Acquisition versus suppression of phonological processes in the second language acquisition of French and English

This dissertation is an experimental investigation of the suppression and acquisition of certain phonological processes (palatalization and aspiration) by native speakers of French who were learning English and English speakers learning French. The study had three goals: (a) to establish the relative ease or difficulty of acquiring versus suppressing a process, (b) to determine what effect phonological training has on the acquisition/suppression of a process, and (c) to model these results within the recent theoretical framework of Optimality Theory (OT).; Twelve learners (6 of French and 6 of English) participated in a semi-longitudinal study involving imitative pronunciation training that aimed to help them acquire the process of palatalization or aspiration in L2 English or suppress one of these processes in L2 French. Results suggest that acquisition is more difficult than suppression of both aspiration and palatalization.; It was also found that both processes are clearly amenable to phonological training, although acquisition/suppression of aspiration requires more exposure and practice. The data further showed that individual learners follow unique paths on their way to acquiring/suppressing each process, and this individual variation is amenable to analysis within OT. In addition, analyses of inter-learner variability in this framework reveal constraints active in individual learners' interlanguages that may not be active in the L1 or L2.