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Part of
Speaking in a Second Language
Edited by Rosa Alonso Alonso
[AILA Applied Linguistics Series 17] 2018
► pp. 197–223

Chapter 9
The Mirroring Project

Improving suprasegmentals and intelligibility in ESL presentations

| University of Minnesota

The Mirroring Project (Lindgren et al., 2003; Meyers, 2013, 2014) is a pedagogical option helping those who speak in a second language to improve their intelligibility in a holistic, context-sensitive way. Longitudinal, video-recorded evidence shows how the suprasegmental phonology of one adult English L2 learner, an international teaching assistant in a U.S. university, changes over time, as she “mirrors” the speech of an English speaker she herself has selected as a model. Importantly, it is the learner’s suprasegmentals and nonverbal communication movements which were the focus of instruction, and which noticeably improved due to the Mirroring Project. These findings can be accounted for using the Douglas Fir Group’s (2016) transdisciplinary framework, and Baktin’s constructs of double voicing and semantic language play (Cook, 2000; Tarone, 2000; Broner & Tarone, 2001).

Article outline
  • Introduction
    • Review of relevant research on L2 pronunciation
      • Phonology in speaking a L2: Impact of empathy, accommodation, identity, and emotion
      • Suprasegmental phonology: Intelligibility in spoken L2 discourse
      • Pedagogy on pronunciation to improve intelligibility
    • A pedagogical study
      • Participant
      • Pedagogical treatment
      • Data collection
      • Data analysis
      • Results
      • Results of acoustic analysis
      • Time 1. Micro-teaching
      • Time 2.Trial mirroring
      • Time 3.Final mirroring
      • Results of perceptual analysis
    • Discussion and pedagogical implications
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 12 April 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aals.17.09tar
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