The difficulty of L2 speech learning

Let us take as an example the acquisition of L2 vowels. Initially, the learners assimilate given vowels to the L1 as they have not yet noticed differences between the quantity and quality of the vowels in the two languages. However, after exposure to more and more exemplars and most likely following some kind of communication failure (sixty/sixteen, pool/pull), the learners may notice some distinctive features which lead to the approximation to more target-like pronunciation.

There are no guarantees that the learner will notice all the relevant phonological aspects, such as quality, quantity and tenseness in the previous example of vowel acquisition. The final state of the representation is not necessarily complete and accurate. In fact, most adult L2 learners do not consciously notice all the features of the L2 phonology and/or perceive their own faulty input, as attested in numerous perception and production studies in which L2 learners have been found to identify, discriminate, categorize and produce L2 speech differently from native speakers. We could ask what makes the noticing of phonological aspects so difficult.

On the one hand, the very inherent nature of pronunciation poses challenges for its noticing. Language users are more concerned with meaning of what is said than with the form of how it is said, and only attend to form when attentional resources have not been depleted by attending to the meaning (VanPatten, 1996). This implies that only more proficient language learners, whose attentional resources are not needed anymore on deciphering the meaning, are able to focus on the formal characteristics of the L2. Once the language learner has reached this advanced stage, attention on the form of L2 speech will still complete for attention on the form of L2 grammar (e.g. morphemes) and the lexicon (e.g. orthography) as well as other aspects. Additionally this view suggests that once attention is freed for pronunciation, comprehensibility (being understood) is preferred over accuracy (speaking without a foreign accent). Taken this into account, it is not surprising that learners may never come to notice L2 phonological features.

The above-mentioned issues make the noticing of L2 phonological features challenging in normal daily communication situations. Noticing could be enhanced, to some extent, if those language learners who learn the L2 in a classroom setting would receive explicit instruction about the pronunciation of the L2 in the same manner they receive instruction about the grammar and lexicon. Nevertheless, it is widely acknowledged that this is not the case. In a regular language class, pronunciation is most often addressed systematically only in relation to item-learning and when communication is endangered (‘Did you say feel or fill?).

In this section, some of the reasons to why language learners rarely achieve native-like pronunciation of a foreign language were discussed. The second language learners need to restructure the neurological and motoric pathways employed since early infancy in L1 speech to accommodate to the L2. Additionally, they need to have enough attentional resources and disposition to notice the relevant aspects of L2 phonology. As phonological aspects are not as salient as semantic or grammatical aspects, for example, and students rarely receive explicit pronunciation instruction, noticing L2 phonology is a complicated matter.

Adapted from Kivistö-de Souza (2015)