Prof. O'Neil received his Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin in 1960, published books and scholarly articles including:-

Below is the complete text of an Interview with Prof. O'Neil in which the various challenges facing the study of English as a foreign/second language are discussed.

Some scholars assert that perfection in the second / foreign language is something impossible; that one can not obtain proficiency in any dialect and language rather than his maternal language, even if one lives in the target country for many years, and he will have, at the least, some shortcomings and peccadilloes of vocabulary, pronunciation, articulation or grammatical structure or all of them. What's your opinion on this notion?

I have more than an opinion, for it is clear that perfection in the acquisition of a second language (L2) after the age of about seven years or so is not possible, except for very rare individuals. The movement of people, the massive immigration of people to the Western Hemisphere, amounts to a huge natural experiment on L2 acquisition; thus the data are plentiful.

I am in fact presently working on a book about L2 acquisition in which I argue that all first language (L1) interference in L2 acquisition is phonological, assuming a broad enough understanding of the term 'phonology'. L1 effects show up in L1-L2 differences that involve whether a feature is spoken: plurality, for example; where a feature is spoken: question words/phrases, for example; and how something is spoken: for example, is the phonological feature [strident] active (i.e., distinctive) or not. The tentative title of the book is this: First-language effects on second-language acquisition: It’s phonology all the way down. For extensive discussion of the analogous expression ‘It’s turtles all the way down!’ see Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down 

A major challenge for the ESL/EFL speakers is that they can not effectively relate to the conceptions and cognitions of target language because of reflective disparities. I think with an Iranian mind, that man thinks with a Norwegian mind and the other thinks with an African mind. Then when we are going to translate our contemplations into a unique language or receptacle, then the difficulties emerge. They can think clearly, but the verbal translation is blurred and equivocal. What's the reason?

I can offer no reason because I don't believe the basic premise of the observation. The concept 'ineffability', the idea the some things are beyond expression between languages has little empirical support. Nor is there any empirical support for the Sapir-Whorf conjecture that we are conceptually trapped by the language we speak. There is no Iranian mind, Norwegian mind, etc. mind; there are just human minds full of thoughts. If knowledge of language can be said to have a function, then its function is to allow a person full expression of his or her thoughts, whatever these may be and wherever a person's mind may travel.

Some scholars propound the notion that the prevalent dominance of English as a hyper- International language may imperil the very existence of local dialects, specifically in countries like India, where the people are accustomed to use English as an official language while their maternal and indigenous language is something else. What do you think about that?

There is no doubt that the local and community languages of the world are disappearing.  The number of languages is quickly declining, perhaps as much as by half by the end of this century, and that their disappearance is brought about by colonialism and the hegemony of powerful nation states and their languages: Chinese, English, and Spanish in particular, but French, Hindi, Russian, and Portuguese also play a role, but a lesser one. The destruction of languages brought about by colonialism is incalculable, and their destruction through economic colonialism continues apace.

India, by the way, has its own English, quite distinct from that of other Commonwealth nations. In fact, it is quite common now to refer to the Englishes of the world even though spell check doesn't like that word to be pluralized.

Moreover, although English is an official language of India, hundreds of millions of Indians have little or no knowledge of English and continue to speak local languages, living far outside the fast and modern world of the ruling classes.

In your various research papers, you suggested that Ebonics is a language, and you challenged the idea of those who are dissenting. However, it's widely believed that AAVE is a derivative dialect of English whose roots should be located in social and political backgrounds. What's your idea about that?

In the article on Ebonics (AAE) that you refer to, I point out that in common usage, the term 'language' is not a scientific term, but a term that is bounded by lines on a map, class and race lines, etc. Thus Norwegian and Swedish, despite the fact that they are mutually comprehensible, are understood to be separate and distinct languages, while Yue (Cantonese) and Mandarin Chinese, not mutually understandable, are generally considered to part of one language, Chinese. A way of speaking is popularly believed to be a language if certain conditions are met; conditions that involve control; so in this sense, I concluded that AAE was a language since people in control (of the Oakland school board) said it was. That's all that's needed.

As for the technical term, I-language, this has a quite different status, used by linguists working within a certain scientific framework to refer to both what is in the mind of a person who knows a language and to the linguist's attempts to capture and formalize that knowledge, to understand its nature, its growth in the individual, and its use in speaking and listening.

And finally, I would like to know the most crucial challenges of language teaching in the contemporary age from your perspective. Which concern is the most pivotal one in the face of linguists who should struggle hard and grapple with it perpetually?

I'm not a language teacher, so I don't face the challenges that teachers do. However, it does seem to me that a major problem, one that I have written about, is language prejudice. For example, foreign accents are everywhere about us and are here to stay; nevertheless, accented English, for example, is looked down upon, generally quite sternly. And, of course, within what we refer to as a language, certain ways of speaking that language (AAE, for example) meet with great prejudice, social and racial in nature. Thus, all of us who work as linguists and/or as language teachers must work to combat language prejudice, for it generally serves as a mask over class and racial prejudice and should be tolerated no more than any other prejudice.