ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the most common segmental features investigated in L2 (English as a second/foreign language) pronunciation and their subsequent use (or lack of) in assessment research. It provides suggestions that serve as a middle ground between L2 research and current practices in speaking descriptors. The chapter presents descriptive accounts of the pronunciation features that have shown to be important variables in ESL/EFL pronunciation and oral assessment studies. It illustrates the extraction and measurement of a select number of those features. The chapter reports use of those variables in standardized test criteria and the way in which test scales reflect recent developments in pronunciation and assessment. It explains the measurement of each feature and provides a screen shot from PRAAT to illustrate how this measurement is attained. The vertical dotted lines delineate the feature each figure is illustrating. The horizontal lines on the spectrogram represent the pitch value and movement, and the grey lines measure amplitude.
