Language Experience in Second Language Speech Learning: In Honor of James Emil Flege (review)

Reviewed by: Language Experience in Second Language Speech Learning: In Honor of James Emil Flege Jeffrey Steele (bio) Ocke-Schwen Bohn and Murray J. Munro, editors. Language Experience in Second Language Speech Learning: In Honor of James Emil Flege. John Benjamins. xviii, 408. US $155.00 It has been over a decade since Winifred Strange’s edited volume Speech Perception and Linguistic Experience: Issues in Cross-Language Research was published, providing a rich and authoritative overview of non-native speech research. Accordingly, the present volume, which builds on the same themes while introducing new research areas and experimental methodologies, is extremely timely and welcome. The volume also serves as a Festschrift to James Flege, one of the founders of the field of L2 speech learning. The volume contains nineteen separately authored chapters organized under five themes. The first of these, ‘The Nature of L2 Speech Learning,’ includes four papers on theoretical frameworks (Catherine T. Best and Michael D. Tyler), methodology (Winifred Strange), and the roles of attention, training, and linguistic experience on perception (Susan G. Guion and Eric Pederson; Elaina M. Frieda and Takeshi Nozawa). Strange’s contribution, which proposes a set of empirically based ways to define ‘cross-language (L1/L2) similarity,’ will be of particular interest to all speech researchers. [End Page 151] The three papers grouped under ‘The Concept of Foreign Accent’ investigate ultimate attainment (Birdsong), and L2 learners’ use of different input types (Robert Allen Fox and Julie Tovis McGory; Allard Jongman and Travis Wade). Fox and McGory’s study is novel in examining similarities and differences in the perception and production of different dialects. By studying Japanese speakers learning Standard American versus Southern American English, he demonstrates that both groups’ perception and production is better attuned to the standard variety and, thus, that L2 learners may fail to acquire micro-variation even when provided with sufficient linguistic exposure. The contributions in ‘Consonants and Vowels’ focus on the most widely investigated issues in L2 speech research: the production (Robert McAllister; Yue Wang and Dawn Behne) and perception (Anna Marie Schmidt; Ratree P. Wayland) of vowels and consonants. McAllister and Wang and Behne’s studies demonstrate in detail how L2 phonetic systems are inter-languages characterized by properties intermediate to the L1 and target language systems. The other two contributions build on our understanding of non-native perception in acoustic cue weighting (Schmidt) and the relationship between discrimination and identification, including the effects of task type and stimuli presentation (Wayland). In ‘Beyond Consonants and Vowels,’ one finds much novel research. In the first chapter of this section, Gottfried questions whether high-level musical training favours acuity in the perception of non-native tone. The following two chapters (Joan A. Sereno and Yue Wang; Denis Burnham and Karen Mattock) also focus on tone. Whereas Burnham and Wang provide a comprehensive overview of research on both L1 and L2 tonal perception, Sereno and Wang’s work introduces the use of neuro-imaging. These researchers demonstrate that adult speech learning involves observable changes in neural structure and can be shaped by training. This section concludes with Katsura Aoyama and Susan G. Guion’s study of cross-linguistic influence and development in Japanese-speaking learners’ acquisition of English prosody. The final grouping of papers, ‘Emerging Issues,’ includes four chapters with themes related to those of the rest of the volume. Thorsten Piske seeks to use the findings of L2 speech research on age of acquisition, quantity and quality of input, and training to inform pedagogical practice. The following chapter (Amanda C. Walley) examines the relationships between developing L1 and L2 linguistic competence, including speech perception and word recognition. In the third chapter of this section, Tessa Bent, Anna R. Bradlow and Bruce Smith continue with L2 speech and comprehension focusing on overall L2 speech intelligibility. These authors demonstrate that errors in vowel realization and errors in initial syllables have the greatest effect on non-native speech intelligibility. In the final chapter, Port addresses the fundamental question of the nature of the basic units of [End Page 152] speech as well as the role of literacy in shaping researchers’ previous answers to this question. In summary, this volume represents the state-of...

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