The acquisition of a second language (L2) may be challenging in adulthood, as the phonological system of the native language (L1) can sometimes limit the perception of phonological contrasts in L2. The present study aimed to (a) examine the influence of an L1 (Hebrew) that lacks a phonemic contrast for vowel length on the ability to discriminate…

This study examines second (L2) and third (L3) language learners' pitch perception. We test the hypothesis that a listener's discrimination of and sensitivity (d') to Japanese pitch accent reflects how pitch cues inform all words a listener knows in an additive, nonselective manner rather than how pitch cues inform words in a selective,…

This study investigates the degree to which native-English-speaking learners of Spanish can generate expectations for information likely to occur in upcoming portions of an unfolding linguistic signal. We examine Spanish clitic left dislocation, a long-distance dependency between a topicalized object and an agreeing clitic, whose felicity depends…

This study tests native Brazilian Portuguese (BP) speakers of second language (L2) Spanish in the domain of phonologically null object pronouns. This is a worthwhile first language (L1)-L2 pairing given that these languages are historically and typologically related and both seemingly allow for object drop. Nevertheless, the underlying syntax of…

This study investigates whether second language (L2) phonological learning can be characterized as a gradual and systematically patterned replacement of nonnative segments by native segments in learners' speech, conforming to a two-stage implicational scale. We adopt a dynamic approach to language variation based on Gatbonton's (1975, 1978)…

Disagrees with Ellis's claim (1996) that learning the grammatical word class of a particular word, and learning grammatical structures more generally, involves in "large part" the automatic implicit analysis of the word's sequential position. The article maintains that some grammatical acquisition, but not "vast amounts," derives from the analysis…

Challenges the critical period hypothesis by examining phonological performance among highly motivated subjects who use German daily as graduate student instructors and who have been immersed in the language through in-country residence, augmented by years of instruction in both language- and content-based courses. (Author/VWL)

This article surveys the development of second language (L2) phonology over the last 40-50 years. Research in this area has grown from analyzing learners' errors in terms of Contrastive Analysis to proposals explaining L2 sound patterns in terms of constraints on interlanguage grammar. Although native language transfer has endured as one source of…

Responds to Major's (1996) and Ioup's (1996) criticism of this author's theory of language acquisition. The author agrees with both critics that abstract systems of phonology are acquired. He concludes that the proper study of language acquisition is to chart the course by which perceptual, motoric, and cognitive functions induce structure. (31…

A series of experiments shows that Spanish learners of English acquire the "ship-sheep" contrast in a way specific to their target dialect (Scottish or Southern British English) and that many learners exhibit a perceptual strategy found in neither Spanish nor English. To account for these facts as well as for the findings of earlier research on…

Reports the findings of a longitudinal study in interlanguage phonology examining the production of two structures in a markedness relationship, bilateral and trilateral onsets, the latter being more marked than the former. The study specifically tests the Interlanguage Structure Conformity Hypothesis by measuring the acquisition of the onsets in…

Addresses a number of issues that have to do with nature of mental representation of an interlanguage grammar. Major focus is on necessity of positing some sort of hierarchical constituent structure to account for what second-language learners do in their phonology. The purpose is to show the utility of invoking a theory of abstract phonological…