Chapter 23
Phonological transfer in oral and written production among adult L2 learners of Swedish
A foreign accent is usually inevitable among adult second language (L2) learners. The speaker’s
first language (L1) can often be identified based on transfer of linguistic features from L1 to L2. Misspellings in
texts written by adolescents in their L2 are traced to the phonology in participants L1s and explained as transfer
(Andersson, 1981). The aim of this study is to investigate whether a
relationship between oral and written production (in L2) can be found among adult L2 learners of Swedish. A dictation
exercise shows misspellings in texts that can be related to accented speech and phonology in the participants’ L1s.
Results are of interest and relevance for didactic development in the teaching of Swedish as a second language.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Second language learning
- 2.1Cross-language transfer: Orthographic input and pronunciation
- 2.2Swedish phonology and the relationship between pronunciation and spelling
- 2.3Young learners learning to write in Swedish as their first or second language
- 2.4Swedish for Immigrants
- 3.Method and Results
- 3.1Materials for the study of oral production in L2 Swedish
- 3.2Results on oral production in L2 Swedish
- 3.3Materials for the study of written production in L2 Swedish
- 3.4Results on the written production in L2 Swedish
- 4.Discussion
- 4.1Didactical implications
- 5.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
References
References (50)
References
Abelin, Å., & Thorén, B. (2018). The
perceptual weight of word stress, quantity, and tonal word accent in
Swedish. In E. Babatsouli & D. Ingram (Eds.), Phonology
in protolanguage and
interlanguage (pp. 316–341). Equinox.
Andersson, A -B. (1981). Diktamensundersökningen. In G. Tingbjörn & A -B. Andersson (Eds.), Invandrarbarnen och tvåspråkigheten. Rapport från ett forskningsprojekt om hur
invandrarbarn med olika förstaspråk lär sig
svenska (pp. 58–94). Skolöverstyrelsen och Liber Utbildnings Förlaget.
Bannert, R. (1990). På väg mot svenskt
uttal. Studentlitteratur.
Barth, M. G., & Tawaefi, L. (1989). Arabiska: En kontrastiv
beskrivning. Scriptor.
Basetti, B. (2008). Orthographic
input and second language phonology. In T. Piske & M. Young-Scholten (Eds.), Input
matters in
SLA, (pp. 191–206). Multilingual Matters. 

Bassetti, B., & Atkinson, N. (2015). Effects
of orthographic forms on pronunciation in experienced instructed second language
learners. Applied
Psycholinguistics, 36(1), 67–91. 

Bestgen, Y., & Granger, S. (2011). Categorizing
spelling errors to assess L2 writing. International Journal of Continuing
Engineering Education and Life-Long
Learning, 21(2/3), 235–252. 

Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (2023). Praat.
Doing phonetics by computer. Retrieved on 18 December 2023 from [URL]
Bruce, G. (1977). Swedish
word accents in sentence perspective (Travaux de l’institut de linguistique de Lund
XII). Gleerups.
Erdener, V. D., & Burnham, D. K. (2005). The
role of audiovisual speech and orthographic information in nonnative speech
production. Language
Learning, 55(2), 191–228. 

Fast, C. (2008). Literacy: I familj, förskola och
skola. Studentlitteratur.
Flege, J. E. (1995). Second-language
speech learning: Theory, findings, and
problems. In Strange W. (Ed.), Speech
perception and linguistic experience: Theoretical and methodological
issues (pp. 233–277). York Press.
Flege, J. E., Munro, M. & MacKay, I. R. A. (1995). Factors
affecting strength of perceived foreign accent in a second language. Journal of
the Acoustical Society of
America, 97(5), 3125–3134. 

Garlén, C. (1988). Svenskans
fonologi. Studentlitteratur.
Hayes-Harb, R., Nicol, J., & Barker, J. (2010). Learning
the phonological forms of new words: Effects of orthographic and auditory
input. Language and
Speech, 53(3), 367–381. 

Hevia-Tuero, C., Russak, S. & Suárez-Coalla, P. (2023). Spelling
errors by Spanish children when writing in English as a foreign
language. Reading and
Writing, 36, 1797–1820. 

Institutet för språk och
folkminnen. (2023). Spraken i Sverige. Retrieved
on 19 April 2023
from from [URL]
Jarvis, S., & Pavlenko, A. (2010). Crosslinguistic
influence in language and
cognition. Routledge.
Katz, L. & Frost, R. (1992). The
reading process in different orthographies: The Orthographic Depth
Hypothesis. In R. Frost & L. Katz (Eds.), Orthography,
phonology, and
meaning (pp. 67–84). North-Holland. 

Kaye, A. S. (1997). Arabic
phonology. In S. A. Kaye & P. T. Daniels (Eds.), Phonologies
of Asia and
Africa, (pp. 187–204). Eisenbrauns.
Kuronen, M. (2016) Avancerade
finskspråkiga inlärares uttal av segment i sverigesvenska. Puhe Ja
Kieli, 3, 175–196.
Kuronen, M. & Zetterholm, E. (2017). Olika
fonetiska drags relativa betydelse för upplevd inföddlikhet i svenska. Nordand – Nordisk Tidskrift för
Andraspråksforskning, 12(2), 134–156. 

Ladefoged. P. (2005). Vowels
and consonants. Blackwell.
Lado, R. (1957). Linguistics
across cultures. University of Michigan Press.
Levis, J. M. (2005). Changing
contexts and shifting paradigms in pronunciation teaching. TESOL
Quarterly, 39(3), 369–377. 

Levis, J. M. (2018). Intelligibility,
oral communication, and the teaching of pronunciation. Cambridge University Press. 

Liberg, C. (2005). Hur barn lär sig läsa och
skriva. Studentlitteratur.
Manson, K. (2011). The
subgrouping of Karen languages. SEALS
2011. Retrieved on 18
December 2023 from [URL]
McAllister, R., Lubker, J., & Carlson J. (1974). An
EMG study of some characteristics of the Swedish rounded vowels. Journal of
Phonetics, 2(4), 267–278. 

Moyer, A. (2013). Foreign
accent. The phenomenon of non-native speech. Cambridge University Press. 

Naw, V. (2011). The
phonology of Dermuha and a phonological and lexical comparison between Dermuha, Sgaw Karen and Pwo
Karen (Unpublished doctoral
dissertation). Payap University, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Nauclér, K. (1980). Perspectives
on misspelling. A phonetic, phonological, and psycholinguistic
study (Unpublished doctoral
dissertation). Lund University.
Norlund Shaswar, A. & Wedin, Å. (2020). Språkdidaktik för sfi. Att undervisa vuxna
andraspråksinlärare. Studentlitteratur.
Riad, T. (2014). The
phonology of Swedish. Oxford University Press.
Saeed, J. (1999). Somali. John Benjamins. 

SCB, Statistical
Database. Retrieved on 6 August 2023 from [URL]
Seymour, P. H. K., Aro, M., & Erskine, J. M. (2003). Foundation
literacy acquisition in European orthographies. British Journal of
Psychology, 94, 143–174. 

Sun-Alperin, M. K. & Wang, M. (2011). Cross-language
transfer of phonological and orthographic processing skills from Spanish L1 to English
L2. Reading and
Writing 24, 591–614. 

Swedish National Agency
for Education, the syllabus for Swedish for Immigrants,
(SFI). Retrieved on 18 April 2023 from [URL]
Ye, Y., Jue Pan, D., & McBride, C. (2022). Spelling
development in Hong Kong early Chinese-English literacy learners. Reading and
Writing, 36, 2523–2547. 

Zetterholm, E. (2014a). Final
stops or not? The importance of final consonants for an intelligible
accent. In Proceedings of the 5th
Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching
Conference, Iowa University, 22–29 September. Retrieved
on 18 December
2023 from [URL]
Zetterholm, E. (2014b). Vowel
length contrast and word stress in Somali-accented
Swedish. In Proceedings New Sounds
2013 (Copal Concordia Working Papers in Applied
Linguistics, Volume
5, pp. 771–782). Montreal, Canada. Retrieved on 18 December 2023 from [URL]
Zetterholm, E. (2022). Uttal, fonologi och skrivande hos yngre flerspråkiga
elever. In D. von Börtzell-Szuch & S. Vuorenpää (Eds.), Läs- och skrivundervisning utifrån elevers varierade
behov (pp. 53–79). Gleerups.
Zetterholm, E. (forthcoming). Skrivdidaktiska diskurser på sfi – lärare reflekterar över sin
skrivundervisning. In J. Rosén, A. Norlund Shaswar, B. Ljung Egeland, & Å. Wedin (Eds.). Litteracitet inom utbildning i svenska för
invandrare. Studentlitteratur.
Zetterholm, E., Kuronen, M. & Nyyssönen, V. (2022). The
impact of a short auditory training on L2 pronunciation in languages with different orthographic
depth. Proceedings ISAPh2021. 

Zetterholm, E. & Tronnier, M. (2019). Perspektiv på svenskt uttal. Fonologi, brytning och
didaktik. Studentlitteratur.