Psycholinguistic peculiarities of future teachers’ interlanguage pronunciation acquisition in subordinative multilingualism environment

Abstract

Introduction. Understanding the psychological premises of future teachers’ phonetic competence formation contributes to its effectiveness. So far researchers have revealed the mechanisms of their acquiring thepronunciation of English as the first foreign language whereas those that characterize studying English as the second foreign language have been paid little attention to. Purpose. To determine the psycholinguistic peculiaritiesof future teachers’ pronunciation acquisition while their studying English after German. Methods. Reviewing the works on psychological and psycholinguistic problems of foreign language learning with the aim to outline thepsycholinguistic aspects of acquiring the second foreign language pronunciation. Results. The research revealed that future teachers learning English in a subordinate multilingualism environment rely on their former experience in the acquisition of other languages. As a result, they createtheir own interlanguage phonetic system consisting of elements of four languages (Ukrainian, Russian, German and English) and some absolutely new forms. The major psycholinguistic processes that ensure this systemformation and development are language transfer from the native and German languages, intralanguage interference and students’ overgeneralization of rules. The analysis of the causes and consequences of language transfer, the influence of universals and markedness serves the ground for identifying the phonetic phenomena most difficult for acquiring. The study also highlights that pronunciation mistakes can be viewed as a product of certain systematicity. Hence, their correction requires a systematic approach. Conclusion. It is necessary to mind the revealedpsycholinguistic peculiarities for amending the structure of future teachers’ interlanguage phonetic system, correcting their pronunciation mistakes and forming the foundation for their further correct speech acts. The prospects of the further elaboration of the research may involve working out the techniques for future teachers’ phonetic competence formation based on the revealed peculiarities.