In this dissertation, I investigated how cognitive resources as well as formal, and informal language experience impact language learning in two studies. In the first study (Chapter 2), I examined the learning of Spanish grammatical gender by Chinese international students who were studying abroad in the US. The goal of that study was to uncover…

This comparative study, conducted in multicultural London, investigates the occurrence in interviews with a researcher and in constructed same-sex peer conversations of five linguistic features characteristic of London English in the speech of two groups of British-born adolescents: ethnic Bangladeshis and ethnic Chinese of Cantonese heritage. The…

An outline is given of the tone system common to all varieties of anglophone West African English. The main features of the system are described, both in terms of linguistic description and in terms of varieties. (GLR)

Certain simplification and reduction processes used by Arabs in learning English as a second language are examined, such as: (1) simplification of syllables, (2) deletion of English articles, and (3) generation of English questions by using only intonation and leaving word order intact. The study is made from the perspective of two theories of…

Since 1971 the approach adopted in the teaching of English phonetics in Denmark has been a contrastive one. In this paper it is argued that although the original contrastive hypothesis (Lado 1957) has to be modified and weakened, a contrastive approach is highly useful in learning and teaching the pronunciation of a foreign language. Selected…

The sound system of English is described in all its complexity, from the relationship between spelling and pronunciation to the rules of connected speech, focusing on the methods and rationale of teaching pronunciation of English, particularly to English as a second language learners. (CB)