Talk:Second-language phonology

Linguistics: Phonetics / Applied Linguistics Mid‑importance

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Suggestions for Improvement[edit]

The structure of this article is well divided and balanced, and there is a good amount of reliable sources. However, the overall content of the article does not flow very well. I like how the lead paragraph offers a simple overview of the key points, but it can be further developed into a well-rounded summary that is more engaging and easy to read for a casual reader (for example, merging the two paragraphs into one with emphasis on prosody and its characteristics differences between L1 and L2). While each section uses good neutral language and incorporate relevant research, they are not well elaborated upon to form a coherent article. More discussion about the examples, such as more data tables or visual aids, and the consequences would be helpful. In addition, the bibliography can be improved by taking advantage of the footnote and sourcing format that Wikipedia offers. This is a very interesting topic and I hope this article can be further developed with the addition of other aspects of the topic. -- Cchar94 (talk) 03:37, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You're very welcome to edit it yourself. :) I think the thing the article needs the most is references to secondary sources providing an overview of the subject, by the way. At the moment the article is mostly referenced to individual studies, but actually that isn't allowed per Wikipedia's policy on primary and secondary sources. A quick look at Google Books brings up this and this as possible sources, and there must be many others that we can use. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:44, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

More Suggestions[edit]

This article is clearly structured and has a lot of good examples from various studies. However, I think that finding some examples from other first languages besides English would help to round out the arguments a bit. I also think some further explanation of the studies mentioned would be helpful. For example, in the section on “Speech rate”, a longer explanation on the significance of duration of vowels and sonorant consonants would be useful to someone who doesn’t know about English vowel and consonant length. Nyashby (talk) 16:57, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The origin of accent[edit]

When a child begins to speak, he/she sets its articulatory base on that of the people surrounding him/her. Different languages have different normal movements of the parts of articulatory base in the time of talking. For that reason the speech effect in the vocal tract is different. When the tissues there are still young and yield to speech actions, permanent changes take place on the pharynx wall. Behind the lower part of the tongue there is an activated surface created. A mechanical speech apparatus is formed in the vocal tract, which is serviceable until the death of the owner. After a certain critical period all new acquired languages are spoken with that instrument. As the native language has a limited number of sounds and their characteristics are only for that language, all the others are pronounced incorrectly.

A person can have more than one talking instrument in his/her vocal tract - for instance, when a child is born in a bilingual family.

For comparison: a person has a melody in his/her head and he/she can make it audible with the help of musical instruments, whereas each of them has its own "accent". But the melody can be right with all instruments.

Why phoneticians do not want to admit that they have no idea about the origin of accent?

Leonhard Klaar — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.130.40.237 (talk) 00:35, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

With all respect, but based on my training and experiences both as a M.D. (diagnostic radiology; now retired) and PhD in phonetics/speech physiology, as well as a Swedish language teacher and notorious language learner, I dare have a very different view. Namely that the prosody part of learning a new L2 is the easiest task. If anyone would like to find out what I mean, here is an overview: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51074116/Kjellin-Practise-Pronunciation-w-Audacity.pdf For the time being I'm a bit hesitant about writing about it myself in Wikipedia. Best regards, Olle Kjellin Okjhum (talk) 15:20, 29 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]