ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the effect of frequency in the perception and production of Arabic L2 lexical stress as well as the role of the native language (L1). One of the areas in Arabic second language (L2) acquisition research which has for so long remained underexamined is L2 phonology. Synonymous with frequency learning or statistical learning, the new approach assumes that learning is bottom-up driven, statistical, and frequency informed. To examine these predictions, a lexical stress perception and production experiment was conducted in which the stimuli were manipulated to be frequency-contrastive in order to detect a biased performance preferring frequent stress patterns. The experiment was administered to four groups of first- and second-year L1 English and L1 Chinese learners of Arabic and a control group of native Arabic speakers. The perception and production of stress has received some attention in Arabic L1 but almost no attention in Arabic as an L2.
