This book is open access under a CC BY licence. It spans the areas of assessment, second language acquisition (SLA) and pronunciation and examines topical issues and challenges that relate to formal and informal assessments of second language (L2) speech in classroom, research and real-world contexts. It showcases insights from assessing other skills (e.g. listening and writing) and highlights perspectives from research in speech sciences, SLA, psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics, including lingua franca communication, with concrete implications for pronunciation assessment. This collection will help to establish commonalities across research areas and facilitate greater consensus about key issues, terminology and best practice in L2 pronunciation research and assessment. Due to its interdisciplinary nature, this book will appeal to a mixed audience of researchers, graduate students, teacher-educators and exam board staff with varying levels of expertise in pronunciation and assessment and wide-ranging interests in applied linguistics.

About the Author

Talia Isaacs is Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics and TESOL at the UCL Centre for Applied Linguistics, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UK. Her research interests include second language speaking and listening, pronunciation assessment and instruction, raters, rating scales, machine scoring, and language for specific and academic purposes.

Pavel Trofimovich is Professor in the Department of Education at Concordia University, Canada. His research interests include cognitive aspects of second language processing, second language pronunciation, sociolinguistic aspects of second language acquisition and the teaching of second language pronunciation.

Reviews

The recent resurgence of interest in L2 pronunciation has been woefully incomplete without a wide-ranging consideration of pronunciation's role in spoken language assessment. This volume, with its many authoritative voices and varied empirical approaches to the intersection of pronunciation and language testing, will immensely strengthen both future approaches to L2 pronunciation and assessments of spoken language ability.

* John M. Levis, Iowa State University, USA *

This outstanding collection of 14 chapters on second language pronunciation assessment brings together diverse perspectives from speech sciences, second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and lingua franca communication. The chapters use quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods to examine both linguistic and nonlinguistic phenomena relevant to pronunciation assessment. Congratulations to the editors for drawing our attention to this emerging field of research.

* Antony John Kunnan, University of Macao, China *

This book has much to offer both postgraduate students and experienced researchers in applied linguistics, language assessment, and other related fields. Concluding remarks provided by Trofimovich and Isaacs highlight current issues and end, like most great papers do, with a long-list of questions rather than solutions.

-- Nathan Thomas, University of Oxford, UK * BAAL News, Issue 115, Summer 2019 *

The area of study and the interdisciplinary approach represented by the volume are definitely worthy of interest and further exploration; the book addresses issues of major importance for L2 pronunciation and L2 pronunciation assessment research.

-- Ewa Waniek-Klimczak, University of Lodz, Poland * SSLLT 8 (3). 2018 *

We have only scratched the surface in our understanding of how best to assess pronunciation. This book explicitly raises many interesting questions for researchers to follow up, and many of the chapters set my mind racing with new directions and questions for my own research and the higher degree research students I mentor in this field. In this way, the book was a treasure trove of insights that unite various specialised disciplines to provide an illuminating representation of the field.

-- Michael Carey, University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia * Journal of Second Language Pronunciation 4:1 (2018) *

This volume is an invaluable resource to those in the L2 pronunciation assessment field and those who are new to the topic. In these chapters, decades of research about the topic from varying perspectives are analyzed and organized to outline future research agendas. Many researchers will rely on this as the future of this field continues to blossom in the 21st century.

-- Joan Palmiter Bajorek, University of Arizona, USA * LINGUIST List 28.4357 *

This edited volume effectively connects multiple expertise and perspectives in research of L2 pronunciation assessment. In so doing, it offers a more comprehensive picture of what L2 pronunciation and pronunciation assessment embody. The interdisciplinary perspectives brought by different chapters make this volume a valuable resource for a wide range of audiences: pronunciation researchers, language testers, and language teachers.

-- Xun Yan and Hyunji (Hayley) Park, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA * Language Testing, 2017 *



Book Information
ISBN 9781783096831
Author Talia Isaacs
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Multilingual Matters
Publisher Channel View Publications Ltd
Weight(grams) 441g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 156mm * 16mm