This study explores the question of whether native and nonnative listeners, some familiar with the language and some not, differ in their accent ratings of native speakers (NSs) and nonnative speakers (NNSs). Although a few studies have employed native and nonnative judges to evaluate native and nonnative speech, the present study is perhaps the…

This paper explores the relationship of underlying phonological representations in nonnative speakers to their surface representations. (37 references) (JL)

A study investigated the relationship between language style and variability in the phonology of Japanese learners of English. The subjects were five adult native speakers of Japanese at the intermediate stage of English learning. Speech materials elicited three different speech styles of varying formality: reading of a word list, reading of a…

A study investigated variations in five native Japanese-speakers' consonant patterns in English as a Second Language. The eight phonological segments considered were English consonant clusters and final consonants. Subjects listened to a recording of a text by a native English-speaker and then read the text aloud five times. A similar procedure…

Reviews the general trends of research concerned with second language phonology, citing several principal factors involved in foreign accent such as age and native language interference. More recent investigations show that pronunciation of a foreign language is influenced by factors of stylistic variation and stages of development unrelated to…