31.1069, Review: German; Germanic; Language Acquisition: Goltsev (2019)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-31-1069. Wed Mar 18 2020. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 31.1069, Review: German; Germanic; Language Acquisition: Goltsev (2019)

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Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2020 21:36:44
From: Franka Kermer [franka.kermer at utu.fi]
Subject: Typen und Frequenzen von L2-Merkmalen im Deutschen als Zweitsprache

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-3012.html

AUTHOR: Evghenia  Goltsev
TITLE: Typen und Frequenzen von L2-Merkmalen im Deutschen als Zweitsprache
SUBTITLE: Wahrnehmung, Bewertung und Verständlichkeit
SERIES TITLE: DaZ-Forschung [DaZ-For]
PUBLISHER: De Gruyter Mouton
YEAR: 2019

REVIEWER: Franka Kermer, University of Turku

Goltsev, Evghenia (2019). Typen und Frequenzen von L2-Merkmalen im Deutschen
als Zweitsprache. Wahrnehmung, Bewertung und Verständlichkeit. Berlin/Boston:
DeGruyter. 

Synopsis: 
This thesis represents an investigation of the linguistic influence on
intelligibility and attitude in an L2 variety. In particular, this well
written study offers empirical data about German native speaker’s perception
and judgement of Russian speaker’s erroneous use of L2 German on the one hand
and explores the intelligibility of the language production of Russian
speakers of L2 German on the other. The thesis is divided into four parts,
including a review on some earlier work on L2 perception and language transfer
more generally as well as a methodological explanation of how Goltsev
conducted her experimental study (Chapter 2), the design of the study,
including data collection and statistical assessment (Chapter 3), the results
and analysis of the data (Chapter 4), and a discussion that evaluates the
results in light of earlier works as well as the successes and shortcomings of
her study (Chapter 5). 

Summary: 
Chapter 1 introduces the basic goals by Goltsev, viz. the goal of exploring
how and whether forms specific to the L2 influence the perception and
judgement of that L2 variety and how other factors, such as the overall
frequency of specific L2 forms, gender of and regional variety spoken by the
German native speakers affect their perception and judgement of L2 language
production. 

Chapter 2 and 3 is background materials, including a short review of the
theoretical background and an in-depth description of the literature about
language attitudes, which includes the concept of perception, and
intelligibility, as well as a thorough account on the methodological tools
chosen for this experimental design, which includes the use of audio stimuli,
a judgement test and background questionnaire. She also introduces her
research hypotheses and corresponding research questions, all together five
hypotheses and 15 questions, pointing to the in-depth character of her thesis.
Goltsev’s perspective is that (i) an increasing frequency of L2 error types
increases negative judgement and unintelligibility, and (ii) an increasing
frequency of one L2 error type results in negative judgement but does not
necessarily influence ease of understanding. Furthermore, she hypothesised
that (iii) male speakers and speakers from the northern part of Germany would
associate high frequency of L2 errors with unintelligibility, which,
consequently, would evoke more negative reactions of the native speakers. The
materials consist of texts specifically tailored for this study. The texts are
modified to include those L2 errors that are specific to Russian speakers of
German, particularly in the domains of phonology, morphology, lexis and
syntax. The raters, 205 native speakers of German, were tested in two groups
in a quiet room and performed the rating tasks (evaluating of the texts for
lexical, grammatical, phonological properties/errors) and filled out the
background questionnaire. 

Chapter 4 reports empirical data of the perception and judgement of
grammatical, phonological or lexical forms in the German L2 variety. Goltsev
makes use of the factor analysis to decipher native speaker’s judgment of
these specific properties of L2 speech. She finds results that are in line
with earlier findings on the perception of L2 speech. For example, raters’
judgements of the linguistic variable “pronunciation” shows that high
frequency in L2 errors correlates significantly with a negative evaluation and
lowers their understanding of accuracy and complexity. The analysis also
yields a significant effect of gender, showing that errors in L2 speech were
evaluated less harshly and not found to affect intelligibility by female
raters. Lastly, the analysis yields a significant effect for region,
suggesting that perception of L2 errors was less negative among speakers from
the southern part of Germany compared to negative judgements among speakers
from the northern part of Germany. 

Chapter 5 summarises the results that were found earlier. The thesis aimed at
an investigation into the relationship between frequency of errors in L2
speech and raters’ judgement. Goltsev concludes her thesis with a discussion
that evaluates the failures and successes of her experiment. Goltsev’s
recommendations for investigating errors in Russian speakers of L2 German
provide valuable lessons for any professional interested in multilingualism
and language attitudes. 

Evaluation: 

The aim of this thesis is the empirical investigation of German native
speaker’s perception and judgement of Russian speaker’s erroneous use of L2
German on the one hand and explores the intelligibility of the language
production of Russian speakers of L2 German on the other. The motivation of
this enterprise resides in the question how L2 errors in German as a foreign
language are perceived and judged by native speakers of German. The value in
Goltsev’s work here is that she demonstrates explicitly how the frequency and
types of errors in L2 speech correlate with gender and place to address issues
such as: do female speakers of L1 German judge deviant L2 structures
differently than their male counterparts? Are raters’ judgments of erroneous
L2 speech affected by the L1 speakers’ own regional variety? She finds, for
example, that frequency of errors and frequency of error types influence
raters’ judgement of L2 speech negatively. In particular, raters’ judgement of
intelligibility is shown to be affected by erroneous L2 speech. Somewhat
surprisingly, the study reveals that female raters were more lenient towards
deviant L2 structures and easily understood erroneous L2 speech compared to
their male counterparts. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the
evaluation of pronunciation of Russian speakers of L2 German show an effect
for gender: female speakers are judged more positively than the male speakers.
As a result, Goltev argues, the results suggest that despite attempts to
achieve L2 communicative success, Russian speakers’ of L2 German are faced
with linguistic stereotyping. Listeners not only judge Russian speakers’
accent in L2 speech more negatively, they also attribute social identity to
speakers, including their social status, intelligence or academic success. The
power of prejudice in accent perception thus appears to be a prevalent factor
in achieving L2 communicative success. 

The study relies on theoretical approaches and methods primarily used in the
study of English as a Foreign Language; applying these to the context of
German as a Foreign Language is where Goltev’s study becomes so valuable. As
Goltev rightly argues, her thesis represents an important contribution to the
study of multilingualism in the context of German as a foreign language. Yet
another valuable contribution of her work is the observation that certain
aspects of multilingualism, such as positive perception of L2 varieties, can
be translated into pedagogical guidelines.  

Audience 
This book is quite valuable for researchers working on L2 speech, language
attitudes and perception and German as a foreign language. I add to the list
of potential audiences by saying that this thesis is comprehensive enough to
be a source for students in language programmes. That said, a reader looking
for a theoretically informed account of multilingualism will not find one
here; rather, the thesis is explicitly about the experimental study and its
detailed analysis – by an expert classroom practitioner and language teaching
expert. At times, the text feels repetitive and somewhat unclear; for example,
Goltev presents and discusses five research hypotheses and 15 research
questions, which make the chapter on the results rather dense. This thorough
analysis, on the other hand, shows her expertise in data management and
statistical analyses. 

References

Crowther D., Trofimovich P., Saito K., Isaacs T. (2014). Second language
comprehensibility revisited: investigating the effects of learner background,
TESOL Quarterly. 
Rubin, D. (2012). The power of prejudice in accent perception: Reverse
linguistic stereotyping and its impact on listener judgments and decisions.
In. J. Levis & K. LeVelle (Eds.). Proceedings of the3rd Pronunciation in
Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference, Sept. 2011. (pp. 11-17).
Ames, IA: Iowa State University.


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