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Thephonology ofsecond languages is different from thephonology offirst languages in various ways. The differences are considered to come from general characteristics ofsecond languages, such as slowerspeech tempo,[1] lower proficiency than native speakers, and from the interaction between non-native speakers' first and second languages.
Research on second-language phonology has been done not only onsegments,[2] but also onprosody.[3] Second-languageprosody, like second-language segments, has been studied in terms of both its global characteristics and the interactions between first languages and second languages.
L2speech rate is typically slower than native speech. For example,Mandarin Chinese speakers’ speech rate in an Englishutterance is slower than native English speakers’ speech rate (Derwing and Munro, 1995), and speech rates in asentence by highly experiencedItalian andKorean nonnative speakers of English are slower than that of native English speakers' (Guion et al., 2000). In this study, the main factor of the slower speech rate for the Italian and Korean accented English was the durations of thevowels andsonorant consonants (Guion et al., 2000). Another source of the slower speech rate in L2 speech is that L2 speakers tend to not reducefunction words, such as "the" or "and," as much as native speakers (Aoyama and Guion, 2007). The generally slower speech rate in L2 speech is correlated with the degree of perceivedforeign accent by native listeners (Derwing and Munro, 1997).
L2 speech is influenced by the speaker'sL1 background. Such influences have been explored in relation to manyprosodic features, such aspitchperception and pitch excursion (Beckman, 1986; Aoyama and Guion, 2007),stress placement (Archibald, 1995, 1998a, 1998b; Flege and Bohn, 1989; Archibald, 1997),syllable structure (Broselow and Park, 1995; Broslow, 1988; Eckman, 1991), andtone (Sereno and Wang, 2007; Guion and Pederson, 2007).
When perceiving accented syllables inEnglish,Japanese nonnative speakers of English tend to rely only on F0, orpitch of the accented syllables, while native speakers use F0,duration, andamplitude (Beckman, 1986). This finding was confirmed inproduction, by showing that the excursions of F0 of Englishcontent words were larger for Japanese nonnative speakers of English than for native English speakers (Aoyama and Guion, 2007).
In both studies, the reason for this phenomenon was proposed to be related to the characteristics of the nonnative speakers’L1, Japanese.Japanese is amora-timed language, and because of this, longersyllable duration makes aphonological difference in Japanese. Therefore, when expressingstress in Japanese, Japanese speakers may rely more on F0 thanduration, which is a critical cue for a differentphonological distinction. ThisL1 characteristic might interfere with Japanese speakers’perception andproduction of English, which is astress-timed language and might be free of such durational restrictions.
Influence fromL1 toL2 was also found instress placement on words.Hungarian learners of English tend to place initialstress onEnglish words that do not have initialstress, becauseHungarian has fixed initialstress and this is transferred to Hungarian speakers'L2 Englishprosody (Archibald, 1995; 1998a; 1998b).Spanish speakers of English were found not to stress target stressed syllables in English, and this might be due to the lack of stress in Spanishcognates and thelexical similarity between Spanish and English words (Flege and Bohn, 1989). In addition, it is suggested that speakers oftone languages (e.g.,Chinese) andpitch-accent languages (e.g.,Japanese), both of which usepitch as aphonologically meaningful item, do not computestress placement in English, but rather store the stress information lexically (Archibald, 1997).
L2 speakers can also perceive some innate characteristics of theL2, which lead to different repair strategies for differentphonological patterns.KoreanL2 speakers of English add an extra final vowel to some English words but not to all (Broslow and Park, 1995), as in (1).
(1) Korean pronunciations of English words
| Korean accented pronunciation | English word | Korean accented pronunciation | English word |
|---|---|---|---|
| bithɨ | “beat” | bit | “bit” |
| chiphɨ | “cheap” | thip | “tip” |
| phikhɨ | “peak” | phik | “pick” |
| ruthɨ | “route” | gut | “good” |
| khothɨ | “coat” | buk | “book” |
The problem is that modernKorean does not have a phonologicalvowel length difference, and Korean speakers show their own repair mechanism forEnglishminimal pairs that havetense/lax difference, by adding an extra final vowel to English words with tense vowels. This might be because Korean learners of English attempt to preserve themora count of the original English word, by adding an extra final vowel to words that have two moras (Broslow and Park, 1995). Thesyllable structure of such a word might look like in (2)
(2) Syllable structure of English “beat” by Korean nonnative speakers of English (adapted from Broslow and Park, 1995).
L2 listeners show different patterns oftone perception intone languages, such asMandarin Chinese. In Guion and Pederson (2007),native listeners of Mandarin judged the similarity of synthesizedMandarin tones on the basis of bothF0 and F0 slope, while English and Japanese listeners used only F0, notF0 slope. However, it was also observed that late learners of Mandarin showed similar patterns of tone perception as native listeners of Mandarin, focusing on both F0 and F0 slope of the tones. This suggests thatL2 learners can learn to attend to the cues thatL1 speakers use for the tone distinction.
The possibility of learning newL2prosodic distinction was further explored in a training study onMandarin tones (Sereno and Wang, 2007). EnglishL2 listeners’ perception and production of Mandarin tones improved afterperceptual training, and this was observed bothbehaviorally andcortically:L2 listeners’ accuracy of tone perception and production improved, and increased activity of language areas in theleft hemisphere (superior temporal gyrus) andneighboring effects on relevantneural areas were observed.
Before the popularity of communicative teaching methods in the late 70s, pronunciation teaching through audio-lingual method (ALM) had a central place in language education. This emphasis shifted in the late 70's when the prevalent obsession with aural-oral drills, native-like accuracy, consonant pair repetition and the centrality of pronunciation was replaced by a concern for meaningful communication. For nearly a decade, it was assumed that listening to language was enough to develop pronunciation. This concern again saw a shift in the late 80's when pronunciation again found a place in desired language teaching outcomes due to an increased need to develop L2 learners' pronunciation of the second language. In the 80's and 90's seminal pedagogical texts written by Judy Gilbert and Celce-Murcia paved the path for a more interactive and meaningful way of teaching pronunciation in the 21st century. These approaches are a combination of audio-lingual and communicative methods, have still retained the minimum pair drill format, but there is increased emphasis on interaction and also suprasegmental features such as stress, intonation and rhythm.[4]
