This study evaluated how hearing-impaired listeners perceive native (Swedish) and nonnative (English) speech in the presence of noise- and speech maskers. Speech reception thresholds were measured for four different masker types for each target language. The maskers consisted of stationary and fluctuating noise and two-talker babble in Swedish and English. Twenty-three hearing-impaired native S...

In the present study, it was examined whether phonotactic constraints of the first language affect speech processing by Japanese learners of English and whether L2 proficiency influences it. Seventeen native English speakers (ES), 18 Japanese speakers with high proficiency of English (JH), and 20 Japanese speakers with relatively low English proficiency (JL) took part in a monitoring task. Two ...

Abstract Genre-based approach has been the focus of interest in the teaching of language since the mid1980s. Genre is defined in terms of the use of language in conventionalized communicative settings. The present study made an attempt to scrutinize the effects of genre-based pedagogy on Iranian Pre-intermediate EFL leaners' reading comprehension as well as the interaction between their reading...

Automated assessment of language proficiency of a test taker’s spoken response regarding its content, vocabulary, grammar and context depends largely upon how well the input speech can be recognized. While state-of-the-art, deep neural net based acoustic models have significantly improved the recognition performance of native speaker’s speech, good recognition is still challenging when the inpu...

Pragmatism, a philosophical approach that originally appeared in the USA, places its evaluation of validity ideas on concepts such as "action" and "benefit". The pioneers this philosophy believe basis human thought knowledge should be traced back to notion benefit. Language, according John Dewey, is tool for representing meaning. Accordingly, language must loaded with utilitarian creating pract...

Second language learners perform worse than native speakers under adverse listening conditions, such as speech in noise (SPIN). No data are available on heritage language speakers' (early naturalistic interrupted learners') ability to perceive SPIN. The current study fills this gap and investigates the perception of Russian speech in multi-talker babble noise by the matched groups of high- and ...