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Developing spoken English abilities is of utmost importance for students of Damphu Central School (DCS). By researching the current curriculum, its effectiveness in improving spoken English, and the primary factors of the students' proficiency, the goals of this study were to provide significant recommendations for developing the English language curriculum. A thorough analysis was conducted using input from all three stakeholders--students, parents, and teachers. As a result, the findings of this study highlighted the need to prioritize spoken English proficiency, construct a supportive learning atmosphere, and initiate conversations to amplify overall language skills (Li & Li, 2020). Moreover, the study pointed out critical areas including grammar, pronunciation, and fluency that require further attention as a means of improving spoken English (Nunan, 1998). In order to fully understand the implications of this study, it is essential to note that all recommendations are specific to the DCS context (Richards & Rodgers, 2001). As such, the research suggests that educators should emphasize speaking exercises in the classroom, ensure a positive learning climate and address any individual language obstacles. Furthermore, this investigation has proved the importance of continuous teacher development and similar studies to refine and extend approaches in improving English Communication Skills (ECS) in the school system.

This study examines accent biases in hiring practices among educators in U.S. schools. Using quantitative methods, the research investigates whether bias levels and accent types influence hiring decisions. The study, involving 216 hiring managers from various school sectors, found no significant correlation between bias levels (audio versus video) and accent types (native versus nonnative) in hiring decisions across K-12 public, private, and charter schools. The Kruskal-Wallis test (nonparametric test for Two-Way ANOVA) and Mann-Whitney U test (nonparametric test for Independent Samples t-Test) was used for data analysis. Qualtrics (an online data collection platform) was used to recruit participants for the research study. A Likert scale survey was used to collect data- this was called the Accent Beliefs Scale by Karolina Hansen. While the results suggest that accent bias may not directly impact educator hiring, the study underscores the importance of ongoing diversity, inclusion, and equity efforts within organizations. Future research could delve into specific accent variations and focus on biases, such as those observed in audio-only interviews, to yield more nuanced insights into accent bias effects. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Mastering the phonological aspects of a second language (L2) poses significant challenges for adult learners, often affecting their intelligibility in acquiring that language (Derwing, Munro, & Wiebe, 1998). McAllister (1997) has highlighted L2 learners' struggles in perceiving and producing novel segmental features, which is corroborated by The Perceptual Assimilation Model of L2 speech learning (PAM-L2) proposed by Best & Tyler (2007), which posits that the perception of L2 phonetics is a critical precursor to their accurate production. Against this backdrop, the present study aims to improve the intelligibility of Arabic pharyngeals (/[arabic symbol ommitted]/ and /h/) among English-speaking learners studying Arabic as a second language (ASL). Research by Hussein (2020) has shown that learners with English as their first language (L1) struggle to discern and articulate Arabic pharyngeals (/[arabic symbol ommitted]/ and /h/). This study employs a pre-and post-test design, with five treatment sessions in between focused on enhancing Arabic pharyngeal pronunciation, on assessing the effectiveness of two distinct pedagogical approaches: traditional pronunciation instruction and task-based instruction (TBI). Before the intervention, participants underwent an initial session ('session zero') to receive explicit instruction, laying the groundwork for subsequent lessons (Schmidt, 2010). Subsequent treatment sessions followed either the traditional or task-based instructional methodology. The efficacy of these instructional methods was assessed through a mixed-method analysis, leveraging both quantitative and qualitative data to address the research questions. Quantitatively, participants' pronunciation was rated before and after the instructional intervention, revealing a median rating increase from 2 to 6, signifying a marked improvement in pronunciation intelligibility of Arabic pharyngeals. A mixed regression analysis further indicated the superiority of task-based instruction (TBI) over traditional methods. TBI was associated with an increase in pronunciation rating of approximately 1.11 units (SE = 0.26), with a statistically significant t-value of 4.181 (p < 0.001).Qualitative insights were gleaned from post-intervention interviews, which provided a deeper understanding of the participants' perceptions of Arabic pronunciation and the effectiveness of the treatment sessions. The interviews yielded rich data on the acquisition and learning process of Arabic pharyngeals. Overall, the study not only underscores the challenges inherent in L2 phonological acquisition but also contributes to the field by comparing the impact of two instructional strategies on the acquisition of Arabic pharyngeals by English-speaking learners. The findings incorporate the TBI method, endorsing its effectiveness in enhancing L2 phonological skills and offering implications for pronunciation pedagogy in the context of ASL learning. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Many studies evidence the flexibility of speech perception in the first language (L1), which allows rapid adaptation to unfamiliar foreign accents. Two influential studies by Bradlow and Bent (2008) and a follow-up study by Baese-Berk et al. (2013) found that increased variability as a function of the number of talkers and accents facilitated the generalization of adaptation across talkers and accents by L1 listeners. However, very few studies have examined second language (L2) learners as listeners (Baese-Berk, 2018). Thus, little is known about perceptual flexibility in L2. Critically, there has been no study directly examining the effect of increased variability on adaptation to foreign accents by L2 listeners. My goal with this study is to address this research gap by closely following these studies with L2 listeners. I examine if variability facilitates adaptation to unfamiliar foreign accents by L2 listeners.To do this, I recruited 280 Japanese learners of English for a two-day experiment that consisted of a pre-test, treatment, and post-test. For the pre-test and post-test, I used a Mandarin talker and a Vietnamese talker. The participants were randomly assigned to seven groups and received different treatments: an identical-talker group, single-medium group, single-high group, single-low group, multi-talker group, multi-accent group, and control group. The identical-talker group had the same Mandarin talker as the tests. The rest of the groups had a different talker from the tests. The single-medium group featured one Mandarin talker with a similar level of intelligibility to the test talkers, while the single-high group had a high intelligibility Mandarin talker, and the single-low group had a low intelligibility Mandarin talker. The multi-talker group had five Mandarin talkers. The multi-accent group had five L2 accents that included the Mandarin accent but not the Vietnamese accent. The talkers in the multi-talker and multi-accent groups featured similar intelligibility levels to the single-medium talker. The control group had five American L1 talkers. In the pre-test, treatment, and post-test, the L2 listeners transcribed short sentences. Accuracy of word recognition was used as a measure of adaptation. The results showed no statistically significant improvements in any of the groups. Numerically however, the control group and the single-high group improved more than others for the Mandarin talker, while the single-medium and multi-talker groups improved more than others for the Vietnamese talker. The small improvements suggest possible differences in the mechanism of adaptation to foreign accents between L1 and L2, which may be modulated by listeners' proficiency. I discuss how speech perception theories and hypotheses that were developed within studies on L1 listeners and L2 phoneme acquisition theories may or may not explain the results. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Personality has been found to have significant connections to language. Ranging from impacting narrative style, to informing expectations about others based on linguistic factors such as accent, personality affects both language comprehension and production (Oberlander & Gill, 2004; Van den Brink et al., 2012). However, research in this area primarily focuses on offline measures. Online measures, such as EEG or pupillometry, have not been included until recently. Pupillometry, which involves measuring the size of the pupil, is considered a reliable indicator of cognitive effort during language comprehension. Hubert-Lyall and Jarvikivi are unique in their research studying the possible relationship between personality and online language comprehension due to their use of pupillometry (Hubert & Jarvikivi, 2019; Hubert-Lyall & Jarvikivi, 2021). They showed that several of the Big Five personality traits are related to the processing of errors during language comprehension. Unfortunately, theoretical explanations of the language-personality link are undeveloped. One theory, presented by Hubert and Jarvikivi (2019) and Jimenes-Ortega et. al. (2022) posits that perhaps for Neuroticism, anxiety may be the connecting factor between personality traits and language comprehension. The current studies had two goals. First, we aimed to replicate the findings of Hubert-Lyall and Jarvikivi (2021) using the same methodology but in a new population and culture. Second, we aimed to address a more specific hypothesis -- does Anxiety, through its connection to Neuroticism, predict cognitive load in response to errors in sentences? Overall, we found mixed results. While we did not replicate the findings from Hubert-Lyall and Jarvikivi (2021), nor did our results replicate from our own Experiment 1 to Experiment 2, we did find possible support for the connection between anxiety and language processing. However, it does not seem as though anxiety alone can account for the Neuroticism x language comprehension connection. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Across three experiments, the current study explored how accented speech and coarticulation impact how bilingual listeners comprehend code-switches in speech. Eye-tracking methodology was used to compare responses to single-language and code-switched sentences. Experiment 1 observed how accented speech influenced the costs involved in comprehending code-switches by comparing responses to speakers that had North American English accents to speakers with Juarez/El Paso Spanish accents when speaking English. Experiment 2 compared responses to English speech produced by speakers with North American English, Flemish, and Bulgarian accented speakers. To examine coarticulation as a cue to an upcoming code-switch, Experiment 3 compared naturally produced speech to speech that manipulated coarticulation prior to a code-switch. Results demonstrated that switch costs are involved in the comprehension of code-switches, non-English accents impact a listeners' comprehension of English speech, and the relative impacts of accent on switch costs vary across accent types. Additionally, the subtle cue of coarticulation assists listeners when comprehending code-switches. These findings suggest that bilinguals may use accent as a cue to anticipate upcoming speech. However, when a cue is deemed unreliable based on a bilingual's previous experiences, the listener then uses sub-lexical cues such as coarticulation to facilitate the comprehension of code-switches. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Proficient reading requires the ability to analyze words for various properties, including pronunciation, meaning, and syntactical function. However, most instruction in word analysis is limited to phonics instruction provided in the early elementary grades. For older students, whose words largely center units of meaning, or morphemes, early phonics instruction does not provide the multifaceted knowledge of word properties these older students need to manipulate the complex words of their curricula. Therefore, this study examined the effects of direct morphological analysis instruction focusing on Latin roots on middle school students' ability to orally decode and construct meaning for morphologically complex words. Working with 63 sixth graders, the researcher provided direct morphological instruction in prominent Latin roots and morphological analysis to a treatment group of 42 students and robust vocabulary instruction focusing on words with shared Latin roots to a comparison group of 21 students. Instruction occurred over a period of 29 sessions of 15 to 25 minutes each. Prior to the first cycle of instruction and immediately following the final cycle of instruction, all students were administered assessments of oral decoding and of morphological analysis for the construction of meaning. The results from the assessment of morphological analysis indicated that both treatment instruction and comparison instruction increased students' ability to construct meaning from morphologically complex words. However, the treatment instruction had a greater impact on the students' abilities to identify morphemes, define known morphemes, and use the definitions of known morphemes to construct meaning for the whole word. The results from the oral decoding assessment showed that both the treatment and comparison instruction increased students' ability to decode morphologically complex words, with no added effect from the direct morphological instruction. The results of this study indicated the relative value of direct morphological instruction in prominent Latin roots and strategic morphemic analysis for older students. However, the results also showed a need for further research that determines an appropriate developmental sequence of morphological instruction and determines the effect of this type of morphological instruction on global comprehension abilities. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Millions engage in learning a Second Language (L2) using their mobile devices with a wide range of success. Concomitantly, there exists a growing interest in research on the effects of mobile-assisted language learning and predictors of learner outcomes (e.g., Loewen et al., 2020; Sudina & Plonsky, 2023). However, few of these apps and studies target L2 pronunciation, despite the association of mobile devices and oral communication. To this end, this dissertation study investigates the impact of Mobile-Assisted Pronunciation Training (MAPT) on English pronunciation skills through the lens of intelligibility and comprehensibility as well as its interplay with motivation and technology acceptance. A novel computationally driven instantaneous visual feedback system was developed along with an intelligibility/comprehensibility-centric 28-lesson course on high functional load vowel and consonant contrasts, lexical stress, rhythm, and features of discourse intonation. University-level L1 Spanish learners of English in Mexico (N = 122) were asked to complete the course over three weeks which included a pre-, post-, and delayed posttest, along with individual difference questionnaires at each test. Linear and logistic mixed effects models of listening tests and speaking tasks rated by trained listener participants (N = 30) indicated an improvement in intelligibility, comprehensibility, high functional load contrasts, and intonation signaling agreement. However, other suprasegmental features did not significantly improve. When interpreted with learner comments, these results suggest that stress and fluency features require more extensive and contextualized treatment. Taking a dynamic perspective on individual differences, the study also found that engagement in MAPT increased motivation, but extrinsic motivation is associated with less effort in MAPT. Social Influence to use MAPT became more important for finishing the course; but, along with Effort Expectancy, it was also associated with less participant effort. None of the individual difference subconstructs, however, were associated with learning outcomes as measured by an increase in comprehensibility scores. Taken together, these results support the use of mobile devices for enhancing L2 pronunciation for communication, confirm that a pedagogical approach that targets intelligibility and comprehensibility can be effective for L2 learners, and suggest that extrinsic motivation may hamper learner efforts in MAPT. Implications for theory, pedagogy, and technology are provided for educators, technology developers, and researchers interested in using mobile devices to promote spoken L2 communication skills. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Arabic emphasis refers to the production of consonants resulting from a primary constriction in the dental or alveolar region and a secondary constriction in the back of the vocal tract, recognized as 'Emphatic.' These have contrastive consonants produced in the dental or alveolar region, recognized as 'Plain.' The existing research on emphasis in Arabic has identified specific acoustic parameters that distinguish between plain versus emphatic consonants in production and factors that have been shown to influence the perception of emphatics. While previous studies have established these patterns for both native speakers of Arabic and L2 learners of Arabic, they have not yet been tested for Arabic heritage speakers, who acquired the heritage vernacular language at home since birth and the majority language of society at school age. In this dissertation, we focused on the Arabic heritage speakers' production and perception of monosyllabic CVC word pairs that were contrasted in the initial or final, with consonants as plain or emphatic. We compared their performance to that of L2 learners of Arabic. Specifically, we asked whether Arabic heritage speakers maintain the contrast between plain and emphatic consonants better than L2 learners in the acoustic parameters F1 and F2 of surrounding vowels, the COG of fricatives, and the VOT of stops, and whether vowel context and position of the emphatic consonant within a word modulate emphasis perception for heritage speakers versus L2 learners. The study involved 18 Arabic heritage speakers and 18 English-speaking learners of Arabic who participated in oral production and word identification tasks. The results show that Arabic heritage speakers outperformed L2 learners in maintaining the contrast between plain and emphatic consonants in the acoustic parameter F2 of surrounding vowels. As for F1, VOT of stops and COG of fricatives were unreliable acoustic cues of emphasis in Arabic. The vowel context influenced perceptual accuracy, but in ways that differed across consonant types. For emphatic consonants, accuracy was relatively similar across different vowel contexts, but for plain consonants, accuracy changed according to the vowel contexts /ae/>/u/>/i/. Word position influenced accuracy in ways that differed for the two participant groups. Arabic heritage speakers identified the contrasts in both word positions with comparable accuracy, whereas the L2 learners exhibited decreased accuracy in the word-final position. The study findings indicate that Arabic heritage speakers demonstrated some benefit from exposure to vernacular input in producing and perceiving emphatic-plain contrasts. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation analyzes the production and perception of lexical stress in trilinguals' first, second, and third languages (L1, L2, and L3) to evaluate how the cue-weighting transfer hypothesis applies to L3 acquisition. According to this hypothesis, acoustic cues to stress have different weights across languages, and results from both production and perception studies of bilingual speakers indicate that bilinguals transfer cue-weightings from the L1 to the L2 (Chrabaszcz et al., 2014; Ingvalson et al., 2012; Iverson et al., 2003; Tremblay et al., 2021; Zhang & Francis, 2010). Acoustic correlates of lexical stress were analyzed in English, Spanish, and Catalan, as produced and perceived by L1 English-L2 Spanish-L3 Catalan speakers. Productions of stress minimal pairs in the three languages were collected in three separate experimental sessions via a sentence elicitation task, and perceptions of stress were gathered in three separate experimental sessions via a word identification task using nonword stress minimal pairs. This study focuses on acoustic cue-weightings to word-level prominence in English, Spanish, and Catalan, which all have lexical stress as indicated by the existence of stress minimal pairs and which are reported to belong to different rhythm classes (Prieto et al., 2012). Little, if any, research has been done to investigate how the cue-weighting transfer hypothesis may extend to the L3, which in turn allows for L2 transfer to be better understood (Flynn et al., 2004). Whereas vowel quality is the main correlate to lexical stress in English, duration is the most prominent cue in Spanish, and in Catalan, cue-weighting is vowel-dependent, with duration and vowel quality being prominent cues. The majority of models of multilingual phonetic and phonological acquisition that posit some degree of interaction between acquired language systems have been theorized to extend to L3 acquisition in a similar manner (e.g., Amengual, 2021; Chan & Chang, 2019; de Leeuw & Chang, in press; Escudero et al., 2013; Wrembel et al., 2019). Accordingly, I hypothesize that cue-weightings from previously learned language(s) will transfer into the L3 in similar ways that cue-weightings from the L1 transfer into the L2. Specifically, I hypothesize that cue-weightings in each language will be mediated by relative language dominance. I additionally predict that transfer will be bidirectional, where cue-weightings in the L2 and the L3 can influence cue-weightings in the L1. The results of the production and perception tasks indicate that relative language dominance does affect cue-weighting to a different extent in each language in the trilinguals' repertoires. There was additionally evidence for regressive transfer of cue-weighting in both production and perception, indicating that all languages in a trilingual's repertoire are susceptible to crosslinguistic influence. Principal component analysis is shown to be a viable way to extend the Bilingual Language Profile (Birdsong et al., 2012) to obtain relative dominance scores for trilinguals. Lastly, through a comparison of theoretical frameworks of L3 phonetics and phonology, the Attrition & Drift in Access, Production, and Perception Theory (ADAPPT; de Leeuw & Chang, in press) was determined to most closely align with the findings of this study. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation investigated how a bilingual's experiences can affect how their first language pronunciation can differ from monolingual speakers of their two languages. We used a methodology incorporating quantitative phonetic measurements of voice onset time and vowel formants, grammar and vocabulary tests, and qualitative measures of language attitudes and background of a single subject. This protocol of inquiry is also an attempt to develop new research designs/methodologies as recommended by Flege to provide sufficient single-speaker data, and novel ways to interpret data to investigate the SLM-r. In this case, our subject moved from Peru to the United States at the age of 10. She abruptly switched from using Spanish at school and with friends to using English, and slowly started using more English at home. Some of her Spanish consonants remain strongly Spanish-like, even shifting quality as though to keep her English and Spanish distinct. Her English consonants were between Spanish and English monolinguals. Her vowels each behaved differently. The study also examines how her attitudes about language use and the language use choice manifestations of her language identity correlate with her production data. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Although second language (L2) learners often have difficulty with learning the L2 pronunciation, the literature has reported a mix of more successful and less successful learners. Many factors could contribute to individual variation in L2 speech sound learning. This dissertation examines a few factors that are hypothesized to influence L2 production, including similarity/difference in prosodic and segmental aspects between L1 and L2 and several speaker-level characteristics. Study 1 examined Mandarin speakers' production of English stress contrast in both acoustic and kinematic domains. The results suggested that Mandarin speakers' native experience with stress contrast may facilitate nonnative stress production. However, the weights of individual cues differ across the two languages, which may cause Mandarin speakers' nonnative use of acoustic duration and jaw movement velocity/stiffness in English. Study 2 trained English speakers to learn Mandarin vowels and investigated whether the learners' auditory and somatosensory acuity would interact with the type of visual biofeedback provided during the training and predict the training outcome. Although not revealing interactions or main effects of the sensory acuity, our results identified phonological awareness and production variability as significant predictors of learning gains. Study 3 recruited English learners of Mandarin and assessed their auditory and somatosensory acuity, phonological awareness, and accuracy and variability of Mandarin vowel productions. Linear mixed-effects models were used to analyze the association between Mandarin vowel production accuracy and the other examined factors. The results showed that vowel production accuracy was associated with production variability for Mandarin /u/, a perceptually similar vowel to English speakers, and somatosensory acuity for Mandarin /y/, a perceptually new vowel. Taken together, the findings in this dissertation contribute to the L2 literature by revealing factors that may influence L2 production performance for individuals at different L2 learning stages, as well as L2 speech aspects that differ from L1 sounds to different extents. The results may inspire L2 instructors and clinicians to consider individual learners' language background and ability profiles when making speech sound teaching/training plans to improve not only group but also individual level performance. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Understanding speech in an accent or dialect different than one's own can be challenging. McLaughlin and Van Engen (2020) were the first to quantify this increase in listening effort using Task Evoked Pupillary Response (TEPR), a common measure of cognitive arousal. They found that monolingual, English speaking adults' pupils dilated more quickly and to a larger degree when listening to nonnative English (here, L2 English) than when listening to natively spoken English (here, L1 English), indicating that the L2 English incurred greater processing demands than the L1 English even though it was fully intelligible. In this dissertation, I build upon this finding with three studies. First, we conduct a conceptual replication of the original study with five- through eight-year-old children, finding that while children initially show a larger pupil response to L2 English than L1 English, they quickly adapt such that the difference is not sustained across the experiment. Next, I investigate the role of suprasegmental information in driving listening effort by reanalyzing McLaughlin and Van Engen's (2020) data. I find that suprasegmentals play a role in adaptation to L1 and L2 accents, but that suprasegmental information is used differently for each accent. Finally, I apply the suprasegmental analyses to my conceptual replication study with children, finding that children also rely on suprasegmental information for speech adaptation, but only in initial trials, as opposed to in later trials as in the adult data. Overall, I find that children and adults process and adapt to L2 speech in somewhat different ways, and that this is best explained by the Ideal Adapter Framework (Kleinschmidt & Jaeger, 2015). I conclude by suggesting that current models of speech perception and adaptation should be updated to reflect the listeners' use of suprasegmental information when processing and adapting to L1 and L2 speech. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The present project is a research-based and practice-tested online synchronous curriculum for English language learners with the Russian language mother tongue. The curriculum's theoretical component is grounded in Vygotsky's, Leont'ev', and Engestrom's "Cultural Historical Activity Theory" as well as in scholarly papers on the influence of non-educational and educational and linguistic factors on the English language teaching in Russia. As for the practical component, the designer examined the roots of the most common mistakes by the English language learners from Russia and purposed the curriculum objectives at eliminating the main errors in reading, writing, speaking and grammar skills and at mastering the pronunciation of the most difficult combinations of consonants for the Russian language speakers. The curriculum was designed for an eight-week program with a frequency of three hours teaching per week and with a total of 48 hours of instruction. The students in the program are recommended at the B-2 - Upper-Intermediate - level of the English language proficiency. All lessons materials were developed to be taught in a PowerPoint presentation format via Zoom or other e-teaching platforms. However, the universal design of the curriculum allows EL instructors to modify the curriculum for face-to-face teaching formats depending on the availability of a computer and materials thereof. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation draws on both qualitative and quantitative approaches to investigate the linguistic practices of teachers and children who are learning Mandarin Chinese as a Heritage Language (CHL) in two dual immersion preschools in California. CHL children have been interpreted as novice members in local speech communities who actively explore the linguistic repertoire of their multilingual environment and use their languages or language varieties strategically. This research focuses on Mandarin variation patterns by both teachers and children in school and explores the use of sociolinguistic variables in language input and child production. Specifically, it examines the variation in Mandarin syllable-initial sibilants /s/ and /[voiceless retroflex fricative]/ which are two distinctive phonological categories but are often mixed in several Mandarin varieties. Chapter 2 reviews relevant studies from the perspectives of child language development, bilingual teaching and learning, and sociolinguistics. Chapter 3 introduces the interdisciplinary background of sociolinguistics, then discusses the ethnographic methodology, followed by a detailed explanation of the research methods of the current study. The characteristics of language input and how teachers use sociolinguistic variables in their Mandarin instruction are interpreted in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 examines the bilingual development of CHL children and how this is affected by their age, gender, home language, and enrollment length in the programs. The extent to which children perceive and reproduce the Mandarin sociolinguistic variables in their heritage language is analyzed in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 presents other developmental patterns in Mandarin and English observed in CHL children. Lastly, Chapter 8 summarizes the key findings, highlighting the practical and theoretical implications as well as limitations so as to propose directions for future research. The findings suggest that teachers adjusted their use of variants according to the contexts and that children's language backgrounds may serve as one of the reasons for their choice of variants. CHL children in the classroom had been exposed to a range of sociolinguistic variables in the school setting. In addition, language use in families plays a key role in explaining the diverse language proficiencies among CHL children. The differences in language proficiency, along with other factors such as age, discourse context, input, and gender significantly affected the ways CHL children chose to use the sibilants in their heritage language. Besides sibilant variation, other developmental and variation patterns have also been identified. From an interdisciplinary perspective, this study contributes to the current knowledge of the acquisition of variation by expanding the research scale into CHL communities where heterogeneous language resources are available for children to explore. It also reveals the potential connection between language input and child language production to illustrate the acquisition process where different variation patterns may compete for salience. In this age group, children start exploring and experimenting with various language features and styles with adults and peers. In addition, this research illustrates the potential of dual immersion to support early childhood development in both CHL and English. By combining children from diverse linguistic backgrounds in the same class, dual immersion programs provide multiple sources of language input and varying contexts to practice the use of different language varieties and styles. They also offer children opportunities to actively establish their own sociolinguistic network with peers with whom they may creatively use their full linguistic repertoire in different languages and varieties. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

In phonetics research, language alternation--including code switching (speaker-initiated) and cued switching (researcher-prompted)--can be used as a tool to investigate various aspects of speech production and perception in bilingual or multilingual speakers (Bullock & Toribio, 2009a). Studies on the production of voice onset time (VOT) during language alternation have demonstrated that bilingual speakers--for example, Spanish-English bilinguals--have a convergence effect, in which VOT of a given language near switch sites becomes more similar to the VOT norms of the other language (e.g., Toribio et al., 2005; Bullock et al., 2006; Balukas & Koops, 2015; Piccinini & Arvaniti, 2015; Olson, 2016). As Olson (in press) summarizes, some general patterns have been identified in the literature: (1) "unidirectional interference has been the most common finding in the literature. When unidirectional interference is reported, the language with long-lag VOTs shifts in the direction of the short-lag language", and (2) "when bidirectional interference has been found, the magnitude of the switch differs between the two languages. The degree of shift is generally larger for the long-lag language than the short-lag language" (Olson, in press, p. 7). However, regardless of these general patterns, it is evident that a great number of distinct outcomes has been reported, namely, convergence presence and directionality (no convergence, unidirectional convergence, or bidirectional convergence), the language(s) more prone to convergence (only long-lag language or both), and the magnitude of the effect (small or large shifts). The wide array of different task types and methodologies used to study this phenomenon makes it all the more difficult to pinpoint the cause of the aforementioned inconsistent directionality, propensity, and magnitude of the convergence effect. For example, some studies relied on word list reading tasks (e.g., Olson, 2013) or passage reading tasks (e.g., Toribio et al., 2005; Bullock et al., 2006), and others used speech produced during sociolinguistic interviews (e.g., Balukas & Koops, 2015), inter-subject conversations (e.g., Balukas & Koops, 2015; Piccinini & Arvaniti, 2015), or puzzle tasks (e.g., Piccinini & Arvaniti, 2015).In order to shine light on the possible effect of task type on the directionality and magnitude of convergence effects in VOT bilingualism research, the present study analyzes VOT productions across four of the most popular research tasks (i.e., word list reading, passage reading, puzzle--spot the difference--and casual interview tasks) from a single group of Spanish-English bilingual speakers to obtain VOT measurements. In addition to the aspect of research task, the present study incorporates linguistic (i.e., language, place of articulation, and speech rate) and social (i.e., language history, language proficiency, language usage, and language attitudes) factors that could help predict VOT production patterns in language alternation. A total of 60 Spanish-English bilingual subjects participated in the four aforementioned tasks for this study, which yielded nearly 65 hours of recorded code-switched speech, in addition to a standardized demographic questionnaire: the Bilingual Language Profile (Birdsong et al., 2012). Data collection took place in a sound booth at the Berkeley PhonLab. The audio for the word list and passage reading tasks were annotated by hand. The audio for the spot-the-difference puzzle and the interview were segmented into Spanish and English speech. A Python script generated automatic transcriptions for each language using OpenAI's Whisper language model for automatic speech recognition (Radford et al., 2022). The data for all four tasks were then forced aligned using the Montreal Forced Aligner (McAuliffe et al., 2017). Through these aligned annotations, VOT measurements were obtained for word-initial voiceless stops /p t k/ in non-cognate words in both languages using AutoVOT software (Keshet et al., 2014).Two statistical models were performed for this study--one for the methodological and linguistic factors and another for social factors. The results from the first model indicate that there is an effect of research task, with passage reading and interview tasks displaying the highest degree of convergence--in English, specifically--compared with the word list and puzzle tasks. In addition, there were significant results of language (English yielded longer VOT), place of articulation (for English, /p/ was shorter than /t k/; for Spanish, /p t/ were shorter than /k/), and speech rate (slower speech rate led to longer VOT). Finally, the second statistical model reports relevant factors of language proficiency (participants who report higher ability scores for reading and writing--regardless of language--display less convergence than participants who report higher scores for speaking and comprehension abilities), language history (participants who learned Spanish later in life display more convergence), language usage (participants who use more English with friends and in the workplace display less convergence), and language attitudes (participants who more closely identify with a Spanish-speaking culture display more convergence than participants who identify with an English-speaking culture). The social model also indicated that participants who had higher exposure to Spanish spoken with an American English accent display less convergence than participants with exposure to any other type of accented speech. The results from this study are discussed in relation to previous empirical studies and predictions made by relevant theoretical frameworks for (Spanish-English) bilingualism and language alternation. In particular, this study elaborates on: (a) the potential language processing mechanism at play across the different types of research tasks during language alternation, (b) the significance of divergent VOT patterns of /t/ between the two languages, and (c) the effects of exposure to accented speech on a speaker's own speech patterns. All in all, this research study provides: (1) a thorough analysis and comparison of the research methodologies typically used in code switching studies in order to uncover task effects in production studies and (2) a better understanding of the language processing mechanisms that are engaged during language alternation behaviors. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

To become a native speaker, beyond obligatory rules, children need to learn systematic variation in the language, as it is present at all levels of language structure and is an integral part of linguistic knowledge. To give an example in English, speakers sometimes pronounce words ending in -ing with -in' (e.g., working vs. workin') depending on language-internal (e.g., -in' is used more frequently in participles than in nouns like 'morning') and external (e.g., -in' is used more frequently in casual conversational context than formal) factors. To learn such probabilistic patterns is a daunting challenge as children must figure out variants in alternation, factors modulating the alternation, relative rates associated with each variant in different contexts and more. Accounting for this process is crucial to any account of language acquisition, yet only a handful of studies have directly investigated children's acquisition of variation. While emergent evidence suggests that children do acquire variation, we also know they tend to change their language input and make it more regular -- a process often referred to as regularization. Taken together, a paradox arises: children apparently learn and match probabilistic linguistic variation under some circumstances but regularize such variation under others. When would children match variation and when would they regularize? While previous research identified many important factors contributing to this trade-off, including the presence of a conditioning factor, quantity of input etc., this question remains largely under-explored. Motivated by existing literature on creolization, developmental sociolinguistics and language acquisition, this dissertation investigates the impact of two well-grounded factors - the reliability of language input and shared variability across speakers - on how learners approach probabilistic variation. To do so, we leverage the artificial language learning paradigm: we expose adult and child learners to miniature languages containing variation and directly manipulate these factors one at a time to determine whether they provide them with important cues with respect to whether to regularize or learn the variation they are exposed to. We found that both child and adult learners were more likely to regularize variation when underlying regularity of the variation is not accessible to them (Chapter 3 & 4). While observing the same variable pattern shared by multiple speakers led adult learners to match the pattern more accurately (Chapter 5), children were not sensitive to this cue under the current paradigm (Chapter 6). Taken together, this dissertation shows that learners integrate cues beyond the statistical distribution of forms including structure of the variation, perceptual properties of the forms as well as how forms distribute in relation to speakers, to navigate probabilistic aspects of the language, and thus furthers our understanding on the cognitive mechanism that underlies the acquisition of variation in language. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The present study investigates the time course of acoustic cue integration in the processing of the Korean three-way laryngeal stop contrast by native Korean listeners and English second language (L2) learners of Korean. As such, this study seeks to understand how native listeners and L2 learners weight and integrate fine-grained acoustic information in spoken word recognition. Specifically, this study investigates three important issues in speech perception and spoken word recognition. The first issue is that acoustic information from different cues often arrives asynchronously as the speech signal unfolds, thus raising the question of how asynchronous acoustic cues are integrated over time. A second critical question is whether the cue integration strategy used in the native language (L1) determines the cue integration strategy adopted in the L2. A third important issue is that of individual differences in cue weighting and cue integration strategies and what might be the potential source of such variabilities. From these issues, three research questions arise: (1) Are acoustic cues integrated continuously when the weight of the cue available later is greater than that of the cue available earlier? (2) Do listeners' cue weighting and cue integration strategies in the L1 affect how they weight and integrate acoustic cues that signal a similar phonological contrast in the L2? And (3) does an individual's cue weighting predict their cue integration strategy, and are both predicted by working memory capacity? This study addresses these questions by determining: (a) how individual native Korean listeners weight and integrate VOT (cue available early in the speech signal) and onset F0 of the following vowel (cue available later) when hearing Korean isolated words that begin with a stop; (b) how individual English L2 learners of Korean weight and integrate the VOT and onset F0 of the following vowel when hearing Korean isolated words that begin with a laryngeal stop; and (c) whether listeners' cue weighting and cue integration are related to listeners' working memory capacity. A cue-weighting speech perception experiment measured listeners' perceptual reliance on acoustic cues to the Korean stop contrast. During the cue-weighting task, participants heard a stimulus that was part of a matrix consisting of seven steps of VOT and seven steps of F0 and identified what they heard from two given alternatives. The results of the cue-weighting task showed that Korean listeners use F0 as the primary cue and VOT as the secondary cue for perceiving the aspirated vs. lenis and the lenis vs. fortis contrasts, but they use VOT as the primary cue for perceiving the aspirated vs. fortis contrast. English L2 learners of Korean were found to transfer their relative cue weighting from their L1 English stop voicing contrast to the processing of the L2 Korean laryngeal stop contrast, relying primarily on VOT to perceive the Korean contrasts. Individual listeners' perceptual reliance on acoustic information was quantified by their responses to the cue-weighting task, serving as a foundation for predicting the real-time processing of acoustic information, which was measured with an eye-tracking experiment. The visual-world eye-tracking paradigm measured listeners' timing of VOT integration in the real-time processing of acoustic information in lexical access. In the eye-tracking experiment, listeners saw a display with four printed Korean words: one target, one competitor, and two distractors. Participants' eye movements were recorded as they heard a target word within the carrier sentence and clicked on the corresponding word. The results showed that, at the group level, Korean listeners' timing of VOT integration was delayed in the condition with an aspirated target and a lenis competitor and in the condition with a lenis target and a fortis competitor, in which F0 (cue available later in the speech signal) is the primary cue for perceiving the corresponding contrasts. These results suggest that the timing of cue integration is associated with the relative weighting of acoustic cues. English L2 learners of Korean showed that their timing of VOT integration was not delayed except for the condition with a lenis target and a fortis competitor, where they had difficulties identifying target stops. This suggests that their transferred relative cue weighting from the L1 is associated with their real-time processing of acoustic information in the L2.At the individual level, Korean listeners who relied more on F0 showed more delayed timing of VOT integration, further elucidating the relationship between cue weighting and the time course of cue integration. English L2 learners of Korean did not show a significant relationship between the two variables. The effect of working memory was overall not strong, although it predicted the perception of some contrasts. The present results speak to the literature on the mechanisms that underlie the time course of cue integration as the speech signal unfolds and suggest that listeners' real-time processing of asynchronous acoustic information in lexical activation is modulated by the informativeness of perceptual cues. As such, this study provides a nuanced perspective for a better understanding of listeners' moment-by-moment process of acoustic information in spoken word recognition. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Previous literature has shown that voicing contrast is a difficult feature for Chinese-English emergent bilingual learners of L3 Spanish (Bravo Diaz, 2020; Chen, 2007; Zhang, 2022). The production of voicing contrast in stops has been broadly investigated in second and third language studies (e.g., Zampini, 1998; Llama, 2010; Wrembel, 2014), but almost exclusively focusing on VOT as a unified correlate and studying one moment in the process of L2 development. Adopting a Complex and Dynamic Systems Theory framework (e.g., Larsen-Freeman, 2007), this dissertation investigates the roles of other acoustic correlates of voicing contrast in multilingual participants' stop production, including individual differences in developmental paths of VOT using a time-series approach.Two studies were conducted studying stop production of a group of L1 Mandarin -- L2 English learners of L3 Spanish (N = 30). In Study 1, tokens of intervocalic stops in a text-reading task were analyzed to measure C:V ratio of intensity, percentage of voicing, and onset F0 of the following vowel to examine and compare their realizations in the participants' three languages. In Study 2, VOT samples in a wordlist reading task were measured five times during a period of one semester to trace their developmental paths. The role of individual differences including language aptitude, language use, and metalinguistic knowledge were integrated in mixed effect models.Results showed that participants relied on all acoustic cues under examination to signal voicing contrast in all three languages, with differences of cue weights across languages. At the same time, there were significant individual differences in individual developmental paths of VOT; mixed effect models revealed that phonetic coding ability had a facilitative effect in pronunciation accuracy; sequence recognition ability interacts with time to show an effect in more advanced stages of learning. This dissertation has implications for research on L3 phonological development and individual variation. It sheds light on the relevance of acoustic cues other than VOT in stop production among multilingual learners, and highlights the roles of explicit and implicit language aptitude in the learning of segment pronunciation. Finally, it contributes to a complex and dynamic view of voicing contrast development in a third language. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation explores the relationship between quantitative phonetic measurements and listener identification of accents of English, focusing on phonetic distance and its perceptual correlates across various English accent varieties. The Levenshtein distance (LD) measure, which quantifies string similarity by calculating the minimum cost of transforming one string into another, is used to compare phonetic differences across accents. This study begins by investigating the diverse applications of LD across disciplines, emphasizing its significance in dialectology. Evaluation of different LD approaches and algorithms reveals that simpler methods often yield analogous or superior results compared to more complex ones. Insights from analyzing LD trends inform the selection of the algorithm chosen for the current experiment. Subsequently, carefully selected low- and high-pass filter cutoffs enable investigation of target phonetic features. Four English accent varieties are included in this research: Midland American (control), British/Australian, Hindi-influenced, and Mandarin-influenced. Hypotheses and predictions are formulated based on the documented correlations between LD and listeners' perception ratings of native-likeness and intelligibility. For monolingual American English-speaking listeners, frequent confusion is predicted between Midland American and British/Australian accents due to their similarly low LDs, amplified by filtering conditions altering vowel and consonant cues. Conversely, higher LDs are hypothesized for Hindi- and Mandarin-influenced English due to the influence of various first languages (L1s). It is expected that these two varieties will be more frequently confused with each other in unmodified identification tasks due to their relatively high LDs. The impact of filtering conditions on confusion is predicted to differ for each variety, with high-pass filtering affecting Hindi-influenced English due to consonant substitutions and low-pass filtering affecting both varieties due to vowel substitutions. However, fewer confusions are expected for Mandarin-influenced English due to the potential presence of tonal information. The research methodology involves analyzing listener identification of accents using confusion matrices and employing generalized linear mixed modeling. The findings contribute to understanding the relationship between phonetic distance and perceptual identification in English accents. This comprehensive exploration of phonetic distance and perceptual accent identification provides valuable insights into the factors influencing accent perception. The study's implications extend to the broader field of acoustic phonetics, shedding light on the role of phonetic variation in accent perception. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Nawat, the highly endangered indigenous language of El Salvador, is undergoing a revitalization process. This dissertation, conceived within this context, focuses on the second-language (L2) acquisition of features of Nawat pronunciation by learners who have Salvadoran Spanish as their first language (L1). Specifically, I assess the acquisition of one Nawat segmental feature and one prosodic feature through their production by L2 learners: 1) the Nawat velar stop phoneme /g/, which has different allophones according to its surrounding sounds, and 2) Nawat utterance-final vowel glottalization, that is, the production of utterance-final vowels with increased constriction of the vocal folds to signal the end of an utterance. The goals of this dissertation are: 1) to explore whether L2 Nawat learners become more proficient in the production of these Nawat features as their years of Nawat study increase, 2) to identify the linguistic contexts in which the productions of these Nawat features by L2 learners differ the most from L1 Nawat speakers, and 3) to assess whether the progress in the L2 acquisition of these Nawat features is equally linear or if one aspect is more difficult to learn than the other. For this purpose, a total of 21 L2 Nawat learners were recorded performing a reading task in Nawat and Spanish designed to elicit the sounds of interest in different contexts. A control group consisting of five L1 Nawat speakers were also recorded performing open-ended interviews and a picture description task to serve as a baseline. I find that, overall, L2 Nawat learners become more proficient in the production of Nawat /g/ as their years of study increase. However, there are contexts in which productions of Nawat /g/ by L2 learners and L1 speakers consistently diverge, namely, when word-initial /g/ is in the post-lateral position and when word-medial /g/ is in the post-approximant, post-lateral, and post-obstruent contexts. I argue that these differences are the result of L1 transfer and hypercorrection. As for the L2 acquisition of Nawat utterance-final vowel glottalization, progress is observed but, unlike Nawat /g/, even the most advanced learners do not produce Nawat utterance-final vowels at rates comparable to L1 speakers. In fact, most Nawat utterance-final vowels produced by L2 learners show weakened voicing rather than glottalization, which I interpret as L1 transfer. Thus, an asymmetry in the acquisition of these features of Nawat pronunciation is identified, which I attribute to the inherent complexity of prosody, the perceived similarity between the L1 and L2 sound systems, frequency, and the Nawat input received by L2 learners. This dissertation highlights the need to inform the Nawat teaching curricula to focus on the production and perception of utterance-final vowel glottalization and develop more effective pedagogical materials and practices to teach them. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Language learners need to map a continuous, multidimensional acoustic signal to discrete abstract speech categories. The complexity of this mapping poses a difficult learning problem, particularly for second language learners who struggle to acquire the speech sounds of a non-native language, and almost never reach native-like ability. A common example used to illustrate this phenomenon is the distinction between /r/ and /l/ (Goto, 1971). While these sounds are distinct in English and native English speakers easily distinguish the two sounds, native Japanese speakers find this difficult, as the sounds are not contrastive in their language. Even with much explicit training, Japanese speakers do not seem to be able to reach native-like ability. (Logan, Lively, & Pisoni, 1991; Lively, Logan, & Pisoni, 1993). In this dissertation, I closely explore the mechanisms and computations that underlie effective second-language speech sound learning. I study a case of particularly effective learning--a video game paradigm where non-native speech sounds have functional significance (Lim & Holt, 2011). I discuss the relationship with a Dual Systems Model of auditory category learning and extend this model, bringing it together with the idea of perceptual space learning from infant phonetic learning. In doing this, I describe why different category types are better learned in different experimental paradigms and when different neural circuits are engaged. I propose a novel split where different learning systems are able to update different stages of the acoustic-phonetic mapping from speech to abstract categories. To do this I formalize the video game paradigm computationally and implement a deep reinforcement learning network to map between environmental input and actions. In addition, I study how these categories could be used during online processing through an MEG study where second-language learners of English listen to continuous naturalistic speech. I show that despite the challenges of speech sound learning, second language listeners are able to predict upcoming material integrating different levels of contextual information and show similar responses to native English speakers. I discuss the implications of these findings and how the could be integrated with literature on the nature of speech representation in a second language. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Despite the importance that learners must place on using prosody appropriately in EIL interaction, pragmatic functions of prosody have been largely disregarded in teaching materials and classroom instruction (Nikolic, 2018). Moreover, with a recent change in classroom paradigms instigated by the global development of educational technologies and reinforced by the recent pandemic, there is an increased need for pragmatic instruction that can be delivered to learners digitally and remotely (Taguchi, 2011b). Although distance learning has played an important role in English teaching and learning long before the pandemic, its impact is even more meaningful today, when English learners all over the world are still experiencing difficulties related to in-person instructional access. The current mixed-methods quasi-experimental dissertation study investigated the extent to which English learners' interaction skills can improve as a result of contextualized prosody instruction on a web-based platform. Seventy-four English learners from China were randomly assigned to a two-week program that consisted of explicit pragma-prosodic instruction as well as perception-and production-based exercises. Learners' use of prosody in requests before and after instruction was recorded through video-based role plays, analyzed acoustically, and evaluated for appropriateness, accentedness, and comprehensibility by 20 trained raters. In order to provide a complete picture of instructional effectiveness, the study accounted for variation in learners' aptitude for acquiring prosodic properties of English by measuring their working memory, musical sensitivity, and auditory processing skills. The study results demonstrated significant changes in learners' use of pragma-prosodic features of interaction after the training; however, these changes did not have an effect on listeners' appropriateness perceptions, highlighting the complex nature of this construct that requires further clarification. At the same time, a significant albeit weak relationship was detected among listeners' perceptions of accentedness, comprehensibility, and appropriateness. Finally, the results revealed that learners' musical sensitivity, working memory as well as tone choice and prominence discrimination ability affected the success of the training in improving their use of pragma-prosodic features from the acoustic perspective. These findings provide important guidance for designing digitally mediated contextualized prosody instruction and help to better understand the role of learners' aptitude in its effectiveness. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Within the field of linguistics, whether considering language contact situations (Weinreich, 1979) or foreign language education (Lado, 1957), the topic of language transfer, especially as it relates to pronunciation, has always been an item of particular interest. While research on such transfer has mostly focused on various phenomena of the L1 and L2 phonological systems (Flege, 1987; Flege & Bohn, 2021), in the past number of decades a number of studies have highlighted the effects caused by a shared orthographic system, whenever language pairs share such a system (Vokic, 2011; Young-Scholten and Langer, 2015). Such effects have been found to be persistent, not disappearing even after years of residence in the L2-speaking environment, even though the pronunciation issue itself is not problematic for the learner at all. Because this effect is embedded in the orthography itself, the present study sought to explore the possible benefits of manipulating the visual information provided to L2 learners in their orthographic input in order to assist them in their acquisition of a more native-like L2 pronunciation. Looking at a small, homogenous group (n = 25) of university-level, English-speaking learners of L2 Spanish, an experiment was designed focusing on the pronunciation of Spanish intervocalic as [ð], which should not be a problematic sound for these learners phonologically speaking. Participants were divided between three groups in order to test for changes in pronunciation behavior over a 6-week period, either: by normal classroom experience alone, by the help of a brief pronunciation lesson on the target sound, or by combining a pronunciation lesson with the use of a diacritic-enhanced both in the lesson as well as in subsequent paragraph-reading tasks. It was discovered that a brief pronunciation lesson alone was unable to make lasting differences in students' pronunciation as measured by a paragraph-reading posttest, but the group who interacted with diacritic-enhanced text showed substantial improvement in pronunciation of the item. These improvements were found to still be intact in a paragraph-reading task after the diacritics were removed, suggesting that learners had associated the target-like [ð] pronunciation with the authentic itself. Because the results of the present study were obtained using a relatively small sample size, some caution should be exercised in the interpretation of these results, and further study of this particular effect must be carried out in order to corroborate what was found here. Nonetheless, the results of this study indicate the potential for real benefits to incorporating diacritic-enhancement in L1/L2 learning situations where the two languages share an orthographic system but have diverging phonetic realizations of graphemes. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

As sound changes advance across large geographic areas, they progress unevenly across populations. The speakers who lead these changes often share macro-social identities, like place or social class affiliations (e.g. Nesbitt 2018; Wagner et al. 2016). But the features undergoing these macro-level sound changes also hold social meanings related to more micro-level, interactional contexts (Bucholtz & Hall 2005; Eckert 1989). Recently, the Northern Cities Vowel Shift (NCS) has been observed to be reversing in the Inland North (D'Onofrio & Benheim 2020; McCarthy 2011). In this dissertation, I explore the relationship between these macro- and microscale social meanings by examining how an ongoing sound change, the reversal of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift (NCS), is unfolding among Chicago-area adolescents. Using sociolinguistic interviews, social evaluation tasks, and meta-commentary drawn from interviews and perceptual dialectology, I ask how the local-level social contexts created by various high school types may influence the social meanings that are attached to regional features associated with white speakers in perceptual evaluations, and how this might in turn influence adolescents' uptake of these features in production, contributing to this macro-scale sound change. Adolescents appear to navigate a series of dichotomies, balancing ideologies depicting the Midwest as standardized or normative in linguistic terms with opposing ideologies considering urban areas like Chicago to be racially, socioeconomically, and linguistically marked. I find that schools and other institutions play a critical role in students' understandings of their own positionalities within the broader social and linguistic landscape. Through circulating discourses surrounding high school choice, students are socialized into ideologies about institutionally-based social hierarchies "and" what it means to sound "elite" with respect to the NCS, via their exposure to similarly positioned peers in school. That is, high school choice guides adolescents' understandings of their social positions along a hierarchy of school eliteness, which itself is mapped onto the degree to which students engage with particular socially meaningful elements of the NCS. In social evaluations, participants associated Northern Cities-shifted vowels with lower socioeconomic status. In production, they recruit these same vowels -- Northern Cities-shifted TRAP and LOT -- to index a different, though related, hierarchy: school elite-ness. This demonstrates how the social meaning associations formed in local-level contexts like schools might scale up towards macro-social demographic factors, leading to broader patterns of sociolinguistic variation in the context of a sound change reversal. More generally, I argue that institutions like schools serve as organizing forces in structuring who interacts with whom and, consequently, serve as points of connection between micro- and macro-level social meaning. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Nonnative English speakers are often judged based on their accent, but accent is perceived as well as produced. Race, gender, and religion interact to create complex and nuanced figures of personhood (Agha, 2005) impacting teachers' perceptions of students. Teachers' individual differences, including language proficiency, exposure to language, and previous training, also affect pronunciation ratings (e.g. Kang, 2008, 2012; Kang & Rubin, 2009). This dissertation investigated English as a second language teachers at evangelical English programs in South Carolina, addressing how teacher backgrounds interacted with institutionally circulating ideologies of race, gender, and religion, and these factors' impact on ratings of student speech. Qualitative methods included ethnographic observation and interviews, informing the design of a quantitative metric, a matched-guise pronunciation rating task wherein teachers rated the accentedness of speech samples matched with fabricated dossiers of "students." Target stimuli included native English speakers paired with combinations of race, gender, and religion to isolate the effects of perceived student identity on accentedness ratings. Qualitative analysis revealed institutional practices and frameworks of the schools' purpose that aligned with the historical legacy of colonialism and its push to assimilate students both culturally and linguistically. However, not all individuals took up the institutional values. Quantitative results were analyzed using mixed-model linear regressions, demonstrating that teachers at both sites rated Afghan "students" higher than White "students" (p=0.071) and rated men higher than women (p<0.05). Teachers with more experience provided lower ratings (p<0.001). Results also showed a trend for the number of second languages (L2s) a teacher spoke correlating with higher ratings; the teacher who spoke seven L2s rated students higher than did teachers with one L2 (p<0.01). Together, ideologies circulating at these institutions and metrics of teachers' engagement in reverse linguistic stereotyping provide a more complete picture of the biases operating unconsciously in these ESL programs. This research makes an important contribution to the field of second acquisition and to TESOL in particular because it pushes for greater inclusivity, sensitivity, and diversity. By shifting the focus of accent in the classroom from the student to the listening subject, this research holds implications for moving towards systemic change of accent discrimination, rather than focusing on individual remediation. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The problem addressed in this study was that second language learners have difficulties pronouncing some English consonants that are not part of their language. Such errors occur because of first-language interference. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the perceived effectiveness of using minimal pair training to differentiate between the pronunciation of the voiced /v/ and the voiceless /f/ phonemes. The ability to reach pronunciation proficiency may consequently improve communication. This study was conducted over six weeks and included a purposive sample of seven participants from different Arab-speaking countries who share the same experiences and the same problem. Open-ended face-to-face interviews and observation were used for data collection to ensure the quality of the obtained data and get more detailed information. A thematic analysis was used to examine the data and resulted in six themes: (a) perceived weaknesses in proficiency and communication; (b) language ability was affected by a variety of causes; (c) perceived ability improved weak points as a result of the training; (d) practice and training increased perceived ability; (e) minimal pair training improved perceived pronunciation proficiency; (f) minimal pair training improved perceived communication skills. This study showed that minimal pair training improved pronunciation proficiency and perceived communication skills for most participants. The data proved that Arab learners developed more interaction and communication with English speakers because pronunciation training increased their confidence and decreased their speaking anxiety. The study may help improve teachers' effectiveness in teaching English pronunciation because it focused on the most common pronunciation mistakes that inhibit learners from being understood. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Code-switching has been studied from different approaches, ranging from syntactical, sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, phonetically and many others. One key area that phonetic studies have explore has been the production of VOT in Spanish-English bilinguals due to the differences across the languages. To understand how bilinguals co-activate their languages in code-switch productions, some studies have explored the effect of how cognates facilitate the co-activation of languages. The results of these studies have identified that bilinguals engage in VOT modulation when producing code-switching and that cognates tend to facilitate this process by triggering the activation of one language or the other in the production of VOT of voiceless stops. However, one outstanding question in the literature of phonetic studies regarding code-switching has been how cognates can trigger changes in the production of VOT of a following voiceless stop and how the different types of code-switching influence this effect. To study this, we conducted a study with three experiments with Spanish heritage speakers and, L2 learners of Spanish using a reading task. Participants read sentences in Spanish, English and Spanish-English code-switching, considering the variables of this study: VOT production, cognate status, and code-switching type. We found in our results a significant effect for VOT reduction in both speakers' groups when producing code-switched sentences. The results of the experiments suggest that cognate status and switch type are significant factors in modulating the production of VOT. This study show that code-switching can have an effect in the production of VOT in both Spanish heritage speakers and L2 learners of Spanish, and that previously unexplored variables like cognate status and switch type have an influence in this modulation process. Our experiment provides a venue for upcoming studies that could further explore this possible triggering effect of cognates in other experimental scenarios as well as updated approaches to explore the role of switch type in the process of VOT production. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Due to the lack of a pronunciation curriculum and materials in Saudi universities, EFL students individually select use different resources to help with their English pronunciation difficulties. Therefore, this study aims to describe: (a) Saudi students' perspectives and attitudes toward pronunciation resources that may help with their pronunciation; (b) if they use them to help with their weaknesses; and (c) the teachers' perspectives on their students' pronunciation difficulties, their knowledge of the resources the universities provide, and what they use to help the students' pronunciation learning and development. This study investigates what Saudi students think they need to learn pronunciation, what aspects they see as the most difficult to overcome, and what resources they lack to help with their pronunciation difficulties. The study elicits opinions on the students' pronunciation obstacles based on their perspectives and their teachers' perspectives and what resources the teachers use to assist their students' learning. The study was conducted in two public Saudi institutions. The targeted participants are (1) Saudi college students studying English in their third and fourth years and (2) their English language teachers. The data was collected using two questionnaires, one for students and the other for their teachers. Students who participated in the questionnaire were interviewed to get more information once the data was gathered. After receiving the questionnaires and interview data recordings, the researcher transcribed the content of the interviews, noting recurring themes and patterns. The study's results indicated the presence of three primary themes derived from the gathered data: classroom interaction, technological engagement, and personal practice. These themes comprise a variety of resources, which include, but are not limited to, the course book, interactions with peers, the use of mobile applications and online software, as well as involvement in departmental workshops and speaking clubs. The lack of easily accessible resources for Saudi learners poses significant obstacles to developing effective pronunciation abilities. This challenge is notably attributed to the overarching academic priorities of the university, which tend to allocate relatively more emphasis towards other language skills, inadvertently limiting the attention and allocation of resources directed toward the enhancement of pronunciation proficiency. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The rapid growth of Mandarin Chinese and English dual-language (DL) programs and the differences between these two languages have fostered the need to investigate the early literacy performance of young students in a Mandarin/English DL program. This study used the interactive transfer framework (Chung et al., 2019) to understand the Mandarin and English literacy development of first- and second-grade students in a dual immersion program, with a particular focus on the influence of Pinyin. The study analyzed 23 first- and second-grade DL students' English and Mandarin early literacy skills using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, in which quantitative analysis was applied in the first phase, followed by error analysis in the second phase. According to the quantitative analysis, students performed on or above average on English tests, and their Chinese Pinyin syllable learning was at the grade level. However, their Chinese phonological awareness and language proficiency were still under the grade-level average. The students' home languages played a vital role in their language development, especially in their Chinese literacy development. In the error analysis, two Spanish students pronounced /a/, /i/, and /u/ sounds in Pinyin when they were tested in English. It should be noted that the vowel sounds in Pinyin are very similar to sounds in Spanish. These results show that language transfer is more likely to happen between languages that share more similarities (close distance). The Pinyin letter "c" (/tz/) emerged as the most difficult sound across all home language groups due to its uncommon pronunciation in Spanish and English. This shows that when there is a lack of similarity between languages, learning an entirely new sound becomes harder. The findings provide a better understanding of the early biliteracy performance of young bilingual learners in a Mandarin-English two-way immersion DL program after Pinyin learning, and also provide evidence of the cross-linguistic influence between Mandarin Pinyin and English literacy. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this qualitative, descriptive study was to learn how post-secondary instructors/faculty described their belief in, the factors that lead to, and how organizational training and support influenced their encouragement of learner use of an assistive technology known as text-to-speech software as part of their pedagogical practices at colleges and universities within the United States. This research included 14 post-secondary instructors/faculty. Ten semi-structured interviews and two focus groups were the sources of data. The following are the three research questions used to guide this study: how do post-secondary instructors/faculty describe their beliefs on encouraging learner use of an assistive technology known as text-to-speech software as part of their pedagogical practices; how do post-secondary instructors/faculty describe what factors led to their encouragement of learner use of an assistive technology known as text-to-speech software as part of pedagogical practices; and how do post-secondary instructors/faculty describe how organizational training and support influence their encouragement of learner use of an assistive technology known as text-to-speech software as part of their pedagogical practices. This researcher used a thematic six-step analysis that identified the following nine themes. The results revealed that since text-to-speech software was easy to use, the participants were most likely to use the technology as a part of their pedagogical practices. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation research examines the acquisition of second language vowels. For second language learners, learning a new languages' sound inventory, particularly its vowels, presents a challenge perceptually and in terms of production. Incorrectly perceiving and producing sounds in a second language results in a foreign accent in many adult learners (Flege, 1995), as mental representations of second language sounds have not been properly established in the mind of the learner (Best, 1991). Vowel sounds are particularly relevant in discussion of foreign-accented speech. Second language vowel perception has received relatively little attention in recent literature, especially for English speakers learning Spanish as a second language. Often, empirical findings are inconsistent with each other. For example, Gordon (2011) found that, perceptually, learners struggle with Spanish vowels /i/ and /e/, interpreting them as English vowels /[near-close near-front unrounded vowel]/ and /[open-mid front unrounded vowel]/, respectively. Garcia de las Bayonas (2004; 2008) indicates that learners struggle most perceiving /u/ and /e/. Most research on the acquisition of these vowels focuses on learner production rather than perception, with equally inconsistent findings (see, for example, Cobb & Simonet, 2015; Menke & Face, 2010). Additionally, the role of syllable stress is often not incorporated into these studies despite the importance of syllable stress in saliency and understanding. These gaps in the literature present an exciting opportunity to understand these acquisitional processes, beginning with the under-studied role of perception. Building on the methodology of Garcia de las Bayonas (2004) and other perceptual studies, this remotely conducted study explores the perception of Spanish vowels by English-speaking learners with special attention paid to the role of syllable stress. Efforts are made to better understand (1) at what point these learners establish the mental representations necessary for Spanish vowel sounds, (2) which English vowels interfere with this learning process, and (3) the role of syllable stress in vowel perception. Participants included 243 Spanish learners in seven different levels of Spanish learning, indicated by class enrollment. The methodology include a discrimination task and an identification task. In the discrimination task, participants hear two disyllabic Spanish words and are asked to decide if the words were different or identical. In the identification task, participants are given a disyllabic Spanish word with one vowel highlighted. Participants are provided with five vowel sounds and select which of the sound options belonged with the highlighted vowel. The options consist of both Spanish and English vowel sound options. Confidence levels (on a scale of 1-7) are reported for all responses. Results from the first task indicate that vowels in stressed syllables are easier to perceive for all groups. For less-experienced learners, discriminating between the Spanish vowels /o/ and /u/ prove to be most difficult, as these vowels differ acoustically much more than their English vowel equivalents. The results of this task indicate that students in their fourth semester of learning (and those more advanced) performed statistically similar to native speaker controls.The identification task reveals that learners struggle to correctly identify the Spanish vowels /e/ and /a/. When asked to identify the vowel /e/, many learners select the English vowels /[open-mid front unrounded vowel]/, and especially /[near-close near-front unrounded vowel]/. For items targeting /a/, many participants select /ae/, /[open back unrounded vowel]/ and the reduced vowel schwa [[schwa]]. These results indicate that these English vowels cause the most interference for learners learning Spanish, resulting in Multiple-category Assimilation (Best, 1991; Escudero & Boersma, 2002). Results from this task also indicate that learners in their 4th semester, and those who are more advanced, tend to make selections statistically similar to native Spanish speakers. The results of this study indicate that by the end of the second year of classroom study, many second language Spanish learners have established mental representations for the vowels of Spanish. Language dominance scores are also collected from each participant (using the Bilingual Language Profile (Birdsong, Gertken, & Amengual, 2012)), which were found to have a strong linear correlation with performance in both tasks, both in terms of accuracy and reported confidence levels. This supports the notion that the more a person uses a language, the better established their phonological inventory will be. Measures of language proficiency and language attitudes are also found to be correlated with participants' accuracy and confidence levels. These findings support theoretical claims made by the Perceptual Assimilation Model (Best, 1991), and shows the process by which mental representations are established for second language phones. Future studies should explore these results in conjunction with vowel production while not forgetting the effect of syllable stress. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Over the last two decades, there has been an increasing interest in third language (L3) phonology (Cabrelli Amaro, 2012; Cabrelli Amaro & Wrembel, 2016). However, research so far has been primarily directed at specific stages of learning and has independently explored either production (e.g., Llama, Cardoso, & Collins, 2010; Llama & Cardoso, 2018; Tremblay, 2007; Wrembel, 2011, 2014; Wunder, 2011) or perception (e.g., Onishi, 2016; Wrembel, Marecka, & Kopeckova, 2019). Almost none of the studies has examined the role of individual differences, including language aptitude, in L3 phonological development. To fill in the gap in the literature, the present study examines the role of cross-linguistic influence and language aptitude in both perception and production of L3 Spanish labial stops, /p/ and /b/. Cross-sectional data were collected from 40 Korean-English bilinguals at different proficiency levels of L3 Spanish. The dependent variables consist of VOT and F0 values as well as cross-language discrimination accuracy and identification tendency coupled with goodness-of-fit ratings. Findings demonstrated that L3 learners, regardless of proficiency level, were quite accurate at distinguishing, specifically, the Spanish /p/-English /p/ and the Spanish /b/-Korean lenis /p/ pair; however, this ability did not translate into accurate production among low-proficiency learners. Rather, for VOT, cross-linguistic influence from L2 English affected the production of both target sounds, with effects that faded away with increasing L3 proficiency, albeit slowly in the case of Spanish /b/, possibly the result of markedness effects. For F0, no correlations were found with L3 proficiency, in general. Regarding the relationship between perception and production, significant correlations were observed in some cases, yet more direct links between perception and production were identified among intermediate and advanced learners. Language aptitude appeared to facilitate both the perception and production of the target sounds. Specifically, a moderation analysis revealed a more substantial effect of phonemic coding ability on production at lower levels of L3 proficiency, as predicted in Skehan (2016), and corroborates previous findings (e.g., for L2 grammar, Li, 2015; for segmental learning, Saito, 2019; for feedback noticing, Yilmaz & Koylu, 2016). [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

In the current globalized world, English is an international language that makes it possible for people from different language backgrounds to communicate with each other. In this situation, English users in EIL (English as an international language) should be able to comprehend various accents spoken by English speakers from all over the world. Therefore, in order to investigate how to help Korean high school EFL (English as a foreign language) learners to develop their listening comprehension of various accents of English, this study conducted an experiment by having them listen to various accents of English. Participants were divided into an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group received a treatment of listening to various accents and solving listening comprehension questions. They did reading while listening activity with the same accents when checking their answers. On the other hand, the control group received the same treatment and did the reading while listening activity when checking their answers. The only difference between the groups was that the experimental group listened to various accents of English and the control group listened to American accents. After the treatment, both groups took two pretests. It was found through test score analyses that listening to various accents helped participants to develop their listening comprehension of the accents better than listening to American accents. Furthermore, participants in the experimental group could transfer their listening comprehension developed through the treatment to new contexts such as listening to English accents that they did not practice and listening to real-life listening materials. Along with test score analyses, it was found through a questionnaire that participants who received the treatment of listening to various accents of English perceive that they could transfer their developed listening comprehension. In addition, their responses showed that they recognize the importance of dealing with various accents for international communication and they think English classes in school should deal with various accents of English. With the results, this study insisted that CSAT (College Scholastic Ability Test) listening comprehension section should include various accents of English in order to help Korean high school EFL learners to prepare for international communication situations. With washback effects of CSAT, it will lead Korean EFL stakeholders to be able to prepare for English communications in EIL situations. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study investigated English phonological awareness in adult native speakers of English (L1) and in relation to their phonological awareness skills and proficiency in their German (L2). Most research in L1 phonological awareness focuses on younger children, their phonological awareness development, the relationship between reading and phonological awareness, as well as disorders.Little is known about adults and their phonological awareness skills. Most often, adults are used as controls without further investigation. In cases where phonological awareness has been investigated in adults, it was mostly special populations such as poor readers, speech-language pathologists, or low literacy or illiterate adults. This study investigated adults L1 phonological awareness skills in English with tasks such as rhyming, segmenting, identifying, replacing, deleting, and reversing; a mispronunciation task was also included. Results show that while all tasks but segmenting and rhyming are close to ceiling, segmenting and rhyming exhibit great variability. Some individuals also showed below average performance on the other tasks, indicating that there is variation in adultL1 phonological awareness. The same adults were tested during their second semester of learning German, with the same tasks in German. The relation between their L1 and L2 phonological awareness skills was strong and significant. More interestingly, the segmenting and reversing task were more accurate in the subjects' L2, possibly due to the shallower orthography of German. Finally, participants' L2 proficiency was assessed with a C-Test. Results demonstrate a significant relation between the L2 phonological awareness skills and the L2 proficiency, despite the proficiency measure being one that more heavily focuses on grammar and vocabulary and not so much on pronunciation or sounds in general. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study examined how L2 English speakers interpreted the notion of native English speakers (NESs) and nonnative English speakers (NNESs) and whether nativeness would influence their self-perception and speech production. It aimed at filling the following research gaps. First, limited studies have explored how L2 English speakers view the other NNESs and position themselves regarding interlocutors' nativeness. Second, self-perception has not been extensively studied as an independent construct. Third, the previous studies failed to examine how interlocutors' nativeness influenced L2 English speakers' speech production. Finally, although the social cognitive theory and the sociocultural theory have established a relationship between cognition, environment, and behavior, no studies have investigated this relationship empirically. An exploratory study, including interviews and surveys, was conducted. Eight Chinese international students participated in the interviews. Their speech was recorded through semi-structured interviews, where two interviewers, one NES and one NNES, asked about participants' college life. Participants' speech data was coded and analyzed based on Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency (CAF). Furthermore, 39 Chinese international students completed the survey to share their beliefs in the definition of NESs, their self-perceptions of speech production, and experiences interacting with NESs and NNESs. Statistical analysis and contextual analysis were used to interpret the survey responses. The research findings showed that, first, many participants still believed in the connotations of NESs that were criticized by scholars. Moreover, many participants preferred to talk with NESs than with NNESs. Second, more L2 English speakers in this study tended to think interlocutors' nativeness influenced their speech production. However, interlocutors' nativeness influenced their self-perceptions of speech CAF to different degrees. Third, the averages of participants' speech CAF with the NES interviewer differed from those with the NNES interviewer. This study offered some meaningful directions for future research on the definitions of NES/NNES, self-perception, and speech production. It also proposed some pedagogical implications for educators to instruct English more efficiently. Finally, this study called for scholars' attention to change their research mindset, encouraging them to ground their research in people's daily lives. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Perception of second language (L2) speakers and their speech is known to be influenced both by phonetic and by sociolinguistic factors. The existing body of scholarly research on L2 speech perception, however, is overwhelmingly focused on Indo-European languages, raising doubts about the generalizability of existing sociolinguistic, phonetic, acquisition, and pedagogical theory to other linguistic contexts. This dissertation aims to work towards rectifying this problem through a series of related studies investigating factors affecting the perception of L2 Mandarin Chinese. Chapters 1 and 2 consist of a group of closely related studies investigating the effect of perceived ethnicity on perception of language proficiency - including accentedness - and of speaker personal characteristics. Chapter 1 contains the first known study to establish that there is an effect of perceived ethnicity on perception of personal characteristics of L2 speakers of a non-Indo-European language. Chapter 2 confirms the results of Chapter 1 with a larger and more diverse sample, allowing for an investigation of differences between listeners that may affect perception of speakers. The excursus to Chapter 2 expands on the findings of the main study by providing evidence for mediating and moderating factors of gendered and racialized judgments of L2 Mandarin speakers. Chapter 3 is a phonetic production study of L2 Mandarin consonants and vowels under the influence of L1 English, with careful attention paid to English and Mandarin dialectal variation. In a study analyzing the time-varying properties of vowels using generalized additive mixed models, Chapter 3 demonstrates that five phonemic vowels significantly differ between first language Mandarin speakers and advanced and intermediate L2 Mandarin speakers. Chapter 4 uses speech analyzed in Chapter 3, the procedures used in Chapters 1 and 2, and additional procedures from the intelligibility-comprehensibility-accentedness literature to establish sociolinguistic and phonetic factors interact to influence perception of adult L2 Mandarin Chinese. Together, these studies demonstrate that both beliefs about a speaker's perceived social group membership and the acoustic properties of speech indeed affect intelligibility, comprehensibility, accentedness, and perceived personal characteristics of L2 Mandarin Chinese speakers. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Nonverbal behavior is essential in human interaction (Gullberg, de Bot, & Volterra, 2008; McNeill, 1992, 2005). For second language speakers, nonverbal features can be helpful for successful and efficient communication (e.g., Dahl & Ludvigsen, 2014). However, due to the complexity of nonverbal features, language testing institutions have conventionally employed an asynchronous format (e.g., audio-only mode), focusing on the test-taker's verbal features. Recently, the advance in technology, and most importantly, the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) outbreak in late 2019 and early 2020, have accelerated the use of video-conferencing applications in educational contexts, including speaking tests (Nakatsuhara, Inoue, Berry, & Galaczi, 2021). Accordingly, the synchronous test delivery mode (video-conferencing), which presents test-takers' visual information, is a timely and necessary approach to addressing the impact of nonverbal features on L2 oral communication. In response to these issues, I investigated the comparability of different delivery modes of speaking proficiency assessment. This study aimed to understand the dimensionality of the measured speaking construct and the impact of test-takers' visual information on rater behavior. Two datasets were used to address the research goals: first dataset (i.e., dataset 1) included scores of 110 test-takers, assessed by eight trained raters; second dataset (i.e., dataset 2) included scores of 284 prospective international teaching assistants (ITAs), assessed by 12 professional and certified raters. I collected dataset 1, and English language learning and testing program at a Midwest University provided dataset 2. I used two quantitative techniques to analyze both datasets: confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Multifaceted Rasch model (MFRM) analysis. For dataset 1, I qualitatively analyzed the raters' verbal reports. Dataset 1 had an asynchronous format; all test-takers' performances were recorded for rating. Eight trained raters gave scores to the audio-recorded and video 1 mode (test-taker and test giver were displayed). Three weeks later, the raters assessed video 2 mode (only test-taker's visual information was displayed). Within one month, raters participated in a one-on-one semi-structured interview. Dataset 2 stems from an operational testing context. This dataset has only scores, as I borrowed the data from the operational English testing program at the university. The scores were first given by examiners in a synchronous format (Live mode) and later by raters in an asynchronous format (Recorded mode). CFA findings indicated the multi-dimensional aspect of the underlying construct of speaking for both datasets, but the high inter-correlations showed that these are associated. Findings of MFRM revealed that raters showed leniency when rating (a) video mode over audio-only mode (dataset 1) and (b) synchronous mode over asynchronous mode (dataset 2). Findings suggest that using the video-conferenced delivery mode may be beneficial. However, the degree of usefulness across video modes differed, and how the raters utilized test-takers' nonverbal behaviors (e.g., gaze) varied. Thus, I decided that further investigation is needed to sufficiently support the use of video-conferencing applications to complement the physical face-to-face delivery mode. Overall, future research is highly recommended regarding the standardization of scoring of nonverbal features about the types of video mode, which would assist with the practical and valid application of virtual speaking tests. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The present dissertation explores the effect of exposure to non-native speech via foreign film on non-native speech production and perception. In order to explore potential effects, two main experiments were developed, which examined French production and perception by monolingual native speakers of English before and after exposure to French film. Across both experiments, two variables were selected for observation: high rounded vowels (/y/ and /u/) and consonant voicing (VOT). The production component of the dissertation investigated whether exposure to French film aided in the ability of monolingual American English speakers (n=74) to shadow French words containing high rounded vowels, /y/ and /u/, as tested through acoustic analyses and native French listener perceptual judgements (n=221). Perception of high rounded vowels and consonant voicing were examined using a perceptual assimilation task with category goodness ratings and a binary forced-choice voicing identification task, respectively. With regard to the role of foreign film in non-native speech production, results indicated that a single session of exposure to French film had a small but significant effect on shadowing of French /y/, which was also perceptible to native French listeners. Shadowing of /u/, however, was not significantly affected by exposure. Additionally, while the acoustic analysis of VOT did not reveal any significant effects of film, native French listeners perceived post-film exposure productions to be significantly more target-like than pre-film exposure productions. This finding suggests that although VOT was seemingly unaffected by foreign film exposure, participants may have adjusted alternative acoustic correlates of voicing and that these modifications were perceptible to native listeners. In general, these results suggest that while potential effects of film are present, they are highly dependent on the variable being observed. Results from the perceptual portion of the dissertation do not provide evidence that film exposure was effective at influencing non-native speech perception for either high rounded vowels or consonant voicing. However, it is suggested that this could be due to the difficulty of the tasks chosen rather than the effectiveness of foreign film. Taken together, the present dissertation provides evidence that exposure to non-native speech via foreign film can affect some aspects of non-native speech learning. It is hypothesized that further sessions may compound these initial benefits, especially in those who are already learning a second language. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The question of whether second languages (L2s) are best learned implicitly or explicitly has been a topic of much empirical discourse, with the majority of studies pointing to the benefits of explicit instruction when learning L2 grammar rules. However, given the focus on grammar, it is unclear how generalizable these findings are to other linguistic domains, such as L2 speech and L2 vocabulary. The previous focus on laboratory-based settings, and the language bias in the literature, also make it unclear how ecologically valid and applicable these findings are to the real world. To address these macro research questions, two experiments were carried out on English-speaking L2 learners of German. Experiment I (ExI) investigated the effects of implicit and explicit learning on the acquisition of Final Obstruent Devoicing and Dorsal Fricative Assimilation. The effect of the two learning conditions on L2 perception was also measured using a perceptual discrimination task and a perceptual identification task. Experiment II (ExII) investigated the effects of explicit historical instruction on the learning of English-German cognates, which were compared to the effects of a non-explicit learning condition. To examine whether declarative knowledge of relevant historical changes can aid in vocabulary learning, an explicit condition received instruction on the Second Germanic Sound Shift, Ingvaeonic Palatalization, and relevant historical semantic changes. Both experiments followed a pre-/post-/delayed-post-test design. Results indicate that the two explicit conditions significantly outperformed the non-explicit conditions, suggesting that explicit learning and explicit instruction can be beneficial when learning L2 speech and L2 vocabulary. In ExI, acoustic analyses of learner speech samples indicate that the explicit condition was more successful in the learning of the two phonological rules. In ExII, the explicit condition was more successful in the identification and learning of cognates, suggesting that knowledge of language history, and instruction on applied historical linguistics, can be beneficial when learning a language that is historically related to a language that learners already speak. The results from this dissertation are discussed in the context of implicit and explicit learning and instruction, the role of attention, and the role of declarative knowledge, with concluding remarks pointing to the importance of metacognitive and metalinguistic awareness in adult or university-level language courses. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Linguistic stereotyping research posits that native speaker favor standard variety speakers which results in discrimination against non-native speakers (Rubin 2002, Kang & Rubin, 2009). However, it may be possible to improve native speaker attitudes towards accented speech, and through that, accented speakers. Research on improving native speakers' (NSs) attitudes toward non-native speakers (NNSs) suggests that direct exposure through interpersonal contact (Kang et al., 2015) and indirect exposure may both decrease prejudice towards marginalized groups (Rani & Samuel, 2019). Little is known, however, about the relative effectiveness of different interventions such as video interventions (Multimedia group), intergroup contact through International Teaching Assistants (ITAs' group), and perspective taking reading and writing tasks (Perspective Taking group) on Southern American NSs' perception toward L1-accented speech on enhancing positive perceptions of L1-accented speech. This study adopts an intervention approach to investigate how NSs' exposure to L2 speech may affect their perception toward NNSs' oral productions. The study took place in a Southern university. Through Qualtrics survey, NS listeners used a speech evaluation instrument (SEI) to rate superiority, social attractiveness, and dynamism (Zahn & Hopper, 1985) of four unidentified female speakers (with similar intelligibility and comprehensibility) from the US, Bangladesh, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia based on audio recordings. After filling out the pre-test survey, listeners participated in three treatment sessions one group received exposure to L2 speech through contact with ITAs, the second group was exposed to Perspective Taking reading and writing interventions using multilingual writers' works (Perspective Taking group), the third group was exposed to L2 speakers via video interventions featuring educated multilingual speakers (Multimedia group), and the control group received no intervention. To track any changes in participants' attitude toward L1-accented speakers, the post-test survey was administered again to all four groups. Post hoc analyses revealed significant differences in the speaker ratings of the Multimedia Group for the superiority, social attractiveness, and dynamism of Spanish, Bangla, and Arab accented speakers. Consequently, findings suggest that multimedia intervention may be the most effective intervention for improving NSs' attitude toward L1-accented speech. Findings of this study allow for deeper understanding of how indirect exposure to L2 speech can reduce language-based discrimination. With the increasing number of international individuals in professional and academic settings, it is necessary to recognize and reduce prejudice toward such speakers. The results of this study may benefit US undergraduate curriculum developers, instructors, and the overall student population. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study investigates the simplifications used with English consonant clusters by EFL learners of Saudi Najdi Arabic dialect (a dialect spoken in the central region of Saudi Arabia). More particularly, it focused on the Saudi Najdi speakers when they pronounce English final three-consonant clusters such as /lps/ as in "helps." The participants were 20, and they were divided into two groups: ten females and ten males. The data were 51 English words, and the subjects had to do two tasks: word reading-list and sentence reading-list. The results revealed that the subjects modified the consonant clusters by three simplifications. The first simplification was vowel insertion, where the subjects insert a vowel to break up the coda clusters. Second, deletion in which one of the consonants in the coda clusters was deleted. Finally, the last simplification was substitution, where the subjects replaced a consonant with another consonant. In addition, the results revealed that their productions were influenced by their first language's phonetics and phonology system, the written form (orthography) of the L2, and the markedness of the coda clusters. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Listeners use more than just acoustic information when processing speech. Social information, such as a speaker's race/ethnicity, can also affect listeners' understanding of the speech signal. In some cases, these social primes can facilitate perception, while in others they may inhibit perception. Indeed, a picture of an East Asian face has been shown to facilitate the perception of Mandarin Chinese-accented English but interfere with the perception of American-accented English. The present dissertation builds on this line of inquiry, addressing novel topics including the generalizability and specificity of social priming effects, their relationship with implicit racial/ethnic associations, and their role in perceptual adaptation to nonnative-accented speech. In four online experiments, we examined the effect of visual race/ethnicity guises on transcription accuracy for native-accented and nonnative-accented speech (presented in background noise). Results of these experiments were mixed. Our first experiment successfully replicated prior work, demonstrating that an East Asian prime can facilitate perception of Mandarin-accented English speech. However, despite our attempt to assure sufficient power via large sample sizes, in all subsequent experiments we did not find effects of social primes on speech transcription accuracy or perceptual adaptation. Notably, our null outcomes have one positive implication: Minority race/ethnicity speakers with native-accented English speech may not be at a perceptual disadvantage as compared to White speakers (as indicated by prior work). Ultimately, further examination of social priming is needed to determine whether the mixed findings of the current work may reflect a small or a context-dependent effect. We suggest that by including in-depth analyses of subjects' social networks (i.e., to determine their exposure to racial/ethnic diversity and relevant accent varieties), future investigations will be able to assess individual differences in susceptibility to social priming effects. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation investigates a typologically rare linguistic phenomenon found in Irish from three different perspectives: how it challenges phonological theory, how it is used by contemporary speakers, and how its written representation affects its acquisition. Initial consonant mutation (ICM), as it appears in the Celtic languages, is known to integrate numerous components of grammar including phonology, morphology, and syntax. At its core, initial ICM displays a regular phonological alternation in a phonologically unpredictable environment. The simultaneous cooperation and dichotomy of this process has challenged linguists, language users, and language learners, alike. The three main chapters of this dissertation examine the challenges each of these populations face in understanding (and using) ICM; their heterogeneous methodologies and bootstrapped research questions tell a more compelling and comprehensive story about this unique language phenomenon. Chapter 2 provides a novel analysis of the Irish mutation system within the Emergent Grammar model (Archangeli and Pulleyblank, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2022). By allowing the phonology and morphology to share the responsibilities of the alternations, this framework accommodates subtle details of the mutation system that modular models of grammar disregard. Moreover, the mutation system's weak points pertaining to morph memorization, feature abstractness, and pattern generalizability fall out logically in an Emergent Grammar framework. "How" the mutation system is changing and "what" is so challenging are predictable. In fact, the remaining chapters are an extension of the empirical studies used to support the Emergent Grammar analysis in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 reports the findings from fieldwork conducted in Cork City, Ireland that documents urban speakers' current use of ICM. Of particular interest are the phonological restrictions on consonant mutation, which are known to be shifting in related Scottish Gaelic (Hammond et al., 2017). Employing traditional elicitation methods, data was collected from over 30 regular Irish speakers that contained expected environments for the "cluster restriction," the "coronal restriction," and the "[s] ~ [t] alternation." Results indicate that the patterns of non-alternation and exceptional alternation are in flux with an overall tendency for no mutation if such a pattern is grammatical. This chapter also features discussions of dialectal overlap and new speakerhood before reconnecting to the Emergent Grammar model. Chapter 4 presents the results from a novel word learning study which explores the learnability of mutation-like morphophonological processes with differing orthographic conventions. In this study, the real-world contrast between Irish and Manx writing systems forms the basis of the investigation: Even if it is potentially misleading given unfamiliar phoneme-grapheme correspondences, does the morphological transparency of Irish's written representation of ICM helpful to L2 learners? Results suggest that learners benefit from orthography that contains clues to the process at hand, especially in conditions where forms threaten to overlap and create homophones. This chapter briefly addresses how the Emergent Grammar model might incorporate the written input available to literate learners before discussing the current approaches to reading instruction in Celtic language classrooms. As a whole, this dissertation lends support to a new theoretical framework in linguistics, documents the current usage of an endangered language, and can be used inform minority language pedagogy. The merger of theoretical and empirical linguistics seen here is also a testament to the goals of the architects of the Emergent Grammar model who hoped to inspire dialogue across linguistic subfields. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study investigates acoustically one of long-term debated phonetic characteristics, the so-called Arabic voiced pharyngeal fricative /[voiced pharyngeal fricative]/. Most recent studies have found the Arabic pharyngeal to be approximant, while others have categorized it as a stop in careful speech, and still others have suggested it is a fricative depending on the dialect. Based on this controversy, the current study examined 8 male native speakers of Arabic divided into Najdi Saudi speakers (NA) and Egyptian Arabic Speakers (EA), and 6 male native English speakers speaking Arabic at an advanced stage (ES) in terms of their production of Arabic words containing /[voiced pharyngeal fricative]/ in different word positions at careful and fast speech as well as other phonetically similar phonemes (the glottal stop /[glottal stop]/ and the voiceless pharyngeal/h/) in near minimal pairs. The study found that the target pharyngeal exhibited, in the manner, similar results to the Spanish "spirant approximant;" the Arabic native speakers produced the target sound rarely as an obstruent and mostly as an approximant in both speech rates. The nonnative speakers produced more stop instances similar to the native English speakers producing L2 Spanish spirant approximant in the literature. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation investigates the relationship between ethnicity and place among 44 young adult Latino English speakers in the state of Georgia using a mixed-methods approach. While varieties of Latino English have been studied in traditional destination communities (TDCs) like Texas, California, or New York, where the Latino populations are multigenerational, the ethnolect is largely undocumented in new destination communities (NDCs) like the Southeastern and Midwestern regions of the US, including Georgia. This dissertation first investigates how LE speakers construct their ethnic and place orientation identities using a discourse analysis approach. A thematic analysis of the sociolinguistic interview questions that focused on "latinidad," Southernness, rootedness, and discrimination resulted in subsets of themes that aided in placing speakers along identity continua. Subsequently, speakers were grouped into the following four identity groups, which emerged from the data: (i) Southern oriented and rooted in Georgia, (ii) Latino oriented and rooted in Georgia, (iii) Latino oriented and non-rooted to Georgia, and (iv) American oriented and non-rooted in Georgia. Secondly, an acoustic analysis of two vowels investigates how LE speakers perform their "Southern" Latino identities, where the results of generalized linear mixed-effects modeling show BIDE glide weakening and BOAT backing to pattern similarly to LE speakers in other NDCs. BIDE glide weakening, measured by trajectory length (TL) is conditioned by gender and identity group, where male speakers have shorter TLs than their female counterparts and where groups (i) and (iv) are significantly more likely to participate in glide weakening. For BOAT, ethnic contact with whites and identity group best predicts F2 at 35% as a measure of backness. Here, speakers with more white ethnic contact have the most fronted BOAT vowel, namely those in identity groups (ii) and (iii). The integration of these two analyses suggests that BIDE and BOAT play varying indexical roles depending upon the ethnic and place orientations expressed across identity groups. I propose a framework of indexical feature matrices which function responsively and complementarily to maximize distinctions among individual speakers while allowing for intra-ethnic solidarity with the LE ethnolect. The intra-ethnic variation observed points to LE in Georgia as an emergent and vibrant ethnolect. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation investigates language-specific acoustic and aerodynamic phenomena in language contact situations. Whereas most work on second language and bilingual phonology has focused on individual consonants and vowels, this project examines patterns of coarticulation in the two languages of Spanish-English and French-English bilingual speakers. These include speakers whose first language is either Spanish, French or English, and are late second-language acquirers, and heritage speakers of Spanish, who are early second-language acquirers. I focus on subtly different coarticulation patterns between English and Spanish, including the extent to which vowels are nasalized in contact with nasal consonants (Chapter 2), are lengthened before voiced consonants (Chapter 3), and whose quality is affected before voiced consonants (Chapter 4). Whereas the existence of such effects can be taken as universal, the degree to which they are implemented varies from language to language, presumably contributing to what defines a 'native accent.' My work thus presents a novel method to investigate coarticulatory patterns. The theoretical question that I address in my dissertation is whether bilingual speakers can establish distinct coarticulatory patterns in their two languages in ways that are similar to those of monolinguals of the two languages. A related question is to what extent learning both languages in childhood (as in the case of heritage speakers) facilitates separating the two phonetic systems. In Chapter 2, I study coarticulatory vowel nasalization in Spanish and English using pressure transducers and Generalized Additive Mixed Models to observe how nasal airflow changes over time. In Chapter 3, I focus on vowel length as a cue for voicing of the following consonant in two Romance languages (Spanish, French) and English, which show opposite patterns. Chapter 4 is about vowel formant displacement patterns across time and the effect of vocalic length in Spanish and English. In Chapter 5, I present a new phonological model, "The Bilingual Coarticulatory Model", which describes coarticulation as malleable and adjustable cross-linguistically in bilingual speakers that possess a higher level of linguistic proficiency. Results show that properties pertaining to vowel quality are easier to acquire than durational properties, which would go against some of the L2 literature on the acquisition of vowels. Native speakers of Spanish show native-like nasalization values in L2 English, yet only when the syllabic structure of sequences is shared. Heritage speakers show native-like results in both languages with regard to nasalization, and L1En speakers show an adjustment of onset of nasalization but not of degree of nasalization. Regarding duration, heritage speakers were the only group to completely separate the two coarticulatory systems, as the other groups showed cross-linguistic influence. Finally, regarding the dynamics of vowel formants, speakers transfer L1 patterns to the L2. Linguistic proficiency in the L2 was a significant factor to acquire coarticulatory patterns. In the case of heritage speakers, different findings were found depending on the variable under study. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

In communication between first (L1) and second (L2) language users, the default has long been for L2 speakers to assume most, if not all, responsibility for adjusting their speech to accommodate their interlocutor. This not only places an undue burden on the speaker, but also furthers the assumption of listener passivity in communication. One approach to addressing these issues is through listener training that helps L1 listeners develop the appropriate communicative tools to be active partners in crosslinguistic communication. Implicit training approaches have demonstrated success in improving attitudes toward L2 accented speech (Kang et al., 2015; Lindemann et al., 2016). However, little is known about how these trainings impact listeners' cognitive processing of L2 accented speech or how listener individual differences affect these training outcomes. The current dissertation study examined the effectiveness of an exposure-based online listener training program by measuring listeners' processing and perception of L2 accented speech, along with key individual differences (i.e., accent familiarity, Big Five personality traits, linguistic stereotyping, and willingness to communicate/listen). Seventy-one L1 English listeners were recruited and randomly assigned to a two-week program exposing them to either a) L2-accented English varieties or b) traditional L1 English listening comprehension tasks. Before and after the training program, listeners completed a true/false task measuring their response time, processing stability, and response accuracy, as well as a speech rating task with measures of comprehensibility and strength of accent. Data were modeled in a series of linear mixed-effects models.Results indicated that cognitive processing measures were predictive of strength of accent ratings but not comprehensibility. Individual differences in accent familiarity and linguistic stereotyping emerged as salient predictors of cognitive processing and perception. Finally, both experimental (accent familiarity) and comparison (L1 English-only) participants displayed improvements in cognitive processing as a result of training, while experimental participants had an added benefit in perceived strength of accent ratings. Findings of this study inform future approaches to listener training, accent familiarity measures, integration of psycholinguistic methods, and pedagogy. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Many specialists have put out a call to action for more specialized training in L2 pronunciation pedagogy, as many language educators are ill-equipped to meet the instructional demands that pronunciation teaching requires (Foote et al., 2011; Henderson et al., 2015; Murphy, 2014, 2017). While language teacher professional development has started to receive attention in the field of L2 pronunciation (e.g., Burri, 2016; Buss, 2017), this conversation has not made much headway into online domains. That is, would language teacher trainees "walk" out of an online pronunciation pedagogy course with the knowledge, skills, and abilities need to teach pronunciation to their learners? To address this gap, this study investigated the development of second language teacher cognitions throughout four separate versions of an eight-week online L2 pronunciation pedagogy course using different modes of instructional delivery (i.e., PowerPoint and vignettes). In particular, this study sought to: (1) track the overall development of teacher cognitions throughout the course, (2) assess which delivery of instruction led to the most significant results, if any, and (3) track the overall efficacy of the online medium in terms of professional development in English pronunciation pedagogy. To answer the first two research questions, data collected from a knowledge questionnaire, beliefs survey, weekly narrative frames, and selected interviews were used. To answer the third research question, data collected from the beliefs survey, weekly narrative frames, and selected interviews were used. Findings showed that the participants' knowledge of English pronunciation pedagogy significantly increased, particularly in their knowledge of phonological processes and practical teaching applications. However, one dimension tested in the study (i.e., analyzing and categorizing learner errors) did not improve significantly, which suggests this knowledge base may require a more hands-on approach with experiential learning. Survey data showed that there was minimal change (only 2 of 25 beliefs showed significant change) in the participants' perceptions and beliefs about language teaching and pronunciation pedagogy. This may be due in part to the participants' experiences with language teaching, and that their beliefs had already been formed before the course started. Of particular interest was the analysis of the different sections that received various delivery of instruction. The results of a three-way ANOVA showed that course section was not significant in terms of their scores on the knowledge questionnaire. This indicates that, regardless of delivery of instruction method, participants were able to gain the knowledge delivered throughout the course. However, this study only looked at the participants' declarative knowledge (e.g., definitions) and not their procedural knowledge (e.g., actual ability to teach pronunciation). This study showed that the current professional development opportunity in English pronunciation pedagogy was overall effective, though there remains future work of improving the course based on questionnaire scores and participant feedback. Analyzing and categorizing learner errors is one problem area that future iterations of the course need to address with a more hands-on approach. Additionally, participants mentioned struggling with assessing learner progress and incorporating technology into their teaching practices--two areas that were not addressed in the current iteration. However, for pronunciation teaching, the current professional development opportunity was not only seen as desirable by language professionals across the globe, but it was also able to improve their knowledge about pronunciation terminology and teaching practices. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of gender, teaching styles, student cultural awareness, professor's accent, and ethnicity on students' perceptions of foreign professors at a Historically Black College and University. Multiple regression was used for the analysis of this study. The predictor variables were analyzed through a pilot study to ensure that they were related to the dependent or criterion variable, as required of multiple regression models. Two hundred students participated in this study, during the Fall semester of 2021. All the subjects completed a questionnaire on students' perceptions of foreign professors. The results revealed that gender, teaching styles, cultural awareness, and student ethnicity had a statistically significant effect on students' perceptions of foreign professors. Teacher accent was not statistically significant on students' perceptions of foreign professors. Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended that students should learn and familiarize with foreign culture. Accepting cultural differences and embracing them can enhance student-teacher relationships with foreign professors. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]