Date:    Thu, 12 Mar 1998 10:51:53 +0000
<br>From:    Aaron Drews  aaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LING.ED.AC.UK 
<br>Subject: Re: Accent Reduction Therapy - Yoruba
<br>
<br>On Wed, 11 Mar 1998, TERRY IRONS wrote:
<br>}
<br>}More theoretically, in the context of some things I have been exploring
<br>}with students recently and since I was recently asked to develop and
<br>}direct an intensive ESL program at our school, to what extent is accent
<br>}reduction possible in adult second language learners?  Research I have
<br>}surveyed suggests that adult second language learners "hear" their second
<br>}language production filtered through the phonology of their first language.
<br>}Any thoughts here?
<br>
<br>        Is that last question rhetorical?
<br>        I haven't come across anything that second language learners hear
<br>the L2 through a filter.  There is some sparse research on production of a
<br>second phonology.  I can't remember the authors, but the proceedings were
<br>either "New Sounds 90" or "New Sounds 92", and an article mentioned that
<br>adults can acquire the tone and intonation patterns of a second language.
<br>        On the segmental level, things get a little more hairy.  J.E.
<br>Flege has done a lot of research on acquiring "new" and "similar" sounds,
<br>but that's strictly a phonetic analysis and I personally think phonology
<br>plays quite a role.
<br>        There's an entire book called "Interlanguage Phonology" directly
<br>and indirectly dealing with accent reduction in foreign language learners.
<br>Many of the articles therein talk about this "filter" that Terry is asking
<br>about.
<br>        In my own work, I'm finding that second dialect learners use and
<br>manipulate as much of their first phonology as possible.  Adults, and
<br>children after they've manipulated as much as they can adopt a
<br>"close enough" attitude (generally hypercorrection).  In older terms,
<br>this was called interference.  This same phenomenon seems to happen to
<br>second language learners as well, but I don't want to hazard any further
<br>guesses.
<br>        Aaron
<br>
<br>===========================================================================
<br>Aaron E. Drews                              http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~aaron
<br>Ph.D. Candidate                                         +44 (0)131 650-3485
<br>The University of Edinburgh                        fax: +44 (0)131 650-3962
<br>Departments of Linguistics and English Language
<br>