Foreign accent as a means of creating the language features of a character

The purpose of the article is to identify the peculiarities of the actor's linguistic characterization using a foreign accent in the process of working on the role and to establish the dependence of the actor's ideas about the character's personal characteristics and social status on the degree of accent color. The methodology of researching a foreign accent as a means of creating a linguistic characteristic of a character is complex. The method of theoretical-conceptual and theoretical-linguistic analysis of special literature on accent issues, features of comparison of intonation systems of different languages are applied; typological method and method of system analysis, which contributed to the study of acting tools in the process of working on the linguistic characteristics of the character, etc. Scientific novelty. The foreign language accent in the context of the specifics of the actor's work on the creation of the image is studied; it is stated that the actor's imitation of a foreign accent involves the use of special phonetic tools with the addition of grammatical and/or lexical factors in order to enhance the effect; the complexes of articulation-acoustic features inherent in the Ukrainian language with French, English, British, Italian, Estonian, Jewish and Caucasian accents, as well as the peculiarities of the actor's work on their imitation are analyzed. Conclusions. Foreign language accent as a linguistic characteristic of a character is one of the most important means of identifying his personality because a person's speech skills create an idea of ​​the environment to which he belongs, can provide information about his origin. In stage speech, a foreign accent is used to give the character's language a sharp character, vivid imagery, and truthfulness and realism of his behavior - the accent is part of the character's "I", a familiar form of expression related to national and family life. Foreign accent, as well as the territorial type of pronunciation, is perceived by the viewer stereotypically and is an indicator not only of personal characteristics, but also a marker of his social status, and its level is associated with education, intelligence, leadership, and self-confidence. The actor’s strategies for developing foreign accents in the process of working on the linguistic characteristics of the character are to use appropriate deviations from the phonetic, lexical, and grammatical norms of the Ukrainian language. Keywords: stage speech, foreign accent, actor, artistic image, character, linguistic characteristic.

ESP Course Design for Indonesian Hotel Industry: Need Analysis

English for Specific Purpose (ESP) runs to equip learners’ English language for their future needs in tertiary education. In the hotel industry, the laborers’ English capabilities are crucial as their duties deal with foreign guests. However, hotel employees’ English language inability was found in a small case. Thus, the ESP argues able to advance labor’s English language skills. This research aims to identify staff’s English needs in the front-desk department by identifying labors’ lacks, wants, and necessities. Furthermore, this paper also seeks the expected ESP course. The data were collected toward three staff and a hotel manager by using the qualitative method. Additionally, interview and participant observation has established in Kapal Garden Hotel, Indonesia. The result are 1.) Speaking and listening are primary skills for a front desk job. It is in line with work necessities that front desk staff’s duties are to communicate with foreign guests. The ESP course is expected to lead the students to pronounce vocabulary in hotels, respond to the conversation in the check-in and check-out situation, explain hotel facilities, direct the guest to a certain place, and understand the various foreign accents. 2.) The staff expects flexible teaching for ESP course design.

The Impact of Accent among Non-Native English-speaking Biology Lecturers on Student Comprehension and Attitudes

This study examined the attitudes of postgraduate biology students of three top-ranked Russian universities towards the foreign accents of non-native English-speaking lecturers. Fifty participants responded to a questionnaire, the main purpose of which was to explore the listeners’ perceptions of professors’ accents and their influence on students’ ability to concentrate on and comprehend the lecture material. The research included a quantitative analysis of gathered descriptive data. The results of the study show Russian students’ tolerant attitudes to foreign accents of non-native lecturers and demonstrate their readiness to comprehend non-standard English-medium speech of non-native representatives of the international natural sciences academic community.

The Perception of Regional Dialects and Foreign Accents by Cochlear Implant Users

Purpose This preliminary research examined (a) the perception of two common sources of indexical variability in speech—regional dialects and foreign accents, and (b) the relation between indexical processing and sentence recognition among prelingually deaf, long-term cochlear implant (CI) users and normal-hearing (NH) peers. Method Forty-three prelingually deaf adolescent and adult CI users and 44 NH peers completed a regional dialect categorization task, which consisted of identifying the region of origin of an unfamiliar talker from six dialect regions of the United States. They also completed an intelligibility rating task, which consisted of rating the intelligibility of short sentences produced by native and nonnative (foreign-accented) speakers of American English on a scale from 1 ( not intelligible at all ) to 7 ( very intelligible ). Individual performance was compared to demographic factors and sentence recognition scores. Results Both CI and NH groups demonstrated difficulty with regional dialect categorization, but NH listeners significantly outperformed the CI users. In the intelligibility rating task, both CI and NH listeners rated foreign-accented sentences as less intelligible than native sentences; however, CI users perceived smaller differences in intelligibility between native and foreign-accented sentences. Sensitivity to accent differences was related to sentence recognition accuracy in CI users. Conclusions Prelingually deaf, long-term CI users are sensitive to accent variability in speech, but less so than NH peers. Additionally, individual differences in CI users' sensitivity to indexical variability was related to sentence recognition abilities, suggesting a common source of difficulty in the perception and encoding of fine acoustic–phonetic details in speech.

Comparative Acoustic Analyses of L2 English: The Search for Systematic Variation

<b><i>Background/Aims:</i></b> Previous research has shown that exposure to multiple foreign accents facilitates adaptation to an untrained novel accent. One explanation is that L2 speech varies systematically such that there are commonalities in the productions of nonnative speakers, regardless of their language background. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> A systematic acoustic comparison was conducted between 3 native English speakers and 6 nonnative accents. Voice onset time, unstressed vowel duration, and formant values of stressed and unstressed vowels were analyzed, comparing each nonnative accent to the native English talkers. A subsequent perception experiment tests what effect training on regionally accented voices has on the participant’s comprehension of nonnative accented speech to investigate the importance of within-speaker variation on attunement and generalization. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Data for each measure show substantial variability across speakers, reflecting phonetic transfer from individual L1s, as well as substantial inconsistency and variability in pronunciation, rather than commonalities in their productions. Training on native English varieties did not improve participants’ accuracy in understanding nonnative speech. <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> These findings are more consistent with a hypothesis of accent attune­ment wherein listeners track general patterns of nonnative speech rather than relying on overlapping acoustic signals between speakers.

How does foreign accent affect template matching mechanisms? ERP evidence from Polish

Sentential context is believed to have particularly robust effects on the processing of foreign-accented speech (Lev-Ari 2015). However, recent neurolinguistic studies investigating the relation between non-native speech and semantic predictability suggest that anticipation mechanisms are, in fact, hampered during the processing of foreign accents (Romero-Rivas et al. 2016). The current study is an attempt to shed more light on this issue and establish whether the mechanisms responsible for categorical template matching remain active during the processing of non-native speech. The study investigated neural reactions towards high cloze probability template endings (i.e., the endings of fixed phrases selected in a pre-test) and their unexpected counterparts. 120 Polish sentences were recorded by a native Polish speaker and a non-native (L1 Ukrainian) speaker of Polish in order to investigate the reactions towards an easily recognizable foreign accent. The brain activity of 28 monolinguals (L1 Polish) was recorded during the EEG sessions. In native-accented speech, violations of high cloze probability items resulted in a broadly distributed negativity followed by a P600 effect. No comparable effects were observed in the case of foreign-accented speech. These results are compatible with previous findings (Hanulíková et al. 2012; Romero-Rivas et al. 2016) as they confirm that linguistic anticipatory and reanalysis processes are hampered in the case of non-native speech.

Linguistic discrimination across neighbourhoods

This paper reports on the effects of foreign accents and names on the chance of receiving an apartment viewing in the city of Bremen in Germany. Almost 300 phone calls were placed in four different city districts with a Turkish, USAmerican and German name and accent and a Turkish name and Standard German. The analysis shows intra-urban differences: in the more prestigious neighbourhood, Turkish-accented callers had significantly lower chances of getting a viewing. In all but one city district, the Standard German callers received the most viewing appointments, and the American English-accented callers had more chances than the Turkish callers speaking Standard German. A discourse analysis of an excerpt from an apartment application conversation shows how power relations are reproduced at a discourse level. Overall, this study confirms that gatekeeping selection processes via linguistic profiling can lead to the maintenance of ethnolinguistic boundaries and segregation within the city.

Modern Notions of Accent-ism: Findings, Conceptualizations, and Implications for Interventions and Research on Nonnative Accents

Nonnative-accented speakers face prevalent discrimination. The assumption that people freely express negative sentiments toward nonnative speakers has also guided common research methods. However, recent studies did not consistently find downgrading, so that prejudice against nonnative accents might even be questioned at first sight. The present theoretical article will bridge these contradictory findings in three ways: (a) We illustrate that nonnative speakers with foreign accents frequently may not be downgraded in commonly used first-impression and employment scenario paradigms. It appears that relatively controlled responding may be influenced by norms and motivations to respond without prejudice, whereas negative biases emerge in spontaneous responding. (b) We present an integrative view based on knowledge on modern forms of prejudice to develop modern notions of accent-ism, which allow for predictions when accent biases are (not) likely to surface. (c) We conclude with implications for interventions and a tailored research agenda.