Phonological variation in German Learner English

Dissertation, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 2017

This study is concerned with linguistic constraints underlying the acquisition of a second language (L2) phonology. It pursues two aims: The first is to offer a survey of theoretical work on L2 phonology with a focus on the scope and predictive adequacy of individual frameworks. A set of 20 contributions is evaluated in terms of their domain of application and the specificity of their predictions. The second aim is to make empirical contributions to the study of phonological variation in German Learner English by exploring theoretically motivated constraints across a diverse range of phonological structures and proficiency levels. Theory-derived hypotheses are confronted with data from a cross-sectional study on various segmental features in the pronunciation of 62 German learners of English (including 27 native speakers as a baseline of comparison). The study relies on acoustic and auditory analyses to shed light on several notorious structures, including final obstruent (de)voicing, dental fricatives, the labiodental fricative /v/, the labio-velar glide /w/, English /r/, ‘clear’ and ‘dark’ laterals, and the TRAP-DRESS contrast.