This paper speaks to a debate which has arisen across various branches of linguistics (see Eades 2009) regarding the relative levels of responsibility that should be given to (a) qualified linguists with professional expertise in a particular language, and (b) 'educated native speakers' of the language, in conducting Language Analysis for the Determination of the regional or social Origin of asylum seekers (LADO). It reviews existing evidence from the phonetics and sociolinguistic literature regarding the reliability of accent judgments by linguists and non-linguists. It argues that, while LADO is a valid form of assistance to offer in the asylum process, careful evaluation of its limitations, in general and in specific cases, is crucial, as in other branches of forensic linguistics. The paper concludes by calling for(a) a proper research program to investigate people's actual abilities in recognising, discriminating and identifying accents under various sociolinguistic conditions; (b) collaboration between LADO agencies and linguists to develop analysis and testing procedures; and (c) a system of accreditation by an independent, international authority for the agencies that carry out LADO.

This article introduces a theoretical framework for understanding speechand pronunciation based on insights from cognitive phonology in whichpronunciation is seen as a cognitive skill. In learning a cognitive skill, practice isessential, but its value depends on students having the right concept of what itis they are practising. Helping students form concepts appropriate to the newlanguage is therefore a crucial part of a language teacher's role. The article startswith an informal overview of the role of concepts and concept formation incognition. I then consider how well-known observations about pronunciationand pronunciation learning can be understood from this perspective, andsuggest some principles which can account for and extend these observations.Finally, I compare the cognitive approach with more familiar mainstream viewsof phonology, and suggest that they are not in conflict but offer significantlyand usefully different perspectives appropriate to different applications.

This paper presents an overview of Phenomenological Phonology (PP),including its metatheory, theory and application, for comparison with Cognitive Phonology (CP). While PP and CP are in close agreement at the theory level, there are some significant differences at the level of metatheory. PP considers phonological terms (such as 'phoneme' and 'word' to be words like any others, and gives detailed consideration to the concepts behind such terms. It also considers pronunciation to be a form of behaviour, driven by concepts created through general concept-formation processes. This has important consequences for practical application in the areas of pronunciation and literacy teaching.

For many years, the difficulty adults have in learning second language pronunciation was explained with reference to the Critical Period Hypothesis-the belief that adults cannot, learn new phonological contrasts, perhaps due to physiological changes in the brain around puberty (Lenneberg 1967). This idea was in line with the contemporary theory of Generative Linguistics (Chomsky 1965), which took the view that language learning is achieved by an innate Language Acquisition Device which operates below the level of consciousness so is inaccessible to explicit teaching. It was also supported not just by the individual experience of many teachers (Macdonald 2002), but also by studies which appeared to demonstrate that explicit instruction in pronunciation was ineffective (Macdonald, Yule, and Powers 1994). For these reasons, pronunciation was given little attention in English language teaching during these years (Celce-Murcia, Brinton, and Goodwin 1996), and the belief that new contrasts could not be learned became a self-fulfilling prophecy, challenged -only by a few dedicated teachers (Baker 1981; Rogerson and Gilbert 1990).

Newly literate children have a tendency to spell s-stop sequences in words like "spin", "stop", "sky" with B, D, G (SBIN, SDOP, SGY), rather than with standard P, T, K. This observation potentially has implications for theories of English phonology as well as of language and literacy acquisition. Understanding these implications, however, requires data about the spelling preferences of preliterate children. In this study, a training-and-transfer design was used to test these spelling preferences in preliterate children. Results confirm that these children relate words with stops after /s/ to words with initial /b, d, g/ rather than to words with initial /p, t, k/. The paper outlines several possible interpretations: that preliterate children have a different phonemic analysis from adults, that they believe spelling represents archiphonemes, that they believe spelling represents allophones, and that their early spelling attempts track the phonetic surface. The data suggest rejection of the second interpretation and in our view favour the last over the remaining interpretations. Several theoretical issues are raised that need to be resolved before a full account of the data can be offered.

The authors of this report are five Australian experts in the fields of sociolinguistics, phonetics (analysis of accent or pronunciation) and language testing. Their report raises concerns about the "language analysis" that is being done by overseas agencies and that is being used by the Australian government in determining the nationality of refugee claimants, and concludes that "language analysis", as it is currently used, is not valid or reliable. It appears to be based on "folk views" about the relationship between language and nationality and ethnicity, rather than sound linguistic principles. The report found that: i) a person's nationality cannot always be determined by the language he or she speaks, ii) a few key words and their pronunciation normally cannot reveal a person's nationality or ethnicity, iii) common perceptions about pronunciation differences among groups of people cannot be relied upon, iv) any analysis of pronunciation must be based on thorough knowledge of the language and region in question and must involve detailed phonetic analysis. Furthermore, in a study of 58 Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) decisions in which this "language analysis" was at issue, it was found that there were doubts over its validity. The authors have grave concerns that the use of "language analysis" in the determination of nationality may be preventing Australia from properly discharging its responsibilities under the Refugees Convention and therefore call on the Australian Government to stop using this type of analysis.

The first part of this chapter brings together some ideas about the role of words and concepts that are widely agreed in theories of language and cognition, and suggests it would be reasonable to expect these ideas to be applied to the words and concepts used within those theories. The second part argues that this is not always the case. Theorists sometimes use words and concepts in a way that is at odds with their own theories about language and cognition. An explanation for this is offered, and a method for detecting and correcting problems that arise from it is proposed. The focus is phonology, and its application in human (as opposed to computational) domains, such as pronunciation teaching.

Many disciplines describe themselves as studying 'communication'. However observation of interdisciplinary discussion suggests that 'communication' may be conceptualized in different ways by different disciplines. This paper aims to promote mutual understanding among disciplines, not by proposing a universally valid definition of communication to which all disciplines should subscribe, but by, first, offering a set of questions that can be used to help disciplinary groups communicate their own views on communication to colleagues from other disciplines, and then creating a (preliminary) typology to map out the range of possible positions that can be taken in relation to those questions. Noting that academic disciplines have distinct cultures, the paper presents some concepts of intercultural communication as understood in applied linguistics that may be useful in facilitating interdisciplinary communication about communication.

This paper offers a general analysis of what it means to say that a representation or concept is 'abstract', and then applies the analysis in two specific areas, namely colour terms research and phonological theory. Starting from acceptance of the widely agreed proposition that cognition involves categorisation of reality via mediating concepts, it follows the implications of this idea in metatheoretical analysis of the terms and concepts used in theories about colour terms and phonology. In relation to colour terms, this analysis gives a way of understanding, and resolving, a debate sparked by Lucy (1997) about the use of the Munsell colour chart as the basis of crosslinguistic data collection in this area. In relation to phonological theory, analogous arguments call into question some fundamental tenets of phonological theory, for example the idea that a phonological representation is more abstract than a phonetic representation. The possibility of changing these tenets, and the consequences for both theoretical and applied phonology, are explored in detail.

Speech is a fleeting phenomenon. In order to study it, we must capture it - keep it 'present' to us, re-present it to ourselves - by letting something more permanent stand in for it, or represent it. Representation is thus a necessary precursor to any analysis of speech, whether practical or theoretical. However, representation faces us with several kinds of problems. First, we have to choose appropriately among many ways of representing speech - any of several kinds of writing systems, any of several kinds of transcription systems, output from any of several kinds of phonetic analysis equipment (spectograms, electropalatograms, etc.), abstract diagrams in any of several specialist theories. Second, whatever choice we make inevitably brings with it the danger that we might confuse characteristics of our representation with characteristics of speech itself.