This paper describes some of the pronunciation features of Thai speakers of English in New Zealand, based on the observation of Thai students during their language laboratory sessions in a pre-university English course. Regular pronunciation features and consistent patterns of sound replacement were observed, which seemed to be characteristic of,…

Students of French learn to pronounce the syllables of the same rhythmic group with the same stress and the same intonation while lengthening slightly only the last syllable uttered. Several techniques designed to help students acquire correct French rhythm patterns are described here. They include: (1) counting aloud, (2) syllable division, (3)…

Tested whether listeners' reaction times for monitoring a predetermined phoneme are influenced by phonetic constraints on ordering. Reaction times were significantly shorter for phoneme monitoring in monosyllable-bisyllable sequences than in bisyllable-monosyllable sequences; however, reaction times were not significantly different for high-low vs…

The efficient use of the telephone by non-native speakers of English is discussed. (HP)

Investigation of the extent to which recognition of a foreign accent is affected by reducing suprasegmental or segmental information involved the reading of five Dutch sentences by native (N=9) and non-native (N=9) speakers. Results indicated that suprasegmental aspects of speech do play a part in a foreign accent. (CB)

Compares the effects of intonation training and phonological training on the intelligibility of the speech of two severely unintelligible preschool children. The results indicated that an increase in intelligibility is facilitated through training in the production of intonation patterns. (Author/BB)

Native Spanish speakers learning English as a second language, asked to mimic an American speaking Spanish with an American accent, displayed a tacit awareness of English-Spanish sound distinctions and, in particular, allophonic differences. (Author/CB)

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…

Recent research on native speakers' reactions to nonnative speech that views listeners, speakers, and language from a variety of perspectives using both objective and subjective research paradigms is reviewed. Studies of error gravity, relative intelligibility of language samples, the role of accent, speakers' characteristics, and context in which…

This article discusses punctuation in Spanish, specifically rules for the use of the comma, the colon, and the semi-colon. The rules for the placement of prosodic and orthographic stress are also discussed. (Text is in Spanish.) (CLK)

Part of a special issue, "Materialien zur Rechtschreibung und ihrer Reform" (Materials on Orthography and Its Reform). (DD)