6,045 research outputs found

    Accent rating by native and non-native listeners

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    This study investigates the influence of listener native language with respect to talker native language on perception of degree of foreign accent in English. Listeners from native English, Finnish, German and Mandarin backgrounds rated the accentedness of native English, Finnish, German and Mandarin talkers producing a controlled set of English sentences. Results indicate that non-native listeners, like native listeners, are able to classify non-native talkers as foreign-accented, and native talkers as unaccented. However, while non-native talkers received higher accentedness ratings than native talkers from all listener groups, non-native listeners judged talkers with non-native accents less harshly than did native English listeners. Similarly, non-native listeners assigned higher degrees of foreign accent to native English talkers than did native English listeners. It seems that non-native listeners give accentedness ratings that are less extreme, or closer to the centre of the rating scale in both directions, than those used by native listeners. Index Terms — Perceptual evaluation, native vs non-native listeners 1

    The effects first language use phonological difficulty perception foreign accented speech [sic]

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    Listener perception of accentedness has been shown to be influenced by experience with L2 (measured by length of residence in US). However, frequency of L1 use and degree of phonological complexity (defined by the number of non-native phonetic features targeted) may provide more insight into the role of experience in the perception of accentedness.Three groups of listeners (monolingual English and Spanish [L1] speakers divided into two groups of high and low use of English [L2]) rated the accentedness of bilingual speakers who spoke with varying degrees of accentedness. The speakers read sentences adapted from Magan (1998) to include phonological aspects likely to be difficult for native Spanish speakers.Listeners performed similarly in rating speakers degree of accent

    The effects of pitch and speaking rate on foreign accented speech perception.

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    Perception of foreign accent is typically studied using an accentedness rating task. For example, native English listeners rate the degree of accentedness in sentences produced by non-native English speakers. However, in past studies, it has been unclear what criteria participants used to judge accentedness. Here, native English speakers rated the accentedness of Korean-accented English sentences on a scale from 1 (strong accent) to 9 (little to no accent). Participants rated sentences that were unmodified or had one acoustic property removed. In one block, pitch contours of sentences were flattened and set to their mean values. In another block, speaking rates were set to the grand mean of all speaking rates (3.8 syllables/second). This way, changes in accentedness ratings across unmodified and modified sentences were attributable to the acoustic property that was removed. Accentedness ratings were not systematically influenced by manipulations of pitch contours, but were influenced by speaking rate manipulations. Increasing speaking rate (to 3.8 syllables/second) made sentences sound less accented than their unmodified versions; decreasing speaking rate made sentences sound more accented than their unmodified versions. Results suggest that speaking rate directly contributes to ratings of foreign accentedness

    Foreign accent strength in Czech of Chinese speakers in the perception of listeners with various language backgrounds

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    (česky) Percepce řeči nerodilých mluvčích ze strany posluchačů je na akademické půdě již řadu let oblíbeným tématem výzkumu. Tématem této práce je porovnání hodnocení řeči nerodilých mluvčích (konkrétně rodilých mluvčích čínštiny) posluchači s různým mateřským jazykem, a to rodilými mluvčími češtiny a čínskými studenty češtiny jako cizího jazyka. Zkoumán byl především vliv faktorů posluchače, mluvčího a řečového materiálu na hodnocení řeči nerodilých mluvčích. Percepčního testu se zúčastnilo 25 čínských posluchačů a 25 českých posluchačů. Jejich úkolem bylo zhodnotit míru námahy porozumění a míru cizineckého přízvuku na prezentovaných nahrávkách sedmi rodilých mluvčích čínštiny, kteří mluvili česky. Výsledky experimentu ukázaly, že řeč čínských mluvčích byla více srozumitelná pro čínské posluchače než pro rodilé mluvčí češtiny. Zároveň čínští posluchači vnímali cizinecký přízvuk oproti českým posluchačům jako slabší. Roli hrála shoda jazykového pozadí mluvčího a posluchače. Mezi zkoumanými dimenzemi, tedy námahou porozumění a mírou cizineckého přízvuku se ukázala slabá korelace. Tato studie přináší nové poznatky pro výzkum výslovnosti češtiny jako cizího jazyka u čínských studentů.(in English) Listeners' perception of non-native speech has been a popular research topic in academia for many years. The topic of this paper is a comparison of the rating of non- native speech (specifically, native Chinese speakers) by listeners with different native languages, namely native Czech speakers and Chinese learners of Czech language as a foreign language. In particular, the influence of listener, speaker, and speech material factors on the rating of non-native speech was investigated. 25 Chinese listeners and 25 Czech listeners participated in the perception test. Their task was to rate the degree of comprehensibility and accentedness on the presented recordings of seven native speakers of Chinese who spoke Czech. The results of the experiment showed that the speech of the Chinese speakers was more comprehensible to Chinese listeners than to Czech listeners. At the same time, Chinese listeners perceived the foreign accent as weaker compared to Czech listeners. The matching of the speaker's and listener's native language background played a role. There was a weak correlation between the dimensions investigated, i.e. comprehensibility and accentedness. This study provides new insights for research on the pronunciation of Czech language as a foreign language of Chinese speakers.Fonetický ústavInstitute of PhoneticsFilozofická fakultaFaculty of Art

    Perception of Fa by non-native listeners in a study abroad context

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    The present study aims at exploring the under-investigated interface between SA and L2 phonological development by assessing the impact of a 3-month SA programme on the pronunciation of a group of 23 Catalan/Spanish learners of English (NNSs) by means of phonetic measures and perceived FA measures. 6 native speakers (NS) in an exchange programme in Spain provided baseline data for comparison purposes. The participants were recorded performing a reading aloud task before (pre-test) and immediately after (post-test) the SA. Another group of 37 proficient non-native listeners, also bilingual in Catalan/Spanish and trained in English phonetics, assessed the NNS' speech samples for degree of FA. Phonetic measures consisted of pronunciation accuracy scores computed by counting pronunciation errors (phonemic deletions, insertions and substitutions, and stress misplacement). Measures of perceived FA were obtained with two experiments. In experiment 1, the listeners heard a random presentation of the sentences produced by the NSs and by the NNSs at pre-test and post-test and rated them on a 7-point Likert scale for degree of FA (1 = “native” , 7 = “heavy foreign accent”). In experiment 2, they heard paired pre-test/post-test sentences (i.e. produced by the same NNS at pre-test and posttest) and indicated which of the two sounded more native-like. Then, they stated their judgment confidence level on a 7-point scale (1 = “unsure”, 7 = “sure”). Results indicated a slight, non-significant improvement in perceived FA after SA. However, a significant decrease was found in pronunciation accuracy scores after SA. Measures of pronunciation accuracy and FA ratings were also found to be strongly correlated. These findings are discussed in light of the often reported mixed results as regards pronunciation improvement during short-term immersion

    Disentangling accent from comprehensibility

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    The goal of this study was to determine which linguistic aspects of second language speech are related to accent and which to comprehensibility. To address this goal, 19 different speech measures in the oral productions of 40 native French speakers of English were examined in relation to accent and comprehensibility, as rated by 60 novice raters and three experienced teachers. Results showed that both constructs were associated with many speech measures, but that accent was uniquely related to aspects of phonology, including rhythm and segmental and syllable structure accuracy, while comprehensibility was chiefly linked to grammatical accuracy and lexical richness

    The Role of Speaker Identification in Taiwanese Attitudes Towards Varieties of English

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    Deconstructing comprehensibility: identifying the linguistic influences on listeners' L2 comprehensibility ratings

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    Comprehensibility, a major concept in second language (L2) pronunciation research that denotes listeners’ perceptions of how easily they understand L2 speech, is central to interlocutors’ communicative success in real-world contexts. Although comprehensibility has been modeled in several L2 oral proficiency scales—for example, the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS)—shortcomings of existing scales (e.g., vague descriptors) reflect limited empirical evidence as to which linguistic aspects influence listeners’ judgments of L2 comprehensibility at different ability levels. To address this gap, a mixed-methods approach was used in the present study to gain a deeper understanding of the linguistic aspects underlying listeners’ L2 comprehensibility ratings. First, speech samples of 40 native French learners of English were analyzed using 19 quantitative speech measures, including segmental, suprasegmental, fluency, lexical, grammatical, and discourse-level variables. These measures were then correlated with 60 native English listeners’ scalar judgments of the speakers’ comprehensibility. Next, three English as a second language (ESL) teachers provided introspective reports on the linguistic aspects of speech that they attended to when judging L2 comprehensibility. Following data triangulation, five speech measures were identified that clearly distinguished between L2 learners at different comprehensibility levels. Lexical richness and fluency measures differentiated between low-level learners; grammatical and discourse-level measures differentiated between high-level learners; and word stress errors discriminated between learners of all levels

    Native Speaker Perceptions of Accented Speech: The English Pronunciation of Macedonian EFL Learners

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    The paper reports on the results of a study that aimed to describe the vocalic and consonantal features of the English pronunciation of Macedonian EFL learners as perceived by native speakers of English and to find out whether native speakers who speak different standard variants of English perceive the same segments as non-native. A specially designed computer web application was employed to gather two types of data: a) quantitative (frequency of segment variables and global foreign accent ratings on a 5-point scale), and b) qualitative (open-ended questions). The result analysis points out to three most frequent markers of foreign accent in the English speech of Macedonian EFL learners: final obstruent devoicing, vowel shortening and substitution of English dental fricatives with Macedonian dental plosives. It also reflects additional phonetic aspects poorly explained in the available reference literature such as allophonic distributional differences between the two languages and intonational mismatch
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