This study investigates whether a natural order exists for non-native acquisition in the production of English syllable coda obstruents by Korean and Chinese adult native speakers. We recorded L2 English monosyllabic words produced by 66 Chinese and 51 Korean native speakers. The recorded speech was then evaluated by 11 native-speaker listeners of…

In an event-related potential (ERP) study we investigated the role of age of acquisition (AoA) on the use of second language rhythmic properties during syntactic ambiguity resolution. Syntactically ambiguous sentences embedded in rhythmically regular and irregular contexts were presented to Turkish early and late second language (L2) learners of…

Phonological awareness has been repeatedly reported as important for learning to read in different orthographies. It is important to understand what specific levels of phonological awareness are involved in Chinese and English for Chinese children who learn English-as-a-second-language (ESL). Measures of phonological awareness, word reading,…

Advances the theory that the syllables internal structure and laws governing its productivity permit a new perspective of the contrastive analysis of the Italian and French systems. (DS)

Grosjean and Gee's prosodic structure theory is applied to second-language listening comprehension. It is argued that second-language students whose native language is syllable-timed do not have a mechanism to deal with unstressed syllables and must create one. The absences of this mechanism helps explain difficulties in listening comprehension.…

After a discussion of the Arabic stress rules, an experiment is described which looked at two questions: (1) how consistent Saudi students of English as a second language (ESL) are in avoiding the assignment of stress to English final syllables with a consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant (CVCC) configuration, where Arabic stress rules agree with…

Examines picture naming latencies for predicted effects of two word retrieval factors: onset complexity and number of syllables. Results comport with evidence from speech errors and metalinguistic tasks and with predictions of the Node Structure theory of language production, but do not support production theories that do not predict special…

Two experiments investigated the relationship between Spanish phonology and Spanish second-language (L2) learners' spelling success. Specifically, they examined: (1) differences in proportions of initial, middle, and final consonants spelled correctly by L2 learners; (2) differences in proportions of initial, middle, and final vowels spelled…

Presents evidence of a study of speakers of English as a Second Language that cross-language transfer effects interact with developmental effects in the construction of second language (L2) syllable structures. Argues that the optimality theory provides a more explicit account than the minimal sonority distance parameter setting model regarding…

Recent research in experimental phonetics seems to provide evidence for a clear division between language units and speech units. Many researchers have suggested that the consonant-vowel (CV) syllable may be a universal unit of speech production and perception, while language units become criterial only at higher levels of processing. In second…

This document consists of the four issues of this quarterly linguistics and language research serial issued during 1992. Typical significant articles include: "The Indispensable Tape Recorder" (Geoffrey Hunt); "Analysis of Tone Systems" (Eunice V. Pike); "Sentence Repetition Testing for Studies of Community Bilingualism: An Introduction" (Carla F.…

This volume is a collection of articles which are concerned with the field of applied linguistics. Part One, "Language and Linguistics," includes two articles: "Language" and "The Relevance of Linguistics." Part Two, "Linguistics and Spelling," consists of one article, "Sounds and Spellings; Spellings and Sounds." Part Three, "Linguistics and…