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.

Much of the work currently conducted within the framework of Universal Grammar and language learnability focuses on the acquisition of syntax. However, the learnability issues are just as applicable to the domain of phonology. This volume is the first to gather research that assumes a sophisticated phonological framework and considers the implications of this framework for language acquisition -- both first and second. As such, this book truly deals with phonological acquisition rather than phonetic acquisition.

This volume brings together a collection of empirical studies on phonological acquisition and disorder of monolingual children speaking different languages (English, German, Putonghua, Cantonese, Maltese, Telugu, Colloquial Egyptian Arabic and Turkish) and bilingual children speaking different language pairs (Spanish-English, Cantonese-English, Mirpuri/Punjabi/Urdu-English, Welsch-English, Arabic-English and Putonghua-Cantonese). The research findings provide much-needed baseline information for clinical assessment and diagnosis as well as valuable evidence concerning theories of language acquisition and the role of the ambient language.

In this comprehensive introduction, Anne-Michelle Tessier examines how we acquire the sounds and sound patterns of language. Analyzing child speech patterns and their analogues among adult languages while also teaching the basics of Optimality Theory, this novel textbook will help students develop a broad grammatical understanding of phonological acquisition. Phonological Acquisition provides - Evidence to support theory from multiple language families, populations and data collection methods - Connections to lexical, morphological and perceptual learning Assuming only a basic knowledge of phonology, this textbook is aimed at students of linguistics, developmental psychology, speech pathology and communication disorders. It will also be of interest to professional psychologists, acquisition researchers, clinicians, and anyone concerned with child speech development.

The publication of this edited volume comes at a time when interest in the acquisition of phonology by both children learning a first language and adults learning a second is starting to swell. The ten contributions, from established scholars and relative newcomers alike, provide a comprehensive demonstration of the progress being made in the field through the theory-based analysis of both spontaneous and experimental acquisition data involving a number of first and second languages including English, French, German, Korean, Polish and Spanish. Aimed at those active in phonology and its acquisition, yet written to be accessible to the non-specialist as well, the volume carefully lays out the various theoretical frameworks in which the authors work such as Feature Geometry, Lexical Phonology, Non-Linear Phonology, Prosodic Phonology, and Optimality Theory.

Focusing on the phonologies of children with functional (non-organic) speech disorders, this volume reports the latest findings in optimality theory, phonological acquisition and disorders. The book is based on typological, cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental evidence from over 200 children. It stands out because of the unique test case that the population offers to optimality theory, particularly with respect to puzzles of opacity, lawful orders of acquisition, and language learnability. Beyond its theoretical significance, this research holds clinical relevance for the assessment and treatment of disordered populations, most notably the systematic prediction of learning outcomes. This volume bridges the gap between theory and application by showing how each informs the other. It is intended for linguists, psychologists, speech pathologists, second-language instructors and those interested in the latest developments in phonological theory and its applied extensions.

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 outstanding 2004 volume presents an overview of linguistic research into the acquisition of phonology. Bringing together well-known researchers in the field, it focuses on constraints in phonological acquisition (as opposed to rules), and offers concrete examples of the formalization of phonological development in terms of constraint ranking. The first two chapters situate the research in its broader context, with an introduction by the editors providing a brief general tutorial on Optimality Theory. Chapter two serves to highlight the history of constraints in studies of phonological development, which predates their current ascent to prominence in phonological theory. The remaining chapters address a number of partially overlapping themes: the study of child production data in terms of constraints, learnability issues, perceptual development and its relation to the development of production, and second-language acquisition.

This book provides an analysis of two theories of language acquisition: the theory that acquisition is primarily mediated by innate properties of language provided by universal grammar, and the opposing theory that language is acquired based on the patterns in the ambient language. A problem not often considered is that these two theories are confounded because the structures that are frequent across languages are also typically the most frequent within a specific language. In addition, the innate theory of language acquisition is difficult to quantify and qualify. Using cross-linguistic, corpus and experimental approaches, this book attempts to contrast these theories through an examination of the acquisition of word-final consonants in English.

This is the first book-length study of phonological development and impairment of Chinese-speaking children. It provides the first normative data on this population, which will be of value to speech and language therapists and other professionals. It also advances the notion of 'phonological saliency' which explains the cross-linguistic similarities and differences in children's phonological development.