was considered informative by the participants.

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Figure 7: Explaining tenses in Japanese.
Japanese was used as language of instruction for conducting this course. Considering the
beginner level of the participants, basic Vietnamese grammar was explained by the instructorin Japanese, to make the participants to understand in a fastest and thoroughly way. Figure 7
was used to explain about how to construct sentences with past, present, and future tenses.
The participants’ feedback had shown that basic Vietnamese grammar was well understood as
it has some similarity with English, and most of participants had no problems of composing
simple sentences following a grammar pattern.

Figure 8: Using English helped to better use of grammar patterns.
Although the instruction is provided in Japanese, some sentences patterns was made in
English due to its structural similarity to Vietnamese and make the participants to understandit easier. In figure 8, examples of sentences in English were used for comparison with
Vietnamese since English has the same order of SVO as Vietnamese. As feedbacked by someparticipants, using English example sentences made it easier to understand. Even, it might be
no problem if the course had been explained fully in English as a language of instruction.
Applications of Socio-cultural Themes
In this course, socio-cultural elements were introduced on purpose with a goal to provide theknowledge on the socio-cultural context of the language formation and application from
history to the modern social issues. It was also aimed to enhance the participants’ motivation
and active learning atmosphere during the course. Socio-cultural themes were introduced
systematically in accordance with the lesson’s content, including history, tradition, traditionalarts, etymology, ethnicity, culinary, national character, medical system, sightseeing, business,social issues etc. These elements were adapted into simple Vietnamese for the participants topractice new vocabularies and grammar patterns. The order of themes was introduced
selectively with minimal vocabulary and basic conversation pattern so that the participants

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can memorize and practice within the context. Starting from history and tradition of Vietnam,
the participants were introduced into the evolution process of the modern Vietnamese
language and what does it have in common with Japanese language. Furthermore, theparticipants were introduced to the characteristics of Vietnam’s culture which share many
similarities with Japanese. Understanding the language evolution and comparative features
between the two languages and culture was making mastering Vietnamese language easier forJapanese speakers.

Figure 9: Introducing mythology via reading exercises.
Mythology and fairy tales were powerful sources for conveying traditional values hidden
behind the language. The instructor selected well-known and simple stories for adaptation.
Figure 9 shows one of the most popular mythology – the story of kitchen gods. The
participants were given tasks to read out the story when the instructor correct theirpronunciation and intonation. After learning the vocabularies, the participants discussed thestory and values from the perspective of Japanese culture. Interestingly, some of theparticipants had found similar stories from other oriental cultures. When comes to traditional
culture, many people are interested in traditional music and musical performance, festivals,
sports, architecture, and visual arts throughout the history. In this course, selected videos andpictures were chosen by the instructors to cover the most typical parts of these topics. For
each session, participants listened to a short lecture in Japanese followed by a list of new
vocabularies related to the theme. Then they watched a short video of 1-2 few minutes, thenmade discussion on the theme and pointing out some similarities with Japanese culture.

Figure 10: Open-ended question on a social issue.
Besides traditional culture, this course was also explored interest of participants about themodern social issues such as pollution, bullying in schools, corruption, bubble economy,
superstition etc. Specific stories about these social emerging issues were selected from thenews, books, media written in Vietnamese which attracted high attention of Vietnamese

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Figure 10 gives an example about garbage issues that attracted a lot of social attention inrecent years. The participants were asked to comment about the pictures and discuss about
the causes and solutions, as well as to find if there were similar issues in Japan. This kind ofproblem-based approach made the participants active and became more interested in learning
about Vietnam, adding a motivation for continuing learning Vietnamese language.
Using anecdotes was one of the best strategies used during this course for teaching culture inboth traditional and modern senses. Vietnam is known with its rich repertoire of anecdotes, acountry where people enjoy telling anecdotes, as they often making fun of their own bad
habits or behaviors, such as being too stingy, short-sighted, pragmatic, tricky etc. Anecdotes,
both old and new, were considered by the participants as very interesting but useful tools tounderstand about Vietnamese national characteristics. Especially, when an anecdote was left
open-ended and the participants were asked to guess the end of the story, in most of cases noparticipant could guess it. Furthermore, most were deeply surprised by the way Vietnamese
people making joke.
The results of the final test applied at the end of the course showed that the participants
practically had gained some progress in language skills. Besides being able to make basic
greetings, they could retain about 50% (about 100 words) of the vocabularies introduced
during the course, being able to make conversation based on several patterns, and being able
to differentiate some syllables that does not exist in Japanese. Moreover, participants gainedsome intercultural knowledge and awareness, as well as multilingual mentality and reflex.
Two third of the participants said that it is no problem if English is the language of instruction.
Finally, they gained some self-study motivation and ability to self-study using the available
resources.
Discussion
The course “Basic Vietnamese language and culture” is a preliminary attempt to pilot a shortcourse on an ethnic language as L3 at university settings. For the participants to master new
vocabularies, numerous repetitions of pronunciation and many short review sessions arenecessary. This course has shown that the contents used offline techniques can be wellapplicable into online mode, including reading exercise, introducing traditional music via
videos, vocabulary building using videos, pictures, anecdotes, crosswords, quizzes, multiple
choice questions, open-ended question, online test for assessment and evaluation. Generally,
these techniques were well perceived by the participants and contributed to improving theirinterest and motivation stay active during lessons. There was no significant difference when
conducting the course online from offline classroom. Comparing to the offline version,
participants of an online class may achieve equal results as offline class. However, inabilityof standard tests for Vietnamese language, especially for pronunciation part make it difficult
to quantify the achievement. The final evaluation results show that most of the participantsprefer online or hybrid classroom over offline.
Integrating teaching a foreign language with its corresponding culture is a common approachto target students as adult learners (Neff & Rucynski, 2013). In this course, incorporating
socio-cultural elements to the language contents was shown to be a good strategy to enhance
the participants’ motivation and engagement. These exercises, alternating with the corelanguage exercises, may activate the participants to brainstorm and orientate outside theirhabitat using their knowledge and experiences in order to find solutions for problems or to

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guess the behavioral patterns in certain situations. Facilitating these sessions according toprinciples of adult learning and critical thinking seem to be effective for the participants tobecome more curious about the new socio-cultural settings that they may want to discoverwith their new language skills (Igarashi, 2018). Surprisingly, in this course, participants seemto interest more on modern socioeconomical themes and modern anecdotes than the
traditional ones.
Covid-19 challenges the education to switch from face-to-face classroom to online platform.
It may take a lot of time to prepare for an online session (Cavanaugh, 2005). Certain amountof time needs to be spent on making slides, pre-recorded videos, pdf handouts, composing
quizzes, tests, crosswords etc. This course has demonstrated that although preparation process
has been time-consuming, there have been no clear obstacles observed during the process ofusing the said teaching techniques in online mode. Provided the small number of participants(ten at the maximum), the teacher-learner interaction and learners’ reactions can be wellcontrolled. It is easier to observe and pay attention individually in the offline class. With theonline mode, it may become difficult to assure the class quality with a greater number ofparticipants. Moreover, it has been found to be difficult for instructor to have a good controlof the class for techniques such as pair-work, small group discussion, role playing, because
these exercises required to breakout the whole class into small breakout rooms. Good
interaction among participants also seems difficult to achieve in the online mode. Lastly, it isdifficult to conduct a writing practice session in online settings.
Conclusion
In summary, this paper analyzes and shows some lessons learned from the course “Basic
Vietnamese language and culture” targeting university students and adult learners conductedat the TU. Through this course, a wide range of methods and materials has been applied, andthe participants have been introduced to new vocabulary and basic expressions related tosocio-cultural themes. The results show some experiences that could be served for improving
language classroom quality in the future. It shows that integrating culture into language
teaching at the beginner level could be an effective approach targeting university students andadult learners who already have some learning experience and reasons for learning. Moreover,this approach may be applied effectively in the online classroom by using various techniques
alternatively for improving learners’ engagement. Although there are some limitations of theonline mode, it may stay firmly as an equal option to the traditional offline classroom in the
future. Considering the increasing number of foreign workers coming to Japan, thisexperience with Vietnamese language implies that there is a need for learning certain ethnic
languages in Japan for cultural exchange and business purposes. Languages such as
Indonesian, Thai, Nepalese, Burmese, etc. may become the language in need. Promoting such
ethnic courses could contribute to diversity, multiculturalism and internationalization andregional development of Japan.
Acknowledgement
The author expresses special thanks to the participants the course “Basic Vietnamese
language and culture”.

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References
Cavanaugh, J. (2005). Teaching Online-A Time Comparison. Online Journal of Distance
Learning Administration, 8(1).
Cu, T. M. N. (2017). Difficulties in practicing Vietnamese of Korean students at Vietnam
Faculty, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU-HCM.
Froese, F. J., & Kishi, Y. (2013). Organizational attractiveness of foreign firms in Asia: Softpower matters. Asian Business and Management, 12(3), 281–297.
Hanoi University. (n.d.). Bachelor course in Vietnamese language and culture. RetrievedApril 3, 2021, fromhttp://www.hanu.vn/index.php/vn/dao-tao/204-tuyen-sinh/chuong-trinh-dao-tao/3406chuong-trinh-dao-tao-nganh-tieng-viet-va-van-hoa-viet-nam-he-cu-nhan-chinh-quy.ht
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Hoi, H. T., & Cooper, M. (2020). Vietnam’s Image as a Tourism Destination in Japan: an
Analysis of Japanese Travel Guidebooks and Brochures, and Attribute
Importance-Performance. 82, 14623–14629.
Igarashi, S. (2018). Incorporating Intercultural Awareness and Critical Thinking Skills into
the ELT Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Ishizaka, Y. (2020). How I learned and spoke Vietnamese in about a year.
https://note.com/yoshi_ishizaka/n/nfff17b5b5ebb
MHLW. (2021). Employment status of foreigners. Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/newpage_16279.html
MOFA. (2021). Japan-Vietnam Relations (Basic Data). Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan.
https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/vietnam/data.html
Multilingirl. (n.d.). Benefits, Demand, Importance of Studying Vietnamese. Retrieved April 3,
2021, fromhttps://www.multilingirl.com/2014/07/advantage-of-learning-vietnamese.html
Neff, P., & Rucynski, J. (2013). Tasks for Integrating Language and Culture Teaching.
English Teaching Forum, 51(2), 12–23.
Tran, H. N., & Matsuura, Y. (2020). The Image of Residents in a Rural Area of Japan about
Vietnam : Future Needs for Intercultural Exchange. Journal of the Center forCommunity Engagement and Lifelong Learning, 30, 23–38.
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Zhang, Y., Zhang, J., & Nozawa, K. (2021). Problems with foreign workers and theirsolutions. Josai International University.
https://www.jiu.ac.jp/files/user/education/books/pdf/841-78.pdf
Contact email: tran@tokushima-u.ac.jp

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Improved Fluency through the Timed-pair-practice Framework
Jason Pipe, Tokyo Keizai University, Japan
Teruaki Tsushima, Tokyo Keizai University, Japan
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Abstract
Determining proficiency of students by one type of fluency measures is insufficient. By usinga triad of fluency measures, two cohorts of low-intermediate Japanese students (N=12) were
continuously analysed over one year in which a noticeable improvement in fluency occurred
as a result of the inclusion of the Timed-Pair-Practice framework into the classroom.
Furthermore, it was observed that certain patterns emerged in relation to speech production
and the proficiency of the speaker. First, it became apparent that less proficient learners
generally paused more repeatedly and had longer periods of silence while speakers who
progressed in their fluency, seemed to increase the number of filled pauses to maintain theirutterances and relied less on repeating phrases. Second, less proficient speakers paused more
frequently at within-clause boundaries as they formulated their sentences while speakers who
improved their speech production, naturally altered the pause location to between-clauseboundaries to reflect a more native-like speech production. This would suggest an
improvement in the quality as well as the quantity of speech output as the students progressed.
However, when compared to native speakers (N=13), there were two noticeable differencesin regards to pause location. At the between-clause boundary, non-native speakers clearly
paused before pronouns while native speakers paused before conjunctions. At the withinclause boundary, non-natives paused predominantly before noun phrases while native
speakers paused more on adverbial phrases. To further improve fluency, this paper
recommends teaching that incorporates activities that encourages parallel processing (Levelt,
1989) to reduce the grammatical challenges faced by the L2 speakers.
Keywords: Fluency, Pause, Breakdown, Repair, Parallel Processing, Timed-Pair-Practiceiafor
The International Academic Forumwww.iafor.org

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Intorduction
Measuring fluency has always been an important aspect of determining student proficiency(Fulcher, 2003) and heavily researched as it is an essential component of communicative
language ability (Tavakoli, 2016) as well as an important descriptor of L2 development (deJong et al., 2012). In a broad sense, this concept can be seen as an equivalent to overall
speaking proficiency (Chambers, 1997). In a narrow sense, fluency considers more concreteand measurable features such as breakdown, speed and repair (Tavakoli & Hunter, 2018).
This paper considers the broad definition of fluency as being the ability of producing
language at an adequate speed with relative ease and less hesitation (Tavakoli et al., 2020)
but also follows a narrow sense for research purposes.
When understanding how L2 fluency should be analysed and represented, it is necessary to
make the distinction between cognitive, perceived and utterance fluency. As this paper looks
closely at Japanese students’ fluency over one year, research follows the widely investigatedthird domain known as utterance fluency (Segalowitz, 2016). This would relate to theacoustically measurable aspects of fluency in uttered speech such as speed, pausing(breakdown), and repair (Kahng, 2014; Kormos, 2006). Fluency in this paper has been
evaluated through a combination of these measures (Tavacoli et al., 2020) to determine
fluency over one academic year and how this changed with proficiency over the year.
To determine utterance fluency, it was essential that students made every effort to maintain
conversation in their English classes. A new and bold framework, Timed-Pair-Practice (TPP),
was introduced into the classroom to re-orientate students in performing their paired-tasks
and thereby stretching their English abilities lexically, morphosyntactically andphonologically and build their repertoire of resources to manage in paired conversation.
Furthermore, the repetitious nature of the tasks performed through this framework follows
research as to having the most robust effects on L2 fluency (Lambert et al., 2017; Wang,2014). However, despite the advantages of this framework, up to now, there has been no
study on fluency development through the TPP framework. This study, therefore, looks
closer at how students’ proficiency progress through speed, breakdown, repair, andcomposite measures.
To unpack, understand and appreciate the complexities of speech production and theconceptualizing of fluency for non-native speakers, Levelt’s (1989) four-stage speech model
illustrates how language is processed and produced (Kormos, 2006; Segalowitz, 2010;
Tavakoli et al., 2020). L1/fluent speakers focus on the first stage in which speech isconceptualized through planning the upcoming utterance. For the lower leveled L2 speakers,
however, sizable processing resources are required for three other stages: the formation,
articulation, and self-monitoring stages. The formulation stage draws attention on lexical,
grammatical, morphophonological and phonetic encoding; the articulation stage refers to the
linguistic planning of the actual speech within the constraints of the targeted language; andthe self-monitoring stage checks for accuracy, clarity and appropriacy (Tavakoli et al., 2020).
Dysfluencies occur during these latter stages as the speaker’s utterance moves through thisslow and conscious serial processing system to find the appropriate phrasing to match theoriginal intention, form or sound required and thus resorting to pausing, slowing down of
speech or using filled pauses to maintain conversation (Tavakoli, 2011).
With the inclusion of TPP in classes, it is hoped that students will begin to develop strategies
to automate their speaking production when stretching themselves to communicate in their

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conversation. For L2 learners, their lexical, syntactic and phonological knowledge is still
emerging and therefore, cognitively demanding. With effective preparation, repetition oftasks and format used in TPP, students will develop the notion of parallel processing(Kormos, 2006, Lambert et al., 2020, Skehan 2014). This processing is where students
become able to work on two or more stages of speech production simultaneously as one
aspect of production, such as the conceptualization and formulation stages or the automationof encoding processes. This progression in L2 proficiency will hopefully lead to less frequentpausing and other dysfluencies while encoding utterances in real time (Lambert et al., 2020).
Previous research informs us that L2 learners generally speak slower and with more effort
than when conversing in their native tongue (Derwing et al, 2009) and unsurprisingly lower
leveled L2 speakers are less fluent and often dysfluent in speak production (Kormos, 2006;
Mora & Levkina, 2017; Segalowitz, 2010). Skehan et al. (2016) go further to suggest that thepause location reflects the stages of Levelt’s model of speech processing and production. In
other words, the less proficient speakers have more mid-clause pauses (non-clausal
boundaries) in their conversations as this would be typical behavior at the formation stage
while end-clauses (between-clausal boundaries) occur more often from the more proficient
speakers as they need to consider speech production mainly at the conceptualization stage(Kormos, 2006; Lambert et al. 2017; Saito et al., 2018; Skehan & Shum, 2017; Tavakoli &Wright, 2019). This paper looks closer at the accuracy of this hypothesis.
However, there would appear to be some gaps in the research that this paper attempted toaddress. Previous research mainly provided non-longitudinal evaluations to determine
fluency of student proficiency by sampling their communicative tasks over a short period oftime (e.g. Lambert et al., 2017; Saito et al., 2018; Tavakoli et al., 2020). There is little
information regarding how the above hypothesis holds true over a longer period of time.
Would there be a movement on pausing from non-clause boundaries to between-clauseboundaries as the student improves their level of speech processing and production? Nor has
there been research that investigated how the students will use repair strategies to maintain
conversation when they start to gain confidence and become more proficient in exploring andexperimenting in their spoken language discourse. Finally, to the best of our knowledge,
there is little data on the locations of pauses in terms of syntactic structures (e.g., between- or
within-phrase boundaries) or on the parts-of-speech of the lexical items that follow the pauses.
To fill in these gaps, the present study attempted to focus on the following specific researchquestions:1.
How did the utterance fluency (i.e., speed, breakdown, and composite measures)
improve among the L2 speakers of English over the academic year?
2.
As L2 learners became more proficient, did they rely less on pauses and use more
repair in their spoken utterances?
3.
Did lower L2 learners generally pause more repeatedly in the middle of clauses thanmore proficient speakers who paused more often between clauses and did this change as thestudent became more proficient?
4.
Were there significant differences in the syntactic locations of between-clause andwithin-clause pauses among the more/less proficient speakers and native speakers, and how
did the result change over time?

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5.
Were there significant differences in the proportion of parts-of-speech of the lexical
items following between-clause and within clause pauses among the more/less proficient
speakers and native speakers, and how did the result change over time?
Fluency Measures
The fluency measures (Appendix 1) used in the present study consisted of speed measures(i.e., articulation rate, the mean length of runs), a composite measure (i.e., speech rate),breakdown measures (the level of pausing which disrupts the flow of speech), and repair(strategies used to correct or reformulate the speech). These measures served to investigate
the complex nature of fluency (de Jon et al., 2012; Kahng, 2014; Kormos, 2006; Skehan,2015), and provided not only an informed perspective of the underlying speech production
processes but a more reliable understanding of the underlying characteristics of fluency at thevarying proficiency levels of students (Tavakoli et al., 2020).
In the present study, a pause was defined as a silent period of 250ms or longer. Pausing varies
between speakers (Derwing et al. 2009) but in relation to second language acquisition, there
is a clear distinction between pauses made by L1 and L2 speakers. L2 speakers would makewithin or non-clausal boundary (NCB) pauses so as to monitor and reformulate their message
during the formulation stage (Skehan & Shum, 2017; Tavakoli & Wright, 2019) while L1
speakers tend to make between-clausal boundary (BCB) pauses as they generate a pre-verbal
message (Kormos, 2006; Lambert et al. 2017; Saito et al., 2018; Skehan & Shum, 2017;
Tavakoli & Wright, 2019). Appendix 2 provides the formulae to determine the mean lengthand frequency of NCN and BCB. In addition, to raise further awareness of the cognitive
demands the L2 speaker faces of these aspects of L2 language production at the formulation
stage, this paper will attempt to look closer at these encoding issues by analyzing the pause
types within the sentence (Table 1).
Table 1: Frequency of Pause Types within the Sentence
Pause Type
Details
ExamplesClause Boundary
The clause ends …
I went to a restaurant … I had(PS)pause … anotherdinner.
(Freq of PS/100
clause, conjunction,
The other day … I went to work.
Syllables)
adverbial phrase
I like working … because I getmoney.
… and … I went to school.
Between Subject and Before the Predicator, I … drove the car.
Verb (PR)The man in a car … called me .
but following subject(Freq of PR/100
or other initial items
I … seldom … use a mobile phone.
Syllables)
I wanted to study but … went out
instead.
Phrase Boundary (P) At group-boundaries
I watched … a movie.
(Freq of P/100
elsewhere within the
I listened … to a story.
Syllables)
clauseI like to play … baseball.
Within-Phrase
Noticeable pausing
I have a beautiful … cat.
Boundary (PW)
within phrases after
This book is very … good.
(Freq of PW/100
PR
Syllables)
Within-Prepositional Noticeable pausing
I went to…the shops.
Phrase Boundary
within prepositional
I waited for …. 2 minutes.

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(WP)
(Freq of WP/100
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phrases after PR

Methodology and Methods
Participants
The participants were 12 first year students from a private university in Tokyo. Their English
ability was categorized as low-intermediate to intermediate despite having a minimum of six
years of learning. These participants were divided into two groups depending on their initial
speaking ability during the interview and TOEIC scores. The fast group demonstrated greater
confidence and fluency while the slow group had less experience in conversational English.
Both sets of data were contrasted with a control group of Japanese students who attended ageneral English communication class which did not include instruction using TPP and anative group of English speakers.
Timed-pair-practice Procedure
The students were required to prepare 20 questions on a topic chosen by themselves and a
250-word response to this topic. The aim was to provide topics that students genuinely had aninterest in (Porter, 1999) so that they would be more motivated to invest their time andconverse their ideas with their peers in the classroom. These students were then expected to
ask these questions in pairs in the practice stage. After subsequent rounds, the students
became able to ask more appropriate questions and maintain longer conversations. Aftersufficient practice, students were then evaluated in the testing stage in which two students,
picked at random, would be asked to provide another conversation on the same topic chosen.
Data Elicitation
In total, the data of 20 recordings were obtained during the academic year consisting of twosemesters. Students performed a weekly narrative production task which consisted of a oneminute spontaneous monologue explaining what happened in each student’s week. Dialogue
recordings were not considered due to issues arising over the complex pragmatics involved inmeasuring the interactive aspect of dialogues such as unclaimed pauses between turns,
overlap, and interdependence of the interlocutor’s performances (Tavakoli, 2016). Due tosimplicity and reliability, it would, therefore, be prudent to analyse individual narratives tomeasure each student’s spontaneous speaking ability.
All student utterances were recorded at a resolution of 16 bits with a sampling rate of 44.1 Hz
by a PCM recorder through a high-quality microphone placed approximately 20cm from themouth of the speaker. This data was transferred to a computer in which the recorded sounds
were low-pass filtered at 8,000 Hz, normalized, and analyzed by sound analysis software,
Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2014).
Analysis Procedure
For expediency, only the recordings taken from the odd weeks were analysed. These
recordings were transferred onto a digital format, in which the second author transcribed asampled one-minute speech and match each lexical item to the recording on the software,

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Praat. Then, the acoustic data were segmented into consonants, vowels, and pauses, andduration of each portion was measured.
Results
Speech Rate

Figure 1: Speech Rate of Slow, Fast and Control Groups
As is shown in Figure 1, both the slow and fast groups showed fair gains (60.3 syllables/min
to 73.8 syllables/min and 81.5 syllables/min to 99.4 syllables/min respectively. One the other
hand, the control group showed no clear improvement by fluctuating from 48.2 syllables/min
to 51.5 syllables/min. However, despite such progress, the native group spoke at a much
faster rate of 200.8 syllables/min.
Articulation Rate

Figure 2: Articulation Rate Performance of Slow, Fast and Control Groups
As shown in Figure 2, however, articulation rate shows a less clear picture. The slow group
showed strong improvement from the first quarter of 144.6 syllables/min to 161.7
syllables/min in the second quarter but then continued to drop to a level of 149.3
syllables/min by the final quarter which indicates only a marginal improvement overall. The
control group, however, was able to increase their articulation rate from 154.8 syllables/min

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to 173.6 syllables/min over the academic year. Although this would imply improvement, italso enlightens us on the fact that the control group used longer pauses in their utterance toformulate and plan their utterances (as reflected in their lower speech rate). The fast group,on the other hand, was able to improve their articulation rate as well as their speech rate from161.3 syllables/min to 173.5 syllables/min. However, compared to the native group’s data of
256.7 syllables/min, articulation rate for the non-native groups was considerably lower.
Mean Length of Runs

Figure 3: Mean Length of Run of Slow, Fast and Control Groups
Figure 3 indicates a u-shaped curve in which all groups in fact reduced the length of theirruns initially to maintain their speech production. Data from the first quarter recorded
artificially longer monologues due to unnatural formulaic expressions to maintain utterances.
These runs shortened by the second quarter as students searched their limited language
resources to express themselves. However, as students developed their English abilities andabsorbed language taught in class in their courses, their length of runs rapidly improved. The
fast group dropped from 24.2 syllables/run in the first quarter to 16.4 syllables/run but madeincreasingly lengthier runs afterwards resulting in 31.1 syllables/run in the final quarter. Boththe slow and control groups reduced their speech runs at a diminishing rate from the firstquarter to the third quarter, 21.0 syllables/run to 15.8 syllables/run and 19.5 syllables/run to11.0 syllables/run respectively. In the final quarter, both groups, however, showed rapid
improvement with 24.75 syllables/run for the slow groups while the control group reached
run of 18 syllables/run. However, despite improvement by all groups in the latter half of theyear, the native group’s mean length of run was longer at 35.3 syllables/run.

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Pause Ratio

Figure 4: Mean Pause Ratio of Slow, Fast and Control Groups
As shown in Figure 4, pause ratio would also appear to indicate a clear progress by both theslow and fast groups from the second quarter onwards, despite slight gains at the beginning.
The slow group’s mean pause ratio began at 50% and increased to 51% by the second quarterand then fell to 41% by the end of the final quarter. The fast group showed a similar patternwith an initial mean pause ratio of 39%, jumping up to 41% in the second quarter and thendropping over the next two quarters to reach 34% by the end of the fourth quarter. However,despite progress made by the slow and fast groups, the rate of pausing was much higher than
the native group of 14%.
Repairs
1.

Filled Pauses

Figure 5: Multiple Line Mean of Frequency of Filled Pauses/100 Syllables of Slow, Fast andControl Groups
It is noted that the control group relied on filled pauses to maintain their monologues the least
throughout the whole period (see Figure 5). The fast group used this strategy the most in thefirst half of the year but relied increasingly less on using it. In the first quarter, this group

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averaged 12.1 filled pauses/100 syllables and this fell to 8.9 filled pauses/100 syllables by theend of the fourth quarter as this group became more proficient in their English and, therefore,
able to communicate more expediently their point of view. The slow group, on the other hand,became the dominant user in this strategy, using 8.1 filled pauses/100 syllables at the
beginning of the year but 12.5 filled pauses/100 syllables by the fourth quarter. There would
seem to be a clear indication that both the slow and control groups used this strategy
increasingly more due to limitations in their spoken English. The native group relied
seldomly on this strategy using 4.9 filled pauses/100 syllables.
2.

False Starts

Figure 6: Multiple Line Mean of Frequency of False Starts/100 Syllables of Slow, Fast andControl Groups
As shown in Figure 6, false starts would seem to be less insightful as each group, overall,made about the same number of mistakes. The slow group would appear to have been themost consistent in their use of false starts with the least marginal changes: 3.72-5.20 false
starts/100 syllables. The marginal changes of the other groups were considerably higher: thefast group ranged 3.24-10.38 false starts/100 syllables, and the control group ranged 2.788.62 false starts/100 syllables. We can infer that none of the groups have strong control overtheir accuracy or appropriate vocabulary choice and this would be due to individual
differences. This can be confirmed by looking at the results of the native group which had
greater control in their utterances spoken and, therefore, made an average of 1.3 false
starts/100 syllables.

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Repeated Words

Figure 7: Multiple Line Mean of Frequency of Repeats/100 Syllables of Slow, Fast andControl Groups
Finally, despite slight relapses, there would appear to be less reliance by the slow and fastgroups to repeat words to maintain their fluency (see Figure 7). The fast group used 13.5
repeats/100 syllables in the first quarter, and this fell to 7.2 repeats/100 syllables by the final
quarter. The slow group made 10.0 repeats/100 syllables at the first quarter and this dropped
to 4.0 repeats/100 syllables by the fourth quarter. Despite the reduction in repeated words,
native speakers hardly used this strategy with only 1.30 repeats/100 syllables.
Pause Location within the Unit of Spoken Language
1.

Pauses at Non-clausal Boundaries

Figure 8: Multiple Line Mean of Length of Non-clausal Boundaries Pausing of Slow, Fast
and Control Groups
As Figure 8 shows, the control group made constant progress by reducing the length ofpausing at the non-clausal boundaries (NCB) from 1.81 seconds in the first quarter to 1.22
seconds by the fourth quarter. The slow and fast groups seemed to have made no
improvement in the length of NCB, from 0.91 secs to 0.85 seconds and from 0.76 seconds to

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0.71 seconds, respectively. However, the mean pause length of the control group was arounddouble that of the other groups and so a reduction was expected. The native group length of
NCB pausing was at 0.55 seconds.

Figure 9: Multiple Line Mean of Frequency of Non-Clausal Boundaries Pausing/100
Syllables of Slow, Fast and Control Groups
However, unlike the control group, both the slow and fast groups managed to reduce thenumber of NCB pauses (from 23.2 to 15.6 pauses/100 syllables and from 17.2 to 11.6
pauses/100 syllables, respectively (see Figure 9). The control group, however, increased theiraverage overall from 23.2 pause/100 syllables to 27.3 pauses/100 syllables. The native group
was considerably lower at 2.5 pauses/100 syllables.
2.

Pauses at Clausal Boundaries

Figure 10: Multiple Line Mean of Length of Clausal Boundaries of Slow, Fast and Control
GroupsAs shown in Figure 10, while it is inconclusive to determine any improvement in the mean
length of pause at between-clausal boundary (BCB) for the control group, both the slow andfast groups showed slight improvement (1.41 - 1.00 second and 0.88 - 0.75 seconds
respectively). It might be deduced that the slow and fast group were becoming slightly

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quicker at formulation stage of speech production. However, there would seem to be some
way to go to match the fluency of the native group with BCB pauses of 0.62 seconds.

Figure 11: Multiple Line Mean of Frequency of Clausal Boundaries /100 Syllables of Slow,
Fast and Control Groups
However, an interesting pattern emerged regarding the frequency of BCB pauses (Figure 11).
Initially, the frequency of these pauses increased for all groups from the first to second
quarter: the control group from 20.3 to 22.9 pauses/100 syllables, the slow group from 22.5 to
22.7 pauses/100 syllables and the fast group from 21.1 to 24.3 pauses/100 syllables. This
trend may be as a result of a reduction in the frequency of NCB in the first half of the year.
However, as the year progressed, the slow and fast group used BCB pauses less, resulting in
20.5 pauses/100 syllables and 18.3 pauses/100 syllables respectively by the end quarter. The
control group showed continued to rely further on BCB pauses (as well as the NCB), endingat 23.4 pauses/100 syllables. It must be noted that the native group seldomly paused at BCB
with a rate of 4.7 pauses/100 syllables.
3.

Syntactic Locations of Pauses

Figure 12: Percent of Pause at Sentence Level for Slow, Fast, Control and Native Groups

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As shown in Figure 12, the proportion of the clause boundary was highest in the native group(64%), followed by the fast group (60.0%), the slow group (54.8%) and the control group(46.8%). This finding was consistent with the hypothesis that the less proficient speakers
make more pauses in the non-clause boundaries. It is notable that the control group showed
relatively high proportion of non-clause pauses at phrasal boundaries, between subject andverb, and within-prepositional phrases. These results indicate less control and more
dysfluency among the less proficient speakers.
4.

Parts-of-Speech of the Lexical Items Following Pauses

Figure 13: Parts-of-Speech of the Lexical Items Following the Non-clause Pauses for Slow,
Fast, Control and Native GroupAs shown in Figure 13, the fast, slow and control groups paused predominantly before nounphrases, averaging 38.2%, 48.7%, 42.5% respectively, as compared with native speakers(18.4%), suggesting that the L2 speakers had greater difficulty accessing the target noun
within a verb phrase, noun phrase, or prepositional phrase.

Figure 14: Parts-of-Speech of the Lexical Items Following the Clause Pauses for Slow, Fast,
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As shown in Figure 14, the fast, slow and control groups clearly paused before pronouns,
especially the word “I”, averaging 45.5%, 53.8%, 54.8% respectively, while native speakers
paused more often before conjunctions at 37%.
Discussion
The first research question examined whether utterance fluency improved over the academic
year. The results clearly showed that the fast group progressed in their fluency in terms ofspeech rate, articulation rate, length of runs, pause ratio, and repeated words. The slow groupalso made modest gains with improved speech rate, but only slight gains in the articulation
rate. Despite increasing their reliance on filled pauses, this group managed to increase theirlength of runs, reduce pause ratio, and repeated words. The control group, on the other hand,showed little improvement overall. However, although encouraging, compared to the native
group, there is still much needed to match native fluency.
The second research question examined whether the learners produced fewer pauses and used
more repairs as they progressed in speaking. Our initial findings would suggest that lessproficient speakers of English are less efficient in encoding syntactic, lexical, andphonological structures (Mora & Levkina, 2017). These learners generally paused more
repeatedly and had longer periods of silence (de Jong, 2016). However, by applying this triadof fluency measures, we can also appreciate that particular aspects of performance were more
relevant to differentiate particular levels of proficiency than others (e.g., Iwashita et al., 2008;
Nakatsuhara, 2014). The control group, for example, seemed less phased to speak at a low
articulation rate as a compensatory strategy to maintain fluency. However, as the learners
became more proficient, there was a noticeable reduction in pausing. The more proficientslow and fast groups certainly reduced the pause ratio while improving their speed in theirspoken English. Effective preparation, repetition and testing of tasks in TPP encouraged
students to become more adept to conceptualizing and formulating their messages.
Furthermore, as students developed confidence to stretch their language in the practicerounds of TPP, real improvement occurred in students expressing themselves with lengthierand more complex sentences which can only indicate greater proficiency in their English
abilities.
Drawing our attention to the second part of the second question, it becomes less apparent
whether more proficient groups relied more on repair in their spoken utterances. Looking at
repeated phrases, as the student became more proficient, students relied less on this strategy(Tavakoli et al., 2020). However, when focusing on filled pauses, there would seem to be aclear indication that both the slow and control groups used this strategy increasingly more
due to limitations in their spoken English. In contrast, the fast group, although they initiallyused filled pause the most during the first half of the academic year, relied actually less on
this strategy in the latter half due to a greater improvement in the proficiency in their English
to maintain their utterances. As students’ second language ability developed during the year
when engaging in their English-speaking activities, they had to constantly draw on theirlexical resource at the formulation stage to complete the recorded data. It would appear thatthe fast group demonstrated greater improvement in the cognitive demands in retrieving
lexical/grammatical items while the other group relied more on serial encoding to express
their ideas succinctly. However, this varying range of repairs used by each group would
suggest individual preference in their cognitive efforts to process grammatical speech plan isunpredictable and affected by their motivation in the tasks.

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The third research question examined how the frequency and length of between-clause andwithin-clause changed in the higher-leveled and lower-leveled speakers. It was shown thatthe less proficient speakers paused more frequently in the middle of the clauses while themore proficient groups showed some reduction in the number of NCB pausing. Due to theirimproved fluency in formulating their sentences, the slow and fast decreased their use of
BCB pauses too. However, it is also important to note that NCB pausing was less than BCB(except the first quarter for the slow group) which would suggest a more natural level ofchunking, better parallel processing and greater success in managing speech production.
Again, due to effective preparation, repetition and testing of tasks in TPP, students developed
better control in their capabilities to conceptualize and formulate their messages more
simultaneously at the clause level (Kormos, 2006; Skehan, 2014). Furthermore, as students
developed confidence to stretch their language in the practice rounds of TPP, real
improvement occurred in students expressing themselves with lengthier and more complex
sentences which can only indicate greater proficiency in their English abilities.
The fourth question asked whether there were significant differences in the syntactic
locations of between-clause and within-clause pauses among the more/less proficient
speakers and native speakers. It would appear that all groups seemed to predominantly pause
at the clause boundary, followed by pausing within prepositional phrases and finally withinphrase boundaries despite the contrasting rate of pausing rate by each group (control 64%,
slow 41%, fast 34% and native 14%). Only the control group paused less than half of the total
number of pauses which indicated their hesitancy compared to the other groups. Overall, thiswould imply that there is some consistent cognitive delay in natural development of sentenceplanning by each group. However, unlike native speakers, all non-native groups paused at
prepositional phrases or within-phrase boundaries. Pausing in these two categories indicate
the challenges for non-natives to phonological encoding collocative phases to provide
chunking aspects to their speech production, a quality automative for a native speaker.
The final research question examined whether there were significant differences in the
proportion of parts-of-speech of the lexical items following between-clause and within-clausepauses among the more/less proficient speakers and native speakers. The results showed that
there was no clear pattern among the non-native groups but a marked difference between
native and non-native. Looking closer at parts of speech used at NCB (Figure 13), overall, thefast, slow and control groups paused predominantly when deciding noun phrases but variedin level of complexity due to proficiency. Native speakers, on the other hand, paused more on
adverbial phrases in order to conceptualize their message. Focusing on BCB pausing (Figure14), the non-native groups clearly paused before predominantly on pronouns, especiallyabout conveying information about themselves (i.e. “I”, “my”) due to a limitation ingrammatical encoding, and thus preferring simpler sentence constructs. Native speakers
paused more often before conjunctions, such as “so” and “and” as there was a willingness to
produce longer runs with hesitancy in conceptualizing their message. As a result, despite theimprovement in proficiency for the slow and fast groups with a clear shift in change at NCB
and BCB and a pausing sequence to match natives at the sentence level, there would stillseem to be a certain time lag in the formulation stage of particular lexical items.
Conclusion
On the whole, by applying a combination of speed, breakdown, repair and composite
measures, the wider aspect of the meaning of fluency could be observed and thecharacteristics of fluency could be better understood at different levels of proficiency

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Official Conference Proceedings(Nakatsuhara, 2014; Tavakoli et al., 2017). One can appreciate that fluency does not simply
concentrate on how fast a speaker can produce their utterances but also on whether theutterances are made with relative ease and less hesitancy (Tavakoli et al., 2020). This paper
recognized that the rate of progression in English fluency was reflected not only by the speedof the delivery but by their level of pausing and, to some extent, repair.
The changes in pause length, frequency and location over the academic year as well as levelof repair also provided invaluable insight into the cognitive processes that underlie a lowerlevel student’s development in speaking a second language. For students to better reflect
fluent speakers speaking production, they needed to become more efficient and automatic(Kormos, 2006) in how they draw on lexical, grammatical, morphophonological and phonetic
encoding. Unlike the control group, the slow and fast groups benefited from the repetition oftasks in TPP by creating opportunities to extend their range of lexical and grammaticalknowledge (Kormos, 2006) and enabling them to subconsciously parallel process aspects of
their spoken language (Kormos, 2006, Lambert et al., 2020, Skehan 2014) which would bereflected in better chunking. There was also greater fluency in their speak production,
reduction in repair (Tavakoli et al., 2020) and altered pause location between clauses toreflect improved speech processing and production due to clearer monitoring of how theoutput is formulated (Skehan et al., 2016).
Finally, most of the findings of the present study have supported the hypothesis that
improved fluency of the slow and fast groups can be attributed to the successful applicationof the TPP framework. Both the slow and fast groups built up their sociolinguistic/pragmaticcompetence by being encouraged to speak up individually, to contribute to theircommunicative strengths, to experiment with their understanding of their English abilities
and to encourage better comprehensibility to the listener in tasks. In turn, this led to lessprocessing time on the formulation, articulation, and self-monitoring stages of these aspectsof the spoken language in an effort to maintain their utterances. With widely acknowledged
research that students in Japan find it challenging to converse in their English (Maeda, 2010),
this paper would recommend that the TPP framework become an additional asset in the EFL
classroom to re-orientate students to conversational English and improve their fluency.
Acknowledgement
The present research was supported by a research grant from Tokyo Keizai University in theacademic year of 2020 (No.20-17) to the second author.

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Appendices
Appendix 1: Composite Measures
1.

Speed
Formulae for Speech Rate, Articulation Rate and Mean Length of Run

Speech Rate (SR)(syllables/min)

Total number of syllables produced from entire narrative.
The total time (in minutes) required to produce the speech sample

Articulation Rate(AR)(syllables/min)

Total number of syllables produced from entire
narrative.
The total time of speech sample excluding pause time of 300ms or
above

Length of Runs
Average mean of all syllables between pauses of 250ms or(MLoR)
above
syllables/utterance)

2.

Pausing
Pause-time Ratio
Pause Ratio (PauseRat) (%)

3.

Length of total pauses
100
Time taken to produce the narrativex

RepairFilled Pauses
Frequency(persyllables)

Filled Pauses, False Starts and Repeats
False Starts
Repeats
100 Frequency(per
100 Frequency
syllables)
syllables)

Total number of filled
pauses
100 syllable utterance

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Appendix 2
Non-clausal and between Boundaries Formulae
Non-Clausal Boundaries (NCN)
Between-Clausal
(BCB)
Mean
length(secs)
Frequency(per 100syllables)

Boundaries

Total length of non-clausal pause
The frequency of non-clausal
pausesTotal length of clausal pause
The frequency of clausal pauses

Total number of non-clausal
pause
100 syllable utterance

Total number of clausal pause
100 syllable utterance

Appendix 3
Example Summary of Each Group’s Performance and Comparison with Native Group
Although it can be seen that progress was made by the slow and fast groups, there still hangs
the question regarding fluency at native level. Below is a summary of a typical performanceby one member of each group by the third quarter of the academic year.
Reflection on Fluency of control, slow, fast and native groups
Control Group – Recording 9 (Third Quarter) 9 second excerpt

Slow rate of lexis with lengthened sounds/ Frequent pauses between clause (conjunction andpronoun) and within clauses (subject - verb and clause boundary) / Short length of runs /Repeat of pronoun “I”
Conclusion: Dysfluency with low SR, moderate LR, no filled pause but repeat

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Slow Group – Recording 9 (Third Quarter) 9 second excerpt

Compared to the control group, slightly longer runs and lexis was spoken at a faster rate withshortened sounds but infrequent pausing between clause (before the conjunction “but” andthe pronoun “it”). No pausing within clauses but effort to express ideas as repeated (“I” and“Friday”) to fine-tune the message of time and the fillers ( “yeah” and “om”)
Fast Group – Recording 9 (Third Quarter) 9 second excerpt

Compared to the slow group, slightly longer runs with more complicated use of a dependent
clause. Lexis spoken is at a similar rate to the slow group but this is maintained throughout

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the recording. With longer runs, there are infrequent pausing between clause (not in above
example) but pausing within clauses to express ideas using more challenging grammaticalstructures: before a noun (“the book”) and verb phrases (“”written in”) as well as the repair:repeated (“written in”) to fine-tune the message of the kind of book readNative Group 9 second excerpt

Instantly, one can see that there is a faster rate of production of language and more complex
grammar with longer runs of speech. There is only pausing between clauses (before theconjunction “and” and pronoun “that’s”) as the speaker takes time to consider content for themessage. There is one use of the filler “emm” to consider the message while maintaining
fluency.
It can, therefore, be concluded that while progress was made by the slower and faster groups,
to reach the level of fluency of native speakers requires still greater development in theformulation, articulation and self-monitoring stages. Native speakers focus purely on
conceptualization of speech through planning the upcoming utterance. This is indicated by
the much faster rate of speech production, slight pausing between clauses, and the seldom
application of filler repairs in the monologues. The non-native groups clearly relied, although
at varying degrees depending on proficiency, on the other stages in their speech production.

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References
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de Jong, N. H., Steinel, M. P., Florijn, A., Schoonen, R., & Hulstijn, J. H. (2012). The effectof task complexity on functional adequacy, fluency and lexical diversity in speaking
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Contact email: jasonpipe@gmail.com

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Teaching Burmese as a Foreign Language: A Case Study
Lwin Ni Ni Khine, Yangon University of Foreign Language, Myanmar
The Asian Conference on Language 2021
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Abstract
The development of Myanmar as a country has led to an increased interest from foreign
NGOs, businesses, labors and professionals alike. One significant barrier that has arisen istheir ability to learn the Myanmar language. The Myanmar language is comprised of a
speaking format and a writing format. The current study explored the writing ability ofoverseas Myanmar language learners (n=30) in a Myanmar university from various countries
including Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea and Thailand. 30 passages of written text
were collected and typed in word document for archive. Textual analysis of the 30 essays
revealed 23 types of grammatical mistakes, which were categorized into 3 main groups (1)syntax misuse, (2) word misplacement and (3) inappropriateness usage. The
inappropriateness usage can be further classified into semantics inappropriateness andpragmatic inappropriateness. Take together, the mistakes highlight a potential learning needor development area, which may be emphasized at the beginning of the learning process.
Teachers may benefit from having a greater awareness of the differences of the grammaticalfeatures between the learners' mother-tongue and the Myanmar language. Such awarenesswould ease the writing process and might diminish the written mistakes for learners in the
future. The context of the writing should be discussed prior to the writing process and thecultural differences should be highlighted beforehand. Then, the appropriateness of word
usage will be maintained.
Keywords: Burmese, Foreign Learners, Grammar, Word, Usage

iafor
The International Academic Forumwww.iafor.org

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Introduction
Nowadays, according to the development of Myanmar, there are many foreigners studying
Burmese around the world. Therefore, there are various level Burmese classes appear indifferent countries. In a Myanmar university, foreign learners need to be taught proper
grammar in learning Burmese 4 skills. The proper grammar is essential in all levels, basic
level, intermediate level and advanced level. Foreign learners start learning Burmese
language and grammar in basic level and they can use the learned grammar till advanced
level. In intermediate level, learners' learning skills and proficient are well enough to manage
daily activities, like journal writing, dairy, and so forth. Knowing the writing ability of theintermediate level foreign learners would help to improve the advanced level teachingpedagogy and readjust the basic level teaching contents.
Statement of the Problem
There are many types of Burmese classes in different settings. The levels can be divided into
certificate, diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate. Alternatives are basic level,intermediate level and advanced level for vocational training. However, the classes aroundthe world have their own curriculum and teaching materials. Because of the differences
between different institutions in different regions, an understanding of the ultimate
components in the curricula would be essential. To identify the crucial items in the curricula,understanding of the needs of the foreign learners in practice should be highlighted.
Significance of the Study
Significance of this study is providing an overview of the essential items when teaching
Burmese as a foreign language. Indeed, the most essential item is grammar in learning four
skills of Burmese. Once the grammar errors and the significant of barriers for the foreigners
to learn Burmese are identified, the adjustment of the curricula will be more effective. And, I
expect that a better or a tailor-made curriculum can be developed accordingly.
Research Questions
The research questions of this study are:1) What are the common grammatical errors of Burmese as foreign language in thelearning process?
2) Why foreigners have these errors?
3) What does we need to fill for these errors to be less and easier in teaching and learning
Burmese?
Literature Review
There are many studies about learning foreign languages as second language.
Kenzie Shofner (2020) explored the differences between speaking format and writing format
in learning Burmese are main barriers for foreign learners. Win Hein (2013) found that the
pronunciation, spelling or Burmese sentence structures are difficulties from the learners'
perspectives. May Nyane and Maryland (2015) indicated that the usage of Burmese is thebiggest challenge for foreigners according to the learners' tasks.

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According to Lan Luu (2019) had identified the grammatical mistakes found from foreigners
in the grammatical learning process of Japanese language. Due to the Japanese grammar issimilar to Burmese grammar, the grammatical learning would also become a potential
challenge for the Burmese learners.
There are rare study exploring the intermediate level foreign learners' writing 'Burmese as asecond language' ability. Such gap is identified. Thus, this study is mainly exploring thewritings from foreigners in an intermediate class in a Myanmar tertiary education.
Methodology
When I found methodology to use in this study, I choose case study approach because it issuitable for collecting grammatical data from the writing of foreign learners in one specificlevel as a case. For this study, I located an intermediate level class of a foreign language
institution in Myanmar. I choose intermediate level foreign learners because their Burmese 4
skills are not starters as basic level foreigners and their proficiency is not skillful as advanced
level foreigners.
For data collection, I collected 30 essays with the title of 'Introduction of a place', written by
30 foreign learners from 6 nations (Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea and Thailand). 30
foreign learners included 4 Indians, 1 Australian, 5 Japanese, 1 Thai, 2 Koreans and 17
Chinese.
For data management, I numbered 30 foreign learners as learner 1, learner 2. Then, I
managed the sentences of each essay according to correct and incorrect usages and sentence
structures. I identified the incorrect sentences and highlighted the grammatical errors.
Data Analysis
First, I summarized the correct and incorrect sentences in number and percentage according
to learners' serial numbers and nationalities (see Table 1). The 30 learners wrote 407
sentences. Correct sentences are 202 (49.63%) and incorrect sentences are 205 (50.36%).
Learners'
serial number

Nationality

No. ofNationality

Learner 1

Indian1

Learner 2

Chinese1

Learner 3

Japanese1

Learner 4

Thai

1

Learner 5

Japanese2

Learner 6

Chinese2

Learner 7

Japanese3

Learner 8

Chinese3

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no. of Sentences Correct(100%)(%)
3
11(27.27%)
9
15
(60%)
7
18
(38.88%)10
17(58.82%)6
11(54.54%)10
14(71.42%)2
7(28.57%)16
7129

Incorrect(%)
8(72.72%)6(40%)
11(61.11%)
7(41.17%)5(45.45%)
4(28.57%)5(71.42%)
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Learner 9
Learner 10
Learner 11
Learner 12
Learner 13
Learner 14
Learner 15
Learner 16
Learner 17
Learner 18
Learner 19
Learner 20
Learner 21
Learner 22
Learner 23
Learner 24
Learner 25
Learner 26
Learner 27
Learner 28
Learner 29
Learner 30
Total

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6
Korean1
12(50%)
5Indian2
15(33.33%)9
Chinese
4
15
(60%)
8
Chinese5
12(66.66%)1
Chinese6
9(11.11%)
3
Chinese7
11(27.27%)
6
Chinese
4
12
(50%)
10
Japanese516(62.5%)
6
Chinese
8
10
(60%)
3
Australian
1
12
(25%)
7
Korean2
15(46.66%)3
Chinese913(23.07%)3
Chinese10
13(23.07%)
11
Chinese1115(73.33%)10
Chinese12
13(76.92%)12
Chinese13
17(70.58%)8
Chinese14
14(57.14%)
6
Chinese15
11(54.54%)
11
Indian3
15(73.33%)5
Chinese16
15(33.33%)10
Chinese17
16(62.5%)
5
Indian4
17(29.41%)407
202(100%)(49.63%)
Table 1: Correct and Incorrect Sentences of Each learner130(56.25%)6(50%)
10(66.66%)6(40%)
4(33.33%)8(88.88%)8(72.72%)6(50%)
6(37.5%)
4
(40%)
9
(75%)
8
(53.33%)10(76.92%)10(76.92%)
4(26.66%)3(23.07%)5(29.41%)6(42.85%)5(45.45%)4(26.66%)
10(66.66%)
6(37.5%)
12(70.58%)205(50.36%)

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Correct and incorrect sentences according to nationality can be seen in Figure 1.

IndianChineseJapanese

Thai

KoreanAustralian

Correct Sentence

41.17%

52.83%

48.43%

58.82%

48.14%

25%

Incorrect Sentence

58.62%

47.16%

51.56%

41.17%

51.85%

75%

Figure 1: Correct and Incorrect Sentences According to Nationality
I analyzed the sentences into 4 parts as follows:
correct sentence = no mistake = okincorrect sentence = grammatical mistake= X
rearrangement of sentence order = need to change= Y
spelling error = green words
Figure 2 show that the percentages of these 4 parts.
Green words,
25.55%
ok, 49.63%

Y, 4.66%

X, 50.12%

Figure 2: Percentages of 4 Parts

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There are 23 types of grammatical errors are identified. (see Figure 3).
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)
11)
12)
13)
14)
15)

16)
17)
18)
19)
20)
21)

Particle for intended place/person(e"#$ရ&'ပဝiဘတ-)Particle for place(eနရ&'ပဝiဘတ-)Usage of verb(/ကiယ&အသu5#'ပuပu5)
Speaking and writing(အe'ပ&အeရ#)Extra and need(အပiuအလiu)
Particle for possession(ပiuင-ဆiuင-'ခင-#'ပဝiဘတ-)
Adjective for indicating(အ;<န-#'ပန&မဝieသသန)Particle for object(က5ဝiဘတ-)Conjunction for one after one(တစ-ခu?ပ@#တစ-ခu'ပသမABC)
Conjunction for reason(အeDက&င-#'ပသမABC)
Levels of adjective/ adverb(န&မဝieသသန//ကiယ&ဝieသသနအဆင-E)
Particle for separating(ခFGထuတ-ရ&'ပဝiဘတ-)Particle for changing to adjective(န&မဝieသသနပuဒ-e'ပ&င-#ပစJည-#)
Pronoun for indicating(အ;<န-#န&မ-စ&#)Mathematical adjective
for amount and number(ပမ&ဏ'ပ/အeရအတFက-'ပသခM&န&မဝNeသသန)Conjunction for opposition(ဆန-OကMင-'ပသမABC)
Particle for argument(အ'ငင-#'ပပစJည-#)Particle for subject(ကတP&#ဝiဘတ-)Particle for variety(မMiu#'ပပစJည-#)Particle for supporting noun
(န&မ-eထ&က-ပစJည-#)
Conjunction for combining(eပQင-#စည-#'ပသမABC)

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(1X)
(2X)
(3X)
(4X)
(5X)
(6X)
(7X)
(8X)
(9X)
(10X)
(11X)
(12X)
(13X)
(14X)
(15X)

(16X)
(17X)
(18X)
(19X)
(20X)
(21X)

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22) Particle for verb of time
(က&လ'ပ/ကiယ&ဝiဘတ-)23) Noun-changing from verb(/ကiယ&န&မ-)
23X
22X
21X
20X
19X
18X
17X
16X
15X
14X
13X
12X
11X
10X
9X

6X

(23X)

0.49%
0.24%
0.49%
0.24%
0.49%
3.68%
0.24%
0.24%
1.96%
0.49%
0.98%
0.24%
0.98%
0.49%
1.22%

8X
7X

(22X)

3.19%
0.24%

5X

1.71%
16.21%

4X

8.35%

3X

3.43%

2X
1X
0.00%

3.43%
0.98%
2.00%

4.00%

6.00%

8.00%

10.00%

12.00%

14.00%

16.00%

18.00%

Figure 3: Percentages of 23 Types
As shown in Table 2, we can see the total of sentences and percentages of each nationality.
Types
ok
1X
2X
3X
4X
5X

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Indians24(5.89%)
2(0.49%)
3(0.73%)
2(0.49%)
15(3.68%)
10(2.45%)

17
Chinese121(29.72%)
2(0.49%)
8(1.96%)
8(1.96%)
16(3.93%)
38(9.33%)

5
Japanese31(7.61%)

1Thai
10(2.45%)

2
Koreans13(3.19%)

1
Australian3(0.73%)

-

-

-

-

2
(0.49%)
1(0.24%)

1(0.24%)
1(0.24%)

-

-

-

-

7
(1.71%)

4(0.98%)

1(0.24%)
2(0.49%)
5(1.22%)

1(0.24%)
1(0.24%)
2(0.49%)

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6X

1(0.24%)
1(0.24%)

7(1.71%)
1(0.24%)
7(1.71%)
1(0.24%)

-

-

-

7X

-

8X
9X
10X
11X

-

12X

-

13X

15X
16X
17X

19X

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

1
(0.24%)
1(0.24%)
1(0.24%)

1(0.24%)
1(0.24%)-

4(0.98%)
1(0.24%)

-

-

-

-

-

1
(0.24%)

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

1
(0.24%)-

2(0.49%)

4(0.98%)

-

-

-

-

-

1
(0.24%)

-

-

-

-

-

6
(1.47%)
2(0.49%)

3(0.73%)--

5(1.22%)

-

-

-

-

1
(0.24%)

-

-

-

-

21X

-

-

-

20X

-

-

1
(0.24%)
1(0.24%)

18X

3(0.73%)
1(0.24%)
1(0.24%)-

3(0.73%)
2(0.49%)
1(0.24%)-

14X

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1
1(0.24%)(0.24%)
22X
1(0.24%)
23X
2(0.49%)
Y
3
11
2
1
1
(0.73%)(0.49%)(0.24%) (0.24%)(2.70%)
Green words
5
54
22
4
6
5
(1.22%)(13.26%) (5.40%)(0.98%) (1.47%)(1.22%)
Table 2: 23 Types of grammatical errors according to nationality-

Findings
The 23 types of grammatical errors are classified into 3 categories.
1)
2)
3)

Syntax Misused
Word Misplacement
Usage Inappropriateness

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Syntax Misused"Syntax misused" is the usage of grammatical words are misplaced, misused or missed.
Among the incorrect sentences, foreign learners usually mixed up with some grammaticalwords in speaking format of Burmese. It could be due to the differences between speaking
format and writing format.
a)Particle for subject (ကတ#$%ဝiဘတ))In Burmese grammar, Particles for subject (ကတP&#ဝiဘတ-) are "သည-၊ က".
Example a (Learner 16)
ဘ&'ဖစ-လiuလGဆiuရင- Okinawa ခUiuင-က ကမ-#e'ခမV& အရမ-#လVတယ-။
In this example, learner 16 misplaced က and မV&. Because they are similar in some speaking
usages in Burmese. က is grammatical word for subject and မV& is for places. Okinawa ခUiuင- isthe subject. ကမ-#e'ခ is the place. Therefore, the correct sentence should be:ဘ&'ဖစ-လiuလGဆiuရငခUiuင-မV& ကမ-#e'ခက အရမ-#လVတယ-။.
b)Particle for Object (က*ဝiဘတ))In Burmese grammar, Particle for object (က5ဝiဘတ-) is "ကiu".
Example b (Learner 20)
ခရ@#သည-eတFဟ& Cang Shan eတ&င-eပYမV& သF&#ရင- /ကiu#ဆFGယ&Z-နGO စ@#Biuင-တယ-။
Learner 20 misused နGO and ကiu. နGO is Particle for using as by car = က&#နGO in English. She mixed
up the usage of နGO and the object particle usage ကiu. It is because of verb စ@#တယ-။. In Burmese,
we use like this က&#ကiuစ@#တယ-။ and က&#နGOသF&#တယ-။. In this sentence, /ကiu#ဆFGယ&Z- is theobject. It is not the used transport. Therefore, the correct sentence should be ခရ@#သည-eတFဟ&Cang Shan eတ&င-eပYမV& သF&#ရင- /ကiu#ဆFGယ&Z-ကiu စ@#Biuင-တယ-။
c)Particle for Intending Place/Person (e,%-ရ$/ပဝiဘတ))In Burmese grammar, Particle for intended place/person (e"#$ရ&'ပဝiဘတ-) is "သiu (speaking
form-ကiu)".
Example c (Learner 1)"@န&ဂ?မiuဟ& က&#၊ ဘတ-စ-က&#၊ eလယ&Z-ပM5တiuနGO သF&#Biuင-ပQတယ-။
Learner 1 misused ဟ& and ကiu. ဟ& is speaking word of Particle for subject. ကiu is speaking
word of Particle for intending place/person. "@န&ဂ?မiu is the place. It is not the subject.

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Therefore, the correct sentence should be "@န&ဂ?မiuကiu က&#၊ ဘတ-စ-က&#၊ eလယ&Z-ပM5တiuနGO
သF&#Biuင-ပQတယ-။.
d)Particle for Place (eနရ$/ပဝiဘတ))In Burmese grammar, Particles for place (eနရ&'ပဝiဘတ-) are "၌၊ မV&၊ တFင-၊ ဝယ-၊ က)".
Example d (Learner 4)
eက&င-#မFန-စF&တGE ကMန-#မ&eရ#အတFက- eရပ^စမ-#ကiu စiမ-Biuင-ပQတယ-။
Learner 4 misused ကiu and မV&. eရပ^စမ-# is the place. It is not the object. Therefore, the correctsentence should be eက&င-#မFန-စF&တGE ကMန-#မ&eရ#အတFက- eရပ^စမ-#မV& စiမ-Biuင-ပQတယ-။.
For the above examples, the foreign learners misplaced, misused and missed some of thegrammatical words for subject, object, places and so forth. The other potential reason forthese mistakes would be the variations between Burmese and their own mother-tongue
language.
2)

Word Misplacement

The second category is word misplacement. Word misplacement is the placement of thewords are misplaced or missing. It would be due to their misunderstanding or lack ofknowledge about buffer language, their mother-tongue language and Burmese.
a)Levels of Adjective/Adverb (န$မဝieသသန/4ကiယ$ဝieသသနအဆင)9)

In Burmese grammar, levels of adjective/adverb (န&မဝieသသန//ကiယ&ဝieသသနအဆင-E) aresuch as "eက&င-#eသ&eနရ&၊ ပiueက&င-#eသ&eနရ&၊ အeက&င-#ဆu5#eနရ&".
It looks like comparative and superlative in English such as "good place, better place, bestplace".
Example a (Learner 18)
ငQ#နGOအလ^#eခM&င-#eDက& အeက&င-#ဆu5# စ&#Biuင-ပQတယ-။
Learner 18 misplaced the words, ငQ#နGOအလ^#eခM&င-#eDက& and အeက&င-#ဆu5#.
ငQ#နGOအလ^#eခM&င-#eDက&is noun. အeက&င-#ဆu5# is the highest level of adjective. In Burmese
syntax, level of adjective is in front of noun. Therefore, the correct sentence should beအeက&င-#ဆu5# ငQ#နGO အလ^#eခM&င-#eDက& စ&#Biuင-ပQတယ-။.
I found that the misplacing of levels of adjective/adverb and noun/verb in the above incorrectsentences. Because of these examples, the intermediate foreign learners are mixed up with theplacement of words in Burmese sentences.

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Official Conference Proceedingsb) Mathematical Adjective for Amount and Number(ပမ$ဏ/ပ/အeရအတ;က)/ပသခ=$န$မဝ>eသသန)In Burmese grammar, Mathematical adjective for amount and number are such as"eကM&င-#သ&#အခMiu". Because noun is always in front of the number or the amount in Burmese
sentence structure. It is different from other foreign language sentence structure, especially inEnglish (for example- some students).
Example b (Learner 19)
အနက-eရ&င-eကM&က-eတ&င-မV& eသ#eသ#eလ#eတF လiuဏ- မM&#/က@# "iတယ-။
Learner 19 misplaced the words, eသ#eသ#eလ#eတF and လiuဏ-. eသ#eသ#eလ#eတF is themathematical adjective for amount. လiuဏ- is noun. Therefore, the correct sentence should beအနက-eရ&င-eကM&က-eတ&င-မV& လiuဏ- eသ#eသ#eလ#eတF မM&#/က@# "iတယ-။c)

Particle for Supporting Noun (န$မ)eထ$က)ပစAည)%)In Burmese grammar, Particles for supporting noun are such as "သ&၊ ပင- (ပG-for speakingform) ၊ ခMည-#". They mean that "only" in English. Normally, they are behind noun in Burmese
sentence but in English, only one (တစ-eယ&က-ပG). Sometimes they are behind the Particle orother which is connected with noun, not behind the noun, for example, (ဒQက 'မ'မအတFက-ပG။=This is only for Mya Mya.)
Example c (Learner 16)$ခင-#လV?ပ@# Okinawa ခUiuင-ပGမV& "iတGE တiရစ_&န-လည-# မM&#တယ-။
Learner 16 misplaced the word, ပG, behind ခUiuင-. Normally, it is correct. But ခUiuင- is not noun.
It is place because of မV&. Therefore, the correct sentence should be $ခင-#လV?ပ@# OkinawaခUiuင-မV&ပG "iတGE တiရစ_&န-လည-# မM&#တယ-။In the above examples, I found that there are many foreign students made these kinds of
mistakes because of studying Burmese from the translation of their mother-tongue language.
3)

Usage Inappropriateness

The third category is usage inappropriateness. This category can be further divided into two
categories. Usage inappropriateness is using incorrect usage in sentence. It is classified into
two parts.
a)b)

Semantic Inappropriateness
Pragmatic Inappropriateness

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Semantic InappropriatenessSemantic inappropriateness is using incorrect usage in sentence that makes the meaning ofsentence, incorrect or mislead. It is because of the different usages between Burmese andother languages.
i)

Usage of Verb (4ကiယ$အသu*%/ပuပu*)

In Burmese grammar, usage of verb is such as "/ကiယ& + ဝiဘတ- = စ&# + သည-/တယ-". Thereare 3 kinds of verb, (1) verb for continuous (example- စ&#သည-), (2) verb forpossession/location (example- မမမV& စ&အuပ- "iတယ-။-possession, မမ၏အiမ-သည- သuခလမ-#တFင"iသည-။-location) and (3) verb for being (example- မမသည- eကM&င-#သ^ 'ဖစ-သည-။). There isanother kind of verb usage in Burmese is totally different from English or other foreign
language. For example, ဖFင-Eတယ- and ပFင-Eတယ- in the sentences "သ^က တ5ခQ#ကiu ဖFင-Eတယ-။" and"ကiuကiuက တ5ခQ#ပFင-Eeနတ&ကiu eတFaတယ-။". In English, "He opens the doors." and "Ko Ko saw
the open doors." are the same using "open". It is different in Burmese. It depends on the noun
that do other and the noun that be done by other. In the first sentence, the verb "" is for thenoun "" who do "open". In the second sentence, the verb "" is for the noun "" that is done or
opened by other.
Example i (Learner 8)
eBFဦ#ရ&သ@မV& အမMiu#မMiu# ပန-#မန- ဖFင-Eတယ-။
Learner 8 use incorrect usage ဖFင-E instead of ပFင-E. ဖFင-E is for the noun that is done by other. ပFင-E
is for the noun do other. In this sentence, ပန-#မန- is the noun that do other. Therefore, thecorrect sentence should be eBFဦ#ရ&သ@မV& အမMiu#မMiu# ပန-#မန- ပFင-Eတယ-။.
ii)

Particle for Verb of Time (က$လ/ပ4ကiယ$ဝiဘတ))In Burmese grammar, Particle for verb of time is tense of sentence. There are 3 tenses ofsentence, (1) Present tense (example- ဒ@eနO eကM&င-#သF&#တယ-။), (2) Past tense (exampleမeနOက eကM&င-#သF&#တယ-။), and (3) Future tense (example- မနက-'ဖန- eကM&င-#သF&#မယ-။).
Present tense usage and past tense usage are only different in time usage, other are same.
Future tense usage is "မယ-၊ လiမ-Eမယ-".
Example ii (Learner 22)
ဒ@eနO ကcန-မက တUuတ-Biuင-င5မV&"iတGE ခFန-မင-#?မiuအeDက&င-#ကiu မiတ-ဆက-eပ#ပQတယ-။
Learner 22 use incorrect usage တယ- instead of မယ-. တယ- is verb for present tense in thissentence because of ဒ@eနO. မယ- is verb for future tense. This sentence shows the future tensethat is coming nearly. Therefore, the correct sentence should be ဒ@eနO ကcန-မကတUuတ-Biuင-င5မV&"iတGE ခFန-မင-#?မiuအeDက&င-#ကiu မiတ-ဆက-eပ#ပQမယ-။

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Extra and Need (အပiuအလiu)

Extra and need is more extra usage and need usage than normal usage should be or must be in
the sentence of Burmese.
Example iii (Learner 24)
ဂMင-ဂiuရGdအရFက-eတFကiu ကMတယ-။
Learner 24 wrote the sentence with the extra usage "ကiu". "ဂMင-ဂiuရGdအရFက-eတF" is the subject,
not object. And then, "ကiu" is Particle for object. Therefore, the correct sentence should beဂMင-ဂiuရGdအရFက-eတF ကMတယ-။
For the above examples, the semantic inappropriateness of foreign learners can make themeanings of sentences incorrect or mislead. These mistakes showed that learners forget tocare about the characteristics of Burmese sentence structures. The mother-tongue language ofthe learners would affect the learning of Burmese. This fact would be quite common in all
kinds of language learning process.
b)

Pragmatic InappropriatenessIn usage inappropriateness, pragmatic inappropriateness is using incorrect usage in sentenceor syntax that cannot make the meaning of the context clearly. This kind of incorrect usage
cannot make the meaning of sentence incorrect. But it might lead to incorrect sentence
structure or usage.
i)

Noun-changing from Verb (4ကiယ$န$မ))In Burmese grammar, verb changes into Noun when some words are adding in front of or
behind that verb. (example- အ + စ&# = အစ&#၊ စ&# + စရ& = စ&#စရ&). We called that kind ofnoun as "noun-changing from verb".
Example i (Learner 23)eရပက-'ခင-#ရGdအဓiပf&ယ-ဟ& အခMင-#ခMင-# ဆueတ&င-#eပ#ပQတယ-။
Learner 23 use incorrect usage ဆueတ&င-#eပ#ပQတယ- instead of ဆueတ&င-#eပ#'ခင-#'ဖစ-ပQတယ-. This sentence is explanation of the meaning of "eရပက-'ခင-#". In Burmese,
explanation ends with "'ခင-# 'ဖစ-ပQတယ-". Therefore, the correct sentence should beeရပက-'ခင-#ရGdအဓiပf&ယ-ဟ& အခMင-#ခMင-# ဆueတ&င-#eပ#'ခင-# 'ဖစ-ပQတယ-။
ii)

Pronoun for Indicating (အFGန)%န$မ)စ$%)In Burmese grammar, pronouns for indicating are "ဤ၊ ထiu၊ ယင-#၊ ၎င-#" (in speaking "ဒ@၊ အGEဒ@၊ဒQ၊ အGEဒQ၊ ဟiu". They are used instead of noun.

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Example ii (Learner 7)
အGဒ@eတFက အရင-ကတည-#က ဂMပန-လ^မMiu#eတFလည-# ခMစ-တGEအeDက&င-#အရ& 'ဖစ-ပQတယ-။
Learner 7 use incorrect usage အGဒ@ instead of အGဒQ. အGဒ@ is for the place. အGဒQ is for the thing.
အeDက&င-#အရ& is the thing. Therefore, the correct sentence should be အGဒQeတFကအရင-ကတည-#က ဂMပန-လ^မMiu#eတFလည-# ခMစ-တGEအeDက&င-#အရ& 'ဖစ-ပQတယ-။
iii)

Adjective for Indicating (အFGန)%/ပန$မဝieသသန)In Burmese grammar, adjectives for indicating are "ဤ၊ ထiu၊ ယင-#၊ ၎င-#" (in speaking "ဒ@၊ အGEဒ@၊ဒQ၊ အGEဒQ၊ ဟiu". They are behind noun.
Example iii (Learner 11)
Nanjing လမ-#ဟ& "န-ဟG?မiuရGdအစည-က&#ဆu5# ကuန-သFယ-eရ#လမ-# 'ဖစ-တယ-။ ဟiuလမ-#အဆu5#မV&
Waitan "iတယ-။
Learner 11 use incorrect usage ဟiu instead of အGဒ@. ဟiu is for the things we do not know
definitely. (for example- ဟiuလမ-#ကiu သiလ&#။ = Do you know that road?). အGဒ@ is for the things
we know definitely. (for example- 'ပည-လမ-#ကiu သiလ&#။ အGEဒ@လမ-#က "ည-တယ-။ = Do you Pyi
Road? That road is long.) In English, they are the same. Therefore, the correct sentence
should be Nanjing လမ-#ဟ& "န-ဟG?မiuရGdအစည-က&#ဆu5# ကuန-သFယ-eရ#လမ-# 'ဖစ-တယ-။အGEဒ@လမ-#အဆu5#မV& Waitan "iတယ-။.
iv)

Particle for Possession (ပiuင)ဆiuင)/ခင)%/ပဝiဘတ))In Burmese grammar, Particle for possession is "၏" (in speaking "ရGd". They are behind noun.
Example iv (Learner 2)အGEဒ@eနရ&ဟ& eရ<လ@?မiuက ထင-"&#eကM&-eစ&တGEeနရ& 'ဖစ-ပQတယ-။
Learner 2 use incorrect usage က instead of ရGd. က is for subject and ရGd is for possession.
Therefore, the correct sentence should be အGEဒ@eနရ&ဟ& eရ<လ@?မiuရGd ထင-"&#eကM&-eစ&တGEeနရ&'ဖစ-ပQတယ-။
v)

Particle for Separating (ခ;Hထuတ)ရ$/ပဝiဘတ))In Burmese grammar, Particle for separating is "တFင-၊ အနက-၊ အထGမV၊ အထGမV&" (in speaking"အထGက၊ ထGက". They are behind noun.
Example v (Learner 2)
ခMiကMင-E?မiuဟ& တUuတ-Biuင-င5က အသင-Eeတ&-ဆu5#eနထiuင-တGE ?မiu ၁၀ ?မiuမV& တစ-?မiu 'ဖစ-ပQတယ-။

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Learner 2 use incorrect usage မV& instead of ထGက. မV& is Particle for place and ထGက is Particle
for separating. Therefore, the correct sentence should be ခMiကMင-E?မiuဟ& တUuတ-Biuင-င5က
အသင-Eeတ&-ဆu5#eနထiuင-တGE ?မiu ၁၀ ?မiuထGက တစ-?မiu 'ဖစ-ပQတယ-။
But it cannot make the meaning of sentence incorrect largely. We can understand themeaning of sentence clearly even with this kind of incorrect usage. It is only grammatically
mistake.
vi)

Classifiers (မ=iu%/ပပစAည)%)In Burmese grammar, particle for variety is "ပင-၊ eယ&က-၊ ခu၊ . . .". This kind of usage isdepending on the kinds of things. (for example- သစ-ပင-တစ-ပင-)Example vi (Learner 14)
နန-#ကMင-?မiuဟ& e"#eခတ-မင-#ဆက- ၆ခuရGd ?မiueတ&-eဟ&င-# 'ဖစ-ပQတယ-။
Learner 14 use incorrect usage ခu instead of ဆက-. ခu is general classifier. ဆက- is thegeneration of kings. When foreigners are not sure, they use it. For the natives, it is anincorrect usage. Therefore, the correct sentence should be နန-#ကMင-?မiuဟ& e"#eခတ-မင-#ဆက၆ဆက-ရGd ?မiueတ&-eဟ&င-# 'ဖစ-ပQတယ-။
This learner used it because it is general usage. Natives can understand this kind of incorrect
usage. This would be quite complicated for foreign learners.
vii)

Particle for Changing to Adjective (န$မဝieသသနပuဒ)e/ပ$င)%ပစAည)%)In Burmese grammar, particle for changing to adjective is "eသ&၊ သည-E၊ မည-E" (in speaking"တGE၊ မယ-E/မGE". When verb combines with this particle, it changes to adjective. (exampleလVပ+eသ& = လVပeသ&) It is in front of noun.
Example vii (Learner 22)
ခFန-မင-#?မiuမV& အမM&#/က@# လVပဥယM&Z- "iပQတယ-။
Learner 22 use verb "လVပ" in front of noun "ဥယM&Z-". This verb needs to change to adjectiveby adding "တGE". Therefore, the correct sentence should be ခFန-မင-#?မiuမV& အမM&#/က@#လVပတGEဥယM&Z- "iပQတယ-။
viii)

Particle for Argument (အ/ငင)%/ပပစAည)%)In Burmese grammar, particle for argument is "မ၊ မ . . . ပQ၊ မ . . . BVင-E" (in speaking, မ . . . ဘ^#၊
မ . . . နGO"). Burmese sentence with negative usage is such as မစ&#ပQ, မစ&#ဘ^#, မစ&#BVင-E,
မစ&#နGO.

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Example viii (Learner 10)
ထiueDက&င-E eကMရ&ပFန-ဂM@ ခရ@#သF&#ရင- ထ@#မeမEပQ။
Learner 10 use verb "မeမEပQ". This usage is for self. This sentence is for giving advice toother. Therefore, the correct sentence should be ထiueDက&င-E eကMရ&ပFန-ဂM@ ခရ@#သF&#ရငထ@#မeမEပQနGO။
ix)

Conjunction for One after Another (တစ)ခuJပK%တစ)ခu/ပသမLMN)

In Burmese grammar, conjunction for one after another is "က&၊ ၍" (in speaking, "?ပ@#"). This
usage is used for verb. If we use for noun or other, we need to add "'ဖစ-/"i" in front of it.
Example ix (Learner 27)
စည-#လu5#?မiuက တစ-BVစ-လu5# အeအ#ဆu5#နGO ခဏခဏမiu#ရF&ပQတယ-။
Learner 27 wrote one after another, အeအ#ဆu5# and ခဏခဏမiu#ရF&ပQတယ- by connecting withincorrect conjunction "နGO". အeအ#ဆu5# is not verb. Therefore, we need to add "'ဖစ-" in front of"?ပ@#". The correct sentence should be စည-#လu5#?မiuက တစ-BVစ-လu5# အeအ#ဆu5#'ဖစ-?ပ@#ခဏခဏမiu#ရF&ပQတယ-။x)

Conjunction for Combination (eပOင)%စည)%/ပသမLMN)

In Burmese grammar, conjunction for combination is "လည-# . . . လည-#၊ သ&မက . . . လည-#၊
Uu5သ&မက . . . လည-#၊ အ'ပင- . . . လည-#". This usage is used for combination 2 nouns or 2 verbs
or 2 sentences. (example- ည@ည@သ&မက ကiuကiuလည-# eပQင-မuန-O စ&#တယ-။ -for 2 nouns, ည@ည@က
eပQင-မuန-Oစ&#Uu5သ&မက ကiတ-မuန-Oလည-# စ&#တယ-။ -for 2 verbs or 2 sentences)
Example x (Learner 26)
ခFန-မင-#?မiuဟ& $ခင-#သ&ဟ&သ&မက လ^မMiu#လည-# စiတ-အ&#ထက-သန-တယ-။
Learner 26 use incorrect conjunction "သ&မက" for combining 2 sentences instead of"Uu5သ&မက". Therefore, the correct sentence should be ခFန-မင-#?မiuဟ& $ခင-#သ&ဟ&Uu5သ&မကလ^မMiu#လည-# စiတ-အ&#ထက-သန-တယ-။
xi)

Conjunction for Opposition (ဆန)Pက=င)/ပသမLMN)

In Burmese grammar, conjunction for opposition is "သiuရ&တFင-၊ သiueသ&-၊ သiueသ&-လည-#၊eသ&-လည-#" (in speaking, "ဒQeပမယ-E၊ eပမယ-E"). This usage is used for opposition 2 sentencesin different meanings. They are different in 1 sentence or 2 sentences. (example- "န@န@က
Dကက-ဥ မ/ကiuက- eပမယ-E ကMန-#မ&eရ#အတFက- စ&#တယ-။" -1 sentence, "န@န@က Dကက-ဥမ/ကiuက-ဘ^#။ ဒQeပမယ-E ကMန-#မ&eရ#အတFက- စ&#တယ-။" -2 sentences)

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Example xi (Learner 18)
လန-ဒန-?မiuကiu အရမ-#/ကiuက- ဒQeပမယ-E လန-ဒန-မMiu အရမ-#eဈ#/က@#ပQတယ-။
Learner 26 use incorrect conjunction "ဒQeပမယ-E" for combining 2 sentences instead of"eပမယ-E". Therefore, the correct sentence should be လန-ဒန-?မiuကiu အရမ-#/ကiuက- eပမယ-E
လန-ဒန-မMiu အရမ-#eဈ#/က@#ပQတယ-။
xii)

Conjunction for Reason (အeQက$င)%/ပသမLMN)

In Burmese grammar, conjunction for reason is "၍၊ BVင-E၊ သ'ဖင-E၊ eသ&eDက&င-E၊ eDက&င-E" (inspeaking, "eDက&င-E၊ လiu"). It depends on that they are after noun or verb. (example- "ဆရ&မကသpeDက&င-E စiတ-ဆiu#တယ-။" -after noun, "သ^က မiu#ရF&လiu eကM&င-#မသF&#ဘ^#။" -after verb)
Example xii (Learner 5)
eဆ&င-#ရ&သ@မV& ရFက-က အန@eရ&င-ကiu e'ပ&င-#သလiu လVပQတယ-။
Learner 26 use incorrect conjunction "သလiu" for reason instead of "လiu". Therefore, thecorrect sentence should be eဆ&င-#ရ&သ@မV& ရFက-က အန@eရ&င-ကiu e'ပ&င-#လiu လVပQတယ-။
xiii)

Speaking and Writing (အe/ပ$အeရ%)In Burmese grammar, the differences between speaking usage and writing usage arecommonly known by the foreigners, though it is not easy to use for them. However, theincorrect usages might not twist the meaning of the sentence. It is quite complicated forforeign learners.
Example xiii (Learner 30)
အဘယ-eDက&င-Eဆiueသ&- Dက&#တFင- world war II ထင-"&#eသ& "iပQတယ-။
Learner 30 use writing usage "အဘယ-eDက&င-Eဆiueသ&-", "တFင-" and "eသ&" instead of
speaking usage "ဘ&'ဖစ-လiuလGဆiueတ&E", "မV&" and "တGE". Therefore, the correct sentence shouldbe ဘ&'ဖစ-လiuလGဆiueတ&E Dက&#မV& world war II ထင-"&#တGE "iပQတယ-။
From the above examples, the learners could be due to the lack of exposure to the local
culture or lack of chance to use in real practice. The intermediate level students always have amyth in mind, longer sentence is better. Somehow which is true in Burmese writing.
However, because the skill level is only intermediate, the sentence structure would not besmooth in some usage. Another problem is the using of grammatical words to indicate theplaces or subjects.
Discussion
According to the findings, there are some grammatical items for foreign learners in learning
Burmese. The grammatical problems are particles, conjunction, and sentence structures or

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syntax. To resolve the problem of found grammatical errors, the readjustment of the basic
level curriculum is an alternative. This curriculum must be structured by concluding generalgrammar items and exercises that are useful in real life.
Another item is "Bilingual mutual understanding". According to the examples in this study,
the mother-tongue language of the foreign learners might affect their learning. The
differences between Burmese and foreigners' mother-tongue language can mess up in daily
usages. The main problem of this fact is thinking from the translation of mother-tongue
language before writing or speaking Burmese. This problem is common if the sentence
structures of mother-tongue language and Burmese are similar. If not, both teachers andstudents, all, must be careful in teaching and learning.
Another factor is the strength of the writing competence. It means that the more practice inlearning Burmese four skills, the more careful in writing skill. Because practicing for writing
skill is the easiest way to remember important basic usage for other skills. So, various
practice with different contexts seems importance to eliminate the errors in usage.
Implications
There are two awareness that we should pay attention to. They are:1) Pre-stage awareness and2) Tailor-made awareness (learner-centered).
1)

Pre-Stage AwarenessFor pre-stage awareness, first, the curriculum should provide the grammatical differences
since basic level. Because many curricula are prepared for four skills without grammar. Even
concluding with grammar, only giving basic usages such as noun, pronoun, verb, subject,
object, and the sentence structure such as subject + verb. Other usages and structures arebeing proficiency by practicing four skills in real life.
Second, not only foreign learners but also native teachers should be careful that learning andteaching must be based on the differences between speaking and writing in Burmese since
basic level. If they do not care about these variations, they cannot reach for better teaching
and learning in Burmese.
Final, learning language is not one-man band. For this fact, learners must go to public andpractice in real life. Because practice in real situation is crucial.
2)

Tailor-Made AwarenessFor tailor-made awareness, teachers should identify the strengths and weaknesses of thelearners beforehand. Teachers can prepare for students by students' proficiency level andnationalities. A good preparing is pre-testing students' needs on first lecture day.
Then, different exercises should be given according to individual needs. This approach canuse during teaching period or one semester. After teaching first week or some weeks, teachers
can know about the needs of each student in the class. Giving different exercises as the needof each student is really helpful for learners.

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And then, the exposure of the usage in daily activities should be emphasized. Because
teaching and learning language is not for one person. It is for communication. If teachers
want students to be proficiency in language, they should add daily usages in lessons, give
activities or projects connecting with daily life and listen to and explain students' questions
out of the class.
Conclusion
This is a case study about 30 foreign learners learning Burmese as a foreign language in theintermediate level. Based on their writing, there are 23 grammatical errors are being
identified. They are further classified as (1) Syntax misused; (2) Word misplacement; and(3) Usage inappropriateness. To improve the intermediate level of Burmese learning for theforeigners, the pre-stage awareness of the grammatical teaching content in the basic level iscrucial. The tailor made of the explanation of the grammatical usage to different mothertongue learners might ease the grammatical misunderstanding in Burmese throughout thelearning process.
Acknowledgements
This paper is a culmination of 8 years of experience in teaching Burmese to foreign learners.
It could not have been written without the data of 30 individuals, foreign learners fromintermediate level, and my best friend, Eaindray Oo. She provided inspiration for many ideas
in the arrangement of the initial stage of the PowerPoint presentation.

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References
Shofner, K. (2020). Highlights and challenges of the Burmese Language. Retrieved July 14,
2020, from https://www.unitedlanguagegroup.com/blog/highlights-challengesburmese-language
Luu, L. (2019). Common Grammatical Errors made by Foreign Learners of English.
Retrieved July 14, 2020, from https://englishforforeignersonline.com/commongrammatical-errors-that-foreigners-make/Nyane, M. and Maryland. (2015). Little Tricky Things in the Burmese Language. Retrieved
July 14, 2020, from https://www.embracemyanmar.com/little-things.html
Hein, W. (2013). You Wanna Learn Burmese, Too?. Retrieved July 14, 2020, fromhttps://whiteboylearningburmese.wordpress.com/
Contact email: lwinninikhine@gmail.com

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Elimination Mechanism of Glue Variables for Solving SAT Problems in Linguistics
Ziwei Zhang, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China
Yang Zhang, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China
The Asian Conference on Language 2021
Official Conference Proceedings
Abstract
We propose GVE(Glue Variables Elimination), an algorithm that organically combines neuralnetworks with a deterministic solver to solve SAT(Boolean satisfiability problem) in the fieldof linguistics. It gives full play to their respective advantages by following steps: (a) applying
a graph learning algorithm to learn the structure of the CNF formula; (b) finding the glue
variables of the problem; (c) determining their values; (d) simplifying the original formula; (e)using a deterministic solver to solve the simplified problem. We use SATCOMP 2003-2019
benchmarks as the test data sets, and compare our model with the SAT solver CADICAL thathas performed well in SATCOMP 2019 as well as the neural network model PDP proposed inrecent years. GVE model shows good performance. As the complexity of the problem
increases, the solution time can be about 20%-95% quicker than the deterministic solver,while at the same time around 72% more accurate than PDP model.
Keywords: Linguistics, Boolean Satisfiability Problem, Graph Learning, Survey Propagation,
Reinforcement Learning, Glue Variables

iafor
The International Academic Forumwww.iafor.org

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Introduction
In industrial production, many questions can be converted into satisfiability questions(Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSP)(Kumar, 2015)), especially Boolean satisfaction
problem(SAT). Boolean Satisfiability, in particular, is the most fundamental NP-complete(Garey & Johnson, 1979) problem in computer science with a wide range of applications invarious areas(Biere, Heule & van Maaren, 2009; Knuth, 1997). There is no deterministic
Turing algorithm to solve the SAT problem in polynomial complexity(Van Leeuwen, 1991).
However, SAT problems are inevitable in practical application, for example, in the fields ofengineering technology, complexity theory(Karp, 1972; Aho & Hopcroft, 1974), military,
artificial intelligence(Vizel, Weissenbacher & Malik, 2015), concurrency control, transportation, intelligent traffic control and so on. From the point of view of problem solving,
complete algorithm, represented by Davis-Putnam proposes based on the recollection
search(Nieuwenhuis, Oliveras & Tinelli, 2005; Zhang & Malik, 2002), can solve bothsatisfiability problems and unsatisfiable problems, though it can take a long time.
Machine Learning has been used for different aspects of CSP and SAT solving from branchprediction(Liang, Ganesh, Poupart & Czarnecki, 2016) algorithm to hyper-parameterselection(Xu, Hutter, Hoos & Leyton-Brown, 2008). These algorithms all encode the input
SAT instances to different degrees while interconnectedness of the CNF formula exists in its
original structure. There is a serious risk that those feature extraction techniques will lose thehidden information of the formula during procedure of data processing. For instance,
frameworks such as Graph Neural Network(Li, Tarlow, Brockschmidt & Zemel, 2015),
PossibleWorldNets(Evans, Saxton, Amos, Kohli & Grefenstette, 2018), NeuroSAT
framework(Selsam et al., 2018), the Circuit-SAT framework(Amizadeh, Matusevych &Weimer, 2018) and Recurrent Relational Networks for Sudoku(Palm, Paquet & Winther, 2018)
et al. have been quite successful in capturing the inherent structure of the SAT instances byembedding them into traditional vector spaces that are suitable for Machine Learning models.
However, they don’t have a persuasive explanation why their networks effective and how
they work. Most importantly, their accuracy has a sharp decline as the number of variables orcomplexity of the SAT problems increases. Furthermore, the previous researches of solving
SAT problems that use pure neural network (e.g. PDP(Amizadeh, Matusevych & Weimer,2019)), show a decline trend of performance with the increment of problem scale, most ofwhich are limited by the structures of CNF formulas. The uncertainty of their results also
make them have little practical value.
Our contributions are as follows:(a) The method of graph learning and representation proposed by Hamilton, Ying andLeskovec(2017) is used for the sake of learning internal features of SAT problems. Different
from the previous work, which only has one kind of node in the graph, our graph has two
kinds of nodes. We see the CNF formula as a bipartite graph with literals and clauses as thetwo type of nodes, and train a set of aggregator functions based on Random Walk(Spitzer,
2013) and Graph Convolution Network(Geng et al., 2019) that learn to aggregate feature
information from a node’s local neighborhood that contains both variable nodes and clausenodes. In this way, we are able to adapt to the different CNF structures and train a generalsolver to solve all kinds of questions which can significantly improve efficiency.
(b) Considering that the performance of neural model is limited by the complexity of the
problem, we do not attempt to solve the whole question, but rather focus on finding out glue
variables and their values -- those likely to occur in glue clauses(Audemard & Simon, 2009),

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Official Conference Proceedingsa type of conflict clauses known to be extremely important to the reasoning of modern
CDCL(Heule, Kullmann, Wieringa & Biere, 2011) SAT solvers as a reinforcement task andthen solve them through a Survey Propagation Algorithm idea based neural network. Finally
we use the complete solver CADICAL (QUEUE, 2019) to solve the simplified formula.
Furthermore, our framework is designed in unsupervised manner that allows GVE to be
trained without training data markup.
(c) Unlike previous works only give a answer either “satisfiable” or “unsatisfiable”, for the
UNSAT CNF, we not only show the result, but also the UnsatCore -- the combination ofclauses whose subsets are still unsatisfiable, is derived as a proof of the answer.
We evaluate our algorithm on thousand near CNF instances that chosen from SATCOMP
2013-2019 benchmarks. Our experimental results show the superiority of the GVE
framework compared to both neural and classical solvers.
Preliminaries
A propositional logic formula, also called Boolean expression, is built from variables,
operators AND (conjunction, also denoted by ∧), OR (disjunction, ∨), NOT (negation, ¬),and parentheses. The SAT problem is to check whether a given formula is satisfiable or not. If
a variable assignment exists which can make every clause TRUE, the formula is calledsatisfiable. On the other hand, if no such assignment exists, the function expressed by theformula is FALSE for all possible variable assignments and the SAT problem is unsatisfiable.
A disjunctive expression of a finite number of variables is called a clause. A formula is inconjunctive normal form (CNF) if it is a conjunction of clauses (or a single clause).
1.1. Solving Algorithms Bases
Glue levels and glue variables Glue variable is an important concept in CDCL algorithm(Conflict-Driven Clause Learning) proposed by Heule et al.(2011). Here we introduce theconcept of unit propagation(Nieuwenhuis et al., 2005): given a clause, if
all literals but
are set to 0, thenis equivalent to the unit clause ( ), and the value ofis forced to 1. Glue level counts the number of decision levels involved in the clause. A
clause with low glue level requires fewer decisions to become unit. Variables in clauses withglue level≤2 are called glue variables. Finding glue variables had greatly improved theperformance of existing technologies and has now become a standard practice.
SP Algorithm
SP (Survey Propagation) (Braunstein, Mézard & Zecchina, 2005; Mezard & Montanari, 2009)
algorithm is a typical incomplete algorithm of which principle is derived from the theory of
the spin glass system (Sherrington & Kirkpatrick, 1975) in statistical physics. SP applies amessage passing technology to pass the probability of the variable to make the clause it
located unsatisfiable, and then uses the investigation iteration function to repeatedly calculate
the message passed in the factor graph. If this process converges, a set of marginal probability
distributions of the values of all variables will be finally obtained. Through the probability
distribution, the possible value of each variable can be known. Then the SP algorithm uses
the Walksat(Hoos, 2002) algorithm to fix one or some variables to simplify the original
problem. Walksat is an extension of Random Walk. Their fundamental idea is to randomly
generate an initial assignment, and then select a variable to flip under certain conditions until

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the maximum number of flips is reached or a solution is found. If the problem is satisfiable, a
set of solutions can be finally obtained after repeating the above process.
1.2. Graph Representation
Figure 1 shows the graph representation model of clauses and variables. Circles represent
variable nodes, and squares represent clause nodes. There are two types of edges, which
represent the sign of the variable in the clause. This graph model can establish the adjacency
matrix between variables and clauses, and can intuitively reflect which clauses a certain
variable is related to. For example, clause has three variables ,,, so the origin
formula can be represent as. In the same way, the formulain thefigure can be restored to the original mathematical expression:

Figure 1: Graph Representation Structure ofClauses and Variables

Figure 2: A CNF Conversion Example

In order to ignore the signs in the original formula during training, we split the variables into
positive and negative terms, and regard the negative form of each variable as a new variable.
Figure 2 shows a CNF conversion example intuitively. As for training, for a CNF formulawithclauses andvariables, it will eventually be expressed as an
0-1 matrix
which contains all positive variables andmatrixwhich contains their negations.
Instead of training a distinct embedding vector for each node as traditional graphrepresentation methods do, we train a set of aggregator functions that learn to aggregatefeature information from a node’s local neighborhood. Each aggregator function aggregates
information from a different number of hops, or search depth, away from a given node.
2.

Network Architecture

Since it is difficult to solve the difficult SAT problems by using pure neural networks, we
introduce the idea of model compound -- the combination of neural networks and adeterministic solver. The key to solve the SAT problem is to find out the key variables in
CNF so as to simplify the original formula. When interacting with the deterministic solver,
the model continuously modifies the prediction results of key variables throughReinforcement Learning. Meanwhile, to adapt the solver to different structures of CNFs and

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find glue variables of SAT problems, we design a suitable network pattern that could solve
CNFs via neural networks. Figure 3 shows the overall flow chart of our algorithm. We will
describe the steps that need to take to reach the ultimate goal in this chapter .

Figure 3: Overall Flow of the GVE Algorithm
The CNF formula is transformed into a bipartite graph
where
and
are a
collection of variables and Boolean symbols, respectively. There are two types of nodes
representing variables and clauses in graph. The Boolean symbol
whereconnecting theclause and the variableindicate that the clause contains the variable.
Based on the above, for a SAT problem withmodel asclauses, we define a way of measuring

(1)
where
to represent the graph structure, that is, the combination of the output result of theprevious step and the corresponding graph structure of the original CNF formula.
is thevariable embedding results that related to some clause .
is an abstract representation of
our entire network structure which contains graph representation layer, glue variables
prediction layer and variables value prediction layer.
2.1. The Inductive Graph Learning
We adopts an unsupervised training method, assuming that each variable takes a value of true
to determine the label of the clause, that is, if all the literals of the clause are negative, theclause is negative. A group of aggregator functions is trained to aggregate feature informationfrom adjacent nodes list of a node from which we randomly sample in the process of graphlearning. In our model, clauses and variables are used as learning nodes respectively. The listof adjacent nodes is the set of all clauses that are related to the variables in the clause, andthe set of all the variables that appear in the same clause with a certain variable. In the
figure below, orange circles represent clause nodes, and blue circles represent variable nodes.
Take node 1 as an example, it will aggregate the characteristics of all adjacent nodes, and thearrow represents its source of information. In summary, the adjacent list of variable 1
contains clause nodes a, b and variable nodes 2,3,4,5. Thus, we complete the bidirectionaltransmission of feature information. Figure 5 indicates the binary encoding method of a CNF.
As shown, the left and right half of Figure 5(b) represent
and, respectively.

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Figure 4: Schematic Diagram of the Two
Sources of Feature Aggregation

Figure 5: Binary Encoding Example of a
CNF

Figure 6: Architecture Diagram of Graph Aggregation
Figure 6 shows the architecture diagram of graph aggregation. For each variable there will
be a list“adjacent” to it, which contains all variables that have a direct or indirect
relationship with it. Therefore, according to the aforementioned classification, the adjacent
list is also expressed asand. We encode them so that each variable can fully learn
the characteristics of the variables related to it. We use the formula below to update
and
(2)
where
is a multi-layer linear neural network withas the parameter. Since the graphtransformed by CNF is a bipartite graph with two kinds of nodes, we need to aggregate again
(3)
where
represents the list of clauses that contains the variable -- that is, all the clauses inwhich the variable appears andis a learnable parameter. Take the CNF formula in figure2(a) as an example, variable 1 corresponds to clause 1, 2. In this way, we get the updated
and, and finally stitch them together to get the summarized graph structure
(4)
where

is the activation layer with

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2.2. The Survey-Propagation Based Neural Model
After the steps of graph learning, we can be compatible with different CNF structures. Next,
we designed a neural network based on the idea of Survey Propagation algorithm so thatmessages are passed between clauses and variables. For the convenience of representation,
we define matrix, that is,if there is an edge from variabletosome clause . Likewise,, which represents the relationship from clauses toedges.
(5)
(6)
where
and
are matrices representing the relationship among edges, variables andclauses, and,are linear neural networks parameterized by different vectors
and .
and
are designed for calculating the value of “survey information” transmitted toeach other. Notably, we have used the main idea of survey propagation algorithm to model. Next we divide
into positive and negative parts:,. Thus the main
steps incan be described as:(7)here the variable

is for no effect to some clause. Then we update

as follows:

(8)
(9)
(10)
Finally, in order to keep track of arbitrary long-term dependencies in the messaging queue,
we apply recurrent neural network(Mikolov et al., 2011; Hochreiter & Schmidhuber, 1997)
units toand, that is(11)(12)
where andare parameter vectors. In the process of solving the CNF problem, we use
the Sigmoid function(Finney, 1952) as the activation layer of the model, hence all thevariable value can be mapped to (0, 1).
2.3. The Reinforcement Learning Model
This step and the previous step are executed synchronously and can be seen as the typicalframing of Reinforcement Learning(Boctor, 2013; Levin, Pieraccini & Eckert, 1998) scenario:
our model generates some variables just like the actions taken by the agent, which areinterpreted into a reward and a representation of the state, and then fed back into the agent.
We apply batch normalization(Bjorck., Gomes, Selman & Weinberger, 2018) to the result ofgraph learning step to improve learning rate. Therefore, the embedding of all clauses can be

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obtained as
(13)
where
refers to Batch Normalization layer as described in (Ioffe & Szegedy, 2015) andis a parameter that used to ensure the legality of calculations. After obtaining the embedding
related to all clauses, we use this value
in turn to derive the embedding value of thevariables, and apply a normalization to the intermediate in order to prepare for getting
probability distribution of all variables, that is
(14)
where
refers to normalization layer parameterized by the parameterandis amulti-layer neural network with adjustable parameters . Finally, we obtain the score
distributionof the all clauses, which represents the probability that the clause is a glueclause(15)
Similarly, we can calculate the probability distribution

by following
(16)

here
and
are different parameters of neural network . The value
has provided
some inspiration for finding glue variables so that we can use it to combined with theprediction worked out from Section 3.2 to simplify the origin CNF formula.
3.

Training a GVE Solver

Figure 7 below shows the schematic flow of GVE algorithm. It can be seen that GVE ismainly divided into three parts, graph learning, variable prediction and CNF simplification.

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Figure 7: Schematic Flow of the GVE Algorithm
In order to train a GVE model, we would reduce losses from the above three parts, so wedefine the final loss as
(17)
where
represents the loss of the glue clause prediction model andrepresents
the loss of the variable value prediction of the model. We modified the classic glucose
solver(Audemard & Simon, 2014) so that we can used it to calculate the LBD
scores(Audemard & Simon, 2009) of all clauses, denoted as. We add up the scores of
all the clauses where the variable is located to get the score of the variable. After a softmax
operation, we get

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For all variables, we can get the probability distribution that if a variable is a glue variable
so that

,

(19)
where
is the probability distribution of glue variables given by the deterministic solver.
Hence we achieve the purpose of model adjustment by minimizing the difference between thefitting probability and the target probability.
For reasons of avoiding to label the data before training, we treat the final result as aclassification problem for subcategories -- each clause has two categories, corresponding totrue or false. We use the most classic cross -- entropy loss function(Parsian & Nematollahi,1996) of the classification algorithm as the prototype of the loss function

(20)
(21)
where
represents a clause in CNF, and,represents the graph structure andvariables related to clause . Note thatis a temperature parameter(Amizadeh et al., 2019)
in the formula, and we will take a larger value as its initial value, and then gradually decrease
to 0 during the training process.

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Algorithm 1 describes the calculation process of the GVE model. After the step of graphinduction learning, the representationof all variables is obtained. We use
as the basis
for obtaining the scores of glue variables and the prediction of all variable values. In theprediction step, we compound the results of the two, select variables with higher scores fromthe results of the glued variables, where the number of selected variables is related to thenumber of variables in the original CNF, and then fix these variables according to the resultsof the variable prediction model. Next we perform the step of “simplification”: if the value ofa variable is positive after compounding with its sign, we delete the related clause from theoriginal CNF; otherwise, we delete the variable from the clause where it is located. This step
greatly simplifies the original problem, so that the simplified CNF can be solved quickly witha deterministic solver.
4.

Experiments

We compared our model with two different solutions: (a) recently proposed model
PDP(Amizadeh et al., 2019) using pure neural network method, (b) CADICAL(QUEUE,2019), the top solver in the SATCOMP competition. The experimental data are from theofficial data sets provided by the SATCOMP 2003-2019. We have compared the above
solutions in terms of accuracy and solving speed.

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PDP
Since the PDP model has different model training parameters for different data types, weselected representative "modular"(Ansótegui, Giráldez-Cru & Levy, 2012; Walsh, 1999) dataas the training set to train the PDP model. The model structure is set with the author's default
parameters, and the best model trained is used as the experimental solver. The PDP model has
the advantage of batch solving, so in order to facilitate comparison, we record the time tosolve each SAT problem separately.
CADICAL
The solver has a lot of parameters that can be configured, and the default settings are used
here. We use the "total process time since initialization" in the CADICAL output as its
solving time for comparison.
4.1. Data sets
In order to compare the effect of GVE with different solvers, we selected the CNF data set
with the number of variables in the range of (0, 3000) from the SATCOMP 2003-2019
competition benchmarks. In several data intervals of the number of variables, it is divided
into the following aspects: gradual increase in the number of variables, gradual increase in
the the ratio of the number of clauses to the number of variables, and the same number ofvariables and clauses for comparison.
4.2. Results
Accuracy
Since CADICAL is a deterministic solver, no comparison is made in the part of correctness.
The main object of comparison here is the accuracy of GVE and PDP model in multi-interval
data sets. To ensure the performance of the trained PDP model, a large number of data sets
are needed as training sets. Therefore, in addition to the data provided by SATCOMP, ourtraining sets also contain part of the data generated by the generator. At least 1000 CNFs areprepared for training and 200 CNFs are selected for each data interval in testing process. For
the sake of improving the accuracy of PDP, in particular, we use the optional parameter“local_search_iteration” of the model which increases the number of times of randomly
flipping unsatisfiable variables after the model is applied. We also set another variable“batch_replication” to increase the number of repeated attempts.
Table 1 is a comparison result of the accuracy of two models. An explanation is needed here.
Since PDP is a pure neural network model which does have a good performance whensolving ordinary CNFs, but due to the high difficulty of the data we use, it is very difficult todetermine all variables only by machine learning. Therefore, its performance is far fromsatisfactory. Meanwhile, it also shows the original intention of our proposed model fromanother direction: it is difficult to solve the whole problems, so we can settle for second beatand only solve the core part of the SAT problem, thereby reducing the overall workload.

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Name
GVE
PDP

Official Conference Proceedings(0, 500](500, 1000](1000, 1500](1500, 3000)
81.1%
76.7%
75.01%
72.3%
6.7%
5.1%
3.2%
1.2%
Table 1: Comparison of the Accuracy of GVE and PDP

In order to improve the accuracy rate, we will try to change the determined variables for the
CNF that is “UNSAT” for the first time, and then repeat the simplification and solution
process. Figure 8 shows accuracy and average number of retries, which indicates GVE canbasically control the number of retries below ten times, which is directly related to thedifficulty of the problem.

Figure 8: Accuracy of GVE and Retry Times in Different Data Intervals. Retry Times Meansthat We Change the Number of Variables We Have Determined, Re-simplify and then Pass the
New CNF to the Solver for Solution. the Abscissa Represents the Upper Bound of the Clause
Number Interval, for Example, 500 Represents the Interval (0, 500).
Degree of Simplification
Due to the fact that GVE uses the idea of machine learning to solve part of the problem, thenumber of removed clauses which is determined according to the number of simplified
variables indicates whether it is good enough to help reduce the workload of the original
problem. Figure 9 shows the average reduction ratio of GVE to original CNF formula indifferent interval data sets. The experimental results shows that after fixing some variables,
GVE not only reduces these fixed variables, but also some associated variables are deleted
indirectly during the process of simplification because of the deletion of their related clauses.

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Figure 9: Reduction ratio of GVE to original CNF formula.
Time
The main comparison objects in this part are the GVE model and the CADICAL solver. The
following results can be obtained based on the same data set. Note that here we only compare
among the data sets where the GVE model can get the correct results, and the data sets forwhich the correct answer is not available will be ignored. The time of GVE consists of twoparts: model solution time(the time to determine the glue variable plus the time to derive thevalue of the variable), and the time to use the deterministic solver to solve the simplified CNF.
In order to ensure the fairness of the comparison experiment, the deterministic solver here
also uses CADICAL. We use the "total process time since initialization" value in the output
result as the time for this part.
Figure 10-12 shows the comparison results of multiple data intervals. It can be seen from thefigures that in the case of a simpler SAT problems, the performance of GVE is similar to the
CADICAL solver, and they both takes very little time; as the difficulty of the problem
increases, that is, when the complexity of CNF formula gradually increases, the GVE model
has a stable performance.

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Figure 10: The Time for CADICAL vs. GVE on Simple Cnfs. as the Complexity of the
Problem Increases, the Advantages of GVE Gradually Appears.
For those complicated ones, especially the problems that CADICAL needs hundreds of
seconds to solve, GVE can also control the solution time to dozens of orders of magnitude,
which can be said to have outstanding performance on more complex problems.

Figure 11: The Time for CADICAL vs. GVE on Hard Cnfs. although CADICAL Performance
Fluctuates Greatly, GVE Always Performs Relatively Stable.
In order to analyze the performance of GVE, we also compared the solution time of GVE
model and the deterministic solver from the perspective of variable changes.

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Figure 12: The Time Changes for CADICAL vs. GVE with the Number of Variables.
For a group of CNFs with similar variables, the solution time of the deterministic solver
fluctuates greatly. GVE makes the solution time stable within a certain interval by finding
and then fixing the glue variables.

Figure 13: The Time for CADICAL vs. GVE On Cnfs that Have Similar Number of Variables.
It Can Be Seen that The Pure Model Part of GVE Performs Stable, that Is, We Can Determine
the Glue Variables of a CNF and its Value ina Short Time.
If the solution result of a CNF is UNSAT, in order to improve the accuracy of the GVE model
as well as avoiding erroneous results caused by model errors, we will perform multiple
calculations on such CNFs. This process is called “downgrade calculation”. In the process ofdowngrade calculation, GVE will reduce the number of fixed variables, re-simplify theoriginal CNF, and then solve it until the correct result is obtained. Figure 14 shows thechange in the number of deterministic variables and the time taken for the downgrade
solution.

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Figure 14: Number of Variables Fixed and Time Required after Downgrade Solution
UNSAT Instances
Excluding errors caused by model errors, there is another possibility that this CNF is indeed
UNSAT. Therefore, after a few failed attempts, GVE will start from another angle and try tofind the “UnsatCore” of the original problem. Due to the characteristics of UnsatCore, we use
the obtained glue variables to form new CNF, designated, which is formed by theoriginal CNF and new clauses that consists of the different combinations of glue variables aswell as their signs. Figure 15 shows the comparison of some GVE and CADICAL solution
results and solving time they need on UNSAT CNFs.

Figure 15: The Time for CADICAL vs. GVE on UNSAT Cnfs. GVE-Solver Time Is the Sum
of Time that Solving All Possible CNF Included in
From the above experimental results, it can be seen that GVE is a very useful compound
solver. We have also given full play to the advantages of model learning algorithms anddeterministic solvers. The idea of partial simplification can greatly reduce the solution time
for complex problems. At the same time, UnsatCore, which can solve unsolvable problems,
also greatly improves the credibility of the model.
Conclusion
In this article, we propose a composite model GVE to solve complex SAT problems. We
apply the idea of graph induction to the learning of CNF structure which avoids thecomplicated operation of training different models for different types of SAT problems, so

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there is no need to classify the data first. Secondly, we use reinforcement learning to find theglue variables and glue clauses of the CNF formula, and then use a neural network model
designed based on the idea of SP algorithm to determine the values of the glue variables
which are used to process the original SAT problem. Finally we use a deterministic solver tosolve the simplified CNF. This approach allows us to fix only the most critical part of thevariables for the entire problem, reducing the impact of model errors on problem solving, andat the same time improving the speed of solving complex problems.
Note that GVE may not be effective for originally simple problems, even slower thandeterministic solver, but it has a significant performance improvement for those complex
problems. This is also our intention of designing this model. GVE model provides an idea ofcombining neural networks and deterministic solvers, and our results also reveal thetremendous potential for pursuing this goal.

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Contact email: zwzhang@bupt.edu.cn

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Role of Learners’ Subjective Difficulty Rating Toward a System for Practicing EnglishSpeaking
Harumi Kashiwagi, Kobe University, JapanMin Kang, Kobe University, Japan
Kazuhiro Ohtsuki, Kobe University, Japan
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Abstract
This preliminary study on how to develop a system for English-speaking practices explores
the role a subjective difficulty rating should play in such a system, using a questionnaire anda level-based vocabulary list. By selecting 75 English verbs from the five difficulty levels in
the list, 72 Japanese university students rated the difficulty of answering questions in English
verbally on a five-point Likert scale. The results suggest that words of difficulty Levels 4 and5 should be targeted in designing a speaking practice system for the participating students.
Moreover, all the selected words in Level 3 offered some response variance in difficulty
rating, with standard deviation (SD) scores of 1.0 or higher, suggesting that the choice in theselection of Level 3 words depends on the individual student. Considering the detailed results,
all words with SD scores of difficulty ratings lower than 1.0 in Levels 4 and 5 were evaluatedas difficult or relatively difficult by more than 80% of the students. This indicates that any
speaking practice system should consider words from Levels 4 or 5 for which SD scores indifficulty ratings are lower than 1.0 as difficult words for these students. Although further
studies are needed, these results indicate that the average subjective difficulty rating scores
can likely provide an indication of the ideal difficulty level to target in an English-speaking
practice system. Moreover, SD scores could help customize the target vocabulary for each
student.
Keywords: Subjective Difficulty Rating, Speaking Practice, Language Use, Language
Learning System.

iafor
The International Academic Forumwww.iafor.org

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Introduction
The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2015) createdthe English proficiency promotion plan to comprehensively develop four core English skills
among Japanese students, especially their ability to produce English. However, research has
indicated that English language learners have substantial speaking anxiety (Suleimenova,2013); and this includes Japanese students (Woodrow, 2006). The results of our previous
study (Kashiwagi, Kang, & Ohtsuki, 2018) also demonstrated that many students do not feelthat they possess English-speaking proficiency. It can therefore be assumed that many
Japanese students are not confident about speaking in English. The lack of opportunities forthem to speak English in everyday life, outside language classes at school, may contribute tothis lack of confidence. A practice environment in which learners can become familiar withspeaking English is therefore necessary.
When considering how to promote English-speaking practices, we need to observe which
language items are most difficult in spoken English, and identify problematic words andphrases. Thus, we have been developing a prototype system for English-speaking practices(Kashiwagi, Kang, & Ohtsuki, 2020). This system attempts to support learners by providing
information on the extent to which they should attempt to use certain words and phrases. This
paper describes our preliminary study of exploring how a subjective difficulty rating shouldplay a role in designing a system of speaking practice for students. By using a level-based
vocabulary list and a questionnaire on the subjective difficulty levels of English verbs, thisstudy investigates the following research questions:
RQ1. In selecting words for English-speaking practice, what level of difficulty should betargeted?
RQ2. For which levels of word difficulty do the difficulty ratings provided by students havethe greatest response variance?
RQ3. Which words do students consider most difficult?
RQ4. Could a subjective difficulty rating of English words help further develop our system ofEnglish-speaking practice in a way that aids learners’ use of certain vocabulary?
We conducted this study on Japanese university students, selecting words from thevocabulary list “The New JACET List of 8000 Basic Words” (The Basic Word List Revision
Special Committee of JACET, 2016; hereafter, “the New JACET8000”). The remainder ofthis paper describes our experiment’s methodology, a discussion of our results, conclusions,the study’s limitations, and recommendations for additional research.
Related Studies
In the field of technology and L2 speaking, some automatic speech recognition functions
have been integrated into the language learning software, such as Rosetta Stone®. They
enable students to carry out interactive tasks within a limited range. According to McCrocklin(2016), the introduction of this technology helps students become more autonomous in theirpronunciation practice. Another research (Blake & Shiri, 2012) reported on the successes andchallenges of teaching Arabic within a distance learning environment. One of their findings
indicated that small-group computer-mediated communication sessions with sound and text
gave students more personal attention. Furthermore, the internet-based 3-dimensional virtualenvironment called “Second Life” has been integrated into EFL programs. According toWang, Song, Xia, and Yan (2009), participants perceived “Second Life” as useful and

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interesting and perceived the EFL program in this virtual environment as interesting. Jehma(2020) concluded that the students developed their English communication skills through theactivity with “Second Life.” Thus, the use of technology has the potential to enhance
students’ speaking ability, motivation, and autonomy.
However, few studies have focused on students’ self-assessment of their own performances(Janulevičienė & Kavaliauskienė, 2007). In some cases, self-assessment might be unreliable
and not reflective of the learner’s actual performance (Todd, 2002). Nevertheless, it could
raise learner awareness of language use and lead to developing learner responsibility andautonomy (Janulevičienė & Kavaliauskienė, 2007). We believe that learners’ subjective
difficulty ratings on the detailed learning items play meaningful roles in observing theirlearning processes.
Our Prototype System
We have been developing a prototype system for practicing English-speaking (Kashiwagi,
Kang, & Ohtsuki, 2020). This system aims to support learners by providing information on
the extent to which they should attempt to use certain words and phrases. The structure of the
prototype system is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Prototype System Overview
Our system consists of three different types of software: a question setting tool, MINI BASIC,
and AnimeViewer. The following provides an overview of how the system operates. When
we start the question setting tool, question related data are sent to the software MINI BASIC,
and converted into a script file for generating computer-generated (CG) content. CG
characters then appear on the screen of the AnimeViewer, a viewer tool for displaying CG
content. Next, CG characters give instructions and provide a question, which the student
orally answers. While listening to the student’s answer, the teacher checks their answer using
the question setting tool. When the system finishes providing questions, and after the answers
have been checked, the results are saved in the result file in the question setting tool.

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Though our prototype system can check whether students give correct answers, it does notenable us to assess how students truly feel about the difficulty of using certain words. It is
important to observe students’ reflective assessment about word difficulty to observe theirlearning situations on an individual basis. Therefore, the role of students’ subjective difficulty
ratings for selecting the words used in the system must be further explored.
Methods
Word List Creation
Words for our study were chosen from the New JACET8000, an educational vocabulary list
intended for Japanese university students who have studied English in middle school, highschool, and/or at university in Japan. The list features 8000 words typically used in middle
and high school English textbooks, entrance examinations for public high schools anduniversities, introductory academic books, English newspapers, and standardized English
tests such as TOEIC, TOEFL, and STEP (Mochizuki et al., 2016: 75). Eight thousand words
are presented in eight levels (Rank 1–1000, Rank 1001–2000, Rank 2001–3000, Rank 3001–
4000, Rank 4001–5000, Rank 5001–6000, Rank 6001–7000, and Rank 7001–8000) in
accordance with the frequency and educational significance of each word. We selected thewords from this list because it reflects the actual situation of English learning among
Japanese university students.
In this study, 15 English verbs were chosen from each of the following five levels, creating a
total of 75 words: Rank 1–1000, Rank 1001–2000, Rank 2001–3000, Rank 3001–4000, andRank 4001–5000. We selected the verbs that students would have learned thus far. Words
from the highest ranks—Rank 5001–6000, Rank 6001–7000, and Rank 7001–8000—were
not included because they would have been too difficult for first-year students to translateorally. Hereafter, we refer to the different ranks as Levels 1–5, where Level 1 means Rank 1–
1000, Level 2 means Rank 1001–2000, and so on.
Difficulty Level
Level 1
(Rank 1–1000)
Level 2
(Rank 1001–2000)
Level 3
(Rank 2001–3000)
Level 4
(Rank 3001–4000)

Level 5
(Rank 4001–5000)

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Words (and their New JACET8000 ranking)decide (560), grow (689), reduce (698), worry (723), share(725), improve (735), apply (741), shake (751), treat (777),
remove (802), notice (874), invite (952), solve (953), fix(982), burn (999)bury (1341), complain (1366), confuse (1373), behave(1376), float (1425), accept (1580), publish (1668), regard(1833), hide (1902), ignore (1918), observe (1930), whisper(1932), compete (1952), threaten (1968), propose (1976)
calculate (2072), dig (2076), melt (2135), apologize (2143),
spoil (2170), invest (2310), analyze (2329), consume(2332), polish (2461), spill (2475), bend (2620), sweep(2630), wipe (2635), evaluate (2838), hesitate (2918)
swallow (3421), exhaust (3580), stimulate (3589), infect(3612), suck (3617), abolish (3624), weave (3634), conquer(3638), swell (3639), expire (3646), penetrate (3741),
cultivate (3751), summarize (3754), sigh (3804), sew(3910)
diagnose (4283), accelerate (4439), shrink (4443), violate(4447), exaggerate (4462), insure (4467), inject (4477),

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furnish (4478), starve (4479), contradict (4495), refine(4506), worsen (4522), undertake (4714), resign (4937),
reinforce (4963)
Table 1: The Words Used in the Self-Reflective Feedback Questionnaire
ParticipantsThis study’s participants comprised 72 first-year students at a university in Japan. They
participated in the activity mentioned in the following section, and responded to the selfreflective feedback questionnaire.
Procedures
We administered warm-up activities in the language classes in which Japanese verbs (Table
1) were provided to students, who were then asked to translate them into English orally. A
self-reflective feedback questionnaire was then conducted to determine students’ difficulty intranslating each word into English. The difficulty values were scored using a five-point Likert
scale (1= easy, 2= relatively easy, 3= neutral, 4= relatively difficult, and 5= difficult).
Results and Discussion
RQ1: In selecting words for English-speaking practice, what level of difficulty should betargeted?
To determine this, we first calculated the average difficulty ratings for the individual words toinvestigate student perceptions overall. The average difficulty ratings for the words of eachlevel are shown in Figures 2 to 6. In these figures, the dotted red line indicates neutral
difficulty values.

Figure 2: Average Student Difficulty Ratings of the Words in Level 1 (Rank 1–1000)

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Figure 3: Average Student Difficulty Ratings of the Words in Level 2 (Rank 1001–2000)

Figure 4: Average Student Difficulty Ratings of the Words in Level 3 (Rank 2001–3000)

Figure 5: Average Student Difficulty Ratings of the Words in Level 4 (Rank 3001–4000)

Figure 6: Average Student Difficulty Ratings of the Words in Level 5 (Rank 4001–5000)
The ratings tended to increase roughly in conjunction with how the words ranked on the New
JACET8000. Specifically, the largest increase in the perceived difficulty occurred between
Levels 3 and 4 (Figures 4 and 5, respectively). There was also some increase between Levels
2 and 3 (Figures 3 and 4, respectively).
Next, to determine which words should be targeted in English-speaking practice, we
calculated the number of words in each level with an average difficulty rating higher than 3.

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As shown in Table 2, the number of words in Levels 1 and 2 were two and three, respectively.
There was a marked increase in the number of words in Level 3, which was seven.
Furthermore, the number of words increased again to 13 and 14 in Levels 4 and 5,
respectively. This means that the most marked increase in the number of words with adifficulty ranking higher than 3 was between Levels 3 and 4, which corresponds with theaverage ratings in the respective levels detailed above.
Level

Number of words with an average difficulty rating higher than 3

Level 1
2
Level 2
3
Level 3
7
Level 4
13
Level 5
14
Table 2: Number of Words Perceived as Most Difficult Per Level (15 Words Per Level)
Taken together, these results indicate that most students consider it difficult to translate thewords from Levels 4 and 5 into English. Some students also considered it difficult to translate
Level 3 words into English. These results suggest that English-speaking practices for the
students in this study should target words from Levels 4 and 5. The words in Level 3 received
more varied difficulty ratings from students, a phenomenon which is analyzed in more detailin the results for RQ2.
RQ2: For which levels of word difficulty do the difficulty ratings provided by students
have the greatest response variance?
To answer this question, we calculated the standard deviation (SD) scores of the difficulty
ratings in the words of each difficulty level. The number of words for which the SD scores
were 1.0 or higher are shown in Table 3.
Level
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5

Number of words with an SD score of 1.0 or higher
12
13
15
11
6
Table 3: Response Variance in Difficulty Ratings

These results demonstrate a relatively large number of words for which the SD scores were
1.0 or higher in Levels 1 and 2. Even more pronounced was the response variance indifficulty ratings for Level 3 words, all of which had SD scores of 1.0 or higher. Thisvariance is less pronounced in Levels 4 and 5. Based on these results, we recommend
determining whether Level 3 words should be targeted based on the needs of the individual
student.

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RQ3: Which words do students consider most difficult?
Based on the findings for RQ1, we investigated which Level 4- and Level 5-words were mostfrequently considered difficult. To provide a rough indication, we determined which words
were evaluated as being either “difficult” or “relatively difficult” by more than 80% of
students as an indicator. We assessed these words further by calculating their averagedifficulty and the SD scores of these ratings (Table 4). As Table 4 shows, seven words inLevel 4 and ten words in Level 5 were evaluated as difficult or relatively difficult by morethan 80% of students. This criterion was met by all the words for which the difficulty ratings
had SD scores lower than 1.0. These results suggest that words for which the SD scores werelower than 1.0 should be considered difficult words. They also suggest that an SD score of
1.0 in difficulty scores could be an indicator for determining what words are difficult for
students.
Level

Word

The percentage of students
The average
The SD score of
who evaluated it asvalue of thethe difficultydifficult or relatively
difficulty
ratings
difficultratings
exhaust
84.7
4.3
1.0
suck
90.3
4.6
0.9
weave
90.3
4.5
0.8
Level 4 swell
83.3
4.3
1.1
expire95.8
4.8
0.7
penetrate
91.7
4.7
0.8
cultivate
80.6
4.0
1.2
violate
91.7
4.6
0.8
exaggerate
88.9
4.5
0.8
inject86.1
4.4
1.3
furnish
88.9
4.7
0.9
Level 5 contradict
94.4
4.6
0.8
refine95.8
4.7
0.8
worsen97.2
4.6
0.6
undertake
94.4
4.6
0.7
resign
87.5
4.2
0.99
reinforce
98.6
4.8
0.5
Table 4: Level 4- and Level 5-Words Considered Difficult or Relatively Difficult
RQ4: Could a subjective difficulty rating of English words help further develop our
system of English-speaking practice in a way that aids learners’ use of certain
vocabulary?
This study used a subjective difficulty rating with a five-point Likert scale to analyze thedifficulty levels of certain words. The results suggest that average subjective difficulty ratings
can be used as a rough index of the ideal vocabulary level for learners to target. Moreover,
the SD scores of the difficulty ratings could help determine whether a specific word should
be selected for all students or only some students. Though a subjective difficulty rating is not
an objective vocabulary test, it allows us to observe how students truly feel about thedifficulty of using certain words. This differs from a paper-based vocabulary test, in which it
is difficult to assess students’ feelings about word difficulty when they give correct answers.
Although future studies are needed, subjective difficulty ratings can determine the best

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vocabulary words for learners to practice on an individual basis, thus improving their learning
situations. Our system aims to support learners by providing them with information to theextent to which they can use words and phrases. Students’ subjective difficulty ratings shouldplay a role in selecting the words used in English-speaking practices, based on the individual
learner.
Limitations and Recommendations
The current study has certain limitations. It was conducted with a small group of students,
and the feedback questionnaire investigated only 75 English verbs. More studies are needed
to target a larger number of students and words. Additionally, it is possible that the perceived
difficulty of using some words could change after students practice them, while other words
may never become easier to use, even after practice. By conducting pre- and post-practicequestionnaires, it is possible that the detailed changes in the perceived difficulty of each word
after practice could be observed. We hope to investigate this in subsequent studies.
Conclusions
This preliminary study for developing a system for English-speaking practices investigated
the role of a subjective difficulty rating through a questionnaire, using the vocabulary list “theNew JACET8000.” We conducted a self-reflective feedback questionnaire among 72
Japanese university students on the difficulty level of 75 English verbs, drawn from fivedifferent difficulty levels.
The results suggest that: (1) the words in Levels 4 and higher should be targeted in student
practice; (2) Level 3 words should be selected for practice based upon the individual student;(3) all Level 4- and Level 5-words for which the SD scores in response variance were lower
than 1.0 should be considered difficult words; and (4) individual students’ subjective
difficulty ratings should play a role when selecting their target words in the English-speaking
practice system.
This is a continuous study, for which we aim to target more students and words in the future,
to investigate these issues further. We also hope to assess how the detailed differences in the
difficulty levels of individual words could change by conducting a questionnaire both before
and after students practice using these words, and analyzing the results of the twoquestionnaires.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research Number
JP18K02822.

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References
Blake, R. J. & Shiri, S. (2012). Online Arabic language learning: What happens after? L2
Journal, 4(2), 230–246.
Japan Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. (2015). Seito no
eigoryoku kojyo suishin plan [The English proficiency promotion plan]. Retrieved
fromhttps://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/kokusai/gaikokugo/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2015/07/21/
1358906_01_1.pdf
Janulevičienė, V., & Kavaliauskienė, G. (2007). Self-assessment of vocabulary and relevant
language skills for evaluation purposes. Santalka, 15(4), 10–15.
http://www.cpe.vgtu.lt/index.php/cpe/issue/view/13.html
Jehma, H. (2020). Second Life: A three-dimensional virtual world for developing Thai EFL
learners’ English communication skills. Turkish Online Journal of Distance
Education, 21(Special Issue-IODL), 49–60.
https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/tojde/issue/56079
Kashiwagi, H., Kang, M., & Ohtsuki, K. (2018, March). A basic study on the conformity ofJapanese university students in language communication activities. Paper presented at
The Asian Conference on Education & International Development 2018, Kobe, Japan.
https://papers.iafor.org/submission40071/
Kashiwagi, H., Kang, M., & Ohtsuki, K. (2020, September). Role of a subjective difficulty
rating in using a system for practicing English speaking. Paper presented at theBarcelona Conference on Education 2020, Online from Barcelona, Spain.
https://papers.iafor.org/submission58730/
McCrocklin, S. M. (2016). Pronunciation learner autonomy: The potential of Automatic
Speech Recognition. System, 57, 25–42.
Mochizuki, M., Ishikawa, S., Sugimori, N., Murata, M., Uemura, T., Shimizu, S., &Kanamaru, T. (2016). The New JACET8000: On Compiling a Vocabulary List for
English Language Learners at Japanese Universities. In The Basic Word List Revision
Special Committee of JACET (Eds.), The New JACET List of 8000 Basic Words (70–90). Tokyo: Kirihara Shoten.
Suleimenova, Z. (2013). Speaking anxiety in a foreign language classroom in Kazakhstan.
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 93, 1860–1868.
The Basic Word List Revision Special Committee of JACET (The Japan Association ofCollege English Teachers). (2016). The New JACET List of 8000 Basic Words. Tokyo,
Japan: Kirihara Shoten.
Todd, R. W. (2002). Using self-assessment for evaluation, English Teaching Forum, 40(1),
16–19.

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Wang, C., Song, H., Xia, F., & Yan, Q. (2009). Integrating Second Life into an EFL program:Students’ perspectives. Journal of Educational Technology Development andExchange, 2(1), 1-16.
Woodrow, L. (2006). Anxiety and speaking English as a second language. The RELC
Journal, 37(3), 308–328.
Contact email: kasiwagi@kobe-u.ac.jp

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Adaptation of COVID-19-related Loanwords into JapaneseJeongsoo Lim, University of Tsukuba, Japan
The Asian Conference on Language 2021
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Abstract
In recent years, the quantity of loanwords adapted from foreign languages has increased as
globalization advanced. Among this process, assimilation and extinction of the words arenatural phenomena that have been observed in the past and the present. The changes
produced by these processes sometimes cause communication gaps among people due to thelack of understanding. This study aims to shed light on how loanwords related to the COVID19 pandemic have been adapted and used in comparison with the equivalent native lexicons
in contemporary Japanese. In an attempt to achieve this research goal, firstly, COVID-19related articles were collected from the Mainichi newspaper during the first wave of thepandemic. Secondly, loanwords were extracted by using morphological analysis. Lastly, thefrequency of use of the selected loanwords and each loanword's changing tendency incomparison to the equivalent native Japanese words were analyzed. The findings show that
COVID-19-related loanwords present distinct features in each word, and they can be divided
into three groups: (1) loanwords that have consistent trend and frequent usage, (2) loanwords
used in the same proportion as the equivalent native lexicons, and (3) loanwords that are
replaced by native lexicons with time. These results contribute to understanding the processof loanwords adaptation in Japanese.
Keywords: Adaptation, COVID-19-Related Loanwords, Japanese, Equivalent Native
Lexicons

iafor
The International Academic Forumwww.iafor.org

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Introduction

The Japanese language is made up of three primary components. Native words (i.e. wago),
Sino-Japanese words (i.e. kango) and loanwords (i.e. gairaigo) (Daulton, 2007; Irwin, 2011).
Among these, loanwords that come from Western languages, have continually increased as
globalization advanced and mutual relationship among nations developed. In general,
English-based loanwords are more common than other loanwords from European languages(Miller, 1967). It is well known that loanwords make up approximately 10% of the Japanese
language (Kunert, 2020), and that indicates the significance loanwords have in the Japaneselexicon.
When loanwords are integrated into Japanese, they typically undergo modifications, such as
orthographical, phonological, morphological, semantic, and syntactic assimilations (Haugen,1950; Kay, 1995; Loveday, 1996; Wawrzyniuk, 2017). After undergoing these systemicchanges, they finally become part of the Japanese lexicon. Kay (1995) noted that Englishbased loanwords can easily be absorbed because of the existence of grammatical markers andKatakana characters in Japanese. The author especially highlights the fact that Katakana
characters aid the assimilation of loanwords into the Japanese language system. Besides that,
other studies focused on the assimilation of loanwords by comparing them with native words
that have similar meanings (Kim, 2006a, 2006b; Kuya 2013). Kim (2006b) analyzed theword kēsu (case) considering its internal factors (i.e., the conditions under which the word
can be used in a sentence) and pointed out that this loanword became a widely used word inJapanese. On a different approach, Kuya (2013) examined the same word kēsu considering
the external factors (i.e., user’s age and gender, educational background, etc.) and found outthat the younger people use kēsu more than its equivalent native words in Japanese.
Loanwords adaptation into Japanese varies from word to word. Thus, incomplete assimilationof loanwords sometimes causes communication gaps among people (Jinnouchi, 2007;
NINJAL, 2006, 2007). Jinnouchi (2007) points out that the older the person is, the lower theirawareness of loanwords gets, and this causes communication gaps, a social problem beyond
language and culture. In an attempt to minimize the problem of the unintelligibility ofloanwords, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology has
proposed near-equivalent native words to replace those loanwords (Kunert, 2020). Also, oneof the traits of the loanwords is the fact that they keep continuously changing and that theychange very fast. Considering this aspect, it is possible to assume that it is necessary tocontinuously identify newly adapted words.
Since 2020, COVID-19 has emerged in most countries, bringing a lot of international
attention. Because of that, COVID-19-related words appeared and made a substantial impact
on our languages (Ahmed and Islam, 2020; Mweri, 2021; Oxford English Dictionary, 2020;
Roig–Marín, 2020). In this sense, COVID-19 and its effects on the Japanese language can beused as an example of the process of adaptation of relatively recent words into Japanese.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the process of adaptation of loanwords in Japaneseparticularly, through an analysis of COVID-19-related loanwords comparing them with theequivalent native lexicons. By doing this research, we can better understand how loanwords
are integrated into Japanese and how we can cope with the deluge of new loanwords in thenear future. In the next section, we describe the methodology used to achieve our researchgoals. In section 3, we classify the COVID-19-related loanwords based on the change ofusage trend compared to the equivalent native lexicons. Lastly, in the final section, we

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2.

Methodology

As shown in Figure 1, the methodology of this research can be divided into four steps.

Figure 1: Research Procedures
Step 1: Collecting COVID-19-related articles from a newspaper
In the first step, we collected COVID-19-related articles from the Mainichi Shinbun, which isone of the national newspapers in Japan. Specifically, we gathered articles during the firstwave of the pandemic, from January to May 2020, because the number of COVID-19 cases
in Japan shows its first peak in the middle of April, as shown in Figure 2 (Ministry of Health,Labour and Welfare, 2020). We collected articles by keyword search, including shingata
haien (a new type of pneumonia), korona (wirusu) (corona (virus)), and COVID. The total
numbers of sentences extracted from news articles was 26,124.

Figure 2: Number of COVID-19 cases in Japan (January ~ May 2020)

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Step 2: Extracting COVID-19-related loanwords
In the second step, loanwords written in Katakana were extracted from the collected articles
by using morphological analysis. However, loanwords that were already widely used, such as
wakuchin (vaccine), wirusu (virus), etc. were excluded.
Step 3: Analyzing the frequency of use of the loanwords and their equivalent native lexicons
In the third step, we investigated the frequency of use of the selected loanwords and thenative lexicons that have similar meanings in Japanese. The native lexicons include both
Sino-Japanese words and the noun phrases that combine multiple Sino-Japanese words (e.g.,
sekaiteki na dairyūkō for pandemic, kokibo na kanja shūdan for cluster). Sino-Japanesewords (kango) are distinguished from native words (wago). However, Sino-Japanese words
were adopted much earlier than English-based loanwords and settled to Japanese. Thus, inthis study, Sino-Japanese words are considered as native lexicons in a broad sense andselected as targets. Also, we only selected as targets for this study loanwords that, combinedwith their equivalent native words, were used more than 30 times in total.
Table 1 presents the rule for counting the frequency of loanwords and native lexicons.
Loanwords used independently (without the Japanese translation in parentheses) (L1) andloanwords used with a Japanese translation in parentheses (L2) were counted as loanwords.
Native lexicons accompanied by the equivalent loanword in parentheses (N1) and native
lexicon used independently (N2) were counted as native lexicons.
Table 1: Rules for counting the frequency of loanwords and native lexicons
Count
Classifications
Expressions in articles
Loanwords
Native lexicons
L1
rokkudaun
1
0
Loanwords
L2
rokkudaun (toshi fūsa)
10N1toshi fūsa (rokkudaun)
01
Native lexicons
N2
toshi fūsa
01Step 4: Examining each loanword's changing tendency by comparing with native lexicons
Lastly, we re-researched the native lexicons that appeared in parentheses because there is apossibility that those can be used independently. In addition, we also investigated eachloanword's changing tendency by comparing the loanwords with their equivalent native
lexicons.
3.

Results

As for the frequency of use, we found a considerable number of COVID-19-related
loanwords as given in Table 2. kurasutā (cluster) shows the highest frequency, and followedby terewāku (telework) and pandemikku (pandemic). There were also a variety of loanwords
such as posuto korona (post-COVID-19), sutei hōmu (staying at home), afutā korona (after
COVID-19), autobureiku (outbreak), wizu korona (with COVID-19), but, since they wereused at a low frequency, they were eventually eliminated from the analysis. We only used
loanwords that, combined with their equivalent native words, appeared more than 30 times intotal, as mentioned earlier. More precisely, eight types, including remote work (i.e., the total
number of different words) and 1,099 tokens (i.e., the total number of times the word

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appears), were found in the newspapers. Table 3 shows these target loanwords and theirequivalent native lexicons with frequencies from the newspaper.
Table 2: COVID-19-related loanwords and their frequencies from the newspaper
Loanwords in Japanese
Loanwords in English
Tokenskurasutācluster237
terewāku (rimōtowāku)
telework (remote work)151
pandemikku
pandemic
92
rokkudaun
lockdown
63
korona shokku
coronavirus shock, shock of COVID-19
46
ōbāshūto
overshoot
27
ekumo
ECMO
26
fēsu shiirudo
face shield (mask)
18sōsharu disutansu (disutanshingu)
social distancing
17
sājikaru masuku
surgical mask
14
sāmogurafi
thermography
13
doraibu surū
drive through12
fēsu gādoface guard
11
posuto korona
post-COVID-19
6
infodemikku
infodemic
5
sāmokamera
thermal camera
4
sutei hōmustaying at home3
shiirudo masuku(face) shield mask
2afutā korona
after COVID-19
2
epidemikku
epidemic
1
korona pātii
corona (virus) party, COVID party
1
autobureiku
outbreak1
nyūnōmaru
new normal
1
wizu korona
with COVID-19
1
Total
773
Further, we also found out that each COVID-19-related loanword presents distinct features,and they can be classified into three main groups based on the relationship with native
lexicons. The first group comprises only loanwords that were largely used from January to
May 2020. The second group is characterized by loanwords used in the same proportion as
the equivalent native lexicons. Finally, the third group is made up of loanwords that were
replaced by a native lexicon with time. All loanwords in these groups are used only as nouns.
Figure 3 details the usage tendency of loanwords and native lexicons in group 1. The
frequency in this figure shows the total of loanwords and native words. This group includes‘pandemic’ and ‘corona shock.’ For this group, there is a clear trend of using mainly
loanwords. A possible explanation for this is that there are no native lexicons to express theexact meaning of these loanwords. In the case of ‘pandemic,’ its alternative native lexicon
sekaiteki (na) dairyūkō was used a few times, but ‘pandemic’ was dominant over the target
period.

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Table 3: Target loanwords and their native lexicons with frequencies from the newspaper
Loanwords
Native lexicons
Tokensshūdan kansen
mass infections
kanja shūdanpatients groupa group of infectedkurasutācluster169
kansensha no shūdanpatients
a small group of
kokibo na kanja shūdanpatientsterewāku
teleworkzaitaku kinmu
working from home167
(rimōtowāku) (remote work)
toshi no fūsaclosing of city
rokkudaun
lockdown
56
zendo fūsanationwide lockdown
kansen bakuhatsu
explosion of infection
bakuhatsuteki na kansen
explosive spreading of
kakudai
infectionōbāshūto
overshoot55
bakuhatsuteki na kanja
sudden explosivekyūzō
increase of patientskansensha no
explosive increase of
bakuhatsuteki zōka
infected people
sōsharushakaiteki kyorisocial distancing
social15
disutansu
distancing
shakaiteki kyori no kakuho keep social distancing(disutanshingu)
pandemikku
pandemic
sekaiteki (na) dairyūkōworldwide epidemic
4coronavirus
korona shokku shock, shock－0of COVID-19
Total
466

Figure 3: Usage trend of loanwords and native lexicons from group 1
In (1), (2), and (3), we present examples of sentences with the loanwords from group 1. In (1)and (3), these loanwords are used as L1 patterns in the newspapers. On the other hand, (2)shows the L2 pattern (native lexicon coming after the loanword ‘pandemic’). ‘pandemic’means a disease that spread throughout the world, and ‘Corona shock’ is literally a shock thatcan cause the standstill of the global economy because of the spreading of the coronavirus.

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Tada,genjō-opandemikku towa ninteishinakatta. (March 1, p.3)
However current situation-ACC pandemic-COMP recognized-NEG‘However, (they) did not recognize the current situation as a pandemic.’
2)

Sekaijū-ga
pandemikku (sekaiteki dairyūkō)-toWhole world-NOM pandemic
worldwide epidemic-COMP
kakutōshiteiru.
is fighting(March 25, p.6)

‘The entire world is fighting against the pandemic (worldwide epidemic).’
3)

Korona shokku-dekōkū
gyōkai-no
keshiki-wa
Corona shock because of aviation industry-GEN landscape-TOP
ippenshita.
changed(April 27, p.2)

‘The landscape of aviation industry rapidly changed because of the Coronavirus shock.’
Figure 4 shows the results for COVID-19-related words from group 2. This group includes‘cluster’ and ‘telework (remote work).’ The former means ‘a group of cases of disease’, andthe latter means ‘working from home.’ It can be seen from Figure 4 that both of them have incommon the fact that the loanwords and the equivalent native lexicons are used in the same
proportion. ‘cluster’ takes the higher proportion compared to its native lexicon, but native
lexicons such as kokibo na kanja shūdan (a small group of patients), shūdan kansen (massinfections), kansensha no shūdan (a group of infected patients) were also used.

Figure 4: Usage trend of loanwords and native lexicons from group 2
Sentences (4) and (6) present examples of the L1 pattern whereas, (5) and (7) present the
opposite pattern (N1 and N2, respectively), in which the native lexicon comes first. As
mentioned before, there are several native lexicons that express the same meaning of‘cluster,’ but in the examples bellow, we only present one of those lexicons kokibo na kanja
shūdan (a small group of patients). On the contrary to this, only one native lexicon can beseen as a substitute for ‘telework (remote work),’ which is zaitaku kinmu (working fromhome).

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Futatsuno ōkina kurasutā-ga Nagoya-ni
dekita.
Twobigcluster-NOM Nagoya-LOC occurred(April 16, p.24)‘Two big clusters occurred in Nagoya.’
5)

Tada,
chiiki goto-ni
kokibo na kanja shūdan (kurasuta)-ga hanmeishita
However region each-LOC small
patients group cluster-NOM identify
baai-wa kyūen-omotomeru.
(February 28, p.1)
case-TOP closing schools-ACC require‘However, closing schools is required when a small group of patients is identified in eachregion.’6)

Kōjō
ya inshokuten nado dōshitemo
terewāku
Factories and restaurants etc. no matter what telework
dekinai gyōmu mo aru
tameda.
cannot business also there is because(May 26, p.7)

‘Because there are some business in which telework is not possible such as factories andrestaurants etc.’
7)

Ōte
kigyō
nado-de zaitaku kinmu-ga
hirogari,
Large companies etc.-LOC at home working-NOM spread,nomikai-o
jishukusuru ugoki-ga
deteirunoda.
drinking-ACC self-restraint movement-NOM is occurring(February 27, p.7)

‘Working from home has become more widespread among large companies and a movementof self-restraint of drinking after work is occuring.’
The usage trend of COVID-19-related words from group 3 is presented in Figure 5. This
group includes ‘social distance (distancing), ‘lockdown’ and ‘overshoot.’ It is apparent thatloanwords have been replaced with native lexicons with time. Regardless of the totalfrequency, the decreasing tendency of loanword proportion is consistent. It indicates thatloanwords have been substituted by native lexicons, such as shakaiteki kyori (social
distancing), toshi no fūsa (closing of city), and kansen bakuhatsu (explosion of infection).
‘social distancing (distance)’ means the physical space between people to minimize thespread of the virus. ‘lockdown’ is a measure that restricts individuals from going outside in
an attempt to control the spreading of the disease. ‘overshoot’ means an explosion of thenumber of infected people. In March and April, the pattern that uses loanwords at the front isseen as in the examples in (8), (10), and (12). In contrast, the other pattern, which uses native
lexicons at the front, gradually increased as time passed, as exemplified in (9), (11), and (13).

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Figure 5: Usage trend of loanwords and native lexicons from group 3
8)

Ion-wayōka, kyaku-ga
reji-nomae-deitteino kyori
Aeon-TOP the 8th customers-NOM register-GEN front-LOC a certain distance“sōsharu disutansu (shakaiteki kyori)”-o totte naraberuyō, ichibu tenpo-nosocial distancing (social distance)-ACC
keep get in line some stores-GEN
yuka-nimejirushi-no teepu-o
hatta.
(April 9, p.25)
floor-LOC sign-GEN
tape-ACC attached‘On the 8th, Aeon attached a marker tape on the floor of some stores so that customers could
keep a certain distance (“social distancing”) while lining in front of the cash register.’
9)

Shikashi jinkō
2 oku 1000 mannin no uchi
1300 mannin-wa
But
population 210 million people among
13 million people-TOP
hinkon chiku-ni
sumi, shakaiteki kyori-ga
torenai.
(May 26, p.7)
poor
areas-LOC live social
distancing-OBJ keep-NEG‘But, 13 million people out of the 210 million population live in poor areas and cannot keepsocial distancing.’
10)

Somosomo Nihon-no genzai-nohō
seido dewa rokkudaun (toshi fūsa)-no
Originally Japan-GEN present-GEN legal system in lockdown city closing-GEN
shikumi-ga
nai.
(April 10, p.17)
system-NOM there be-NEG‘Originally, there is not lockdown (city closing) system in Japan's current legal system.’

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Abe Sinzō shushō-wamuika, shushō kantei-de
kishadan-ni
Abe Sinzō prime minister-TOP the 6th Minister's Office-LOC reporters-DAT“kaigainoyōna toshi-no fūsa
(rokkudaun)-wa sinai.
(April 7, p.1)
overseas likecity-GEN closing lockdown-TOP do-NEG‘Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters at the Prime Minister's Office on the 6th, "Wewill not close cities (lockdown) like people overseas did.’
12)

Kōshita jōkyō
kara ishi
ya senmonka kara ōbāshūto
Like this circumstances from doctors and experts
from overshoot(bakuhatsuteki na kansen kakudai)-okenensuru koe-ga
explosive
infection spreading-ACC worry
voice-NOM
tsuyomatteimashita.
(April 8, p.6)
increased‘Under these circumstances, the concerns of doctors and experts about overshoots (explosive
spreading of infection) increased.’
13)

Kansen bakuhatsu-ga susumi, Chūgoku seifu-wa
1 gatsu 23 nichi-ni
Infection explosion-NOM increased China
government-TOP January 23th-LOC
Bukan-ofūsashita.
(May 4, p.10)
Wuhan-ACC locked‘As the explosion of infection increased, the Chinese government imposed a lockdown in
Wuhan on 23rd January.’
4.

Discussions & Conclusions

In the present study, we examined how COVID-19-related loanwords have been incorporated
into the Japanese language. Firstly, we found that a considerable number of COVID-19related loanwords were used in a span of five months. Some loanwords were accepted andused since there is no other way to express the same meaning more clearly using native
lexicons, and some loanwords were used in spite of the fact that there were alreadyinterchangeable native lexicons.
The usage trend of loanwords varied depending on the word even though a number ofloanwords were adopted due to the spread of COVID-19. Based on the comparison between
loanwords and their equivalent native lexicons, loanwords were divided into three groups:
The first one is the group that shows the trend of mainly using loanwords. The second one is
the group in which the loanwords and their equivalent native lexicons are used in the same
proportion. The third one is the group that shows the opposite trend of the first group, which
is loanwords being replaced with their equivalent native lexicons. Focusing on loanwords
included in the last group, we found out that they were considered to be unfamiliar anddifficult to use by Japanese speakers, and their usage became an issue. According to the“Bōeishō,” (2020) and Yamashita (2020) websites, these loanwords should be replaced by
Japanese native lexicons because they are not generic terms. From the result of the last group,
it seems that this public issue may affect the frequency of use of the loanwords. The results ofthis study indicate that the external environments, for example, social issues or public opinion,
have a big impact on the incorporation of loanwords.

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Loanwords related to COVID-19 are only used as nouns because they are still in the earlystage of adaptation. A majority of loanwords in Japanese are nouns (Loveday, 1996) since it
is easier to adapt nouns than other parts-of-speech (Daulton, 2007). However, there are verbs
related to COVID-19 in English. For example, the expression ‘(to) socially distance’ is a verb
made up from the expression ‘social distancing’ (Collins; Merriam-Webster). Investigating
the trend of loanwords, including parts-of-speech, can help to clarify the adaptation system.
This study contributes to understanding the process of loanwords adaptation in Japanese. In
future researches, we plan to examine COVID-19-related loanwords during the second andthird waves in Japan and then compare the first wave, the second wave, and the third wave toverify whether there are differences or not. We also plan to investigate COVID-19-related
loanwords in Korean, which has many common grammatical features with Japanese andcompare the differences in adaptation of the loanwords between the two languages (Japaneseand Korean).

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March 7, 2021, from https://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/socially%20distanceMiller, R.A. (1967). The Japanese language. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company.

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Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. (2020). Ōpun deita [Open data]. Ministry of Health,Labour and Welfare of Japan. https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/covid-19/open-data.html
Mweri, J. (2021). Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) effects on language use: An analysis ofneologisms. Linguistics and Literature Studies, 9(1), 36-47.
NINJAL (Ed.). (2006). Gairaigo iikaetebiki [A guide to paraphrasing loanwords]. Tokyo:
Gyōsei.
NINJAL (Ed.). (2007). Kōkyōbaitai no gairaigo: ‘gairaigo’ iikae teian o sasaeru chōsa
kenkyū [Loanwords in the public media: basic research on ‘paraphrasing loanwords’].
Tokyo: Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyūjō.
Oxford English Dictionary. (2020). Oxford languages 2020 words of an unprecedented year.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://languages.oup.com/word-of-the-year/2020/
Roig–Marín, A. (2020). English-based coroneologisms: A short survey of our COVID-19related vocabulary. English Today, 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078420000255
Wawrzyniuk, J. (2017). Assimilation of English borrowings in Japanese. Crossroads. A
Journal of English Studies, 19, 28-39.
Yamashita, M. (2020, March 28). Ōbāshūto, rokkudaun… senmonyōgō naze katakanago
bakari [Overshoot, lockdown…Why are there only Katakana terminology?].
Nishinippon. https://www.nishinippon.co.jp/item/n/595744/

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If You Know What I Mean: Rendering the Causative in Japanese and Croatian
Petra Jaklin, University of Tsukuba, Japan
The Asian Conference on Language 2021
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Abstract
Japanese causative sentences can oftentimes be ambiguous in their meaning. This especiallyapplies to the saseru causative verb form which can be used to convey coercion andpermission, amongst other meanings. This research focuses on a survey conducted amongst
learners and former learners of Japanese who are native speakers of Croatian, and explores
how example saseru and temorau sentences are translated into Croatian, i.e. how their
meaning is expressed in a language that is so vastly different from Japanese. The survey also
touches upon the rendition of Croatian sentences into Japanese, and analyses the expressions
used by the participants of the survey to express the Japanese causative meaning in Croatian(and vice versa). The survey shows the variety of language expressions used in order totransfer a sentence that has a fixed form in Japanese, and what nuances are carried by theindividual expressions.
Keywords: Causative, Japanese, Croatian, Survey

iafor
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Introduction
Japanese causative morphology, (i.e. the saseru causative suffix, and consequently theJapanese causative verb form) can be an obstacle in understanding the meaning of Japanesecausative sentences due to its ambiguous nature – the same verb form can be used to express
a variety of meanings, the most common being coercion and permission (Fukada, 2010;
Kuroda, 1965; Santorini & Heycock, 1988). In English, for example, sentence meaning isunambiguous because coercion can be expressed through the usage of the auxiliary such as`make` (ex. I made my brother fix the fence.) and `let` (ex. I let my sister braid my hair.) (see(Santorini & Heycock, 1988)). Croatian functions in much the same way as English; it does
not rely on causative morphology in order to express causation, so a variety of expressions
can be used in order to render the causative meaning1 (Sinčić, 2018; also Glumac, 2015;
Kapić, 2020). The problem that arises is the following: as Fukada (2010) discusses, Japanesesaseru sentences can carry different meanings, so at times there exists an uncertainty
regarding the meaning a sentence is used to express. Consequently, how is such a sentencetransferred into another language, especially one that uses different grammatical methods toexpress the same concept?
In general, a causative sentence carries the meaning of somebody of a higher status (causer)
either making somebody else of a lower status (causee) perform an action that the causer
instigated, or exerting influence over the causee (mental, emotional) (Mauriello, 2017).
Causation in Japanese is commonly expressed through the causative verbal form (saseru
causative verb – ikaseru). This research focuses on the most common way of expressing
causation in Japanese, the saseru causative sentences, and touches upon sentences employing
the temorau benefactive construction. Although lexical causation is also one of the ways of
expressing causative meaning in Japanese and other languages, it is out of scope of thisresearch. Most commonly, the causative sentence is associated with the coercive meaning (inwhich the causee does not want to carry out the action) or permissive (in which case thecausee is willing to perform the action) (Fukada, 2010:28-29). When talking about coercion,
temorau sentences can also be used to express coercive meaning, similar to that of saseru
coercive sentences (Mauriello, 2017; Wu, 2020; 李仙花, 2001). However, in the case oftemorau coercive sentences, their causer is not necessarily of a higher status than their causee,and expresses milder, “polite coercion” as noted by Mauriello (2017:104). An example ofcoercive meaning expressed by saseru and temorau sentences is as follows:
Example1)

母が子どもに部屋を掃除させる。(coercion)
Haha ga kodomo ni heya o sōji saseru2.

2)

母は子どもに部屋を掃除してもらう。(milder coercion)
Haha wa kodomo ni heya o sōji shitemorau.
The Mum makes the child clean the (their) room.

1
2

The factitive is also discussed when talking about causation (Kapić, 2020; Sinčić, 2018).
Hepburn romanization style is used throughout this paper.

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Although the meaning expressed is the same, the nuance in each sentence is different –sentence 1a) is considered more forceful than sentence 1b).
As mentioned above, previous research has already discussed the ambiguity of Japanesesaseru sentences and the possible meanings they can be used to express, which connects tothe aim of this research – how are Japanese causative sentences transferred into anotherlanguage (in this case Croatian) ?
Unlike Japanese, Croatian uses a variety of means to express causation, since it has no
predominant verbal form associated with the causative meaning. Although causative
morphology does exist, it is limited, and causation is predominantly expressed lexically or
through periphrastic phrases. Since Croatian does not have a causative verbal form in thesense of the Japanese saseru causative verbal form, a coercive sentence such as
Example 2
1)

先生が子どもに作文を書かせる。
Sensei ga kodomo ni sakubun o kakaseru.
The teacher makes the children write an essay.

can be rendered into Croatian as both:1)
Učitelj tjera djecu da pišu sastav. (make+write) coercive
The teacher makes the children write an essay.
2)

Učitelj dopušta djeci da pišu sastav. (let/allow+write) permissive
The teacher lets the children write an essay.

The reason why both interpretations are acceptable is due to the fixedness of the causative
form and its ambiguity; although the sentence is coercive, that is known to the author of thesentence, but not necessarily to the reader, making both interpretations viable. Sinceinterpretations may vary, a single causative sentence can be expressed in different ways in
Croatian thanks to the variety of linguistic means available.
Literature on the causative tends to firstly introduce it as coercive, so if a non-native Japanese
speaker were to associate the saseru causative sentence with the meaning of coercion, this
could be considered logical. However, whether that is so, and in which way that meaning istransferred into Croatian is a question that this survey aims to clarify. This research aims tohighlight which linguistic methods were preferred by the participants of the survey for the
expression of causative sentence meaning, and discusses the meaning of expressions used.
Although the main focus is on Japanese example sentences and their Croatian translations,
Croatian example sentences and their Japanese translations will also be briefly mentioned.
Furthermore, through this survey the difference in the nuance of coercion between saseru andtemorau sentences is tested to see whether there is any difference in expression between thetwo forms.

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The Survey

The survey this research is based on is an online survey conducted amongst native Croatianspeakers who are either currently studying Japanese or have experience studying the Japanese
language (i.e. former students) from two universities in Croatia. The survey was conductedfrom late December 2020 to mid-January 2021, and had a total of 34 survey participants,
ranging from 1st year undergraduate students to master`s course students, and students who
have completed their Japanese course; 16 participants had experience studying Japanese
before enrolling into university/their Japanese course, while 18 participants had no priorJapanese language learning experience. Most participants have not taken an Japanese
proficiency exam (JLPT - Japanese-Language Proficiency Test; 6 participants have sat theexam), but the majority of participants (15 participants) judged their Japanese language
proficiency level as B1 (Independent user - according to the CEFR3 language proficiency
scale).
The survey consisted of 14 example sentences that the participants were asked to translate
into Croatian (9 sentences) and Japanese (5 sentences). The survey also included questions
about the participants` Japanese language study experience and their proficiency level, as
well as some general questions about the Japanese causative and their opinion/understandingof it.
2.

Results

The example sentences in the survey are summarised in Table 1 below:
No.
Example sentence
1
彼女が彼氏に箱を運ばせた。
Kanojo ga kareshi ni hako wo
hakobaseta.
2
私は犬を公園につれて行き、走らせた。
Watashi wa inu o kōen ni tsurete iki,hashiraseta.
3
父は洗車場（せんしゃじょう）で車を洗車（せんしゃ）させた。
Chichi wa senshajō de kuruma osensha saseta.
4
おいしそうな缶詰（かんづめ）を買って、ねこに食べさせる。
Oishisōna kanzume o katte, neko nitabe saseru.
5
春の暖(あたた)かさが桜を咲かせます。
Haru no atatakasa ga sakura osakasemasu.
6
妹の声がきれいだから、私の好きな3

English translation
The girl had the/her boyfriend carry
the box.
I took the dog to the park and let himrun.

Dad had his/the car washed at the carwash.

I bought a can of food that looked
good, and I fed it to the cat.

The spring warmth makes the sakura
bloom.

My younger sister has a lovely voiceCouncil of Europe Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR):
https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages/level-descriptions

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so I asked her to sing me a song that
歌を少し歌ってもらった。
Imōto no koe ga kirei dakara, watashi I like for a bit.
no sukina uta o sukoshi utatte moratta.
弟は手をケガしているから、私がお My younger brother injured his handso I`m helping him eat/feeding him
昼ご飯を食べさせている。
Otōto wa te o kega shite iru kara, lunch.
watashi ga ohiru o tabesaseteiru.
兄に自転車の修理（しゅうり）をし I asked my brother to fix my/the bikefor me.
てもらった。
Ani ni jitensha no shuuri o shite
moratta.
スカートは長すぎるから、短くして The skirt was too long so I had it
shortened.
もらった。
Sukāto wa nagasugiru kara, mijikaku
shite moratta.
Mama me je poslala u trgovinu po Mum sent me to the store to get
mlijeko.
milk.
Dala sam psa na šišanje.
I had my dog groomed.
Baka me natjerala da pojedem još Grandma made me eat anotherjednu sarmu.
sarma.
(sarma are cabbage rolls, a traditional
Croatian winter dish)Prijatelji su me iznenadili za rođendan. Friends surprised me on my birthday.
Rastužila sam prijateljicu jer joj nisam I made my friend sad because I
došla na rođendan.
didn`t attend her birthday (party).
Table 1: Example Sentences in the Survey

The example sentences in Table 1 were constructed by the author of the survey and wereconstructed with different causative uses in mind (coercion, permission, manipulation,internal/emotional influence) employing both animate and inanimate causers and causees4.
During the analysis of results, a sentence which is deemed `incomprehensible`, has a major
grammatical mistake pertaining to the causative verb form (wrong verb selection and/or a
mistake in the verb form), or the role of the causer/causee, was counted as a mistake (i.e. therole of the causer and causee are reversed, the causer is preforming an action when that was
not meant by the original sentence). Smaller, stylistic mistakes were not taken into
consideration (e.g. in one of the responses, hako=box was translated as a “package”, or if
there were a mistake in the tense but not the verb/causative form itself) since they do notaffect the expression used to rely the overall causative meaning of a sentence. Someparticipants gave more than one answer, and blanks (i.e. lack of response) were not counted
as mistakes.
The participant`s answers are summarised in Table 2 below, showing the most commonlyused expressions for each example sentence.

4

The examples in the survey were chosen after conducting a pilot survey.

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Answers
Mistakes1
causee+{njoj/joj+verb}+object
3
natjerati+(…)causee+{da+verb}
causer+dati+{da+verb}[prepustiti+{da+verb}, prenijeti za+causer, pomoći+joj+verb,
etc.]2
verb+gerund/verb/reflexive verb
9
(twopustiti+(ga+){da+verb}, dati (mu)+{da+verb}
answers usedtheverb
“walk”
insteadof“run”)
3
dati+inf./gerund/{da+(ga) verb}/reflexive verb
3 (11* –causer+verb/gerundcauser*causer+verb
performs theaction)4
dati+(causee)+{da+verb}, dati+causee, etc.
2nahraniti+causee
5subject: sakura
1
usage of “zbog”
6
zamoliti+{da+(mi+)verb}/
pa+mi+verb(other expressions)
7
ga+hraniti+object
1
pomoći /praviti, etc.+verb
8
mi+verb
9
dati+{da (+mi)+verb}
9
dati+infinitive
1 (2* – thezamoliti+{da+verb}
causer*causer+ (si+)verb
performs theaction)10 causative saseru form
22*
11 temorau form
12*
causative saseru form
12 causative saseru form
9*causative-passive form (saserareru)
13 causative saseru form
18*
tekureru form
14 causative saseru form
11*
saseteshimau form
Table 2: Participants` Answers (Expressions Used 3 Times or More per Example Sentence)*sentences with grammatical/stylistic mistakes and/or Japanese particle mistakes not
pertaining to the causer/causee are not included

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Discussion

In this section, the expressions used by the participants of the survey (Table 2) and their
meanings will be discussed5.
Example 1. was originally constructed with coercive meaning in mind, and with a basic
causative sentence structure ([causer+ga]+[causee+ni]+[object+o]+saseru verb), although it
could be interpreted as permissive due to the aforementioned ambiguity of Japanese causative
sentences (the same can be assumed for Ex.2.). In case of Ex.1., survey prticipants seemed toassociate the saseru sentence with coercion, expressed in Croatian by the verb “natjerati”. In
the case of the usage of “natjerati”, the causer (the girl) was making the boy (causee) carry
the box, with “natjerati” marking (strong) coercion followed by the action verb (to carry) inthe subordinate clause (natjerala+da nosi= (she)made/coerced+(him)to carry).
On the other hand, active sentences that do not carry and embedded meaning of coercion or
permission, but describe the state of affairs were used as well. In these sentences the subject(causee) performs the action of carrying the box expressed by the action verb (to carry).
However, in a number of these sentences the nuance of helping the girl and doing the action
for her benefit was expressed by the personal pronoun “njoj” or its shortened form “joj”, thedative case of the word “girl” (djevojka= djevojci), the verb “prepustiti” (prepustila je = she
let him (carry the box)), the expression “za djevojku”= for the girl, or a clarification wasadded by the survey participant in their answer. In all of these instances, “the boy” is thecausee but it is also the subject of the sentence.
Lastly, the verb “dati” in combination with an action verb (ex.: dala je+causer+da nosi =(she) had him carry) was used as well. Although in Croatian the verb “dati” means “to give”,
the meaning translated into English would be “she had him carry” rather than “she gave tohim to carry”. The combination of the verb dati (se) and the infinitive was discussed by Žagar
Szentesi (2011), according to which dati+infinitive was used with an unknown causee andindicates that the action is carried out by that unknown causee. In this case, although the verb
“dati” is used in combination with another verb, it still points to the transfer of the action
from the causer to the (known) causee (the verb “dati” was also mentioned by Kapić (2020)).
Overall, although Ex.1. was translated as a coercive sentence, other means of expression wereseen in the participants` answers in almost equal measure.
Example 2. can be as ambiguous in its meaning as Ex.1. but was originally constructed withthe permissive meaning in mind. It was mostly translated as an active sentence using the verb
“to run”, and verbs of a similar meaning (trčati, potrčati= to run, to start running, istrčati se,
rastrčati se= to run to one`s heart content, to run a lot), and gerund (trčanje). These sentenceswere using the verbs “odvesti, dovesti, izvesti” in the main clause, meaning “to bring/to take”
the dog to the park, illustrating a state of affairs, or giving the reason for the causative action(I took the dog to the park so he could run.). Two sentences used the verbs“istrčati/rastrčati“ (to run a lot) to express the meaning of “to have/make run”. Rather thancoercive, the meaning of the sentence read as the causee participating in the action.
Sentences expressing permission did so in two different ways – more commonly by the use of5

In Table2 and the Discussion section, Croatian verbs will be presented in their infinitive form when discussing
their meaning/properties, although in the survey answers they were used in different tenses and persons.

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the verb “pustiti” (meaning “to let, to allow”) in combination with an action verb (“trčati”= torun or the reflexive “istrčati se”= to run a lot), or by using the verb “dati” in combination withthe verb “trčati”.
No expressly coercive reading was observed.
When an unknown causee carries out the causative action, the “dati (se)+infinitive”
combination (Žagar Szentesi, 2011) was expected to be used for Example3. Although theverb “dati” was indeed used in combination with the infinitive (dati+oprati= havecleaned/washed), it was also used in a series of other combinations, such as with a gerund(dati na čišćenje=to have cleaned), or a verb (dati (…) da ga operu= have them clan it, dati dase opere=have cleaned). Some sentences do not use the verb “dati” but use the verbs “odvesti”
meaning “to take” (such as “Dad took the car to the car wash”, which indicate that the Daddidn`t wash the car himself) and are therefore appropriate in this context.
Sentences is which the causer (Dad) is also the one performing the action were observed (11sentences), such as “Dad went to the car wash and washed the car”. Such sentences, althoughgrammatically correct, are not the ideal way of translating the Japanese example sentence
since they do not indicate the transfer of the action to the unknown causee – i.e., they aretechnically mistakes. Ex.3. does not mean that the Dad himself washed the car, since thatwould be expressed with an active sentence with a verb in the masu form.
Lastly, a passive, a permissive, and a sentence using “they” in the role of a causee were used
as well.
Example 4. and Example 7. carry a similar meaning and employ the same causative verb:
tabesaseru (食べさせる= to make/have/let eat). Example 7. is a manipulative causative
sentence where the (human) causer not only brings about a causative action but due to theinability of the (human) causee to carry it out, the action is carried out by the causer (Fukada,2010). Example 4. is similar to Ex.7., except that the causee in Ex.4. is an animal so it cannot
be strictly classified as a manipulative sentence.
The meaning of Ex.4. is that the cat is being fed, i.e. the causer gives food to the cat, but does
not physically feed the animal as it is not indicated that the animal is in any way unable tofeed itself (unlike the causee in Ex.7.). In this case, the majority of sentences used theverb ”dati” in different grammatical combinations, for example: “dati+verb”,“dati+causee+{da+verb}”, “dati+ ju (object)+causee”, etc., amongst others. The use ofdifferent expressions using the verb “dati” is appropriate since “dati” shows that the causer
does not physically feed the causee (rather that “the cat is given food”) and it is logicallyconcluded that the causee performs the action. Verbs meaning “to feed” (“nahraniti” and“hraniti”) were used in some sentences as well, although to a lesser degree; both verbs
indicate that the cat is (being) fed, but it is not clear whether the cat performs the action by
itself or not.
Example 5. employed an inanimate causer and causee, which is a somewhat less common
occurrence in Japanese causative sentences. In Croatian sentences, the example sentence andthe causative verb sakasemasu (咲かせます) were translated in a variety of ways anddepending on the sentence structure and the placement of emphasis, the subject of thesentence was either “sakura” or “spring` warmth”. In the case of the subject being “sakura”,
the preposition “zbog” (because of, due to) was used in the majority of sentences giving a

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reason for sakura`s bloom.
The first of the temorau sentences is the sentence in Example 6. which expresses mild
coercion or persuasion, in which the causer wants their sister to sing them a song. The mostcommonly used verb in the participant`s answers is “zamoliti”= to ask, in combination withthe unmarked, short form of the personal pronoun in the dative case “meni – mi”6= for me.
The usage of “mi”, which is the singular form of the 1st person dative case, shows that thebeneficiary of the action is the speaker. Some sentences did not use the personal pronoun“mi”, but simply “zamoliti+ verb”, while others used “mi” in combination with an action
verb. The usage of the verb “zamoliti” gives the sentence the form of a request rather than acommand; for example, the usage of the word “reći“= to say, to tell makes the sentencesound more coercive: “Sestra ima lijep glas pa sam joj rekla da mi malo otpjeva pjesmu koju
volim./ My sister has a nice voice so I told her to sing me the song I like for a bit.“. One of
the answers used the verb “tražiti“= to ask, which still makes the sentence a request, but issomewhat more forceful than the verb “zamoliti“. However, it might be more natural to use“tražiti” when talking to one`s sibling.
There were several other different expressions used, but none were observed to have beenused in more than one answer.
Example 7. is an example of a manipulative sentence, with the causee not able to feedthemselves so the causer has to carry out the action. In Croatian sentences, the mostcommonly used expressions used the verb “hraniti” (to feed) in different combinations (forexample: hraniti+object, etc.) which, unlike the Ex.4 expressions using the verb “dati”, meansthat the causee “is being fed”, and does not imply that the causee is physically feedinghimself.
Several sentences using the verbs “pomoći“=to help, and “praviti/spravljati/napraviti“= tomake in different combinations, showing that the causer is helping or assisting the causee inthe act of eating lunch by either (physically) helping them or helping them by making thefood themselves. This manipulative example can also read such as the causer helping thecausee do the causative action, in which the causercan be understood to take an active role inthe caused event, making it sociative, assistive causation as discussed by Shibatani & Chung(2001). In this case,the abovementioned expressions of “helping” can be used.
The following Example 8. and Example 9. are both temorau sentence examples, one with aknown causee and the other with a causee not mentioned.
The causee in Ex.8 is known (older brother) and is made/asked to perform an action for thecauser/subject (“I”). Unlike in Ex.6, in Ex.8 no specific polite wording was observed, and theverb “zamoliti” was used only in one case. However, similar to Ex.6, the short form of thepersonal pronoun “meni”- “mi” was used once again, marking the speaker as the beneficiaryof the action. “Mi” was most commonly used in combination with the action verb “popraviti”(to fix).
The verb “dati” was used as well, such as “dati+{da(+mi)+verb}”= had [him] fix (for me). In
one instance, a sentence using the verb “dati” signals that the brother had somebody else fix
the bike, i.e. my brother had the bike fixed, which is not the most appropriate way of
6

About the dative in Croatian, see Stanojević & Geld (2008).

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translating the example sentence because it could be understood as the brother being theinitiator of the causative action.
Overall, no polite expressions were used in the case of Ex.8, but no implicit or explicit
coercion was observed either. The reason why expressions such as “zamoliti” (to ask) were
not used, although appropriate, could be that the causee is the causer`s close relative, so such
expressions might have been deemed unnecessary.
The last Japanese example sentence is Example9., which does not have the causee explicitly
expressed and, in accordance with what Žagar Szentesi (2011) discussed, the most common
expression seen in this case was the “dati+infinitive” (dati+skratiti= have shortened). There
were a few instances of the verb “zamoliti” being used, and two sentences were translated as
though the causer themself shortened the skirt, which is incorrect. However the participants`
answers predominantly implied that it was not the subject of the sentence who performed thecausative action, but a third party. No overly polite or “mild” expressions were observed.
Lastly, Examples 10., 11., 12., 13. and 14. were Croatian sentences which were translated
into Japanese. Unfortunately, as can be discerned from Table 2, there was a high number of
mistakes in the participant`s answers, and therefore definitive claims cannot be made about
how the Croatian example sentences were translated into Japanese. Although there was ahigher number of mistakes and unanswered questions overall, both the saseru causative form
and the temorau form were observed, as well as the causative-passive saserareru form, etc. insome cases7.
The example sentence with the least mistakes is Example 12., which is undeniably coercive(the meaning expressed by the use of the verb “natjerati is to make somebody do something
against their will”, as defined by the Scholastic Dictionary of the Croatian Language (Školski
rječnik hrvatskog jezika)). Most of the survey participants chose the saseru causative verb
form (tabesaseru) in their translations, although there were a few examples using thecausative-passive form (tabesaserareru) in which the causee is the main focus of the sentence,
shifting the original perspective of the example.
Another example with a relatively low mistake ratio was Example 14., although in this casethere were a number of mistakes made that were not related to the causative form per se but
the sentence structure and the other verbs/words in the sentence. In this case the saseru form
was predominant (kanashimaseru=to make somebody sad/to sadden).
Conclusion
The survey answers showed that amongst various ways a causative sentence meaning can betransferred into Croatian, coercive meaning is not necessarily the go-to default. Furthermore,
although different expressions were used in regards to different example sentences, theparticipants` answers also showed the versatility of expressions that include the verb “dati”,
which was employed in the majority of answers concerning Japanese example sentences(although to different extents).
When it came to the difference in expression between the temorau and saseru sentences, nosignificant difference in expression was observed amongst the Croatian answers. Temorau
7

See {*} underneath Table 2.

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examples used the “dati” verb as well, and the short form of the personal pronoun form “mi”, in order to point to the beneficiary of the action.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Prof. Masaki Ono for his comments, and Vishal Gor for the native
English check.

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References
Fukada, A. (2010). The Japanese Causative Controversy: A Pragmatic Perspective. Japanese
Language and Literature, 44(1), 21–43. https://doi.org/10.2307/20720582
Glumac, D. D. (2015). Kauzativ i glagolski rod u japanskom jeziku u poređenju sa srpskim.
Универзитет у Београду. (University of Belgrade).(Doctoral thesis).
Kapić, A. (2020). Izražavanje faktitivno-kauzativnog značenja u turskom jeziku i prevodni
ekvivalenti u b/h/s jeziku. University of Sarajevo. (Thesis.)
http://ff.unsa.ba/files/zavDipl/19_20/ori/Amela-Kapic.pdf
Kuroda, S.-Y. (1965). Causative forms in Japanese. Foundations of Language, 30–50.
Mauriello, V. (2017). Causativeness in Japanese and Italian. 研究論文集, 125, 101–120.
Santorini, B., & Heycock, C. (1988). Remarks on causatives and passive. Technical Reports(CIS), 614.
Shibatani, M., & Chung, S. Y. (2001). Japanese and Korean causative revisited. 神戸言語学
論叢・紀要論文(Kobe Papers Inlinguistics/Departmental Bulletin Paper), 1(3), 112–
135.
Sinčić, B. (2018). Francuska konstrukcija" faire"+ infinitiv i njezini prijevodni ekvivalenti uhrvatskom jeziku: Izricanje kauzativnosti u hrvatskom jeziku. University of Zagreb.
(Thesis). .https://www.bib.irb.hr/957762?rad=957762
Stanojević, M.-M., & Geld, R. (2008). The dative in Croatian as a dominion phenomenon.
Cognitive Studies, 8, 95–108.
Wu, D. (呉丹). (2020). 複文におけるテモラウの意味. 日本研究教育年報 (JapaneseStudies: Research and Education), 24, 37–55.
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/294831683.pdf
Žagar Szentesi, O. (2011). Funkcionalne varijante konstrukcije dati (se)+ infinitiv uhrvatskom jeziku–u okviru gramatikalizacije. Suvremena Lingvistika, 37(72), 295–
318.
李仙花. (2001). 「てもらう」 文の意味について. 言語科学論集, 5, 97–108.
Online Resources/Dictionaries
Council of Europe Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR):
https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages/leveldescriptions
Scholastic Dictionary of Croatian Language (Školski rječnik hrvatskog jezika ):http://rjecnik.hr/

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Contact email: 5rajaklin@gmail.com

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The Influence of Comma- and Period-pause Duration on the Listener’s Impression of
Speeches Made in Mandarin Chinese
Mingji Lin, Kyushu University, Japan
Yoshitaka Nakajima, Sound Corporation, Japan
Shimeng Liu, Kyushu University, Japan
Kazuo Ueda, Kyushu University, Japan
Gerard B. Remijn, Kyushu University, Japan
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Abstract
The influence of pause duration at commas and periods on listeners’ impressions of speeches
made in Mandarin Chinese was investigated. Spoken excerpts of speeches from textbooks
were presented to native Chinese listeners (n=20). In the first experiment, the pause durationsof both commas and periods in the speeches were manipulated together, in 8 steps from 0 4.8 s. The listeners were asked to rate the speeches on 23 categories on a rating scale,including categories regarding the tempo, quality, and continuity of the speeches. Factor
analysis (based on principal component analysis) over the rating data showed that out of four
extracted factors, two factors prominently appeared. These two factors were interpreted asreflecting speech naturalness and speech rate. The speech rate impressions increased as thecomma- and period-pause durations decreased. The speech naturalness was the highest when
the pause duration was 0.6 s. In a following experiment, comma- and period-pause durations
were manipulated separately, varying from 0.15 - 2.4 s. Original speech and speech withoutpauses were included as control conditions. Factor analysis over the rating data (n=20) again
showed speech naturalness and speech rate as the two main factors. Taken together, bothexperiments convincingly indicated that speeches with a comma-pause duration of 0.6 s,along with a period-pause duration of 0.6 s or 1.2 s, are heard as having the highest speechnaturalness, i.e., close to that of the original speech. These findings may be incorporated in
artificial speech, and may be useful when practicing the delivery of speeches.
Keywords: Speech Perception, Pause Duration, Mandarin Chinese

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Introduction

There are three types of temporal gaps in speech. These are voice onset time (VOT) within
syllables, pauses or energy dips in the speech signal for word segmentation between words,
and pauses for punctuation between clauses. Figure 1 shows each type of temporal gap.
According to previous research, the three types of temporal gaps affect the perception of
speech in different aspects. For example, VOT influences the perception of consonants insyllables, as evidenced from various studies on different languages and speakers (Lisker &Abramson, 1964; Li, 2013; Kang, 2014). Word segmentation research commonly pertains to
the perception of stress patterns in speech and how this contributes to sentence parsing(Curtin, Mintz, & Christiansen, 2005). The most obvious temporal gaps in speech are pauses
for punctuation.

Figure 1. Examples of three types of temporal gaps in speech. Frames with the same color
refer to the same part of the sentence with different resolutions, and the arrows indicate theexact places of each type of temporal gap.
Research about pause duration of punctuation marks in English speech, such as commas andperiods, has been done for many years. The word pausology was firstly mentioned in 1965,
referring to the use of pauses in speech and music (Tosi, 1965). Efforts have been made to
identify hesitations and pause duration and their frequency of occurrence in speech in an
automatic way (Horii, 1983). With regard to speech perception, previous research on pause
duration has shown that different lengths of physical pause durations of American English
and German can lead to an overestimating or underestimating of perceived pause durations(Stuckenberg & O’Connell, 1988). As for punctuations, though, little is known about which
pause durations are most natural. A recent study used listeners’ judgements and principal
component analysis to shed light on the matter. Liu and colleagues (2019) performed a seriesof listening experiments in which the length of comma- and period-pause duration was variedin short English sentences. Listeners were asked to judge the perception of the sentences on
23 items or 12 items, respectively, in two experiments by means of a rating scale (Liu,Nakajima, & Elliott, 2018; Liu et al., 2019). Following Principal Component Analysis, twomain factors were extracted from the rating judgements. These were “speech naturalness” and“speech rate”, which we will refer to as the “Speech Rate factor” and the “Naturalness factor”

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from here on. As for the Speech Rate factor, the obvious result was that if pause duration was
longer, speech rate was perceived as slower. More importantly, as for the Naturalness factor,
the most natural pause duration for English was the condition in which commas and periods
were 0.6 s (600 milliseconds). That is, when both commas and periods were fixed at 0.6 s,
speech naturalness was not significantly different from that of the original speech.
In the present study, we used the same research methods as in Liu et al. (2018; 2019) toinvestigate the naturalness of punctuation pause durations of commas and periods in
Mandarin Chinese speech. The reason why we choose Chinese as target language was that
there is no pausology research for languages that have a short history of using punctuation
marks, like Mandarin Chinese. Punctuation marks in Chinese have been used for about only
100 years. Other than English, which has 13 kinds of punctuation marks, Chinese has 17
kinds of punctuation marks (Straus, Kaufman, & Stern, 2014; General Administration of
Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People’s Republic of China &Standardization Administration [GAQSIQ & SA], 2011). Furthermore, Chinese is a tonal
language, and English is a stress language. It is therefore likely that research findings on
punctuation pauses and speech naturalness in English may not directly pertain to Chinese.
2.

Methods

Two experiments were performed in order to identify the most natural comma- andperiod-pause duration for Mandarin Chinese. The results were compared with the previous
research for English speech (Liu, Nakajima, & Elliott, 2018; Liu et al., 2019)
2.1 Participants
For each experiment there were 20 native-Mandarin-Chinese participants. They were 6 males
and 14 females in Experiment 1, and 9 males and 11 females in Experiment 2. All
participants were university students and had normal hearing. Before each experiment, allparticipants provided written, informed consent as to their participation. The experimental
procedures were pre-approved by the Ethical Committee of Kyushu University, Fukuoka,
Japan.
2.2 Apparatus
Experiments were completed in a soundproof booth with a background noise of 25.1 dB LAF
and 25.4 dB LAF in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, respectively. Speech stimuli werebinaurally played to participants through a PC (Microsoft Surface 3 64GB, OS Windows 8.1),
an amplifier (AT-HA40USB) and headphones (Roland RH-300).
2.3 Stimuli
The comma- and period-pause durations of Mandarin Chinese from HSK (Hanyu Shuiping
Kaoshi) level 5 textbooks were varied together or separately in the two experiments. Speechsamples were selected from 2 male speakers and 2 female speakers in Experiment 1, andfrom 1 male and 1 female speaker in Experiment 2. Comma- and period-pause duration in thesentences were presented in the following steps, as in Liu and colleagues (2018, 2019). In
Experiment 1, the comma and period durations were: original speech, 0 s, 0.075 s, 0.15 s, 0.3s, 0.6 s, 1.2 s, 2.4 s and 4.8 s. In Experiment 2, we used original speech, 0 s, 0.15 s, 0.3 s, 0.6s, 1.2 s and 2.4 s. Since comma- and period-pause durations in Experiment 2 were varied

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individually, we used fewer steps in Experiment 2, in order not to make the experiment toolong.
2.4 Procedures
Participants controlled the stimulus presentation themselves through buttons on the screen.
After they clicked a “Play” button, the speech stimuli were played automatically after 0.5 s.
Each stimulus was presented only once, and the time for participants to rate was not limited.
Participants were asked to rate the speech stimuli on 23 or 12 evaluation items, respectively,
in Experiment 1 and 2. Ratings were made on a semantic differential scale from 1 to 10, with
“1” meaning “not appropriate at all” and “10” meaning “very appropriate”. Evaluation items
used in Experiment 1 were “rushed”, “natural”, “rough-timbred”, “skillful”, “speedy”, “at asuitable tempo”, “well-practiced”, “fast”, “with appropriate pause duration”, “friendly”,“high-pitched”, “with appropriate rhythm”, “smooth”, “nervous”, “experienced”, “shrill”,“fluent”, “easy to understand”, “elegant”, “intelligible”, “polite”, “dynamic”, and “clear-cut”.
Evaluation items used in Experiment 2 were “rushed”, “natural”, “rough-timbred”, “skillful”,“speedy”, “at a suitable tempo”, “well-practiced”, “fast”, “with appropriate pause duration”,“friendly”, “high-pitched”, and “with appropriate rhythm”. All the research protocols andexperimental designs were the same as used in the previous research on pause durations inEnglish speech (Liu, Nakajima, & Elliott, 2018; Liu et al., 2019).
3.

Results

The results were analyzed in the following steps. Firstly, we calculated the means of therating scale judgments in order to see which of the evaluation items were influenced by thechanges in the pause duration. Then we performed Principal Component Analysis to extract
the main factors. Principal Component Analysis can “simplify” the results of the ratings bysummarizing them into “factors”. Four factors were extracted in Experiment 1 (Table 1).
These were “speech naturalness”, “speech rate”, “speech friendliness” and “tone height”. In
Experiment 2 we obtained 3 factors. These were “speech naturalness”, “speech rate” and“else”. We found that two factors that were extracted in both experiments, were the same as
for the previous research with English pause durations (Liu, Nakajima, & Elliott, 2018; Liu etal., 2019). These factors were the Speech Rate factor and the Naturalness factor.
Figure 2 shows the relationship between pause duration and the Naturalness factor and the
Speech Rate factor obtained from the results of Experiment 1. As for the Speech Rate factor,
indicated in red, when the pause duration got longer, the speed of the sentences wasperceived to be globally slower, even though we just adjusted the pause duration and not the
speech itself. The perceived speech rate thus can be influenced by pause duration itself. As
for the Naturalness factor, indicated in green, the factor score of the original speech sentences(the green filled circle) was significantly higher (p<0.05) than the factor scores of all the
speech sentences in which the pause duration was varied. However, the factor scores ofspeech sentences with a fixed comma- and

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at a suitable tempo
with appropriate pause duration
with appropriate rhythm
naturalwell-practiced
experienced
intelligible
easy to understandskillful
fluentsmoothfastrushedspeedydynamic
elegant
clear-cutrough-timbred
politefriendly
nervoushigh-pitchedshrillOfficial Conference Proceedings

1
0.899
0.897
0.883
0.805
0.747
0.737
0.728
0.720
0.687
0.618
0.615
-0.067-0.189
0.281
0.378
0.483
0.222
0.063
0.469
0.483
-0.3650.037-0.075factors2
3-0.0030.132-0.030
0.111
0.013
0.161
0.127
0.343
0.413
0.288
0.345
0.352
0.025
0.132
0.064
0.187
0.409
0.372
0.604
0.237
0.578
0.280
0.852 -0.125
0.849 -0.180
0.821
0.052
0.609
0.192
0.682
-0.0560.669
0.139-0.106 -0.657
0.646-0.0970.592-0.1680.386 -0.438
0.044
0.026
0.090 -0.124

4
0.026
0.041
0.000
0.000
0.076
0.115
-0.089-0.1230.088-0.032-0.0490.205
0.140-0.062-0.086
0.075
0.119
0.362
-0.152-0.181-0.1650.896
0.875

Table 1. The result of the Principal Component Analysis performed over the 23 evaluation
items used in Experiment 1, after varimax rotation. Factors 1-4 represent “speechnaturalness”, “speech rate”, “speech friendliness” and “tone height”, respectively, from top tobottom delimited by thick black frames. The Speech Rate factor and the Naturalness factor
were also among the 3 factors extracted from the results of Experiment 2 (not shown here).

Figure 2. The relationship between pause duration and the Naturalness factor and the Speechrate factor in Experiment 1

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Period-pause duration of 0.6 s were statistically significantly higher than that of any of theother manipulated speech sentences. Although significantly less natural than the original
speech, Mandarin Chinese speech with a comma- and period-pause duration of 0.6 s was themost natural.
For Experiment 2, the same analysis method was used as in Experiment 1. As for the Speech
Rate factor, similar to Experiment 1, when the pause duration got longer, the perceived speedof the sentences was perceived to be globally slower. Figure 3 shows the factor scores for the
Naturalness factor obtained from the rating results of Experiment 2. The statistical analyses
showed that the factor scores of speech sentences with a comma-pause duration of 0.6 s, andthose with a period-pause duration of 0.6 s and a period-pause duration of 1.2 s were notsignificantly different from the original speech sentences. For the results of Experiment 2, we
thus can conclude that the sentences with a comma duration of 0.6 s, and the period durationsof 0.6 s and 1.2 s were perceived as having the same naturalness as the original speech, while
the most natural speech was for a comma duration of 0.6 s, and a period duration of 0.6 s.

Figure 3. The relationship between pause duration and the speech Naturalness factor inExperiment 2. Letters “c” and “p” refer to the pause duration of commas and periods,
respectively.
4.

Conclusions

Comparing these results from Mandarin Chinese with previous research on English
punctuation duration (Liu et al., 2019), we can find differences and similarities between the
results obtained for the two languages. The main difference was that the average factor scoresof the Naturalness factor for Chinese original sentences were higher than for English ones
(0.82 in Experiment 2 for English, Liu et al., 2019; 1.27 in Experiment 1 and 1.25 inExperiment 2 in the present study with Mandarin Chinese). One reason for the higher factor
scores for Chinese could be that the writing style of the speech stimuli used here wassomewhat different. In the study with English sentences, public speeches were used (Liu,Nakajima, & Elliott, 2018; Liu et al., 2019), while in the present study announcements were

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used. Another reason for the difference in factor scores could be that the speaking rates of theoriginal speech stimuli used for each language were different. More experiments are required.
The similarities were very clear. Obviously, a longer pause duration resulted in a slower
perceived speech rate. Most importantly, there is an optimum pause duration, which is 0.6 s,for both commas and periods, and for both English sentences (Liu, Nakajima, & Elliott, 2018;
Liu et al., 2019) and in the present study with Mandarin Chinese. In the future, we wish tofurther study whether the speaking style (i.e., variations in speaking style to convey the
purpose of the text), the participants’ native language, or manipulating the duration of pauses
at other punctuation marks affect the perceived speech rate and/or naturalness or not. Besides,
it would be very fruitful to know whether the same results can be found for other languages
as well. If so, our results can help to develop more suitable artificial speech technology(either speech generation or recognition). Using a constant pause duration may also be usefulwhen practicing the delivery of speeches or lectures. The fact that to fix pause duration at 0.6
s makes the speech as natural as the original speech is practical for education.
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 19H00630. We are indebted to
all the participants in the experiments and all the members of the Perceptual Psychology
Laboratory, Kyushu University.

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References
Curtin, S., Mintz, T.H., Christiansen, M.H. (2005). Stress changes the representationallandscape: evidence from word segmentation. Cognition. Volume 96, Issue 3, July
2005. pp. 233-262.
General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People’s
Republic of China & Standardization Administration. (2011). General rules for
punctuation (GB/T 15834-2011). Beijing: Standard Press of China.
Horii, Y. (1983). An automatic analysis method of utterance and pause length andfrequencies. Behavior Research Methods & Instrumentation. Volume 15, Issue 4,
pp.449-452.
Kang, Y. (2014). Voice Onset Time merger and development of tonal contrast in Seoul
Korean stops: A corpus study. Journal of Phonetics. Volume 45. July 2014. pp.
76-90.
Li, F. (2013). The effect of speakers’ sex on voice onset time in Mandarin stops. The Journalof the Acoustical Society of America. Volume 133. EL142 (2013).
Lisker, L., & Abramson, A.S. (1964). A Cross-Language Study of Voicing in Initial Stops:
Acoustical Measurements. WORD, 20:3. pp. 384-422.
Liu, S., Nakajima, Y., Elliott, M.A. (2018). Pause Duration Influences Impressions of Speech
Style in English Public Speaking: Comparison of English Speakers and Chinese
Speakers. Japanese Society of Music Perception and Cognition. 2018(2)-7.
Liu, S., Nakajima, Y., Elliott, M.A., Chen, L., Remijn, G.B., Arndt, S., Pang, Z. (2019).
Pause Duration Influences Impressions of English Speech Style Rated by Native andNon-native Speakers. In du Bois, N., Arndt, S., Özsoy, E.V., Bayraktar, S.,
Gülbetekin, E., Elliot, M.A. (Ed.), Conference Proceedings, 35th Annual Meeting of
the International Society for Psychophysics, Fechner Day 2019 (pp. 14).
Straus, J., Kaufman, L., & Stern, T. (2014). The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation(11th ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Wiley.
Stuckenberg, A., & O’Connell, D.C. (1988). The Long and Short of It: Reports of Pause
Occurrence and Duration in Speech. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research. Vol. 17,
No.1.
Tosi, O.I. (1965). A Method for Acoustic Segmentation of Continuous Sound into Pauses andSignals and Measurement of Segment Durations. Unpublished doctoral dissertation.
Ohio State University.
Contact email: Mingji Lin: vodkaddicter@gmail.com
Gerard B. Remijn: remijn@design.kyushu-u.ac.jp

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Gamified Tools in the Development of Communicative Production in Remote EFL
Learning
Lucila E. Quezada, Indoamérica University, Ecuador
Daniel P. Ripalda, Indoamérica University, Ecuador
Jessica P. Cuenca, Indoamérica University, Ecuador
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Abstract
One of the most critical challenges of Foreign Language teaching is developing students' oral
communicative competences, enhancing productive skills, and expressing thoughts in anotherlanguage. This teaching process requires using different resources to acquire cognitive
experiences that promote meaningful learning. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic,teachers emphasized virtual learning environments (VLE) and other digital resources toachieve the expected learning outcomes. In this context, quasi-experimental research wasdeveloped over six months, which analyzed the effectiveness of learning oral communicativeskills of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) through regular formative tests, according tointernational standards, prioritizing fluency, use of language, interaction, and pronunciation
areas. This work involved specialist teachers in assessment development and teaching
resources production; this study registered the progress of 107 first level students of theLanguage Centre at the Indoamérica University of Ecuador, the first one non-randomly groupused external gamified resources, and the second one used the default activities of the LMS,
during the teaching-learning process in the remote modality. The results of this work show acorrelation between the use of gamified resources and the assimilation of some oral language
skills; therefore, from this experience, it is recommended for teachers to incorporate thesekinds of resources to improve this productive oral skill within the communicative standardsof the Common European Framework for Teaching English.
Keywords: Digital Resources, Remote Learning, Gamification for Productive Oral Skill

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Introduction
The development of productive oral competence has always been the primary concern of EFL
teachers since it is one of the skills that allow us to communicate immediately with ourinterlocutors. That is why this research aims to establish specific gamified resources tointeract in the remote modality since the global pandemic we are going through has forced us
to explore new tools to turn our class into the ideal space to develop and strengthen theseskills.
The communicative skill (speaking) plays a significant role in conveying ideas with the rightwords correctly with proper pronunciation. Besides, explicitly three areas of knowledge areconsidered: language input with a diversity of activities that provide the learner with theresource he requires to start building his knowledge; the output structure refers to structured
exercises and is a phase between presentation and practice (Setiyadi, 2020) andcommunicative output where the production phase is oriented. (Hamidova & Ganiyeva,
2020)
To improve these goals, the model was centered on the classroom and blended learningmodality. All activities were carried out in the classroom, which the students attended
regularly. The speaking practice was done in situ through voice recording due to the numberof students, one-minute recording, role-playing, oral repetition, and rubrics to show each
student's progress. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the pedagogical strategies had to be
redefined because there was no physical contact with the students.
The pandemic situation led to a disruptive change and allowed digital technology to become
the main ally of teachers and students to carry out different academic activities. Thus, theeducational field went from face-to-face mode to remote mode to continue with their work.
With this transition, both teachers and students had to adapt to a new way of studying eventhough students were mainly prepared for this shift, but some teachers felt unprepared tointegrate digital teaching techniques in their curricula. The academic staff, especially mid andlate-career teachers, had often incorporated technology use in their objectives to performteleworking more effectively and incorporate digital resource. (van der Spoel, Noroozi,
Schuurink, & van Ginkel, 2020).
That is why, in the search for incorporating digital resources, the foreign language teacher
faced this question: How to develop the communicative competencies (speaking) of English
as EFL through an LMS due to the pandemic? Several studies have highlighted the benefitsof using this medium to develop speaking skills since they bring together aspects such as
economy, privacy, simplicity, and flexibility (Irawan, 2020). Additionally, these resources
allow diversification of strategies, models, and methodologies that meet the current context
requirements (García, 2014)
Taking into account the literature review, in our work, we suggest the following objectives:to propose gamified tools that improve the assimilation of EFL by students when developing
the skill (speaking) in the context of Covid-19 and to analyze the comparative results
between the intervention and experimental groups concerning the use of gamified resources
applied to the English language through remote learning.

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Background
The leap of gamification as a virtual tool in the education field involves solving the problemsof lack of concentration and motivation, study environment unsuitable for learning, emotional
factors that hinder the execution of a specific task, which through a gamified system helps toovercome all these barriers, (Teixes, 2015). Its application in the classroom becomes
innovative support to the current pedagogical methodologies to educate in the Knowledge
Age, competencies, and skills of the curriculum, whose methods and design visualize acomprehensive education, where gamification plays a fundamental role.
“The classic vision of Gamification consists of the use of strategies, models, dynamics,
mechanics, and game elements in non-game contexts, to convey a message or content orchange behavior through a playful experience that promotes motivation, involvement, andfun, (…) (Llorens-Largo et al., 2016, pág. 1). Through gamified interactive resources,
different activities can be carried out to effectively link the teacher and students within theteaching-learning process in a dynamic way to turn a virtual session into a space ofinteraction.
Additionally, through gamification, teachers can include activities such as formal study,
observation, evaluation, reflection, practice, management, skills improvement, trial, and error
or problem-solving activities can occur in an individual or group context and in a determinedor undetermined time (Espinosa & Eguia, 2016). A gamifying process is an answer to a
specific need in the class where the aim is to work on content by providing educational
experiences.
For (Kapp, 2012) gamification is a teaching mechanism based on games that motivate
students and promote their learning. Besides, gamified tools designed virtually are the gearthat promotes thinking to positively attract and incite to solve the problems posed and is ateaching support tool for learning processes to be meaningful and successful.
According to, (Ključević & Krumes, 2020) talks about play in teaching, about the teacher's
importance of finding the appropriate method to impart knowledge to the students according
to their age. One of the ways to teach a foreign language is the game, the double action of"learning and playing at the same time" allows the acquisition of new knowledge and makes
learning grammar and spelling less tedious and more attractive activities that are gamified,creating a positive atmosphere in the classroom and better learning performance.
Meanwhile, (Zichermann & Cunningham, 2011) suggest categorizing the elements of a gameinto three groups: mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics. Mechanics refers to how games
transform specific inputs into specific outputs, where it maintains a direct connection with thelearning content and in educational contexts includes the application of challenges. Dynamics
indicate the needs to be satisfied in the activity. These, together with the mechanics, interact
during the game and the aesthetics. However, refer to how the mechanics and dynamics ofthe game interact with each other to produce emotional results. According to these categories,
the teacher should consider the dynamics to apply concerning each group's needs and classobjectives.
Gamification is a learning tool implemented as the mechanics of games in the educational
field to achieve better results, such as: acquiring knowledge to develop some skill and reward
specific actions. In English as a foreign language, technological tools can be used as part of

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educational strategies for the effective development of speaking, based on the use of newtechnologies to raise the teaching practice and the student's knowledge to be moremeaningful and functional. Enhancing the students' skills and, in turn, generating a greater
motivation being the student more involved in their learning. (Moreira & González, 2015).
The existing literature on using gamified resources for English language teaching is notconclusive, although authors such as Moreira speak of having tested gamified resources,
obtaining favorable results. Likewise, Camilo Corchuelo presents a study in which he uses
gamified resources to motivate and dynamize the contents in the classroom and points outthat he has achieved significant results.
However, given the global situation, it became evident that these technologies have notreached their full potential because they have not been thoroughly tested in remote learningmodalities. Due to the pandemic, several studies are just beginning to be developed,
considering that one of the main variables is that the teacher has limited contact with thestudents and can only use digital media to communicate, evaluate and execute the teachingprocess.
Another essential aspect to consider is that studies involving digital educational tools are
rapidly losing relevance due to the dizzying advance of technology. Several of the resourcesthat now exist were not available years ago, and those that were available were not used as
regularly as they are now, mainly due to the technological gap, teacher's professionalization,connectivity, and infrastructure.
Background of the Study
The Language Institute at the Indoamérica University of Ecuador, due to the confinement
policies established by the National Government to prevent the spread of COVID-19. In
March 2020, all academic activities went to virtual mode; that is, the interaction of teachersand students in physical spaces was eliminated, moving to a remote learning model thatforced all academic community members to use the technological resources that theinstitution has in different platforms.
At the end of the first academic period during the confinement, there was a 21% reduction in
the students' general average in the acquisition of oral skills at the Language Institute. Several
possibilities were analyzed among the teachers to understand the reasons for this situation,different review committees were established, and it was found that one of the areas in which
there had been less development was speaking.
This institutional situation generated that several alternatives were proposed to improve thearea of language development and acquisition. Among the proposed alternatives was thepossibility of establishing a multidisciplinary team to generate gamified resources that were
integrated into the (virtual) remote learning classrooms of students. This team then proposeda study to measure the impact of this proposal and its effectiveness in developing language
skills, contrasting the ratings in the different areas of development.
Methodology
In order to determine the impact of gamified resources on the academic performance of
language students at Indoamérica University, a quasi-experimental study was proposed, using

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moderating and controlled variables. A group of teachers specialized in EFL prepared a seriesof guidelines to develop gamified pedagogical resources; teachers developed the products
from the Graphic Design area of the University.
The specific objective of the study was to determine the incidence of gamified resources in
the acquisition of oral production skills of students throughout an academic period. The
number of sessions that students had contact with teachers for tutoring was considered acontrolled variable; the study did not consider the demographic and socioeconomic aspects ofthe participating students.
In each modality, one of the groups had access to different gamified resources in its LMS
platform throughout the academic period, while the other was allowed to use only the default
resources of the institutional platform. After analyzing the ethical implications, it wasestablished that the study did not compromise the students' grades or their right to quality
education. Additionally, an informed consent process for the study was not required, and aconfidentiality protocol was established so that the students would not know that they
participated in this study, nor would their identity be revealed at the end of the study.
Furthermore, the teachers are protected by their teaching freedom, which implies thepossibility of planning, executing, and evaluating without undue and unreasonableinterference.
Finally, to guarantee the study results and avoid unknown variables, an overview protocol
was established, through which the same teacher was in charge of the four groups involved in
the process. The teacher received constant advice and support from the project's researchteam throughout the process.
Involved Groups in the Study
The study involved 107 students of the first level of EFL, who were non-randomly distributed
into four groups, according to the Table 1.
GroupsGroup 1Modality
Remotelearning

Group 2

Remotelearning

Group 3

Blendedlearning

Group 4

Blendedlearning

Table 1: Modality Group Study
DescriptionsFirst EFL level
5 Weekly sessions
Gamified resources were appliedFirst EFL level
5 Weekly sessions
Restricted Gamified Resources
First EFL level
1 weekly session
Gamified resources were appliedFirst EFL level
1 weekly session
Restricted Gamified Resources

Students
26
28
27
26

Tools Used in the Development of Resources
Once, understanding the conceptualization of the gamification feature in education and its
benefits detailed above, this study is based on the use of gamified tools that allow developing

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the areas of interaction, fluency, pronunciation, and accuracy to incorporate them in remotelearning classes such as Kahoot, Lyrics training, Wordwall, Educaplay, H5P in free versions
where each of them contributes to specific areas to acquire the EFL: elements of the skill of
Speaking such discourse management, grammar, syntax, vocabulary, pronunciation, einteracción (Lazaraton, 2014) besides technological tools can provide students practice inreal-time with sufficient language input. (Shumin, 2002)
KAHOOT!
Kahoot! It is a game student response system (GSRS) where in this case, the remote learningof the synchronous classroom is temporarily transformed into a game show in which theteacher is the game show host, and the students are the participants(Wang,
2015).Besides(Navarro, 2017)states that as a free platform, it allows the creation ofevaluation questionnaires based on the game; therefore, it is a tool for the teacher to create
debates, contests in the EFL learning space, making the students the central part of thelearning with the help of their mobile devices.
It was used as a vocabulary test, use of grammar, useful expressions elements that take into
account in the speaking skill development of the students of the planned units, as well asphonetic aspects and reading comprehension, individually and as a group and allows thestudent to know instantly their successes and errors, the score they are getting until reaching
the end of the exercise. It also contributes to improving the memorization of concepts,
facilitating the student the reduction and study time (Rodríguez-Fernández, 2017) Finally, theanswers are stored on the teacher's home page carrying a follow-up and feedback.

Figure 1: Interactive Tool Kahoot!
Wordwall
Wordwall creates interactive activities; this tool enables users to set up a countdown or acount forward as well as a leader board. The game mechanics stimulates a positive sense ofcompetition among the participants (Bassani, Bezzi, & Mă, 2018) and (Jackson & Narvaez,2013), increase vocabulary as a learning strategy through playing with new words, besides
the dynamics of Wordwalls helps to remember terms that have been forgotten and are notusually handled of Wordwalls helps to remember terms that have been forgotten and are notusually handled.
The use of Wordwall game media was used to facilitate the student's learning of any foreign
language vocabulary, in this case, in Vocabulary EFL classes according to the syllabus.
When the student has already recorded in his memory the vocabulary, he can handle thelexicon with greater fluency for speaking and writing, (Aruperes, Liando, & Rorimpandey,

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2018) being speaking skill one of the essential objectives of this research, that is to say, toachieve that the student, by increasing vocabulary, can communicate and develop
appropriately in the productive oral skill of speaking.

Figure 2: Interactive Tool Wordwall"
Lyrics Training, Listening, Didactic Strategy
The gamified tool "lyrics training" is an entertaining and effective way to acquire a language
by using music videos through YouTube and developing listening skills. The songs that are
applied in this type of English language teaching are popular and well known. The facilities
it presents in scope, accessibility, and mastery make it a fun and optimal activity to practicethe language.
Lyrics training is an invaluable open educational resource because it motivates andencourages to practice the language using authentic material presented in a friendly way,
allowing reusing and adapting the same. Being authentic material, students will face different
pronunciations and idioms, which makes the activity more attractive. (Batista, 2020)
Speaking is closely related to or interwoven with listening, which is the primary mechanism
through which language rules are internalized. (Cambridge, 2011; Shumin, 2002)

Figure 3: Interactive Tool "Lyrics Training"

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H5P
Within the LMS, we have another gamified interactive resource, H5P, with a variety ofinteractive activities includes "Interactive multimedia with guest speakers, case study
scenarios, interactive technical demonstrations, 360° virtual lab tours (both videos and still
images, that include hotspots, roll-over information, animated. gifs, quizzes). Besides, it
includes interactive diagrams with clickable hotspots and drag & drop activities; templatednote-taking study guides; and check student's knowledge quizzes.” (Wilkie, Zakaria,
McDonald, & Borland, 2018). This allowed students to record sentences for repetition andcorrection, with feedback on the respective sounds and intonation in the language. These
activities were developed according to the content planning in the speaking and vocabulary
section. It has become an appropriate toolkit that can be applied both in class or pre/post classto facilitate blended active learning to upskill students.
Genially
This free version platform contains several templates of multiple uses; the most used with thestudy group was the so-called gamification, with embedded codes were placed in theinstitutional LMS and used as study material and support for classes in the general review ofclass topics, where it allowed students to practice their lexicon and reinforce their knowledge
synchronously and asynchronously. (González & Gómez)Socrative
This mobile application used in synchronous time contains questionnaires created by theteacher and works with specific codes and space race (timed questionnaires) that allow thestudent to register and be evaluated in EFL acquisition. It was used as an interactive gamified
tool in sessions supporting the student lexicon as a formative assessment of the knowledge
taught in class by giving high scores to the student who gets the answers correct and provides
immediate feedback. Finally, the teacher can review these results in their repository ofanswers and monitor their performance to take different pedagogical and linguisticaldecisions.
Therefore, in this study, the incidence of the gamified tools for developing the grammatical,
sociolinguistic, and discourse competencies mention significant relation in their application.
Additionally, Reference Level Descriptions can give beneficial guidance on the linguisticfeatures which students may get successfully on the A1 level according to CEFR.
Considering descriptors for oral tasks helps the teacher decide what realistic expectations areat this level in different elements that involve the students´ speaking skills.
Evaluation Areas
The linguistic skill corresponds to the Speaking or, in other words, the productive oral skill;
the evaluated aspects were: Accuracy, Fluency, Interaction, and Pronunciation through arubric. The CEFR scales describe levels in terms of what students can do and how well they
can do it. At this level, a student can perform a task successfully but still make acceptable
mistakes in their repertoire.
According to (Day & Krzanowski, 2011), level A1 students can understand and use familiar
everyday expressions and fundamental phrases aimed at satisfying a concrete type's needs;

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they can introduce themselves and others. They can ask and answer questions about personal
details such as where they live, people they know, and things they have. They can alsointeract clearly, but communication depends on repetition at a slower speech rate, rephrasing,and repair.
Furthermore, students can manage very short, isolated, mainly pre-packaged utterances, withmuch pausing to search for expressions, articulate less familiar words, and repair
communication in their fluency. Besides, a minimal repertoire of learned words and phrases
can be understood with some effort by EFL speakers. While in their accuracy level, they
manage basic grammatical structures, vocabulary, and familiar words related to A1 topics.
(Division, 2001).
Evaluation Methodology
The evaluation consists of oral exams applied in each unit (3) and one as a summativeevaluation with two sections: The first one, introduce yourself, 1-minute length wherestudents mention their personal information. The second part was an interview with fivequestions related to the learned topics in the bi-monthly period with 3 minutes length where
the student can keep the conversation, making their questions. And finally, 1-minutefeedback and analysis.
Study Development
Throughout an academic period, four oral aspects were evaluated with two oral examinations,
one for onsite (remote learning) and another for blended learning modality, using the same
rubric as instruments in all groups to measure their performance.
Table 2: Experiment Group Distribution for Results Comparison
Evaluated
MLS + Traditional Resources
areasInteraction
Group 1 - Remote Modality
Group
3 - Blended Modality
Fluency
Pronunciation
Accuracy
Note: There were 4 aspects evaluated in 4 groups

MLS + Gamified ResourcesGroup 2 - Remote Modality
Group 4 - Blended Modality

During the academic period of the study, different educational support tools were developed
and applied; the following table shows the areas of language skills acquisition and theresources used in each group in the different units.
Table 3: Teaching - Learning Selected Tools by Oral Development Areas
Areas
Area 1
Interaction

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Pair activities recording
Dialogues
Role plays

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Area 2
Fluency
Area 3
Pronunciation

Area 4
Accuracy

Official Conference Proceedings

Speaking one minuteFace to face teacher
Oral presentations
Oral repetition
Online dictionary forpronunciation
Phonetics practiceRunning dictation
Teacher-students correction
Meaning negotiation

H5p

Lyrics training online app

Kahoot online
Genially
Socrative
WordwallEducaplay

Results
For the data analysis, the academic records collected by the teacher are used, which containthe grades of the students in each language area acquisition applied in the four groups thatwere part of the study. For this process, the students needed to have known, verified, andaccepted the grades; there were isolated cases in which the students requested regrades of
specific contributions, which were verified via committee, and were formally addressed andresolved. Therefore, the results presented below represent a unilateral view of the teacher andthe student's acceptance and recognition.
The following table shows the average grades obtained in the areas of language acquisition,
considering the groups and modality. It can be seen that in the remote learning modality, thegroup that had access to gamified resources increased its average by 21.6%, while in theblended modality, the increase was 2.8%.
Table 4: Comparative results by modality
GROUPS

REMOTE LEARNINGBLENDING

Group 1.

Group 2.

Group 3.

Group 4.

Language
Development
Area

Traditional
Resources

Gamified Tools

Traditional
Resources

Gamified Tools

Interaction

6,5

8,3

6,9

6,9

Fluency

6,4

8,4

6,7

6,8

Pronunciation

6,6

8,3

7,0

7,2

Accuracy

6,7

8,3

6,8

7,3

Average

6,5

8,3

6,9

7,1

The following graph shows the performance of students in each group and each of theacquisition areas of oral language skills. Groups 2 and 4 are those in which gamified
resources were applied, especially in group 2, in the remote learning modality, a significant

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increase can be seen in the four areas of speaking, this increase has even presented consistent
results throughout the period, it can be seen that the performance of students has grownsteadily and equitably.
In group 4, in which gamified resources were applied in the blended modality, there isevidence of growth, especially in areas related to Pronunciation and Accuracy; however, theareas of Interaction and Fluency have not shown any variation.
10.0
8.0
6.0
4.0
2.0
0.0
Group 1. TR-A

Group 2. GT-A

Interaction

Group 3. TR-B

Fluency

Pronunciation

Group 4. GT B
Accuracy

Figure 4: Oral Learning Development by Groups
Figures 4 and 5 show the results of the study by modality. In remote learning modality, it isevident that the gamified resources generated a significant improvement in the four areas;
however, in the blended mode, it was not possible to replicate these results, but in any case,an upward trend can be seen, although the average is lower than in the remote learningmodel.
9.0
8.0
7.0
6.0
5.0
4.0
3.0
2.0
1.0
0.0
Interaction

Fluency

Pronunciation

Traditional Virtual

Gamified Virtual

Traditional Blended

Gamified Blended

Accuracy

Figure 5: Language Area Developed by Modality
The courses that used gamified resources have a growing tendency to acquire language skills,
both in remote and blended learning modalities. The aspects that seem to have moresignificant development with gamified resources are Pronunciation and Accuracy. The
gamified activities achieved their objective of retention in oral communicative practice.

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The aspect that seems to have less development with gamified resources is Fluency, it isnecessary to continue reducing the affective filter in the students so that the pauses are not sofrequent. Generally, this level is characterized by its simple Fluency in this skill.
Table 5 shows a retrospective analysis of how the study was carried out concerning two
previous periods, the last one in face-to-face mode and the first in virtual modality. The
course that used gamified resources in the virtual modality managed to raise the average toface-to-face modality levels. In the remote learning modality group, there was a significant
improvement in Speaking using gamified resources. In the remote learning modality, there isa better distribution of averages among the evaluated areas. It seems that learning is at thesame level. It is evident that in the blended modality, gamified resources could generate aslight improvement in areas such as Speaking and Reading.
Table 5: Retrospective Analysis
On Site – Remote Learning

Blended

BeforepandemicFirstperiodpandemic

Secondperiodpandemic

BeforepandemicFirstperiodpandemic

SecondperiodPandemic

Regulargroup

Regulargroup

Gamifiedgroup

Regulargroup

Regulargroup

Gamifiedgroup

Speaking

7,52

5,9

8,3

7,84

7,2

6,9

Writing

8,1

7,6

8,4

7,45

7,4

6,8

Reading

8,3

7,4

8,3

7,5

8

7,2

Listening

8,25

7,3

8,3

7,3

7,2

7,3

Average

8,04

7,05

8,3

7,52

7,45

7,1

GROUP
DESCRIPTION

A remote learning course that used gamified resources improved its performance by 14%
compared to a blended learning course. In the remote modality, there were measured fourareas: interaction, fluency, pronunciation, and accuracy. As on site as online these were themain areas to develop speaking skills. After applying gamified tools, it is evident its
improvement. Gamified tools in the remote modality showed that speaking can besignificantly better to develop interaction, fluency, pronunciation, and accuracy.
Conclusions
Several activities are used face-to-face, such as activities in pairs, dialogues, oral repetition,dictation in progress, and teacher correction. These activities guide the teaching-learning
process to use these resources in a communicative context, without memorizing, sincelearning a language allows communicating ideas, and although the repetition of phrases canbe included, the important thing is the new production and attempts to strengthen thiscompetence. (Iglesias Rodríguez, Olmos Migueláñez, Torrecilla Sánchez, & Mena Marcos,
2014)

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Concerning the various gamified tools available to us, it was found that lyrics training,
Kahoot, Educaplay, Wordwall, Genially, Socrative are instruments that can be incorporated
to improve the assimilation of EFL in the oral skill. For the remote modality, since it isnecessary to strengthen the communicative competence through structure information tounderstand what we hear or read, according to the hypothesis of comprehension, exposed by(Krashen, 2017)
That is to say that the ludic activities combined with the remote modality have allowed
generating substantial learning environments because the learner connects with other people
to participate in different online educational games, where the learner combines the time todissipate his mind with a structured information environment. Therefore, the experiencedescribed here suggests that by mediating learning with these tools, it is possible in a
substantial way to impact favorably and contribute to the challenges represented by today'ssociety (García-Marulanda, 2018).
The analysis of the results indicates that during the face-to-face modality and applying the
traditional activities described in previous pages, Speaking, Reading, Writing, and Listening
skills maintained an average of 8.04. Once the pandemic began, these decreased by 12%.
Besides, regarding the components of the oral skills collected, it could be seen thatinteraction, fluency, pronunciation, and accuracy had an average of 6.5 during the face-toface period as opposed to an average of 8.3 with the application of gamified tools in the
remote modality.
That is, students after this intervention were able to understand sentences and frequently used
expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance (e.g., basic personal and family
information, shopping, local geography, employment). They can communicate in simple androutine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine
matters. Can describe in simple terms aspects of his/her background, immediate environment,
and matters in areas of immediate need. (Cambridge, 2011)
Acknowledgements
This research was possibly applied thanks to English teachers who make a daily difference inlanguage acquisition, MSc. Jessica Cuenca, and Digital Design specialist MSc. Daniel
Ripalda, Indoamerica students from 1st level onsite ( remote learning) and blended learningmodalities, who were the main participants, Indoamerica Authorities Ing. Saul Lara Paredes,
Dr. Franklin Tapia, Ph.D. Janio Jadán, who guided the Research University Fundings, andMSc. David Quezada, as a literature review.

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Contact email: lquezada2@indoamerica.edu.ec
Danielripalda@uti.edu.ec
consuelodebrunnette@hotmail.com

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