This paper aims to account for the factors that lie behind the choice of models and targets for the pronunciation of English by learners of English in Vietnam and in Sweden. English is the first foreign language in both Vietnam and in Sweden. English is used as a language of international communication in both settings. Swedish learners have much more exposure to spoken English than do Vietnamese learners and the Swedish language is more similar to English than is Vietnamese. These reasons, among others, explain why Swedish accents of English are typically considerably more intelligible than Vietnamese accents of English. Given that the majority of English speakers in the world are not native speakers, it is argued that the traditional learner target of approaching native speaker pronunciations is not appropriate for either group, but especially not for the Vietnamese learners. Instead maximal international intelligibility is a more useful target. To this end, learners need to be exposed to a variety of native and non-native models

Cunningham, Una

Research in Language

English

English has a unique position in the world. Not only is it the first language
of what is still the only global superpower, although this might, of course,
change in the near future, it is also the second language of millions of
people in every part of the world. Never before have so many people
shared a common language. Never before has it been possible to
communicate across cultures and continents as effortlessly as now. The
concurrent advent of electronic communication and the Internet means that
we do not need to go to the inconvenience and expense of actually
travelling from one part of the world to another before we are cast into a
communicative situation with someone where we are required to use
English with no warm-up time or acclimatization being possible. A person
can step in out of the heat and bustle of the streets of Hanoi into an airconditioned Internet café or into their homes or workplaces where the
honking of horns and the barking of dogs form a backdrop to the
conversation via Skype or a video conferencing tool with a counterpart
somewhere else, perhaps in Sweden, from the cool tranquillity of a forest
cabin in a remote area of Dalarna. The juxtaposition of different physical
spaces brings different cultural practices to the forefront. The transition in
such a setting from a local language like Swedish or Vietnamese to
English may be very sudden and feel quite strange. It is easier to
communicate in another language if we have made a physical journey. In
our new, globalised society we may be required to switch between
languages rapidly and with no preparation. This places extreme
requirements on our readiness for receiving English as spoken by speakers
of any language

UC Research Repository

Models and targets for English pronunciation in Vietnam and Sweden

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