publications
2024
- Utility of Kolmogorov complexity measures: Analysis of L2 groups and L1 backgroundsAlaa AlzahraniPlos one, 2024
The proliferation of automated syntactic complexity tools allowed the analysis of larger amounts of learner writing. However, existing tools tend to be language-specific or depend on segmenting learner production into native-based units of analysis. This study examined the utility of a language-general and unsupervised linguistic complexity metric: Kolmogorov complexity in discriminating between L2 proficiency levels within several languages (Czech, German, Italian, English) and across various L1 backgrounds (N = 10) using two large CEFR-rater learner corpora. Kolmogorov complexity was measured at three levels: syntax, morphology, and overall linguistic complexity. Pairwise comparisons indicated that all Kolmogorov complexity measures discriminated among the proficiency levels within the L2s. L1-based variation in complexity was also observed. Distinct syntactic and morphological complexity patterns were found when L2 English writings were analyzed across versus within L1 backgrounds. These results indicate that Kolmogorov complexity could serve as a valuable metric in L2 writing research due to its cross-linguistic flexibility and holistic nature.
- Syntactic priming in the classroom: using narratives to prime L2 Arabic speakersAlaa Alzahrani, and Hanan AlmalkiAsian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education, 2024
A robust finding in psycholinguistics is that prior language experience influences subsequent language processing. This phenomenon is known as syntactic priming. Most of the empirical support for L2 syntactic priming comes from lab-based experiments. However, this evidence might not reflect how priming occurs in typical language activities in the L2 classroom. As such, we conducted a classroom-based priming study. Using a between-subject design, 52 L2 Arabic speakers read and listened to eight story-reading sessions over two weeks that either included a high proportion of the fronted temporal phrase (TP) structure (experimental group) or included no fronted TPs (controls). The effect of L2 proficiency was also investigated. Results revealed that the experimental group did not significantly increase their use of fronted TPs in the immediate posttest or the one-week delayed posttest relative to the baseline. A null effect of Arabic L2 proficiency was also observed. We discuss our findings in light of related priming theories and previous findings. This study highlights the need for more research on syntactic priming via common language tasks in the L2 classroom.
2023
- What is the next structure? Guessing enhances L2 syntactic learning in a syntactic priming taskAlaa AlzahraniFrontiers in Psychology, 2023
Previous psycholinguistic research has shown that Second Language (L2) speakers could learn from engaging in prediction. Few works have directly examined the relationship between prediction and L2 syntactic learning. Further, relatively limited attention has been paid to the effects of two linguistic factors in this area: structure type and L2 proficiency. Using a mixed experimental design, 147 L2 Arabic speakers with varying L2 proficiency levels completed two syntactic priming experiments, each targeting a different structure: (a) the dative and (b) Temporal Phrases (TP). The experimental conditions required participants to predict what the upcoming sentence’s structure would be. The experimental conditions differed in the degree of engagement in prediction error. Results suggested that Arabic L2 speakers at different proficiency levels showed enhanced priming and short-term learning for two syntactic structures (PO, fronted TP) when (a) instructed to guess only (constrained condition) as well as when (b) instructed to guess and compute the prediction error (unconstrained condition), relative to the controls. These results imply a guessing benefit for priming and short-term learning. Participants also experienced different priming effects by structure type, but there was no significant effect for proficiency. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
- LexArabic: A receptive vocabulary size test to estimate Arabic proficiencyAlaa AlzahraniBehavior Research Methods, 2023
Arabic is understudied in second-language research (L2) and lacks rapid and adequate tools for measuring proficiency. Drawing inspiration from LexTALE and its extensions, this study created and validated a quick receptive vocabulary size test to estimate L2 Arabic proficiency. In Experiment 1, the initial version of LexArabic was designed and evaluated with 192 L1 and L2 speakers. Item analysis using point-biserial correlations and item response theory (IRT) was conducted to refine the test, resulting in a final version with 90 items (60 words, 30 nonwords). Experiment 2 assessed LexArabic reliability, validity, and accuracy using a new group of 260 L1 and L2 speakers. The validity of LexArabic was evaluated through objective tasks (a general Arabic proficiency test, L1 to L2 translation task, L2 to L1 translation task) as well as subjective tasks (self-rated proficiency). Results showed that LexArabic demonstrated good reliability (α > 90), validity (correlation with two objective tasks and one subjective task), as well as accuracy (AUC value = .88). The introduction of LexArabic has the potential to facilitate experimental research on both L1 and L2 Arabic speakers and contributes to the development of standardized L2 proficiency assessment across languages.
2022
- Priming the Arabic dative: Evidence for syntactic abstractness and implicit learningAlaa AlzahraniIn Frontiers in Education , 2022
Language speakers are more likely to reuse a recently experienced syntactic structure, a phenomenon known as syntactic priming. However, empirical evidence for syntactic priming comes primarily from a small subset of Indo-European languages. Using a comprehension-to-production priming task, this preliminary study examined immediate and cumulative syntactic priming in Arabic, a language with a different typology than studied thus far. Nine native speakers of Arabic were primed to the Arabic double object (DO) dative construction. Results from a logistic regression model indicate that there were significant priming effects across all priming phases, with increased productions of the DO dative (a) during the priming task, (b) immediately after, (c) and 2 weeks later. These findings provide some support for the proposal that syntactic priming arises from an abstract syntactic level as well as the idea that priming is a form of implicit learning.
2020
- A functional analysis of the thematic organization in electrical engineering research article introductions written in English by native and Saudi scholars: A comparative studyHesham Alyousef, and Alaa AlzahraniArab World English Journal (AWEJ) Volume, 2020
The study of the Research Article (RA) genre has been dominated by genre analysis and corpus linguistics focusing on rhetorical moves and, or lexicogrammar, with little attention to the level of the message and the realization of different types of Theme and progression patterns. To the best of our knowledge, there is a lack of comparative studies investigating similarities/differences in the use of theme in electrical engineering RA Introductions written by native English-speaking (NES) scholars and non-native English-speaking (NNES) Saudi scholars. We address this gap using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) approach to analyze the texture of electrical engineering RA Introduction sections written by NES scholars and NNES Saudi scholars from a message perspective. The research questions aimed to quantitatively and qualitatively investigate (1) Theme types, (2) thematic markedness, and (3) thematic progression patterns in the two data sets. After reviewing comparative research on message structure, we analyzed 117 RA Introductions written by experienced NES/NNES authors. The results accord with research comparing thematic organization in native English scholars’ writings and those from cultural background other than Arabic. The findings showed that NESs’ and Saudi NNESs’ introductions overlap at a clause level, but they start to diverge beyond the clause. This study provides a good starting point for understanding NNES Saudi scholars’ use of underexplored linguistic items. The results of the current study offer insights for academic writing instruction and material developers.
- Disagreement strategies used by speakers of English as a Lingua Franca in business meetingsAlaa AlzahraniAdvances in Language and Literary Studies, 2020
Numerous studies have attested to the consensus-orientation and cooperative nature of English as a lingua franca (ELF) interactions. However, limited attention has been given to moments of disagreements in ELF communication, with most of the little existing work focusing on disagreements in ELF academic or informal contexts. Consequently, little is known about how ELF users display disagreement in real-life business contexts. For this reason, this study examined disagreement expressions in five ELF business meetings drawn from the VOICE corpus to understand the nature of disagreement in ELF interactions. Following the identification of disagreement instances, the study used Stalpers’s (1995) framework to investigate whether the disagreement was accompanied by a mitigation strategy that reduces its impact. It was found that the examined ELF business speakers express their disagreement in both mitigated and unmitigated forms with a marked preference for using mitigated expressions, indicating that the appropriate linguistic choice for expressing disagreements in a between-company business meeting is a mitigated disagreement form. Another main finding is the frequent use of disagreement utterances, suggesting that ELF speakers do not merely seek consensus, but they also raise objections and state their different opinions. One implication of these findings is that ELF encounters might not be as consensus-seeking and mutually supportive as suggested in previous works. Taken together, the findings of the present study extended the existing body of work on ELF disagreement and, in general, added further to our understanding of ELF interaction.
- The structure and function of lexical bundles in communicative Saudi high school EFL textbooksAlaa AlzahraniInternational Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 2020
Current English Language Teaching (ELT) textbooks have largely adopted the communicative approach by using authentic materials to foster EFL students’ communicative competence. However, the communicative status of Saudi high school English textbooks has been underexplored. One way to assess the authenticity of Saudi EFL textbooks is by considering their use of a frequent linguistic item known as lexical bundles. Thus, the present study investigated whether the lexical bundles in communicative Saudi high school textbooks are representative of conversational English. This comparative corpus study used a lexical bundle approach to compare the ten most frequent lexical bundles in the textbooks to those in an English reference corpus. Results show that three and four-word lexical bundles are less frequent in the textbooks compared to the reference corpus and that there is considerable variation in the structural and functional patterns of the bundles in the two corpora. Pedagogical implications are discussed in light of the findings.
2019
- Lexical Aspect in the Development of the English Progressive Among Arab EFL SpeakersAlaa Alzahrani, and Normala OthmanAsiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature, 2019
Recent research calls into question the predictive power of the Aspect Hypothesis as it has been found that it is advanced learners rather than beginners who show the developmental pattern predicted by the hypothesis. Following the identification of several design issues including lack of rigorous treatment of proficiency level and reliance on controlled elicitation tasks, this cross-sectional study used an Arab learner corpus (BALC) that controls proficiency level and task. This corpus-based study analysed the development of tense-aspect among Arabic-speaking EFL learners at two levels, beginner and advanced, by comparing their performance on 200 essays. Contrary to the recent research on Aspect Hypothesis, it was found that lexical aspect influences the early acquisition of the English progressive as the lower proficiency level in the present study extensively attached the progressive on activity verbs.
2018
- Exploring Depictions of Bedouins in Travels in Arabia Deserta by Charles DoughtyAlaa AlzahraniInternational Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 2018
The discourse of Orientalism has often been explored from a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) perspective in fiction works and news media published in the 20th and 21st centuries. What remains a largely unexplored area is Oriental views in non-fiction Western writings of the 19th century. One of the key books describing the people of Arabia from this era is Charles Doughty’s (1888) Travels in Arabia Deserta. For this reason, this study analyzed one chapter from this book to explore Doughty’s representation of the Arabian Peninsula Bedouins. By drawing on CDA and the Appraisal framework, this study identified evaluative lexical items used by Doughty to describe the Bedouins and related these lexical choices to three Oriental themes identified in the literature: (1) Oriental inferiority, (2) Oriental barbarity, and (3) Oriental untrustworthiness. An examination of the Oriental themes in Doughty’s book highlights two characteristics of the discourse of Orientalism. One is the underlying cultural superiority of the West and the other is the interdependence of texts describing the people of Arabia. As such, this paper supports the idea that what is encompassed by the label “discourse of Orientalism” can include even seemingly neutral descriptions of people of Arabia, and that existing representations of Arabs are a product of an accumulated body of work rather than from one specific text.