Substitution of dental fricatives in English by Dutch L2 speakers Femke Wester a , Dicky Gilbers b , Wander Lowie c, * a Centre for Language and Cognition, University of Groningen, Groningen, P.O. Box 716, 9700 AS Groningen, The Netherlands b Department of Linguistics, University of Groningen, Groningen, P.O. Box 716, 9700 AS Groningen, The Netherlands c Department of English, University of Groningen, Groningen, P.O. Box 716, 9700 AS Groningen, The Netherlands Abstract This paper investigates the nature of the substitutions used for the dental fricatives (/h/ and /ð/) by Dutch learners of English as a second language. By means of an OT analysis, the underlying rea- sons for the difficulties encountered with these sounds are brought to light. The present data reveal that phonetics (or acoustics) rather than phonology plays a major role in the selection of the pho- nemes used to substitute the dental fricatives. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Second language acquisition; Optimality theory; Phonetics; Phonology; English 1. Introduction Although the general level of English by Dutch learners tends to be high, these learners commonly find it difficult to master some of the sounds of English. Probably the most noto- rious sounds in this respect are the dental fricatives. Although in recent discussions about pronunciation pedagogy the dental fricatives are generally regarded as relatively unimpor- tant for intelligibility (see, for instance, Jenkins, 2000), many learners of English experience 0388-0001/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2006.12.029 * Corresponding author. E-mail address: w.m.lowie@rug.nl (W. Lowie). Language Sciences 29 (2007) 477–491 www.elsevier.com/locate/langsci