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The chapter presents an overview of current and recent research concerning the phonetics and phonology of adult second language (L2) learners in classroom settings, summarizing key findings and suggesting future research directions. In this context, classroom learners are defined as college-age individuals who are immersed in their first language (L1) and whose L2 learning is limited to the instructional environment of college or university classes. The survey deliberately prioritizes studies that utilize instrumental acoustic analysis or controlled perceptual experiments to assess the phonetic and phonological abilities of L2 learners. Although not aiming for an exhaustive review, the chapter explores the following major themes in the surveyed research literature: the role of L2 input quantity and quality, the influence of different phonological targets, the impact of explicit pronunciation instruction and corrective feedback, the extent and implications of individual differences, and the significance of L2 phonetic category formation and L1 restructuring in the classroom-based acquisition of L2 phonetics and phonology.
In this chapter, we discuss historical, methodological, and social issues pertaining to the relationship between context and language learning and assessment in first, second, and heritage languages (henceforth, L1, L2, and HL, respectively). We begin with an overview of the contextual factors that shape L1 development and discuss issues of language policy in formal L1 educational contexts. In the second and third sections, we briefly review the development of the fields of L2 learning and assessment, with attention to contextual happenings and trends that have affected them, and discuss psychological, social, cultural, and literacy-based approaches to language learning. In the fourth section, we examine the case of HL learners as an example of how context affects the development and maintenance of the HL in both informal (e.g., how young children acquire the HL) and formal settings (e.g., how current L2 teaching methods are not adequate to teach HL learners). The chapter concludes with a discussion of what we see as possible future trends and directions in the fields.
For bilinguals, lexical access in one language may affect, or be affected by, activation of words in another language. Research to date suggests seemingly contradictory effects of such cross-linguistic influence (CLI): in some cases CLI facilitates lexical access while in others it is a hindrance. Here we provide a comprehensive review of CLI effects drawn from multiple disciplines and paradigms. We describe the contexts within which CLI gives rise to facilitation and interference and suggest that these two general effects arise from separate mechanisms that are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, we argue that facilitation is ubiquitous, occurring in virtually all instances of CLI, while interference is not always present and depends on levels of cross-language lexical competition. We discuss three critical factors – language context, direction, and modality of CLI – which appear to modulate facilitation and interference. Overall, we hope to provide a general framework for investigating CLI in future research.
Recently, in their 2019 paper, Poyago-Theotoky and Yong consider a managerial Cournot duopoly with pollution externalities and emission taxes and propose an explicit environmental incentive in a managerial compensation contract. The authors compare several exogenous equilibria emerging in the symmetric sub-games in which the owner offers either the environmental delegation contract or the standard sales delegation contract: abatement and social welfare (resp. emission taxes) under environmental delegation are higher (resp. lower) than under sales delegation. The present work extends their model using a game-theoretic approach to analyse the asymmetric sub-games, in which only one firm adopts the environmental contract, and adds the contract decision stage. Results show that the environmental contract never emerges as the unique sub-game perfect Nash equilibrium of this non-cooperative managerial decision game. Indeed, if the green R&D technology is efficient, the sales contract emerges as the unique Pareto-inefficient Nash equilibrium. Otherwise, if the green R&D technology is inefficient, multiple Nash equilibria in pure strategies exist (coordination game). Our findings offer direct policy implications.
This article argues for domestic legislative regulation of global value chains to protect offshore workers. First, it outlines the policy reasons necessitating such legislation. Empirical evidence confirms that global value chains are a dominant feature of the global economy. It is contended that lead firms wield influence in global value chains in a manner which leads to poor outcomes for offshore workers. Second, the article sets out the minimum steps necessary for a domestic state to attribute the responsibility for transparency of global value chains to lead firms. Then, it proceeds to explore the possibilities and limits of the proposed scheme of regulation. Despite some complexities with implementing the scheme, it is argued that if domestic legislative regulation of global value chains strengthens even to a small extent the monitoring of global labour issues, it is worth pursuing.
Chapter 9: Social Contexts of Reading. This chapter focuses on the many social contexts in which reading is carried out and in which reading develops. We learn to read within a family unit, in various school settings (and their associated goals, expectations, and opportunities), in various classrooms, and in interaction with specific teachers and student peers. Students are also influenced by the wider social and cultural expectations of political, religious, ethnic, economic, and social institutions. Social contexts set the stage for successful reading within the first year of life, and language knowledge, as well as beginning reading, is profoundly shaped in the first five years of life. L2 reading, as it often is learned in childhood or adolescence, is also strongly shaped by social contexts in which learning to read is carried out. Four specific issues include the needs for effective teacher training, the status of minority language instruction in K-12 schools, advanced L2 reading instruction, and most importantly, the role of language and reading exposure throughout a learner’s lifetime. The chapter concludes with implications for instruction.
Chapter 8: L1 and L2 Reading Relationships. This chapter explores the various factors influencing L2 reading development, describing various more general L1–L2 differences in reading development, the impact of L1 transfer on L2 reading relative to L2 developmental influences, the role of non-language-specific underlying cognate abilities, and issues of L1-L2 distance and dual language processing. A key conclusion is that L2 reading development emerges out of a combination of L1 transfer and L2 language skills as a dual-language processing system. The chapter first identifies fifteen ways in which L1 reading and L2 reading differ under linguistic differences, cognitive and educational differences, and socio-cultural and institutional differences. Specific relationships between L1 and L2 reading are described in line with four theoretical perspectives: The Interdependence Hypothesis, the Common Underlying Cognitive Processing framework, the Transfer Facilitation Model, and the Language Threshold Hypothesis. The chapter concludes with implications for instruction.
Many studies have substantiated the perceptual symbol system, which assumes a routine generation of perceptual information during language comprehension, but little is known about the processing format in which the perceptual information of different dimensions is conveyed simultaneously during sentence comprehension. The current study provides the first experimental evidence of how multidimensional perceptual information (color and shape) was processed during online sentence comprehension in Mandarin. We designed three consecutive sentence–picture verification tasks that only differed in the delay of the display of pictures preceded by declarative sentences. The processing was analyzed in three stages based on time intervals (i.e., 0ms, +750ms, +1500ms). The response accuracy and response time data were reported. The initial stage (i.e., ISI=0ms) attested the match effect of color and shape, but the simulated representation of color and shape did not interact. In the intermediate stage (i.e., ISI=750ms), the routinely simulated color and shape interacted, but the match facilitation was found only in cases where one perceptual information was in mismatch while the other was not. In the final stage (i.e., ISI=1500ms), the match facilitation of one particular perceptual property was influenced by a mismatch with the other perceptual property. These results suggested that multiple perceptual information presented simultaneously was processed in an additive manner to a large extent before entering into the final stage, where the simulated perceptual information was integrated in a multiplicative manner. The results also suggested that color and shape were comparable to object recognition when conjointly conveyed. In relation to other evidence from behavioral and event-related potential studies on sentence reading in the discussion, we subscribed to the idea that the full semantic integration became available over time.
This article develops a non-cooperative game with managerial quantity-setting firms in which owners choose whether to delegate output and abatement decisions to managers through a contract based on emissions (conventionally denoted as ‘green’ delegation, GD) instead of sales (sales delegation, SD), and the government levies an emissions tax to incentivise firms’ emissions-reduction actions. First, it compares the Nash equilibrium outcomes between GD and SD and then contrasts them also with profit maximisation (PM). A plethora of Nash equilibria emerges, especially in the case GD versus PM (the ‘green delegation game’), depending on the public awareness toward environmental quality, ranging from the coordination game to the ‘green’ prisoner's dilemma. Second, though the contract under GD incentivises managers for emissions, the environmental damage is lower than under SD. This is because the optimal tax more than compensates the incentive for emissions. These findings suggest that designing GD contracts paradoxically favours environmental quality.
This study investigated the production of the four Mandarin tones by a group of school-aged Spanish learners of Chinese (n=12) and a group of native Chinese children (n=4) with a mean age of 9.5 years. The participants were recorded in a quiet room at the school premises while performing an imitation task in which they produced 32 monosyllabic words embedded in a carrier phrase. Time-normalized pitch contours were extracted at 20 consecutive points, converted to logarithmic Z-scores to normalize F0 variation across talkers and submitted to growth curve analysis to compare the surface F0 contours of the four tones. A significant difference in the F0 shapes produced by the two groups was found for all four tones, but a significant difference in F0 height was found only for Tones 2 and 3. The findings suggested that native-like production of pitch contour may be more challenging than pitch height due to their relatively more complex f0-related laryngeal muscle activities and lesser attention to the former than the latter F0 dimension among non-native tone listeners.
Chapter 7 discusses how vocabulary can be learned intentionally through explicit study. It outlines the need for explicit instruction, and discusses what makes a word easier or harder to learn. It then looks at the role of the L1 in L2 vocabulary acquisition, and how engagement affects learning. Finally, vocabulary learning strategies are covered.
There exist injective Tauberian operators on ${{L}_{1}}\left( 0,\,1 \right)$ that have dense, nonclosed range. This gives injective nonsurjective operators on ${{\ell }_{\infty }}$ that have dense range. Consequently, there are two quasi-complementary noncomplementary subspaces of ${{\ell }_{\infty }}$ that are isometric to ${{\ell }_{\infty }}$.
The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) takes cropland out of production for 10 years, reducing grain supplies available to elevators. Results suggest that the program has negatively impacted elevator merchandising margins, but that elevators adjusted rather quickly to CRP changes, making most of the adjustment within 1 year. The reduction in margins reflects an element of pressure on agribusinesses that has not been measured in previous studies.
Stocker cattle ownership is compared to contract grazing using stochastic simulation. Returns are evaluated for both cattle owners and caretakers in contract grazing agreements. For caretakers, contract grazing is significantly less risky than cattle ownership. Slightly to moderately risk-averse caretakers could be expected to prefer some type of contract grazing to direct ownership of cattle. For cattle owners, contracting reduces risk only slightly while significantly reducing expected returns.
The demand for a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, including fresh market tomatoes, has increased significantly over the past decade because of greater convenience in use, improved selection, and rising health and diet concerns. As U.S. demand for tomatoes and other horticultural crops strengthens, inexperienced domestic and international suppliers believe they can compete effectively within U.S. markets. Free trade agreements have reduced monetary barriers to trade, but remaining impediments, such as institutional and competitive market constraints, represent significant challenges for southern U.S. growers. This paper discusses points addressed by VanSickle, Eastwood, and Woods concerning trade and horticultural market development.
We examine the allocation of technology rents between a price-setting, innovating monopolist and heterogeneous technology adopters. A model of monopoly pricing in the presence of heterogeneous adopters is used to examine conditions under which greater producer (farmer) heterogeneity leads to greater producer benefit from innovation in noncompetitive markets. An application to Bt cotton determines the profit-maximizing price of Bt cotton seed and reveals that Monsanto and Delta and Pine Land are indeed leaving money on the table in the form of unexploited profit opportunities. However, we estimate that the presence of heterogeneous adopters explains over 80% of the rents that accrue to the farmers.
Although Vector Autoregressive models are commonly used to forecast prices, specification of these models remains an issue. Questions that arise include choice of variables and lag length. This article examines the use of Forecast Error Variance Decompositions to guide the econometrician's model specification. Forecasting performance of Variance Autoregressive models, generated from Forecast Error Variance Decompositions, is analyzed within wholesale chicken markets. Results show that the Forecast Error Variance Decomposition approach has the potential to provide superior model selections to traditional Granger Causality tests.
Le but de cet article est de montrer que le mécanisme de sélection naturelle des firmes peut entraver la croissance de la productivité agrégée de l'économie, et ce, contrairement aux résultats suggérés par la littérature théorique existante. Cette dernière considère que le mécanisme de sélection des firmes se base sur les niveaux de productivité de celles-ci. Nous supposons, dans cet article, que les firmes sont hétérogènes par non seulement leurs niveaux de productivité mais aussi par leurs coûts fixes. En outre, en tenant compte d'une possible perte d'expérience pour les firmes inactives, notre étude met clairement en avant un effet négatif de la sortie des firmes, et par là d'une baisse des subventions accordées à celles-ci, sur la croissance de la productivité agrégée tant à court qu'à long terme.
Convex duality is a powerful framework for solving non-smooth optimal control problems. However, for problems set in non-reflexive Banach spaces such as L1(Ω) or BV(Ω), the dual problem is formulated in a space which has difficult measure theoretic structure. The predual problem, on the other hand, can be formulated in a Hilbert space and entails the minimization of a smooth functional with box constraints, for which efficient numerical methods exist. In this work, elliptic control problems with measures and functions of bounded variation as controls are considered. Existence and uniqueness of the corresponding predual problems are discussed, as is the solution of the optimality systems by a semismooth Newton method. Numerical examples illustrate the structural differences in the optimal controls in these Banach spaces, compared to those obtained in corresponding Hilbert space settings.
When do exports lead to rents? And when are they shared with employees? This paper proposes a double empirical test that deals with this question, based on a mix of rent sharing theories and Cournot Oligopoly. We find that most of the OECD exporting activities are associated with some rents that are shared with employees. However, we also show that the destination of sales matter, as rents seem to originate mostly from exporting to other OECD economies or, to a lesser extent, selling to own markets. Exports to developing countries' however, seem to be associated with positive rents only in a small minority of industries.