Key Themes, Constructs and Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Second Language Pronunciation Assessment

Talia Isaacs and Pavel Trofimovich

Assessment of Second Language Pronunciation: Where We Are Now

After a period of relative neglect, second language (L2) pronunciation has experienced a resurgence of interest among applied linguistics researchers and L2 practitioners, with several indicators signalling growing momentum. For example, the past decade has witnessed the emergence of pronunciation-specific special journal issues (e.g. Cardoso & Trofimovich, 2014), invited symposia (e.g. Derwing & Munro, 2010), webinars and Electronic Village Online sessions organized by the pronunciation special interest group of professional teaching associations (e.g. Harding & Selman, 2014), research timelines (e.g. Munro & Derwing, 2011), meta-analyses (e.g. Lee et al., 2015), and encyclopaedia volumes or handbooks (Reed & Levis, 2015). In addition, evidence of the growing interest in L2 pronunciation research is reflected in the establishment of the annual Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching (PSLLT) conference and proceedings in 2009 and, more recently, in the launch of the Journal of Second Language Pronunciation in 2015 – a symbol of the professionalization of the field. These developments have been accompanied by a substantial overall increase in the proportion of pronunciation-relevant articles published in applied linguistics journals over the past few years (Levis, 2015), which is key to the reintegration of pronunciation research into the applied linguistics research mainstream after decades of being sidelined. Several recent graduates with pronunciation expertise have also launched into academic positions at international universities and are, in turn, training a new generation of pronunciation proponents, assuring L2 pronunciation a bright future in research and teacher training in the years to come, although there is much more work to be done (Derwing & Munro, 2015).

Pronunciation is, by its nature, interdisciplinary, drawing on research traditions in psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic and speech sciences and strongly interfacing with work in second language acquisition (SLA) and L2 pedagogy. There have been developments in all of these areas, although few common platforms for discussion exist, as the scholarly discourse, methodologies and research priorities vary substantially across domains. Notably, much of the renewed applied pronunciation related activity over the past several decades has been conducted by SLA researchers and research practitioners interested in teacher training and, to a lesser extent, by those researching the use of an L2 as a lingua franca across the globe. Interest in L2 pronunciation from within the language assessment community specifically, which includes both researchers and practitioners (e.g. exam board staff), has taken much longer to ignite. For example, there is no dedicated book on assessing L2 pronunciation in the foundational Cambridge Language Assessment series to accompany books on assessing other language components (e.g. grammar and vocabulary, although assessing pragmatics is similarly not featured). Pronunciation also plays only a peripheral role in books on assessing L2 speaking (Fulcher, 2003; Luoma, 2004) and was singled out as not having been included in Fulcher's (2015) research timeline on the topic. Until recently, there has also been little acknowledgement of the absence of pronunciation from the L2 assessment research agendas (Isaacs & Thomson, 2013), or of its often peripheral role in assessing L2 speaking proficiency, including in scales, where it has either been unmodelled or inadequately operationalized (Harding, 2013, this volume; Isaacs et al., 2015).

The 2011 Language Testing Research Colloquium marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of Lado's (1961) seminal book, Language Testing, which is widely considered to signify the birth of the language assessment field (Spolsky, 1995). Over half a century later, Lado's work remains the only non-thesis single-authored book-length treatment on pronunciation assessment (among other topics) and, hence, the existing authority on designing and administering pronunciation tests, despite some key concepts being out of date (Isaacs, 2014). However, there are recent indications that pronunciation assessment is emerging from its time warp. For example, whereas only two pronunciation-focused articles were published in the longest standing language assessment journal, Language Testing, in its first 25 years of publication (1984–2009; Isaacs, 2013), seven articles have appeared in the five-year period since (2010–2015; Levis, 2015). Pronunciation assessment has also been featured in major events targeting the L2 speaking construct (e.g. the 2013 Cambridge Centenary Speaking Symposium) and in at least four externally funded TOEFL and IELTS research projects since 2010, a topic hitherto rarely focused on in the...