Universal Preference for the Open Syllable as an Independent Process in Interlanguage Phonology*

The focus of this study is the question: Is there evidence of a universal preference for the open syllable in Interlanguage (IL) phonology? The subjects are two Vietnamese speakers and the data consist of recordings of the subjects in informal conversation first in the IL and then in the native language (NL). An error analysis conducted on the IL data was restricted to the subjects' attempts at target language words most similar in syllable structure to words in the NL, monosyllabic words ending in postvocalic [p t k m n η]. The findings give limited support for the hypothesis that a universal preference for the open syllable is a shaping force in IL phonology independent of the process of NL transfer but also indicate the importance of the preceding vocalic context in the NL transfer processes, and the overall importance in IL research of gathering NL data comparable to the IL data, as the subjects' NL data proved crucial in shaping the findings of this study.