This dissertation offers a detailed contrastive analysis of Contemporary Standard Russian and General American English. The guiding principle, that the goal of contrastive analysis should not be as it traditionally has been, i.e., purely pedagogical, but that it should also serve as the basis for general hypotheses of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). This more ambitious goal has two consequences: (a) it ceases to require that the two languages compared have a pedagogical relationship, and (b) it requires a far more detailed comparison in which theoretical foundations of the analysis are explicit. With these arguments in mind, I have compared the phonologies of English and Russian to make detailed and accessible presentation of data available in order to permit the inclusion of Russian and other Slavic languages in the investigations of SLA theorists, and in other contexts as appropriate. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]