Second Language Pronunciation Assessment

Abstract

General rightsThis document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms This series brings together titles dealing with a variety of aspects of language acquisition and processing in situations where a language or languages other than the native language is involved. Second language is thus interpreted in its broadest possible sense. The volumes included in the series all offer in their different ways, on the one hand, exposition and discussion of empirical findings and, on the other, some degree of theoretical reflection. In this latter connection, no particular theoretical stance is privileged in the series; nor is any relevant perspective -sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, neurolinguistic, etc. -deemed out of place. The intended readership of the series includes final-year undergraduates working on second language acquisition projects, postgraduate students involved in second language acquisition research, and researchers, teachers and policy-makers in general whose interests include a second language acquisition component. Second Language Pronunciation Assessment SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITIONFull details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: 107 Second Language Pronunciation AssessmentInterdisciplinary Perspectives All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. Edited by Talia Isaacs and Pavel Trofi movich MULTILINGUAL MATTERSThe policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned.Typeset by Nova Techset Private Limited, Bengaluru and Chennai, India. Printed and bound in the UK by the CPI Books Group Ltd. Printed and bound in the US by Edwards Brothers Malloy, Inc. In Memory of Alan Davies and Danielle Guénette AcknowledgementsThis edited volume, which brings together different but complementary research perspectives to establish a common platform in which to discuss issues relevant to assessing second language (L2) pronunciation, would not have been possible without the contributions and commitment of the authors, who explore key issues through different disciplinary lenses in the chapters that make up this volume. The vision for the book arose during a cold Canadian winter at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, when a sense of momentum for i...

Vocabulary Size Is a Key Factor in Predicting Second Language Lexical Encoding Accuracy

“…In their study on the L2 phonology of English-speaking learners of Spanish and Spanish-speaking learners of English, found that learners with higher inhibitory skill were more accurate at perceiving L2 vowels and more accurate at producing L2 consonants. However, Mora and Darcy (2016) found no relationship between inhibitory control and L2 pronunciation accuracy for learners of English who were L1 Spanish speakers or L1 Spanish-L1 Catalan bilinguals. In a similar study, did find that stronger inhibitory control was related to more accurate perception by L1 Spanish learners of English, although not if they were L1 Spanish-L1 Catalan bilinguals.…”

“…He found a moderate positive correlation between the two, such that higher PSTM was related to higher pronunciation ratings from native Spanish speakers. A positive relationship between PSTM and pronunciation accuracy was also evidenced by Mora and Darcy (2016) for Spanish-speaking learners of English.…”

“…PSTM has also been shown to be related to accuracy and gains over time in L2 production (O'Brien et al, 2007;Nagle, 2013;Mora and Darcy, 2016). For example, Nagle (2013) examined the relationship between the pronunciation ratings given to English-speaking learners of Spanish and their PSTM.…”

“…Attention is an important component in speech learning, since the ability to attend to pertinent information in the speech signal allows an individual to better notice relevant acoustic properties and create new phonetic categories (Francis et al, 2000;Guion and Pederson, 2007). Results of research on the relationship between learners' attention control and L2 phonological accuracy have been mixed, indicating a positive relationship, a negative relationship, or no relationship between the two (e.g., Kim and Hazan, 2010;Darcy et al, 2014Darcy et al, , 2015Gökgöz-Kurt, 2016;Mora and Darcy, 2016;Safronova, 2016). Gökgöz-Kurt (2016) found a positive relationship between both attention switching and selective attention tasks and gain scores on a test of word-boundary palatalization in English after training.…”

Assessment in Second Language Pronunciation. By O. Kang and A. Ginther (Eds.), London and New York: Routledge, 2018, 190 pp., $39.91 (paperback). ISBN: 978-1-138-85687-5 (pbk)

“…This volume does share some common focuses with Isaacs and Trofimovich (2016), such as the discussion about constructs in pronunciation, the native speaker norm and ELF, factors influencing rater/listener judgments of pronunciation, etc. But it is distinctive from the latter in that while the latter includes technology and automated scoring in future direction, this volume has detailed discussion about this issue.…”