What makes a non-native accent?: a study of Korean English

We report a set of results in the second language (L2) acquisition of English phonology by first language (L1) speakers of Korean. Specifically, we focus on significant differences isolated between L2 speakers‟ production of isolated words in English and their production of the same words in sentence and phrasal contexts. Results indicate significantly more accurate production of words in isolation than in the production of the same words in phrasal contexts. The particular phonological phenomena focused on concern both stress reduction and placement. We also consider several other aspects of segmental phonology. We argue that the discrepancy in results observed between tasks may account for many of the seemingly disparate results indicated in other studies of L2 phonology. We discuss several possible explanations for these data in terms of which production task most closely provides a measurement of developing linguistic competence and which might reflect the role of either general learning strategies (overgeneralization) or reversion back to the L1 grammar under conditions of stress or when the L2 grammar is not fully developed.