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.

Click Consonants is an indispensable volume for those who want to understand the linguistics of clicks. Contributions include cutting edge research on the phonetic and phonological characteristics of clicks, as well as on sound changes involving clicks, and clicks in perception, in L2 acquisition, and in apraxia of speech. Contributors are Wm. G. Bennett, Catherine T. Best, Hilde Gunnink, Dan Dediu, E.D. Elderkin, Anne-Maria Fehn, Sean Fulop, Florian Lionnet, Timothy K. Mathes, Kirk Miller, Scott Moisik, Michael Proctor, Bonny Sands, Signal Analysis and Interpretation Laboratory (SAIL) members (Adam Lammert, Asterios Toutios, Shrikanth Narayanan, Yinghua Zhu), Mollie Steyn, Anita van der Merwe, Richard Wright.

Based on an innovative corpus-based approach, this book offers a comprehensive survey of the phonological and phonetic properties of L2 speech in English and German. The first part of the book critically examines current theoretical models and research methodologies in the field of second language acquisition of phonology and describes the advances that have been made in corpus linguistics over the past few years - in particular, the development of phonological learner corpora. It furthermore presents the first learner corpus of L2 English and L2 German that is fully aligned and has extensive phonological annotations: the LeaP corpus. The second part of the book describes the results of the quantitative and qualitative corpus analyses in the following areas of non-native speech: fluency, final consonant cluster realisation, vowel reduction and speech rhythm, intonation and general foreign accent. In addition, the influence of many non-linguistic factors, including instruction and a stay abroad, on the phonological properties of non-native speech is explored.

This volume bridges the gap between theory and practice by bringing together well-known and new authors to discuss a topic of mutual interest to second language researchers and teachers alike: input. Reader-friendly chapters offer a range of existing and new perspectives on input in morphology, syntax, phonetics and phonology.

This volume explores the elusive subject of English prosody—the stress, rhythm and intonation of the language—, and its relevance for English language teaching. Its sharp focus will be especially welcomed by teachers of English to non-native speakers, but also by scholars and researchers interested in Applied Linguistics. The book examines key issues in the development of prosody and delves into the role of intonation in the construction of meaning. The contributions tackle difficult areas of intonation for language learners, providing a theoretical analysis of each stumbling block as well as a practical explanation for teachers and teacher trainers. The numerous issues dealt with in the book include stress and rhythm; tone units and information structure; intonation and pragmatic meaning; tonicity and markedness, etc... The authors have deployed speech analysis software to illustrate their examples as well as to encourage readers to carry out their own computerized prosodic analyses.

This is a study of the phonological development of a family of L2 English learners. It is the first full-length book that focuses on a tightly-knit group of learners' acquisition of phonology over a longitudinal timeframe, and the first book to study both social and linguistic factors across that time period. Jette G. Hansen analyses this data gathered from actual language learners in the light of recent theory, as well as challenging aspects of current thinking on the subject of second language acquisition. Acquiring a Non-Native Phonology therefore makes an important and original contribution to the field and provides an in-depth analysis and discussion of the developmental processes in acquiring a non-native sound system which has not previously been presented. The book is aimed at academics interested in second language acquisition, and researchers studying phonology in general.

Deals with the language experience in second language speech learning

A vital resource on speech and language processing in bilingual adults and children The Listening Bilingual brings together in one volume the various components of spoken language processing in bilingual adults, infants and children. The book includes a review of speech perception and word recognition; syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects of speech processing; the perception and comprehension of bilingual mixed speech (code-switches, borrowings and interferences); and the assessment of bilingual speech perception and comprehension in adults and children in the clinical context. The two main authors as well as selected guest authors, Mark Antoniou, Theres Grüter, Robert J. Hartsuiker, Elizabeth D. Peña and Lisa M. Bedore, and Lu-Feng Shi, introduce the various approaches used in the study of spoken language perception and comprehension in bilingual individuals. The authors focus on experimentation that involves both well-established tasks and newer tasks, as well as techniques used in brain imaging. This important resource: Is the first of its kind to concentrate specifically on spoken language processing in bilingual adults and children. Offers a unique text that covers both fundamental and applied research in bilinguals. Covers a range of topics including speech perception, spoken word recognition, higher level processing, code-switching, and assessment. Presents information on the assessment of bilingual children’s language development Written for advanced undergraduate students in linguistics, cognitive science, psychology, and speech/language pathology as well as researchers, The Listening Bilingual offers a state-of-the-art review of the recent developments and approaches in speech and language processing in bilingual people of all ages.