Phonetics and phonology in Russian as a second language

This chapter provides an overview of the major phonological mechanisms and patterns of Russian and discusses how these are acquired by L2 learners and heritage speakers of Russian. Some of the major segmental phenomena that are discussed in this chapter include palatalization, voicing assimilation, and vowel reduction. The chapter situates these features within broader theoretical models of phonological acquisition in second language contexts. While the primary focus is on segmental phonology, attention is also given to the RSLA of suprasegmental features, including stress placement and intonation. Chapter 3 ends with a consideration of how to teach phonological properties of Russian in the L2 classroom.