Ten esophageal speakers and ten normal speakers produced repetitions of the disyllable /mama/ using five different conditions of syllable stress. Nine normal listeners judged both relative and absolute syllable stress. Reliable judgments were made of the syllable stress, and speakers were able to effect systematic changes in listener perceptions…

Two surveys of Parisian French mid-vowel articulation and preference, performed in 1986 and 1988, are reviewed and compared. Informants were 21 male teacher trainees (study 1) and 60 male local transportation workers, aged 20 to 60 (study 2). Conclusions are drawn concerning mid-vowel opposition, anteriorization, and vowel harmony. Emphasis is…

Discusses how native speakers of Spanish, accustomed to dealing with nonnative Spanish speakers, evaluated 18 taped nonnative speech samples that provided a wide sample of pronunciation. Comprehensibility, voice agreeability/ disagreeability, and nativeness of accent were rated. (32 references) (LB)

Investigated were the phonological process and distinctive feature performances of 24 Down Syndrome individuals without speech-language intervention and 21 with speech-language intervention. Comparisons were made across groups to relate performances to age groups, the possibility that subjects' speech is delayed or deviant, and methods of…

Ways in which pronunciation of English as a second language can be taught through listening are presented, involving such activities as: identification tasks; minimal pair sentence tasks; inference, word counting, and dictation tasks; and stress and intonation tasks. (CB)

English is a stress-timed language whose syllables have a much wider variety of onsets, codas, and combinations than many languages. English also has the widest range of syllable length and quality between stressed and unstressed syllables and a distinctive pattern of intervals between stressed syllables. These characteristics make it difficult…

A guide for using language contrasts to understand and teach pronunciation differences in English and Spanish proposes that all languages are learned in basically the same order, phonetics (listening and speaking) and graphemics (reading and writing). Language can be broken down so that understandable elements (phonology, morphology, syntax, and…

This complete pedagogical reference grammar for German was designed as a textbook for advanced language teacher preparation, as a reference handbook on the structure of the German language, and for reference in German study. It systematically analyzes and describes the language's phonology, morphology, and syntax, and gives a brief survey of its…

A study examines two major types of vowel systems in languages, centripetal and centrifugal. English is associated with the centripetal system, in which vowel quality and quantity (rhythm) are heavily influenced by stress. In this system, vowels have a strong tendency to move toward the center of the vowel area. Spanish is associated with the…

Two repeated-measures designs with 15 speech-delayed children (ages 2-8) and 5 case studies were completed to compare tabletop management at early and late stages of the response development phase with 2 computer-assisted drill-and-practice activities, 1 of which involved fantasy. The three intervention modes were equally effective, efficient, and…

A language typology based on common errors made in pronunciation of English by speakers of other languages is presented and discussed. The classification system was developed from the concept of interlanguage, the intermediate step between a language learner's native and target languages, and the notion that interference in learning a new language…

This guide is designed to help college-level teachers of English as a Second Language address the particular linguistic characteristics and instructional needs of native Chinese-speaking students. The first chapter profiles four Chinese students at the City College of New York, focusing on their basic literacy in Chinese, immigration issues,…

A study investigated the roles of phonological encoding and visual processes in word recognition in American learners of Arabic as a foreign language. Subjects were 36 individuals with proficiency ranging from beginning to native. Two experiments in word recognition were conducted, one at word and one at sentence level. At each level, the word…

A discussion of pronunciation instruction in English for business communication focuses on raising learners' awareness of how English is spoken by various language groups around the world. It is argued that phonological consciousness-raising is an effective approach for limiting breakdowns in communication. The approach assumes that developing…