Exploring English by Means of Contrast

Abstract

Contrasting English and South Slavic Languages: An Introduction systems and assumes that a vowel quantity language such as Serbian may influence the quality of vowels in the learners' production of English vowels. She finds that the group which includes advanced speakers of English with Serbian as L1 successfully formed new vowel categories for the kit and foot vowels that do not overlap with the respective fleece and goose vowels. However, the formation of new vowel categories varies -at least one L2 speaker seems to rely more on vowel duration, a likely transfer from Serbian. The analysis shows that the English goose/foot contrast is not problematic for L1 speakers of Serbian, while the fleece and kit vowels seem to be more challenging and have not yet been fully accommodated into the English vowel inventory. These findings provide new insights into the interaction of vowel quality and quantity across languages (for similar discussions, see