This article surveys the development of second language (L2) phonology over the last 40-50 years. Research in this area has grown from analyzing learners' errors in terms of Contrastive Analysis to proposals explaining L2 sound patterns in terms of constraints on interlanguage grammar. Although native language transfer has endured as one source of…

Theoretical assumptions and consequences of the Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH) are compared with the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis, and empirical evidence favoring the former is reviewed. Pedagogical implications of the MDH, a strategy for interlanguage-intervention, and several problems revealed in the literature are discussed. (MSE)

Discusses the amount of influence that a learner's native language has on the acquisition of a second language. Suggests that some important properties of a learner's interlanguage (IL) can be predicted, as shown by the different IL rules that Cantonese and Japanese use in dealing with English word-final voice contrasts. (Author/MES)

Testing of the validity of two implicational universals regarding consonant clusters, involving the analysis of the interlanguage of native-speaking Chinese, Japanese, and Korean students of English-as-a-Second-Language, was strongly supportive of the two universals, suggesting the possibility that primary language universals hold also for…