E. DOl: 10.4312/elope.11.1.45-64 Klementina Jurančič Petek University of Maribor Slovenia he "Magnet Effect" - A Powerful Source of L1 Dialect Interference in the Pronunciation of English as a Foreign Language Summary Wieden and Nemser (1991) carried out a study investigating the development of pronunciation of English as a foreign language in Austria. One of the main issues in this research was L1 dialect interference. Individual studies have proven that the pronunciation of a second (L2) or foreign language (FL) is not influenced only by the standard variety of the first language (L1), but also by the L1 dialect of the speaker's place of origin (Karpf et al. 1980). Wieden and Nemser's study wished to prove this on a larger scale. A similar study was carried out also for Slovenia (Jurančič Petek 2007). Contrastive analysis (CA) of the Slovene Standard pronunciation and English was performed as well as that of the sound systems of individual Slovene dialects and the English one. Error analysis (EA) of the obtained results showed that L1 dialect interference did not occur in the instances predicted by contrastive analysis; however the study in itself did prove the existence of such influence ("magnet effect" in vowels). Key words: "magnet effect", monophthongs, L1 dialect interference, pronunciation of English »Magnetni učinek« - močan vir vpliva narečja materinščine na izgovorjavo angleščine kot tujega jezika Povzetek Wieden in Nemser (1991) sta v Avstriji izvedla nacionalno raziskavo o razvojnem značaju izgovorjave angleščine kot tujega jezika. Eden glavnih ciljev raziskave je bil vpliv prvega jezika (ali dialekta). Posamezne znanstvene raziskave so pokazale, da na izgovorjavo drugega ali tujega jezika (TJ) ne vpliva le standardna varianta materinščine, temveč tudi dialekt območja, iz katerega govorec/ učenec izvira (Karpf et al. 1980). Raziskava, ki sta jo izvedla Wieden in Nemser naj bi to dokazala na vsej avstrijski populaciji. Podobna raziskava je nastala tudi za območje Slovenije (Jurančič Petek 2007). V njej je bila izvedena kontrastivna analiza slovenske knjižne izgovorjave in angleščine ter tudi analiza glasovnih sistemov slovenskih narečij v primerjavi z angleškim. Sledila je analiza napak, ki je pokazala, da se vpliv narečij materinščine ni pokazal tam, kjer ga je predvidela kontrastivna analiza, je pa raziskava dokazala, da takšen vpliv obstaja (»magnetni učinek« v samoglasnikih). Ključne besede: »magnetni učinek«, monoftongi, vpliv narečja materinščine, izgovorjava angleščine UDK 811.111'355'243 LANGUAGE 45 he "Magnet Effect" - A Powerful Source of L1 Dialect Interference in the Pronunciation of english as a Foreign Language 1. Introduction hroughout the development of the study of speech (from de Courtney in the beginning of the 19'h century onwards) it has been evident that first language (L1) varieties play an important role in L1 acquisition. But it was only in the early 1980s that the discussion of the role of language varieties shifted from the framework of first language acquisition to second language learning. Until then sociolinguists concentrated particularly on the heterogeneity of the target language rather than on the class and regional dialects of the first language in investigating second language learning. Karpf et al. (1980) produced an extensive study comparing the Styrian dialect with Standard Austrian with the aim to find out to what extent one and the other are represented in the speaker's L2. he study was based on the assumption that L1 dialect interference can be proven only on examples of typical L1 dialect features showing in the pronunciation of a foreign language. Dialect phonology and foreign language acquisition was also the main topic in the 1983 volume of papers edited by James and Kettemann. Later, a more nationwide approach, namely Wieden and Nemser's study of the pronunciation of English in Austria (1991), examined the pronunciation of English by Austrian school children. he research was designed to testify to the developmental character of foreign language learning (also discussed in Wode 1981, James 1990). he authors based their work on the claims that in the course of learning the learner employs three representational modes, expressing different approaches to the target elements: the "presystemic", "transfer", and "approximative" modes (Wieden and Nemser 1991, 228), that "naturalistic and FLT acquisition are basically identical processes" and that "whatever the acquisitional type, the learner actively rebuilds the target language for himself" (ibid.). hey found that the "presystemic", "transfer", and "approximative" modes occur at different stages for different aspects of speech, namely for segments and for prosody. he separate study of segmental and prosodic elements resulted in the finding that in the case of the segmental elements, the presystemic and transfer stages overlap, followed by later approximation and consolidation, while in the case of prosodic features, transfer follows the presystemic stage reaching far into the approximation stage of segments, and is discontinuous in relation to the presystemic stage (ibid., 230). Segments presystemic/transfer approximation consolidation Prosody presystemic transfer approximation Although this Austrian study intended to examine the amount to which L1 dialects influence the pronunciation of English as a foreign language, the research gave results failing to prove such influence. his was possibly due to the fact it was conducted in the four larger cities where the speech origin of the respondents tends to be vague. Also, the study itself concentrated on the developmental character of learning L2 pronunciation rather than on individual factors causing interferences. A similar research to the 1991 Austrian study was conducted by the present author for the whole of Slovenia (Jurančič Petek 2007). he main idea was to examine the state of the pronunciation of English in Slovenia, to study factors influencing foreign language learning, and to devise strategies which would aid foreign language acquisition and learning. Although the Austrian project did not give particularly conclusive results regarding L1 dialect interference we were cautious to choose respondents from places all over Slovenia rather than only those concentrated in larger cities. he research material gave results which enabled the classification into types of interference such as influence of the L1 in general, influence of orthography, influence of exposure to the most popular English variety, namely American English, and influence of the test situation resulting in speech errors. It seemed, however, that dialect interference would not show. Contrastive analysis predicted that most errors would occur in the case of consonants and diphthongs, as diferences in these sounds were most pronounced across dialect regions. It should also be noted that it was at that time naturally assumed that due to insignificant traces of L1 dialect interference in individual pilot studies and due to a less distinct accent in the pronunciation of English by Slovene learners (than e.g. in the case of German or French learners), contrastive studies based on the comparison of both standard varieties (Slovene and English) were sufficient for the detection and study of potential pronunciation errors in English as a FL. So, if errors due to L1 dialect interference were expected to show in the pronunciation of English this would be in the case of consonants and diphthongs. At least this is what we thought. he significant errors that did occur, however, did not occur in the case of consonants and diphthongs. Errors occurring in the case of consonants were consistent with general L1 interference or transfer, L1 dialect characteristics occurring only randomly, and errors in the case of vowel sounds, especially diphthongizations characteristic of a particular dialect region did not occur or they occurred in isolated instances. It was only when we compared the results between different regions that we noticed that there were significant differences in the quality of the monophthongal vowels, which might have remained undetected were it not for the comparison. Why contrastive analysis could not predict the diferences in monophthongal vowel quality in the pronunciation of English as a FL across different dialect regions in the first place can be explained by the fact that vowel systems of individual Slovene dialects are dealt with only from the quantitative point of view without particular specifications of difl^erences in the quality of difl^erent vowels across various dialects. Slovene dialectology systematically defines the quantitative aspect of vowels, assigning the same quality to individual vowels for each region. Qualitative issues are dealt with only in notes (cf. 4.2. in this paper). Why these differences in vowel quality actually did occur can to a certain extent be explained by the cognitive linguistic theory definition and interpretation of the so-called "magnet effect" 2. he native language magnet theory NLM To acquire a language, the infant has to discover which phonetic distinctions are characteristic of the language of her culture, and she uses them accordingly. For example, English is different from Slovene in the use of aspiration. An English child will acquire this phonological characteristic with voiceless plosives in an English environment intuitively; a Slovene infant will learn to produce these same sounds unaspirated in a Slovene environment. he question that has always puzzled linguists is at which point in life can infants perceptually differentiate between different phonological characteristics of different languages. Up to the 1980s the prevalent theory was that the infant does not distinguish between phonetic processes until the age of 1 year. Later studies (Kuhl 2008) have proven that the child has established the phonological repertory of her native language by the age of six months and is aware of the phonetic distinctions between languages even though the child's phonological development could up to then have developed along the lines of any world language. hese observations not only stress the importance of the influence of the subject's early native language, culture and environment on language development but also argue against the universal nature of language being entirely independent of culture in its early development. hey provide a basis on which to predict which features are potential sources of L1 interference in second or foreign language learning. If a six-month-old infant is capable of differentiating between phonological characteristics of different languages, this proves that distinct phonological characteristics pertaining to a particular language do exist. It is not a question of when further on in life and to what extent the infant is capable of suppressing native phonological characteristics in order to accommodate second or foreign language acquisition or learning, but rather if by this early distinction in phonological features we can claim that she has perceptually formed a native phonological system which serves as a potential source of interference in second or foreign language learning. he question which concerns us in this debate is whether the phonological repertory acquired in infancy is powerful enough to be considered the primary source of L1 interference in second language learning. he variety of the native tongue obtained in the infants' earliest years is usually the L1 dialect, since it is regionally conditioned (a child is born into a certain regional environment and exposed to its language variety) rather than socially or otherwise. he child is exposed to the standard variety only later in life and since language is transferred through the human rather than the non-human (Kuhl et al. 2008, 979) at least in the earliest phases of life, the exposure to the standard variety of the native language through the media (radio, television, the Internet) has little or no effect on the shaping of the infant's basic phonological inventory even when exposed to them in abundance. Regarding the question which elements in the native sound inventory will persist longer, vowels or consonants, the answer should be vowels. In their inherent nature, vowels are more susceptible to the magnet effect compared to consonants, since the transition between them is more gradual, whereas in the case of consonants there is a sharp shift in perception between two discrete categories which is known as categorical perception (Whitney 1998, 151). Interestingly enough, when differences in the pronunciation of English occurred across different Slovene dialect regions, it was the pure vowels that exhibited the effect of this phenomenon. Taking into account the shifting of attention toward the local environment and early infancy, and observations made for vowel sounds in the pronunciation of English as a FL, the need should arise to revise the approach to identifying the basic L1 language structure which functions as the source of interference in the acquisition and learning of the second or foreign language. As mentioned in the introduction, it was the L1 standard variety that was until recently compared to/contrasted with the foreign language in order to predict types of interference. he present paper wishes to show that the standard L1 is not necessarily the sole source of transfer into the foreign or second language. he occurrence of L1 dialect features in the L2 pronunciation confirm that it is necessary to consider the L1 regional dialect in the search for sources of negative transfer in foreign language learning, at least partly if not in whole. 3. Dialect interference in second language learning in Slovenia English as a FL was in the time of the research introduced to Slovene pupils in their 4'h grade as an optional course and in the 5th grade as an obligatory one. It was assumed that by then pupils would have mastered enough of the standard Slovene language for the latter to serve as a basis for L2 or FL learning. L1 interference, be it that of the standard variety or the dialect, is in the case of the acquisition/learning of English by Slovene learners not as distinguishable as in the case of French, Spanish or Russian learners of English, where the native language accent can almost unmistakably be defined. Due to the fact that there are not very many points in which Slovene as L1 can influence the learning/acquisition of English as the L2/FL, this makes claims of the existence of dialect interference in such learning even less possible. he Slovene school curriculum generally encourages the pupils already in elementary school to adopt the standard variety, even if this means sacrificing their native dialect. Usually the pupils try to acquire the features they are asked to, but never gain complete control of the entire standard variety. hey merely end up no longer speaking pure dialect, but mixing it with features of Standard Slovene. his is a basis which makes it difficult to predict which features (if any) of the dialect could actually influence FL learning. Despite the potentially slim chance of even detecting, let alone proving, dialect interference, we embark on a quest to examine the English spoken by Slovene learner across diferent dialect regions in order to arrive at results which would prove the existence of L1 dialect interference in the English spoken by Slovene learners. 4. Investigation of dialect interference in L2 pronunciation by Slovene learners he research discussed in the present paper (Jurančič Petek 2007) involved 287 pupils and students from 35 primary and secondary schools throughout Slovenia and across all its eight dialect regions, namely Upper Carniola (UC), Lower Carniola (LC), Styria (Sty), Carinthia (Car), Prekmurje (Pan), the Littoral (Lit) and Rovte (Rov). Tests were designed to elicit errors caused by diferent types of interference, such as orthography, L2 varieties of English (British and American), psychological conditions causing speech errors (i.e. the test situation). Special attention was paid in the design of the test in order to elicit errors resulting from L1 standard and dialect interference. he KNN (Kohonen neural network) computer program was employed to obtain the most feasible results possible on the basis of a relatively moderate sample of participants from all Slovene dialect regions representing the situation of the whole of Slovenia. he contrastive analysis of the L1 dialects and Standard British English (the established variety of English taught in Slovene schools) gave results suggesting that the majority of responses resulting from dialect interference would pertain to consonant sounds and diphthongs rather than monophthongal vowels. he results of the study, however, revealed that consonant sounds consequently did not ofler conclusive results regarding dialect interference, which was due to the fact that consonants, with certain exceptions (e.g., the voiced glottal fricative replacing the voiced velar stop in Rovte, etc.) overlap in the dialects and the standard varieties. It is thus difficult to say whether the dialect consonant or the Standard Slovene (StSl) consonant (e.g., /p/ and /d/) is matched with the FL sound during FL learning. he situation was quite different in the case of vowel sounds. he varieties that occurred, although not in an entirely expected way, proved to be specific of individual Slovene dialect regions, as will be explained in the following. 4.1 Comparison between the vowels of the Slovene dialect and the vowel system of Standard English Over the past decades, several studies comparing the English sound system and the sound system of Standard Slovene have been carried out, in the field of consonant as well as vowel sounds. Due to their articulatory character, consonants seemed the obvious choice for investigation, in isolation, in mixed contexts and especially in consonant clusters (Srebot-Rejec 1988/89, 1992). On the other hand, vowels seemed elusive, being judged by auditory criteria, which is why they were not so readily investigated. One of the most useful tools, on the basis of which to contrast the Slovene vowel system and the English one, is the demonstration of Slovene vowels by Šuštaršič and Komar in he Handbook of the International Phonetic Association (1999). As opposed to the traditional Slovene demonstration of vowels with their quantitative distinctions, Šuštaršič and Komar give a qualitative presentation of the Slovene vowels, and provide examples of the contexts in which they occur. Such a presentation can be compared with the vowel system of Standard English more readily than the vowel systems produced by Slovene dialectologists. Vowel sounds for individual Slovene regions presented in such a way would prove most useful for the purpose of this research. As mentioned, Slovene dialectology uses a typology which does not distinguish between vowel systems of individual Slovene regions in terms of the quality of individual vowel sounds, but determines the presence of particular sounds and gives qualitative descriptions and diphthongized varieties of sounds. Hence the expectation that the diphthongs present in most Slovene dialects in different varieties (cf. 4.2.1 — 4.2.6) would show as interference in learning English as a FL. In the following, the vowel systems of Slovene dialect groups will be presented. 4.2 he vowel systems of individual Slovene dialect regions Tine Logar describes the vowel characteristics of individual Slovene dialect regions in Slovenska narečja (Slovene Dialects) from 1993. Accompanying the book are four audio cassettes which complete the theoretical analysis of the sounds with rich audio material from natural dialect speakers. he present paper makes use of the description of long vowels and diphthongs within the individual Slovene dialect group in order to accommodate assumptions made when contrasting the vowel system with the English vowel system and the English vowel system (mainly in relation to diphthongs) and results gained through error analysis (particularly relating to monophthongs). 4.2.1 he Upper Carniola vowel system he Upper Carniola vowel system is characterized by long and short accented vowels (Logar 1993, 106). It has a monophthongal system of long vowels: i: u: i] and opening to [:>i], [vi] and [ip i], to dialect interference: centring to [3], opening and fronting to [e]) across different regional origins of speakers and across reading and free speech test types. he results in Table 9 confirm our predictions regarding the openness or closeness of the first element of /oi/ by Slovene learners of English from different regions. Respondents from the central north-western regions (UC, LC, and Rov.) produced it with an open variety, while in the eastern regions (Sty. and Pan.) learners mainly used the close variant, which was erroneous but consequently clearly a result of dialect interference. 5.8 Results specific for /ei/ he respondents from the north-western Slovene regions distinctly pronounced the diphthong / ei/ as [ai], centralising the first element. his, however, did not happen in the eastern parts of Slovenia and is one of the strongest indicators of dialect interference regarding diphthongs. 6. expected replacements of english vowels by Slovene ones and the degree to which they were replaced Srebot-Rejec (1988/89, 60) argues that the "human ear" (auditory phonetics) and not sophisticated equipment (acoustic phonetics) is capable of distinguishing the relevant quality of individual sounds from the personal features of the speaker. he spectrograph will "pick up" also features characteristic of the speaker, e.g. difference in size of vocal tract in a younger and an older speaker, even though they are both producing a "linguistically" same sound. he human ear can distinguish whether the seemingly same sounds (e.g., the close-mid /e/ by two different speakers) really are linguistically the same. Our study involved respondents of different ages and of both sexes. Spectrographic images, even for the same sound, were bound to give different results. Further research into the comparison between Slovene and English vowels was performed by Srebot-Rejec (1988/89, 61) as she makes an attempt to predict with which Slovene vowels the Slovene speaker will replace the English ones (cf. Table 10). p/i:/t p/l/t p/"/t p/ffi/t p/a:/t p/A/t p/D/t p/D:/t p/ü/t p/u:/p p/3:/t b/9/t Slovcn" i 9 £ a 9 D 0. 9 u 9 Englieh i I " a A D D ü u 3 9 Table 10: Expected replacements of English vowels with Slovene ones by speakers of English. CCit Cit cct Cit Cirt Cutt Cit Cirt Cut CiiC Cursc tut iliecnc isirc% i 60.7 9 e.5 c^ 6.8 £ i7.2 i 40.2 9 i4.i D 35.3 P: 55.3 9 4.e u 52.e 6 9 (2.e rnfliiS i I e r a fc D D u 3 9 WJr^bots^ITL^jec'^ fpndinggs w^re nioi-e oi" le^^ ii^ lin^ wfo^t:!! tlie (^lhi^erv^tion^ m^de in pre"vi(3u^ relating; t(3 prort^tsic^atictn cj.^fficultties ^n SStand^i-ct !;;lovv^ne) is why her table jnro'v'icS^d ^ fin^e grid vstrict: crn ne provided ^:fitl'l information ot^ the ct^geee to: which certain Englts^: vojwi^l segnds wsere replace(e "smiths ^:^lo\teI^e ( dialect) (ones. T^ljl^s 11, 12 and 13 show SJlovene substitutes for English vowels and the degree to which they occur. tlje ■who1e eff S>e^vinia Table H: Su^s^it^t^s E^g^l^^f^ isowrcclc ^s ^^^di^ti^ by So^ (1S>^8I8S>^ ^22)) ^^d ^^e lic^r^^ ^o which iied^vid^a^ ^^-^^ds ^c^^^rndC-^ th^^ro^^n^^^^i^n ^^ ^^ov^^^ ^^^^^^rs ^f r^ ^^e ^^o^ ofS^loD^it^. R^suuh^ ifoi TfJpper Cfa^nioln CCit Cit I9et ]:)it C7rt Cutt CDt C'ii't C^ut CitiC Curse tut riiecnc i 9 C: £r i 9 D P: 9 u 9 isirc% 5i.3 6.5 16.9 67:7 79i:6 i 0. 3 46. 5 63. ( i.4 61. ( (8. 6 EnfliiS i I c r a f D D u 3 9 Table 12i StlS^ ^ubsrist:u^^s for ^te^lish ^^weh a^ pr^dictp^d ^y ^^eb^^^^^j^^ ^2) ^nd t^e degree to wvlc^ch ^^lrri^iii^^iai sounds ociurred ^n tfce fsronuncialion of Slovene Seacners of EEngiish in Upper Car^i^^. Results ffor Ceit Cit Cet Cit Cirt Cutt Cit Cirt Cut CiiC Curse tut ilieene i 9 C: £ i 9 D 9 u 9 isire% 54t.2 0:0 3:9 0:^ 35.(3 68.2 6.3 45.8 8(.6 IrnfliLt^rL i I 9 e r a f D D 94 u 3 9 Tirbfe 13: StSl Substitutes ^or English vowvels as predicte^ by Srebot-B^e^ec (1988/89, 62) and the degree to which individual sounds occurred in the pronunciation of Slovene learners of English in the Pannonian region. A comparison between the results for Upper Carniola and the Pannonian region show that those for Upper Carniola were much closer to the predictions made by Srebot-Rejec than those from the Pannonian region, and they also correspond to the predictions for the transfer of elements of StSl. Only the responses predicted by Srebot-Rejec were included, since other variants for both regions would obscure clarity of data presentation. We see, however, that the scores for responses of the [e] type for /k/ were much higher in Upper Carniola (67.7%) than in the Pannonian region (0.8%), as were also the [e^] type responses (Upper Carniola with 16.9% and the Pannonian region with 3.9%). Dialect interference proved positive transfer in the case of Pannonia, since /k/ scored a high amount of correct responses which are not included in Table 13, but can be seen in Tables 2 and 3. he most significant difference occurred regarding responses for [a], a fronted variant of /a:/ (79.6% in the case of Upper Carniola and 9.6% for the Pannonian region). It is also interesting to note that the sound /ü/ received a higher score of responses of this type in Upper Carniola (where it is also quite common) than in the Pannonian region (where in Slovene it is replaced by the close-mid /o/). Correspondingly the closer [oj occurred more frequently in the Pannonian region than in Upper Carniola. he influence of individual dialects and not only the StSl is quite evident. 7. Contrastive analysis, error analysis and the results he error analysis (EA) which followed the initial contrastive analysis showed that in the case of consonants the L1 influence was more or less evenly distributed across the whole of Slovenia, which made them features which could not be said to be characteristic of some particular region and they were thus not presented in the tables of this paper. As regards vowel sounds, the diphthongizations predicted by the contrastive analysis did not take place. his could be explained by the fact that alongside diphthongal variants, the dialect also had monophthongal ones which could serve as replacements for the potential diphthongizations. Why they would be stronger than the diphthongs could only be explained by the deep-rootedness of the already existing L1 dialect vowel sound and the uninterrupted transition from one vowel sound to the other, which makes it almost impossible for the non-native speaker of English to produce the similar, but not exactly same English sound without falling into the pit of the L1 native sound. he present study thus determined the influence of L1 dialect features mainly by contrasting the English sounds produced by Slovene learners across all Slovene dialect regions, as vowel quality is a relative notion and can only be described in relative terms. As the gathering of material during fleldwork developed from region to region, it became obvious that the quality of English vowels produced by Slovene learners differed significantly, more, however, in the case of some vowels (e.g. /e/ and /£/, /o/ and /ü/) than in the case of others (e.g., /i/, /u/ and /a/). What was essential in this comparison was seeing contrasts between the features of individual regions. Once the typology was set, the remainder of the task was just a matter of statistics. One only needed to see the contrast. 8. Conclusion Proving L1 dialect interference involves showing distinctly that features causing negative transfer in the foreign language differ from region to region considerably. he 2007 study of the pronunciation of English in Slovenia has proven that this is not an easy task not only due to the assumption that such differences might not exist, but also because it is just possible that they are masked by other types of interference, such as the influence of the orthographic image of the test items, influence of different varieties of the target language (in the case of English the British and American varieties) and pressure caused by the test situation as material is collected. Despite everything, the 2007 study proved L1 dialect interference in the pronunciation of English as a foreign language does exist. It was due to the fact that a nation-wide Slovene study was carried out which allowed unexpected differences to show between different dialect regions which could only be explained as L1 dialect interference. hey showed mainly in the area of monophthongal vowel sounds, particularly with half-close and half-open sounds, open sounds and less with closed ones. he most interesting were front open-mid and close-mid Slovene /e/ which substituted for the English between half-open and half-close /e/. A similar situation was expected in the case of the English /o/, but the results were not as conclusive as for /e/ due to other potential forms of interference such as influence of the target variety, namely American English, and orthography. he closest to the pattern established for the English /e/ sound proving dialect interference was for the English /o/ observed in the diphthong /oi/, which has no obvious peculiarities in the American variety and is orthographically relatively uniform, which prevents orthographic or L2 interference. he Austrian study of the pronunciation of English as a FL (Wieden and Nemser 1991) examines the developmental character of foreign language learning and establishes that the "transfer" mode may be delayed into the "approximation" mode in the case of some aspects of language. he authors attribute the delay to prosodic features as opposed to segmentals which achieve "approximation" fairly quickly. On the basis of the results of the study on the pronunciation of English in Slovenia (2007) we might consider monophthongal vowels, like the prosodic features, as experiencing delayed transfer. On the scale from segmentals, which achieve "approximation" the fastest, to the prosodic features which linger in the "transfer" mode the longest, monophthongal vowels would classify after diphthongal vowels, which are closer to consonants and involve change in position of the vocal organs, and before intonation which entirely relies on perception and frequently does not even reach the "approximation" mode. he origin of these L1 dialect monophthongal sounds, however, is to be sought in the earliest childhood, namely before the age of one. Any related sound in any subsequent foreign language one is exposed to will for its existence have to overcome the so-called "magnet effect" of the native sound. Some learners may be completely successful in overcoming it, and some may come half way, but several will never overcome it. What distinguishes these L1 dialect monophthongal sounds from other sounds, such as diphthongs and consonants is that while the latter show distinct differences within the language and between languages and can be detected and corrected if necessary, differences in monophthongal quality are not distinct enough for recognition, which makes them difficult to detect and correct even though the learner wishes to do so. Vowel quality in L1 dialect monophthongs characterized by the persistence of Wieden's "transfer" mode in the acquisition of English as a foreign language thus serves as proof enough that an individual's native language sound inventory, or at least an important part of it is formed very early in life under the influence of the natural environment and can survive through the exposure to other systems, native or non-native, intentional learning or acquisition. Not only can it resist change, it can also cause change in others through a process that is characteristic particularly of vowels, namely the "magnet effect", a process which in our case was powerful enough to make L1 interference become worthy of consideration. References Brglez, Adam. 1993. Uvod v načrtovanje eksperimentov 1. Zreče: COMET Holding. Collins, Beverley, Rasto Šuštaršič, and Smiljana Komar, 2002. Present-day English Pronunciation. A Guide for Slovene Students. Ljubljana: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete. 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