A study compared the Swedish tone accent acquisition of native-speaking children (N=2) and nonnative speaking college students (N=12). Both groups overgeneralized one pitch pattern to all bisyllabic words. Children used "Accent 2" (two-peaked) and adults "Accent 1" (one-peaked), analogous to the prevailing patterns of their…

This case study investigated whether patterns obtained from elicited speech also hold for conversational data. A longitudinal corpus of spontaneous/natural speech from an adult first-language Spanish learner of second-language Swedish is studied. (Author/VWL)

Reports the findings of research on the acquisition of French intonation by native speakers of Canadian English and Japanese. Results show that cross-linguistic influence in intonation is of central importance to the learner's acquisition of the target system, and that one should not underestimate the degree of the complexity of that influence.…

Tests a model of second-language phonological acquisition that proposes a hierarchical relationship between language-specific transfer processes and universal development processes in terms of chronology and style. This was accomplished through an investigation of the consonant cluster production of four Brazilian learners of English. Claims of…

Orthogonally manipulated three word characteristics in Dutch and English--word imageability; word frequency; and cognate status--and obtained similar data patterns for three groups of bilinguals different from one another in second-language fluency. Findings indicate that "concept mediation" is a universal process in translating words…

The parameter-setting model of universal grammar provides a basis for integrating two theories of second language acquisition: contrastive analysis and creative construction. The elicited responses of adult native speakers of Spanish and adult native speakers of Japanese were examined. The head-initial/head-final parameter was the principle…