The present study investigated the perception and production of English /w/ and /v/ by native speakers of Sinhala, German, and Dutch, with the aim of examining how their native language phonetic processing affected the acquisition of these phonemes. Subjects performed a battery of tests that assessed their identification accuracy for natural…

Many factors that contribute towards the perception of second language (L2) sounds and the subsequent establishment of L2 phonetic categories have been the focus of past research. However, learning a third language, unlike SLA, may be influenced by additional factors attributed to the presence of two language systems in a bilingual instead of one…

English pronunciation is still neglected in EFL/ESL classrooms throughout the world including Asia today. One of the reasons that it is neglected or ignored is because not many English pronunciation teaching strategies or techniques are available to teachers in the classroom. The purpose of this study is to review articles on strategies for…

Relationships among articulation, vocabulary, phonemic awareness, and word reading were examined in 45 children who spoke either Hmong or Spanish as their primary language. A theoretical perspective suggesting that English articulation and vocabulary would influence children's English phonemic awareness and English word reading was developed.…

Study examined native Japanese speakers at two levels of English language experience and compared performance to native American-English speakers to determine whether Japanese-English bilinguals with intensive experience conversing with native English speakers would identify and discriminate /r/ and /l/ perception. Concludes that native Japanese…

Briefly describes pronunciation difficulties of Indian students learning English. Discusses three pairs of voiceless/voiced stop consonants and similar pairs of fricative consonants. (BK)

Discusses some of the segmental and suprasegmental features that give Swazi English a unique accent. (Author/VWL)

Reports data pertaining to the fundamental question about popular speech recognition software for English as a Second language: To what extent can the software recognize learner language? Based on findings that the software fails to recognize nonnative language at an acceptable level even under ideal conditions, recommends careful examination of…

It is argued that a more comprehensive, systematic understanding of the nature of the alphabet, its three identities (letters/graphemes, letters/nomenemes, sounds/phonemes), and their specific functions in the teaching of various language skills and subskills should be an integral part of the language arts curriculum and instructional plan,…

This paper reviews recent research on English spelling and the alphabet, and examines the alphabet in terms of symbols, letter-names, and sounds. English is considerably less phonetic than most Western languages, with many symbols having more than one sound. This factor makes spelling difficult for learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) or…

The role of allophonic differences in contributing to the non-native speaker's "foreign accent." (FWB)

Studies phoneme deletion and literacy in native and nonnative speakers of English. Finds that phoneme deletion is sensitive to degrees of literacy and to native language whereas the Measure of Adult English Proficiency test is not sensitive to native language variation. (MG)

In a series of experiments using monosyllabic words produced by a native and nonnative speaker of English, native English speakers monitored the word-initial consonants of the words to decide which of two consonants was present on each trial. Contrasting results for native and nonnative speech are discussed in terms of models of phoneme…

We present the results from an experiment that tests the perception of English consonantal sequences by Korean speakers and we confirm that perceptual epenthesis in a second language (L2) arises from syllable structure restrictions of the first language (L1), rather than linear co-occurrence restrictions. Our study replicates and extends Dupoux,…