Towards an understanding of the effects of a period of residence abroad on the production of discourse markers by L2 users of English: The use of ‘like

Annarita Magliacane

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    The use of discourse markers (DMs) in oral
    production seems to be a frequent characteristic of the spoken language of native speakers
    (Lewis, 2006), whereas their use in the second
    language (L2), and in particular by instructed learners, seems to be a rather limited phenomenon (Sankoff et al., 1997; Liao, 2009). Previous
    research has demonstrated that the production
    of DMs in the L2 can be aided by intense contact with native speakers (Sankoff et al., 1997)
    and that, by extension, the degree of usage of
    DMs in the L2 can be considered as an index of
    the level of exposure to the target language (TL)
    (Migge, 2015). Situated within the research area
    of Study Abroad (SA), this contribution attempts
    to assess whether, after a period of residence
    abroad, informants start to use DMs differently
    in speech, through a longitudinal analysis. In particular, this article focuses on their use of ‘like’.
    Data were elicited following the principles of
    the sociolinguistic interview (Labov, 1984) and
    were collected at the beginning and the end of
    the participants’ experience abroad. The study
    was conducted with five Italian learners of English who spent about a semester in a university
    context in Ireland. The results of this investigation suggest that the experience abroad was
    beneficial, though extremely heterogeneous,
    across individuals in terms of the production of
    this DM in the L2.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)64-70
    JournalRISE
    Volume2
    Issue number4
    Publication statusPublished - 2016

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