Social Dynamics in Second Language Accent

Trends in Applied Linguistics [TAL] #10

by John M. Levis (editor), Alene Moyer (Editor)

The series Trends in Applied Linguistics aims to meet the challenges of the rapidly growing field of applied linguistics. Applied linguistics is understood in a broad sense, by focusing on the application of theoretical linguistics to current problems arising in different contexts of human society. Given the interdisciplinary character of applied linguistics the series includes cognitive, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic and educational perspectives.

The following topics are included in the series:

Second language acquisition and the acquisition of additional languages Bilingual and multilingual education Language planning and language policy Literacy skills Second/foreign language pedagogy Translation and interpretation Language for specific purposes Discourse analysis Language testing and assessment Child language Language and gender Pragmatics and rhetorics Corpus analysis Critical pedagogies Research methodology in applied linguistics

303 pages, Hardcover

First published March 17, 2014

About the author

John M. Levis is the Editor of the Journal of Second Language Pronunciation and Angela B. Pavitt Professor of English at Iowa State University in the USA. He is a professor of TESL and Applied Linguistics.

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I have been teaching ESL for over 30 years, mostly at the university level. For most of that time I have worked with teachers, teaching them, supervising and presenting workshops on how to teach. My specialty is English pronunciation. This specialty has led me to explore a wide variety of topics, including teaching pronunciation, the role of intonation in pronunciation teaching, teaching other teachers about teaching pronunciation, the roles of dialects in teaching pronunciation, and examining what makes speech intelligible.

I have presented papers and taught in Canada, Singapore, Poland, the Czech Republic, Sweden, France, Taiwan, Ukraine, Scotland and the US. I have written articles about pronunciation teaching in a variety of journals, from the more theoretical (such as Applied Linguistics) to those that mix theory and practice (such as TESOL Quarterly) to those that are quite practically minded (TESOL Journal, ELT Journal). I am also the co-editor of several volumes, including Social Dynamics in Second Language Accent (Degruyter), the Handbook of English Pronunciation (Wiley Blackwell), Critical Concepts in Linguistics: Pronunciation (Taylor & Francis), and the forthcoming Cambridge University Press book, Intelligibility, Oral Communication, and the Teaching of Pronunciation.

I am the creator and organizer of the Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching conference, now going into its tenth year. The conference attracts scholars and teachers interested in pronunciation from around the world and provides a freely available reviewed electronic proceedings (available various places, including my publications page). A direct result of the conference is the new Journal of Second Language Pronunciation (John Benjamins), of which I am the founding editor. I am also the co-creator, with Sinem Sonsaat, of pronunciationforteachers.com, a website providing reliable information about pronunciation concepts and pronunciation teaching.