Debra M. Hardison

Forthcoming in 2025: The Multimodal Context of Phonological Learning. University of Toronto Press.

This book fills a need in applied linguistics by providing a comprehensive view of the multimodal context in which speech is perceived, produced, taught, and learned. It combines research review, original data from eye-movement research, and a pedagogical orientation. The book reviews the early foundation established by speechreading studies that explored the extraction of speech information from a talker's facial movements and the interaction of auditory-visual cues in perceptual illusions. It then focuses on the role of auditory, visual, and tactile information in second-language perceptual learning and the interactional functions of eye gaze within the complex of nonverbal communication that incorporates head movements and manual gestures. The book details an original mixed-methods study of the eye-gaze behavior of perceivers when viewing the face of a speaker producing their first language (English) and a speaker producing their second language (French) in different stimulus conditions. The issue of variability in speech emerges as a central theme throughout the book and one which researchers and teachers are encouraged to exploit through their selection of multimodal materials and their approach to pronunciation teaching.