Ocke-Schwen Bohn and Murray J. Munro, Eds. 2007: Language Experience in Second Language Speech Learning: In Honor of James Emil Flege‪.‬

Ocke-Schwen Bohn and Murray J. Munro, eds. 2007: Language Experience in Second Language Speech Learning: In honor of James Emil Flege. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins. xvii + 407pp. ISBN 9-78-90-272-1973-2 (hb) This book provides a state of the art overview of the main issues in second language (L2) speech research. The volume is a collection of compelling articles contributed by leading scholars in the field of L2 speech and dedicated to James Emil Flege, on the occasion of his retirement in July 2006. Flege has undoubtedly been one of the most influential researchers in L2 speech learning since the 1980s. His best known theoretical contribution is the development of the Speech Learning Model (SLM, Flege 1995, 2002 among others). Central to this model are the claims that the mechanisms involved in speech learning remain intact throughout the lifespan and that difficulty in L2 speech learning results from first language (L1) interference, which is greater the more developed the L1 system is. Flege's theoretical contributions, as well as his highly rigorous methodology and experimental techniques, have inspired a wealth of research among opponents and collaborators alike. This is evident in the quality of the contributions to this festschrift, many of which are the work of scholars trained in Flege's laboratory.