Interlanguage Phonology Research Articles

Strategies used by Cantonese speakers in pronouncing English initial consonant clusters: Insights into the interlanguage phonology of Cantonese ESL learners in Hong Kong

This article discusses the strategies used by Cantonese ESL learners to cope with their problems in pronouncing English initial consonant clusters. A small-scale research study was carried out with six secondary and six university students in Hong Kong, who were asked to perform four speech tasks: the reading of a word list, the description of a picture list, the reading of three passages, and a conversational interview. The participants' speech was recorded using a high-quality mini-disk recorder and transcribed by two raters. The results of the study showed that deletion and substitution were commonly used by the learners, yet vowel epenthesis was practically non-existent. Certain segments, such as liquids, were also found to be more difficult than other segments in the same onset. It is argued that the findings of the study have both theoretical and pedagogical significance.

Processi di semplificazione della forma delle parole nell’italiano di cinesi in relazione alla struttura e allo statuto della sillaba

This paper investigates the acquisition of the “form” of Italian words by speakers of Chinese in relation to the syllable structure of the words in the target language. The topic has revealed particularly interesting because the simplification phenomenon which are usually very frequent in the interlanguage phonology (e.g. cluster reduction, epenthesis, etc.) do not significantly appear in the Chinese learners’ naturalistic performance. On the contrary, the learners tend to produce syllables whose structure is more complex (and more marked) than the one needed in the target word (CVC or CCV). The analysis indicates that the Chinese learners do not make use of simplification strategies because what they perceive as really “difficult” in the acquisition process is not the syllable structure. The production of “unexpected” complex syllables seems, on the contrary, a successful strategy in order to reduce the length of the word: the most frequent Italian words are in fact composed by three or four syllables while Chinese morphemes are usually monosyllabic. Moreover, Italian syllables are phonological units but do not have morphemic function whereas in the Chinese system there is a symmetry between syllable and morpheme. We therefore suggest that the acquisition of the form of the Italian word is particularly difficult for Chinese learners because of the deep asymmetry in the way L1 and L2 linguistic systems organize the elements of the phonological and morphological level.

Letter-Sound Correspondence Acquisition in First Semester Russian

Although teachers of first year Russian courses know that students often mistake letters of the Cyrillic alphabet for English letters when reading aloud and writing, no studies have documented which letters cause the most frequent misreadings, how long misreading persists, and what implications misreading has for student achievement. This semester-long study attempts to answer these questions by isolating the question of letter-sound correspondence from the larger questions of the students’ interlanguage phonology. The researchers found that ц, ё, ю, й, э consistently gave students difficulty. After 12 weeks (84 hours) of instruction, students had 93% accuracy in matching Cyrillic letters to their primary sound values. While this represents a high degree of accuracy by the end of the first semester, the researchers found that higher accuracy rates earlier in the semester (after 4 weeks [28 hours] of instruction) had a moderate positive correlation with success in the course (as measured by final grade), while high levels of gain in accuracy between the fourth and twelfth weeks of the semester showed moderate negative correlation with success in the course, suggesting that the earlier the students master letter-sound correspondences, the greater their chances for success in studying other features of the language.

Non-native speakers misperceptions of English vowels and consonants: Evidence from Korean adults in UK

There is very little evidence of research in the receptive dimension of phonological interlanguage - how non-native speakers manifest their competence in processing phonological input. A simple, but effective, experiment is described in this paper in which the receptive interlanguage phonological competence of non-native speakers is investigated. The target is British English vowel and consonant phonology for twenty Korean adults in higher education in UK. Their data indicates the major difficulties they display in perceiving British English consonants and vowels, as opposed to - and contrasted with - producing them. This article discusses the paucity of receptive phonological data, presents a methodology which includes a contrastive phonological analysis, exploits a parallel study in productive phonological interlanguage and produces a comprehensive analysis of the subjects' misperceptions (and their mispronunciations). It also speculates on the strategies they used when their interlanguage phonology proved inadequate. Finally, individual and group phonological profiles are provided, against which published pronunciation materials are measured - and shown to be inadequate in many cases. The study shows the importance of an adequate phonological competence and the importance of adequately designed teaching materials.

Role of sonority in developing phonologies

It has long been noted that sonority indices of sounds play a key role in the sound sequencing in languages. In this overview, it is argued that in addition to being a forceful factor in determining permissible syllable shapes in languages, sonority plays an important role in developing phonologies. By examining a wide variety of research that investigates typical and atypical phonological patterns from first language and from interlanguage phonology, the paper aims to bring to the attention of professionals who work with phonological assessment and remediation the relevance of sonority.

First language influence on the spoken English of Brazilian students of EFL

This longitudinal study looks at the development of phonological skills among Brazilian students of EFL on a four‐year humanities course. The main aim of the project is to detect and analyse the influence of L1 on the development of these skills. This paper looks at one particular pronunciation feature (‘palatalization’) that has been found in the data. This project aims to contribute to the theoretical debate concerning interlanguage phonology, with reference to L1 feature transfer, and to offer support for pedagogical strategies in teaching pronunciation.

Syllable Structure Universals and Second Language Acquisition

The purpose of this paper is to review research in L2 acquisition that has examined the influence of syllable structure universals on the structuring of interlanguage phonology, research that essentially began in the early 1980's. Not al1 of the researchers conducting these studies claimed to be examining the influence of syllable structure universals; instead, a number of them expressly stated that they were examining the influence oftypological universals, most of which were documented in Greenberg's (1965) seminal research. However, many of Greenberg's implicational statements are completely in accordance with current theoretical descriptions of the syllable; consequently, the L2 research based on the those implicational statements offer evidence for the influence of syllable structure universals on the structuring of interlanguage phonology. The paper begins with a brief description of syllable structure universals, brief because only those syllable structure universals that have inspired corresponding research in L2 acquisition are presented. The presentation also assumes that the syllable has three constituents: the onset, the nucleus, and the coda. Such a division is in accordance with much of the research on the syllable, and dividing the syllable into these three constituents facilitates both the description of the universals and the review the L2 research.

State of the art: interlanguage phonology - factors and processes in the development of a second language phonology

O presente artigo visa a resumir as principais questoes vinculadas a pesquisa na area de fonologia interlingual, isto e, o desenvolvimento de habilidades fonologicas de uma segunda lingua. Os fatores envolvidos neste desenvolvimento sao adumbrados e os processos subjacentes sao descritos. Os possiveis caminhos para pesquisas futuras sao delineados.

The Modification of Onsets in a Markedness Relationship: Testing the Interlanguage Structural Conformity Hypothesis

The Interlanguage Structural Conformity Hypothesis (Eckman, 1991) predicts that implicational universals influence the structuring of interlanguage phonology. Under one interpretation, L2 learners will modify more marked structures more frequently than less marked structures. This study tested that hypothesis by examining how frequently 11 young adult, native Spanish speakers modified English 2‐ and 3‐member onsets, the latter being more marked than the former. The environments before the onsets and the sonority relationships among the consonants in the onsets were strictly controlled. Results indicate that (1) 3‐member onsets were modified significantly more frequently than were 2‐member onsets; and (2) epenthesis (the primary process of modification) occurred significantly more frequently after consonants than after vowels.

The Naturalness Differential Hypothesis: Cross-linguistic Influence and Universal Preferences in Interlanguage Phonology and Morphology

The role of the mother tongue has been a major topic of second language acquisition research over the last few decades, but despite the overwhelming empirical evidence of cross-linguistic influence in learner language a number Of questions still remain to be answered: what and how much is transferred when, how and why? This study explores the extent to which a theory of linguistic naturalness — the conceptual opposite of markedness, as formulated in Natural Phonology and Natural Morphology — might provide some insights into the issue of cross-linguistic influence. As an alternative to Eckman's (1977) 'Markedness Differential Hypothesis', a more detailed 'Naturalness Differential Hypothesis' is formulated in terms of phonological processes and morphological preferences. Unlike typological markedness, which may be regarded as a mere research tool, the notion of naturalness offers an explicit functional explanation of the observed learning difficulty, mainly in terms of ease of production and perception. Empirical support for these Claims will be drawn from research on the spontaneous acquisition of Italian as a second language.

Final devoicing as a robust phenomenon in second language acquisition: Tswana, english and afrikaans.

The topic of this paper is the well-known phenomenon of final devoicing, which occurs in languages such as Afrikaans, Dutch, German and Russian. It is discussed against the background of second language acquisition. The aim of the discussion is threefold. First, a description is provided, based on original experiments, of the final devoicing that curiously takes place in the English utterances of Tswana native speakers. Second, the relevance of the results is pointed out to the theoretical notion of interlanguage phonology: this lies in the observation that both Tswana and English belong to the group of languages lacking final de- voicing: English essentially inexplicably lacks it, and Tswana completely lacks closed syllables. Third, details of the experiments are discussed, with data arrangements along several dimensions, taking into account the length of the vowel preceding the target consonant; the manner of articulation of the target consonant; and the notion that the speaker's output may be influence...

Markedness and fossilization in the interlanguage phonology of Brunei English

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the interlanguage (IL) phonology of Malay‐speaking Bruneian students attending Universiti Brunei Darussalam. A complete year group of 55 students with different proficiency levels was recorded interacting communicatively and the data analyzed in order to explore the extent to which markedness relationships in phonology can be used to predict learning difficulties and to investigate the extent to which this particular IL phonology has stabilized. The focus of the study was on consonant clusters, both final and initial, and the voicing contrast. The analysis of the data suggests that markedness can explain why some features of the (target language) TL phonology are more easily acquired than others. However, there was no significant difference between the IL phonology of the less proficient and more proficient students when lexical roots were examined. This suggests that the IL phonology in question has stabilized. Finally, this paper relates the findings to research into new varieties of English and suggests reasons for phonological stabilization.

METHODOLOGY IN PHONOLOGICAL INTERLANGUAGE

This paper is a review of current practice in the study of phonological interlanguage as reported in Ioup & Weinberger: Interlanguage Phonology (1987) but supplemented by studies from Argentina and UK. The methodology of some 22 pieces of research is surveyed in terms of subjects, range of phonological features, 'synchronic' and 'diachronic' approaches, techniques and materials, audio-recording and transcription. Assessment of data by trained phoneticians is queried in a discussion on pure vs. applied aims in interlanguage research. If intelligibility of the learners' pronunciation is to be assessed, then untrained judges are more appropriate. The advantages and disadvantages of formal techniques are discussed. Ten stages of a full-scale study of interlanguage phonology are presented.

On the sources of interlanguage phonology: some evidence from Yoruba-English

In recent research, it is claimed that deviant features of interlanguage grammars arise only from the users' knowledge of the rule system of the target language. This paper examines the relative contribution of the rule system of each of the target language, the native language and of universal tendencies to a deviant aspect of Yoruba-English phonology. It concludes that the native language is the major source of deviance in the aspect of Yoruba-English investigated.

Interlanguage phonology

Abstract This paper presents the results of a study pertaining to the acquisition of timing control by Australian subjects who are enrolled in first-year Japanese at tertiary level. Instrumental techniques are used to observe segment duration and pitch patterns in the speech production of learners and native speakers of Japanese. The observations concern vowels and obstruents based on minimal pairs with durational contrasts, and the results are discussed within the framework of interlanguage phonology. The results obtained from this study demonstrate problems of beginning-level learners, including the underdifferentiation of durational contrasts (Han 1992). From the viewpoint of interlanguage phonology, however, the results seem to indicate that the learners have the ability to control timing and that they try to achieve durational distinctions in their speech production, but that their phonetic realisation is different from that of native speakers.

Syllable Structure and Interlanguage Phonology

This paper examines several research assumptions and procedures of two recent studies of interlanguage (IL) phonology that use 'syllable structure' as a primary variable, but make opposing claims about 'open' and 'closed' IL syllable structure preference. It is argued that (1) neither IL study sufficiently considers the phonetic structure of the native languages (Li) and target languages (TL), and that (2) syllable structure analyses based on broad categories such as 'open' and 'closed' are inadequately equipped for insightful IL Investigation.

Universal Preference for the Open Syllable as an Independent Process in Interlanguage Phonology*

The focus of this study is the question: Is there evidence of a universal preference for the open syllable in Interlanguage (IL) phonology? The subjects are two Vietnamese speakers and the data consist of recordings of the subjects in informal conversation first in the IL and then in the native language (NL). An error analysis conducted on the IL data was restricted to the subjects' attempts at target language words most similar in syllable structure to words in the NL, monosyllabic words ending in postvocalic [p t k m n η]. The findings give limited support for the hypothesis that a universal preference for the open syllable is a shaping force in IL phonology independent of the process of NL transfer but also indicate the importance of the preceding vocalic context in the NL transfer processes, and the overall importance in IL research of gathering NL data comparable to the IL data, as the subjects' NL data proved crucial in shaping the findings of this study.

Difficulties in the Pronunciation of English Sounds by Asian Speakers

This project was concerned with the interlanguage phonology of Asian High School students in Western Australia. The purpose of this study was (a) to identify and classify the errors in the pronunci...

SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIATION AND STYLE SHIFTING IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 1

This paper presents empirical data (collected from nine Thai ESL learners) to support the claim that there is sociolinguistic variation and style shifting in interlanguage phonology, just as there is in the phonology of any natural language. The study addresses several theoretical questions:1. Is interlanguage more permeable to a superordinate rule system in formal than in informal situations?2. If it is more permeable, does the native language or the target language act as the superordinate rule system?3. Does phonological transfer follow the sociolinguistic rules of the native language?4. Does Monitoring operate on a continuum, increasing in formal contexts, and thereby producing a style shift?The findings are consistent with the point of view that interlanguage becomes permeable to a superordinate rule system in formal situations. In these data, the target language (English) acted as the superordinate rule system when the variable examined had no social meaning in the native language (Thai), but when the variable was in fact strongly marked for social value in Thai, the native language (Thai) was adopted as the superordinate rule system. The latter style shifting involved transfer of a socially appropriate variant. Finally, it was found that monitoring (attention to speech) and conscious Monitoring with a learned phonological rule operated on a sliding scale, increasing in formal contexts, and resulting in a style shift.

Interlingual Identification in Pronunciation

Recent research in experimental phonetics seem to provide evidence for a clear division between language units and speech units. Many researchers have suggested that the open syllable may be a universal unit of speech production and perception, while language units become critical only at higher levels of processing. It is hypothesized, therefore, that in second language learning a crucial process influencing the shape of interlanguage phonology is a linguistic insecurity which causes language units and speech units to interfere with one another, producing a disorganized type of speech rhythm which has often been observed by TEFL teachers of pronunciation. The CV speech performance unit thus becomes a crucial unit of interlingual identification for the second language learner and should be dealt with as such by TEFL teachers.