The present study investigated whether the ability to encode the sounds of difficult second-language (L2) contrasts into novel nonnative lexical representations is modulated by the phonological form of the words to be learned. In 3 experiments, German learners of English were trained on word-picture associations with either novel minimal pairs…

The speech of second language learners is often influenced by phonetic patterns of their first language. This can make them difficult to understand, but sometimes for listeners of the same first language to a lesser extent than for native listeners. The present study investigates listeners' awareness of the accent by asking whether accented speech…

This study investigates the role of orthography in German vowel production by Polish native speakers (L1) with German as a second language (L2). Eighteen intermediate to advanced Polish L2 German learners and 20 German native speakers were recorded during a picture-naming task in which half of the experimental items were explicitly marked in their…

The early computer-assisted-language-learning (CALL) programs were silent and mostly limited to screen or printer supported written text as the prevailing communication resource. The advent of powerful graphics, sound and video combined with AI-based parsers and sound recognition devices gradually turned the computer into a rather anthropomorphic…

Essays that consider the way that women are portrayed in foreign language textbooks are presented. The selected essays were submitted to a competition sponsored by the Federation Internationale des Professeurs de Langues Vivantes, which requested that language teachers assess such concerns as: (1) whether women were described in a stereotyped way;…