Second Language Phonology by John Archibald (review)

humanities 305 modifiability which partly motivates these structures. The best essays acknowledge and illuminate the complexity of their development. This collection contributes usefully to teaching as well as scholarship: if it cost less, it could serve as an unconventional textbook. It interrogates sources and methods, and treats a central feature of English in its broadest linguistic contexts. (CAROL PERCY) John Archibald. Second Language Phonology John Benjamins 1998. xii, 316. US $59.00 People attain varying levels of proficiency in learning a language that is not their mother tongue. While some may sound almost like native speakers , most end up speaking with a recognizable `accent.' What ingredients make up a foreign accent, and to what extent is learning a second language like learning a first one? These are some of the concerns of the field of second language acquisition (SLA). Second Language Phonology, volume 17 in the series Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, focuses on acquisition of the phonology, the sound system, of a second language. The author, an SLA researcher with a background in theoretical linguistics as well as in language teaching, provides a useful overview of current thinking in this area. Archibald's particular concern is to connect experimental work on the acquisition of second language phonology with phonological models developed in theoretical linguistics. The book thus requires some knowledge of phonology, and is aimed at researchers and students. The emphasis is on theoretical models rather than on pedagogical techniques. Nevertheless, Archibald presents ways of thinking about second language phonology that second language teachers may find useful in helping their students with particular problems. The phonology of a language is not simply a collection of sounds. The sounds of a language are organized into patterns of some complexity. Speakers who learn their mother tongue acquire these patterns with seemingly little effort, and without explicit instruction. As Noam Chomsky has argued over the years, it is hard to explain how children can accomplish this feat without supposing that the mind is specially equipped to learn language. Much work in contemporary research has been aimed at discovering the cognitive principles, collectively called Universal Grammar (UG), that children bring to the task of language learning. Second language learners, however, do not succeed nearly as well, despite having the advantage of formal instruction. Why is UG unavailable, or less effective, in the acquisition of a second language? Archibald reviews various hypotheses, such as that of a critical period for language learning. As in other parts of the book, Archibald makes clear what his own views are, while still giving a fair hearing to other approaches. Even a superficial acquaintance with second language speakers is 306 letters in canada 1999 enough to persuade us that their first language has an influence on their second. Thus, one might think that the main problem for second language speakers is `interference' from the first language. Archibald shows that the situation is more complex than that, and that second language learners develop an `interlanguage' that is not just a combination of the first and second language. Chapters 1B3 and 7B8 deal with general issues; the rest of the book is devoted to particular aspects of second language phonology. Chapter 4 looks at segments, individual speech sounds. Languages differ in their inventory of sounds, and the most obvious difficulty for a learner is to master an unfamiliar sound. But there are also more subtle problems. For example, both English and Spanish have the sound b and v, but they pattern differently in the two languages. Much research in this area has been devoted to trying to determine which sounds and patterns give learners the most difficulty, and why. Chapter 5 takes up syllable structure. Speakers of certain Arabic dialects characteristically pronounce the name Fred as Fired. The reason is that Arabic, unlike English, does not allow a syllable to begin with more than one consonant, and so the word is made to conform to Arabic syllable patterns. As with segments, not all unfamiliar syllable patterns are equally difficult for learners, and the book discusses why this might be. The chapter on stress is the longest in the book. Here Archibald reports mainly on his own research, quite appropriately, as...