L1 Bengali phonological interference on L2 English - Analysis of Bengali AESOP corpus

Abstract

Every language has its own phonemic system, which holds unique as well as common features. A language shares some phonemes with other languages, but no two languages have the same phonemic inventory. Contrastive analysis is the field of study in which different phonemic systems are laid side by side to find out similarities and dissimilarities between the phonemes of the languages concerned. The purpose of this study is to derive which phonemes are used by the L1 Bengali speakers to recognize American English phonemes which are new and similar to their L1 Bengali phonology. The results of this study showed typical phonological problems of American English pronunciation by L1 Bengali speakers which will help to develop Computer Assisted Spoken Language Learning (CASLL) tool for faster acquisition of American English language speaking of L1 Bengali speakers. © 2013 Springer International Publishing.