ABSTRACT
The chapter investigates the effects of prosodic transfer across two languages: Standard American English (SAE) as a native language (L1) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as a foreign language (L2). It explores a prosodic transfer effect from L1 (SAE) in the production of MSA (L2) lexical stress by native speakers of SAE. The chapter examines the production of L2 learners to detect any differences in the production of SAE leaners of MSA which may be the result of L1 (SAE) prosodic transfer. It also examines whether there are any characteristics notably different from native speakers of Najdi Arabic (NA) in the use of acoustic cues to realize lexical stress by non-native speakers. MSA and SAE phonological systems vary extensively, not only in the range of the sounds each language has but also in the relative importance of vowels, syllables, and suprasegmental features. The participants were recruited from an Arabic program at a university on the East Coast.
