scholarly journals The Social Costs in Communication Hiccups Between Native and Nonnative Speakers

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Kit-fong Au ◽  
Annie Fong-pui Kwok ◽  
Lester Chun-pong Tong ◽  
Liao Cheng ◽  
Hannah Man-yan Tse ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
English Word ◽  
English Speaker ◽  
Chinese Speakers ◽  
Skin Conductance Responses ◽  
The Social ◽  
Foreign Accents ◽  
Self Reports

It is well-established that native speakers perceive nonnative speakers with strong foreign accents, compared with those with a more nativelike accent, as less intelligent and competent, less ambitious and dependable as coworkers, and less comfortable around native speakers. But little is known about how nonnative speakers themselves are affected when communication hiccups—often due to incorrect or accented pronunciations—occur in their conversations with native speakers. In this experiment, mispronunciations of an English word were elicited from native Chinese speakers in phone conversations via the Internet with an American English speaker, who then either asked for clarification of the word or showed no confusion about the word but asked about something else. Chinese speakers’ reactions were measured using a combination of self-reports, facial affective coding, and skin-conductance responses. When the American asked for clarification—compared with when he did not—Chinese speakers were left feeling more anxious, embarrassed, and unsure of their English abilities, as well as feeling less positive about the American, finding him less attractive socially and their conversation with him less enjoyable.

FORM–MEANING MAPPING IN VOCABULARY ACQUISITION IN A SECOND LANGUAGE

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 617-637 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nan Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Vocabulary Acquisition ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Semantic Relatedness ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
English Word ◽  
Nonnative English Speakers ◽  
Semantic Judgment

The mapping of lexical form to meaning is an important part of vocabulary acquisition in a second language (L2). This study examines the proposition that L2 lexical forms are often mapped to the existing semantic content of their first language (L1) translations rather than to new semantic specifications of their own. Native and nonnative English speakers were asked to perform two semantic judgment tasks in which they had to determine the degree of semantic relatedness of English word pairs (experiment 1) or to decide whether two English words were related in meaning (experiment 2). The nonnative speakers, but not the native speakers, were found to provide higher rating scores on or responded faster to L2 word pairs sharing the same L1 translations than to L2 word pairs that do not. The finding is interpreted as strong evidence in support of the presence of L1 semantic content in L2 lexical entries.

ESL learners’ intra-speaker variability in producing American English tense and lax vowels

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce L. Smith ◽  
Eric Johnson ◽  
Rachel Hayes-Harb
Keyword(s):  
English Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Speaker Variability ◽  
Production Variability ◽  
Vowel Formants ◽  
Esl Learners

Abstract Nonnative (L2) English learners are often assumed to exhibit greater speech production variability than native (L1) speakers; however, support for this assumption is primarily limited to secondary observations rather than having been the specific focus of empirical investigations. The present study examined intra-speaker variability associated with L2 English learners’ tense and lax vowel productions to determine whether they showed comparable or greater intra-speaker variability than native English speakers. First and second formants of three tense/lax vowel pairs were measured, and Coefficient of Variation was calculated for 10 native speakers of American English and 30 nonnative speakers. The L2 speakers’ vowel formants were found to be native-like approximately half of the time. Whether their formants were native-like or not, however, they seldom showed greater intra-speaker variability than the L1 speakers.

Acoustic Sources of Accent in Second Language Japanese Speech

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaori Idemaru ◽  
Peipei Wei ◽  
Lucy Gubbins
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
First Language ◽  
Foreign Accent ◽  
Prosodic Features ◽  
Acoustic Measurements ◽  
Acoustic Characteristics ◽  
Chinese Speakers

This study reports an exploratory analysis of the acoustic characteristics of second language (L2) speech which give rise to the perception of a foreign accent. Japanese speech samples were collected from American English and Mandarin Chinese speakers ( n = 16 in each group) studying Japanese. The L2 participants and native speakers ( n = 10) provided speech samples modeling after six short sentences. Segmental (vowels and stops) and prosodic features (rhythm, tone, and fluency) were examined. Native Japanese listeners ( n = 10) rated the samples with regard to degrees of foreign accent. The analyses predicting accent ratings based on the acoustic measurements indicated that one of the prosodic features in particular, tone (defined as high and low patterns of pitch accent and intonation in this study), plays an important role in robustly predicting accent rating in L2 Japanese across the two first language (L1) backgrounds. These results were consistent with the prediction based on phonological and phonetic comparisons between Japanese and English, as well as Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. The results also revealed L1-specific predictors of perceived accent in Japanese. The findings of this study contribute to the growing literature that examines sources of perceived foreign accent.

Auditory recognition of idioms by native and nonnative speakers of English: It takes one to know one

2003 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
DIANA VANLANCKER–SIDTIS
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
American English ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Esl Students ◽  
Auditory Recognition ◽  
Second Language Speakers ◽  
Advanced Students ◽  
Nonnative Speakers Of English

The abilities of second language speakers to discriminate the prosodic contrasts between idiomatic and literal meanings of ambiguous sentences were investigated using utterances previously shown to be reliably identified by acoustic cues. Four listener groups of varying proficiency, native speakers of American English, native speakers of non-American English, fluent nonnative speakers of English, and advanced students of English as a second language (ESL), judged whether single and paired, tape-recorded, literal and idiomatic utterances were spoken with intended idiomatic or literal meanings. Both native speaker groups performed significantly better than fluent nonnatives, while ESL students performed at chance. These results lend support to the hypothesis that abilities to discriminate subtle prosodic contrasts are learned later than other components of speech and language.

scholarly journals “Tense” /æ/ is still lax: A phonotactics study

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Duncan
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
English Word ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Forced Choice ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Northern Cities Shift ◽  
Northern Cities ◽  
Active Class

The production of the lax vowel /æ/ is widely studied as a sociolinguistic variable in American English, as several dialects differ in the allophonic distribution of lax and tense variants of the vowel. Using a forced-choice well-formedness judgment task, this paper tests whether the /æ/ used by Northern Cities Shift (NCS) speakers, which is described as a raised and tensed [ɛə] in all environments, is still represented as a lax vowel in speakers’ grammars. Participants who were native speakers of California English, which only tenses preceding nasals, and NCS English, which tenses everywhere, were asked to choose which of a pair of nonce words, constructed to include a lax-only environment /Vsk, Vsp/, as in gasp, risk, sounds more like a possible English word. California English speakers significantly prefer frames containing lax vowels, including [æ], over those containing tense vowels. NCS speakers respond in the same way: they favor [ɛə] in trials like [bɛəsp] vs. [bisp] just as California English speakers favor [æ] in [bæsp] vs. [bisp]. This suggests they keep the vowel in the phonologically active class usually considered to be lax vowels, providing evidence that speakers generalize features based on lexical distributions rather than phonetic properties.

Linguistic Dimensions of Accentedness, Comprehensibility and Intelligibility: Exploring Listener Effects in American, Moroccan, Turkmen and Chinese Varieties of English

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 520-542
Author(s):  
Mei Wei
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Test Results ◽  
Chinese Speakers ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
International Experiences ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Vocal Intensity ◽  
The One

Abstract The present study examines accentedness, comprehensibility, and intelligibility of American English, Moroccan English, Turkmen English, and Chinese English, from the perspectives of three groups of listeners: native speakers of English and Chinese speakers of English with or without international experiences. Of the 145 listeners, 38 had face-to-face interviews. These listener groups were asked to listen to the recordings of the four English varieties and fill in a cloze test. Results indicated that the three listener groups differed significantly in rating comprehensibility of American English, Moroccan English and Chinese English but they did not give Turkmen English statistically different ratings; there were no significant differences in accentedness ratings except for Chinese English; and there were significant differences in the intelligibility scores of the four English varieties. In addition, with respect to seven linguistic variables—speed, clarity, intonation, smoothness and fluency, vocal intensity, pause, vocabulary and grammar, there were significant differences in three listener groups’ rating of six variables in American English except the one of “speed”. By contrast, Chinese English received significantly different ratings only in “proper speed”. No differences were found in the ratings for Moroccan English and Turkmen English. Finally, unlike Chinese listeners without international experiences, native listeners and Chinese listeners with international experiences shared some similarities in correlations between the ratings of accentedness and comprehensibility and those of linguistic variables on Moroccan English, Turkmen English, and Chinese English. However, the results for American English from Chinese listeners without international experiences and native listeners seemed to be more alike. Linguistic variables correlating with accentedness and comprehensibility of American English showed a mixed profile. Qualitative data provided more variant elaborations on the pronunciations and language uses of the speakers.

scholarly journals INVESTIGATING COMPLIMENT RESPONSE STRATEGIES IN AMERICAN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE UNDER THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL STATUS

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
Social Variable ◽  
Opting Out ◽  
Response Strategies ◽  
Completion Task ◽  
The Social ◽  
Lower Status ◽  
Micro Level

The present study seeks to investigate the effect of the social status on the use of compliment response (CR) strategies in American English and Vietnamese. To this end, two sets of data were collected with the help of a discourse completion task (DCT) illustrating twelve situational settings in which compliments were produced by ones of higher, equal, and lower status with the informants. Statistical analysis provides descriptive statistics results in terms of CR strategies on macro- and micro-level, i.e. these findings demonstrate the CR strategies of acceptance, amendment, non-acceptance, combination, and opting out. Furthermore, inferential statistics have revealed if there is a global standard in the use of CRs between American and Vietnamese native speakers. Finally, the results suggested a significant effect for the treated intervening social variable of status in determining the type of CRs.

scholarly journals The Perception of English-Accented Polish –A Pilot Study

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jolanta Szpyra-Kozłowska ◽  
Marek Radomski
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
Phonological Features ◽  
Foreign Accents ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Accented English ◽  
Open Question

While the perception of Polish-accented English by native-speakers has been studied extensively (e.g Gonet & Pietroń 2004, Scheuer 2003, Szpyra-Kozłowska 2005, in press), an opposite phenomenon, i.e. the perception of English-accented Polish by Poles has not, to our knowledge, been examined so far despite a growing number of Polish-speaking foreigners, including various celebrities, who appear in the Polish media and whose accents are often commented on and even parodied. In this paper we offer a report on a pilot study in which 60 Polish teenagers, all secondary school learners (aged 15-16) listened to and assessed several samples of foreign-accented Polish in a series of scalar judgement and open question tasks meant to examine Poles’ attitudes to English accent(s) in their native language. More specifically, we aimed at finding answers to the following research questions: • How accurately can Polish listeners identify foreign accents in Polish? • How is English-accented Polish, when compared to Polish spoken with a Russian, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Chinese accent, evaluated by Polish listeners in terms of the samples’ degree of: (a) comprehensibility (b) foreign accentedness (c) pleasantness? • What phonetic and phonological features, both segmental and prosodic, are perceived by Polish listeners as characteristic of English-accented Polish? • Can Polish listeners identify different English accents (American, English English and Scottish) in English-accented Polish? • Does familiarity with a specific foreign language facilitate the recognition and identification of that accent in foreign-accented Polish?

scholarly journals Awareness of L2 American English Word Stress: Implications for Teaching Speakers of Indo-Aryan Languages

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Abdul Malik Abbasi ◽  
Masood Akhter Memon ◽  
Mansoor Ahmed Channa ◽  
Stephen John
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Language ◽  
American English ◽  
English Word ◽  
Language Background ◽  
Word Stress ◽  
Explicit Training

This study aims to investigate the word stress placement in English and Sindhi words in learners from Indo-Aryan language and American English backgrounds. Since correct placement of word stress is key for L2 English intelligibility, and it is known that native language background affects English language learners’ word stress perception and production. The study explores English language learners’ intuition through behavioral data from the native speakers of Sindhi and American native speakers to compare their awareness of word stress in L1 and L2. It further investigates learner’s stress patterns by measuring their reports of word stress location in their Sindhi and in their L2 English. There were twenty native speakers (10 from Sindh, Pakistan-10 from Illinois State, America) who were recruited from the location in their countries. Results of three experiments show that Sindhi native speakers have less awareness of stress location in their native language than native English controls, and this effect carries into their L2 English. Teachers of Sindhi-speaking students should be prepared to provide explicit training on word stress.

Intelligibility of American English Vowels and Consonants Spoken by International Students in the United States

2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 583-596 ◽  
Author(s):  
Su-Hyun Jin ◽  
Chang Liu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Students ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Training Methods ◽  
Vowel Space ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Nonnative Speakers Of English

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine the intelligibility of English consonants and vowels produced by Chinese-native (CN), and Korean-native (KN) students enrolled in American universities. Method 16 English-native (EN), 32 CN, and 32 KN speakers participated in this study. The intelligibility of 16 American English consonants and 16 vowels spoken by native and nonnative speakers of English was evaluated by EN listeners. All nonnative speakers also completed a survey of their language backgrounds. Results Although the intelligibility of consonants and diphthongs for nonnative speakers was comparable to that of native speakers, the intelligibility of monophthongs was significantly lower for CN and KN speakers than for EN speakers. Sociolinguistic factors such as the age of arrival in the United States and daily use of English, as well as a linguistic factor, difference in vowel space between native (L1) and nonnative (L2) language, partially contributed to vowel intelligibility for CN and KN groups. There was no significant correlation between the length of U.S. residency and phoneme intelligibility. Conclusion Results indicated that the major difficulty in phonemic production in English for Chinese and Korean speakers is with vowels rather than consonants. This might be useful for developing training methods to improve English intelligibility for foreign students in the United States.

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