Second Language Speech
Theory and Practice

This textbook focuses on second language speech - how individuals perceive and produce the sounds of their second language.

Laura Colantoni (Author), Jeffrey Steele (Author), Paola Escudero (Author)

9781107018341, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 10 September 2015

428 pages, 43 b/w illus. 4 tables
25.3 x 18 x 2.2 cm, 0.99 kg

'With its wide coverage and accessible content, Second Language Speech will prove to be an accessible textbook, as well as a helpful and valuable manual or reference book in L2 speech research, for many years to come.' Chunsheng Yang, The Linguist List (www.linguistlist.org)

Second language acquisition has rapidly grown as a field over the past decade, as our knowledge of the ways in which children and adults learn and use a second language has become crucial for effective language teaching. In addition to this important 'applied' function, research into second language acquisition has also informed the fields of linguistics and psychology in general, as it has shed light on the differences between native and non-native models of human language and cognition. The focus of this accessible new book is second language speech - that is, how speakers perceive, process, understand and pronounce the sounds of a second language. Each chapter includes review questions, and most chapters include 'tutorial' and 'lab' sections with practical exercises based on the University of Toronto Romance Phonetics Database (available online for free). The book also has a companion website, containing illustrated answers to the exercises, scripts for running acoustic analyses and useful weblinks.

Part I. Questions and Frameworks for the Study of Second Language Speech: 1. An introduction to second language speech research
2. Theoretical concepts and frameworks
Part II. Research Methodology: 3. Research methodology
Part III. Case Studies and Analysis of L2 Speech Perception and Production: 4. Vowels
5. Obstruents
6. Sonorants
7. Sequences
8. Prosody
9. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Phonetics, phonology [CFH], Language acquisition [CFDC], Linguistics [CF]