1 Transfer, contrastive analysis and interlanguage phonology John Archibald 1. Introduction As with any field that has been active for over half a century, the technical terms found within it are both precise and, simultaneously, laden with connotation. In this chapter, I have purposefully used traditional terms in the title because I think they provide a fine vehicle for surveying some of the key issues in both the history and future of the discipline. 2. Historical and current conceptualizations As Stern (1983) showed, much of the history of the study of second language learning was, in fact, more focused on second language teaching. There was much concern as to which teaching method was the best. Gradually, this emphasis began to shift as the field of second language acquisition (SLA) emerged, and more attention was paid to the learner. For the benefit of newcomers to the area, let me begin by setting out the timeline by introducing key terms. Transfer: It has long been widely recognized (e.g. Gass & Selinker, 1983) that second language (L2) production is influenced by properties of the first language (L1). Surface level elements were the focus of descriptions of L2 production (either spoken or written). Contrastive analysis: In an effort to determine why some learners were not learning some elements, the method of contrastive analysis (Lado, 1957) attempts to describe or explain what was called ‘non-learning’. At this point, it would be worth pointing out that the work in language teaching, or applied linguistics, or educational linguistics, was not isolated from other academic disciplines (such as psychology). At the time when contrastive analysis was first proposed (see Archibald, 1993, for discussion), the dominant theory of learning was behaviourism (an extreme form of empiricist learning theory). Such an account places the emphasis on the environment as the driver of learning and highlights the role of feedback as the driver of change in the learner. From this perspective, the goal is to design the best learning environment (i.e. classroom) to ensure that learning takes place. Following a behaviourist paradigm of learning as habit formation within a model of stimulus/response, there was no place in the discipline for what was known as mentalism. There was no recourse to a mental 1111 2 3 4 5111 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3EEE 4 5 6 7 8111 9EEEE 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 35 6 7 8 9 40111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8EEE 9 7249 RHBK ENGLISH PRONUNCIATON-A1_246x174 mm 29/08/2017 11:16 Page 9 REVISED 1ST PROOFS: NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION