L2 accent and pronunciation research: acquisition, teaching, attitudes

Abstract

This thematic issue brings together a selection of papers presented at the international conference L2 accent and pronunciation research: acquisition, teaching, attitudes held at the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari in November 2023. Four articles are dedicated to the topic of phonological acquisition (both in perception and production) related to specific L2/L3 features (prominence in German, linking of contiguous vowels in Spanish, the labiovelar approximant, the alveolar trill and unreduced vowels in Polish). Three papers focus on attitudes, i.e. on the perception and evaluation of L2 Icelandic (with an English, Danish, Tagalog, Lithuanian or Polish accent), of L2 Spanish (produced by Italian university students), and of English as an international language (EIL) in the multicultural context of a secondary school in Tanzania. The final contribution deals with the teaching of L2 English pronunciation to very young Brazilian children. A common thread running through most of the contributions is the goal of intelligibility, rather than nativeness, in L2 pronunciation.