This paper first provides an overview of factors that constrain ultimate attainment in adult second language (L2) pronunciation, finding that first language influence and the quantity and quality of L2 phonetic input account for much of the variation in the degree of foreign accent found across adult L2 learners. The author then evaluates current approaches to computer assisted pronunciation tr...

The paper aims at exploring the relationship between perceived pronunciation performance and metalinguistic awareness in the acquisition of third language phonology. The study involved 27 participants with Polish as L1, English as L2 and French as L3. In the first part of the study, third language pronunciation performance was assessed by means of online ratings involving 3 components: foreign ...

Pronunciation is essential to appropriate communication because the incorrect use ofpronunciation inevitably leads to the message being misunderstood by the receptor. In spite of itsimportance, L2 learners often regard pronunciation as the most difficult language skill to learn.In this study, shadowing as an act or task in pronunciation, in which the learner tracks the targetspeech and repeats ...

Daniel J. Olson, Purdue University While a growing body of research has established the benefits of pronunciation training on second language (L2) production, these benefits have yet to be incorporated into the general skills language classroom in a systematic manner. Furthermore, although relatively new speech analysis software has been shown to be useful in providing visual feedback for L2 su...

The problem addressed is automatically detecting, measuring and correcting nonnative pronunciation characteristics (so-called "for-eign accents") in foreign language speech. Systemic, structural and realizational differences between L1 (native language) and L2 (target language) appear as phone insertions, deletions and substitutions. A bilingual phone recognizer using native-trained acoustic mo...

The current study presents two meta-analyses to explore what underlies the assessment and teaching of comprehensible nativelike pronunciation among English-as-a-Second-Language speakers. In Study 1, listener studies (n = 37) were retrieved examining influence segmental, prosodic, temporal features on listeners’ intuitive judgements comprehensibility nativelikeness/accentedness as per different ...

Learners often struggle with L2 sounds, yet little is known about the role of prior pronunciation knowledge and explicit articulatory training in language acquisition. This study asks if existing pronunciation knowledge can bootstrap word learning, and whether short-term audiovisual articulatory training for tongue position with and without a production component has an effect on lexical retent...

Training L2 learners’ pronunciation by using a controlled perception procedure has long been the mainstream of L2 speech pedagogy research. However, endeavors have also been done to explore more communicative teaching methods. The current study presents a paradigm that tests both communicative teaching methods’ renderings of pronunciation pedagogy and a form-focused instruction which is less us...