The Acquisition of L2 Phonology is a wide-ranging new collection which explores various aspects of the acquisition of an L2 phonological system. It covers L2 speech production and perception, theoretical conceptualisations of L2 phonology acquisition, and the importance of the mastery of highly intelligible pronunciation as an important component of L2 education.

This volume explores a variety of aspects of second language speech, with special focus on contributions to the field made by (primarely) generative linguists looking at the sounds and sound systems of second language learners. Second Language Phonology starts off with an overview of second language acquisition research in order to place the study of L2 speech in context. This introductory chapter is followed by an outline of traditional approaches to investigating interlanguage phonology. The third chapter consists of a discussion of relevant aspects of a learning theory that must be included in a treatment of how people learn sound systems. The next three chapters focus on particular aspects of the mental represenation of phonological competence; segments, syllables, and stress, respectively. The penultimate chapter deals with issues related to the mechanisms that govern the changing of interlanguage grammars over time. The volume ends with a summary of the issues raised throughout the text.

This volume is a collection of 13 chapters, each devoted to a particular issue that is crucial to our understanding of the way learners acquire, learn, and use an L2 sound system. In addition, it spans both theory and application in L2 phonology. The book is divided into three parts, with each section unified by broad thematic content: Part I, “Theoretical Issues and Frameworks in L2 Phonology,” lays the groundwork for examining L2 phonological acquisition. Part II, “Second Language Speech Perception and Production,” examines these two aspects of L2 speech in more detail. Finally, Part III, “Technology, Training, and Curriculum,” bridges the gap between theory and practice. Each chapter examines theoretical frameworks, major research findings (both classic and recent), methodological issues and choices for conducting research in a particular area of L2 phonology, and major implications of the research findings for more general models of language acquisition and/or pedagogy.

This book brings together the findings of current studies on the second language (L2) acquisition of Turkish, an Altaic language with more than 140 million native speakers around the world. There is now a growing interest in learning and teaching Turkish as an L2, both in and outside Turkey. Coordinated efforts to produce theoretical and empirical work on the acquisition and teaching of L2 Turkish are therefore an urgent need. The compilation in this volume offers eleven L2 studies that explore the representation and/or processing of various linguistic properties in different domains of grammar (phonology, morpho-syntax, pragmatics) and their interfaces. All studies involve adult L2 Turkish learners with various first-language backgrounds at different proficiency levels. With extensive discussions on theoretical and pedagogical issues, this title will appeal to an international readership that includes L2 Turkish researchers, materials designers, and teachers.

A comprehensive, current review of the research and approaches to advanced proficiency in second language acquisition The Handbook of Advanced Proficiency in Second Language Acquisition offers an overview of the most recent and scientific-based research concerning higher proficiency in second language acquisition (SLA). With contributions from an international team of experts in the field, the Handbook presents several theoretical approaches to SLA and offers an examination of advanced proficiency from the viewpoint of various contexts and dimensions of second language performance. The authors also review linguistic phenomena among advanced learners through the lens of phonology and grammar development. Comprehensive in scope, this book provides an overview of advanced proficiency grounded in socially-relevant domains of second language acquisition including discourse, reading, genre-based writing, and pragmatic competence. The authoritative volume brings together the theoretical accounts of advanced language use combined with solid empirical research. Includes contributions from an international collection of noted scholars in the field of second language acquisition Offers a variety of theoretical approaches to SLA Contains information on the most recent empirical research that contributes to an understanding of SLA Describes performance phenomena according to multiple approaches to SLA Written for scholars, students and linguists, The Handbook of Advanced Proficiency in Second Language Acquisition is a comprehensive text that offers the most recent developments in the study of advanced proficiency in the acquisition of a second language.

The book concerns theoretical, interdisciplinary and methodological issues in L2 acquisition research. It gives an accurate and up-to-date overview of high quality work currently in progress in research methodology, processing, principles and parameters theory, phonology, the bilingual lexicon, input and instruction. The volume will have the purpose of a handbook for teachers, students and researchers in the area of second language acquisition. The aim is to provide the reader with an acquisition perspective on processes of second and foreign language learning.

Including contributions from a team of world-renowned international scholars, this volume is a state-of-the-art survey of second language speech research, showcasing new empirical studies alongside critical reviews of existing influential speech learning models. It presents a revised version of Flege's Speech Learning Model (SLM-r) for the first time, an update on a cornerstone of second language research. Chapters are grouped into five thematic areas: theoretical progress, segmental acquisition, acquiring suprasegmental features, accentedness and acoustic features, and cognitive and psychological variables. Every chapter provides new empirical evidence, offering new insights as well as challenges on aspects of the second language speech acquisition process. Comprehensive in its coverage, this book summarises the state of current research in second language phonology, and aims to shape and inspire future research in the field. It is an essential resource for academic researchers and students of second language acquisition, applied linguistics and phonetics and phonology.

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Other, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, language: English, abstract: In the first section, this research paper will present the role of age on L2 phonological acquisition by explaining the strong and weak version of the critical period hypothesis. Furthermore, it will give insight into important studies that either support or decline the opinion of age being a relevant factor for a native-like acquisition of a second language phonology. Subsequently, in the last section, it will be sketched to what extent other socio-motivational circumstances among L2 learners can cause individual differences throughout the acquisition of an L2 phonology. Both sections critically examine the relevance of the L2 learner’s age regarding the acquisition of an L2 phonology in order to find an answer to the question if age does affect the acquisition of a native-like pronunciation. As a last step, the main points and findings of this research paper will be summarised in the conclusion.

Even though second-language learners may master the grammar and vocabulary of the new languages, they almost never achieve a native phonology (accent). Scholars and professionals dealing with second-language learners would agree that this is one of the most persistent challenges they face. Now, for the first time, Roy Major's Foreign Accent covers the exploding scholarship in this area and lays out the issues specifically for audiences in the second language acquisition and applied linguistics community.