This study assessed global foreign accent in sentences and the production of two English
consonants, /[upside-down r]/ and /l/, by 11 Japanese college students during
their freshman and senior years (T1, T2). In Experiment 1, native English-speaking listeners
rated five sentences spoken by the Japanese speakers and five native English control speakers.
Experiments 2 and 3 examined 25 word onsets containing /[upside-down r]/ and
/l/. Auditory evaluations by native English-speaking listeners were used to determine:
(a) to what extent the consonants produced could be identified as intended at T1 and T2; and (b)
whether /[upside-down r]/ and /l/ were produced more accurately at T2 than
at T1. The results provided little support for a markedness hypothesis based on statistical
frequencies and mixed support for a hypothesis based on perception studies. Some speakers
made significant improvement, however, in both global foreign accent and liquid identifiability
and accuracy.