Are U.S. immigrants' English proficiency and social outcomes the result of their cultural preferences, or of more fundamental constraints? Using 2000 Census microdata, we relate immigrants' English proficiency, marriage, fertility and residential location variables to their age at arrival in the U.S., and in particular whether that age fell within the "critical period" of language acquisition. ...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between arts students’ English proficiency level and their self-efficacy. Many studies have proved that self-efficacy is a significant predictor of learning and achievement (Multon, Brown, & Lent, 1991; Pajares, 1996, 1997; Schunk & Pajares, 2005). Does this apply to arts students? Arts students spend most of their time practicing sk...

This study investigated how vowel epenthesis, a typical suprasegmental error produced by Japanese learners of English, is realized in their speech production of L2 English. We investigated two aspects: (i) whether loanword epenthesis phonology in Japanese transfers to English speech production, and (ii) how learners’ English proficiency level affects vowel epenthesis. In Japanese loanword phono...

In 2000 Census microdata, various outcomes of second-generation immigrants are related to their parents' age at arrival to the United States, and in particular whether that age fell within the "critical period" of language acquisition. We interpret this as an effect of the parent's English-language skills and construct an instrumental variable for parental English proficiency. Estimates of the ...

What are the processes underlying the judgments of translation? And what is the role of language proficiency? This study addresses these questions by examining how Chinese-English bilinguals evaluate poetry translations. Participants were shown haikus in Chinese and the corresponding English translations and were asked to rate the translation quality. The English translations ranged from litera...

Although anecdotally there appear to be differences in the way native speakers use and comprehend their native language, most empirical investigations of language processing study university students and none have studied differences in language proficiency, which may be independent of resource limitations such as working memory span. We examined differences in language proficiency in adult mon...

Introduction. As English is today's dominant language of science and technology (EST), students having passed general and EST courses need to interact primarily with the scientific community specially in their field of study for various purposes, including the use of educational films. This study specifically aims to evaluate the proficiency of Iranian students of dentistry in understanding edu...

in recent years a great number of books have appeared in various fields of esp, and the number is increasing every year. these books are specially prepared and adapted for foreign students possessing varying degrees of language skills. experts believe that the production of esp books is a vital task that requires several stages and procedures. to produce these materials, special attention shou...

Assisting in foreign language learning is one of the major areas in which natural language processing technology can contribute. This paper proposes a computerized method of measuring communicative skill in English as a foreign language. The proposed method consists of two parts. The first part involves a test sentence selection part to achieve precise measurement with a small test set. The sec...

The article by Cheri Wilson, "Patient Safety and Healthcare Quality: The Case for Language Access", highlights the challenges of providing Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) to patients with Limited English Proficiency (LEP). As the US pursues high-value, high-performance healthcare, our ability to meet the needs of our most vulnerable will determine whether we succeed or...