{"title":"Effects of listeners’ dialectal variation on comprehensibility and accentedness judgements of second language\n speech","authors":"Payam Ghaffarvand-Mokari","doi":"10.1075/jslp.23018.gha","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n This study investigated the impact of listeners’ dialectal variations within the same L1 on perceptions of L2\n speech comprehensibility and accentedness. Thirty untrained British and American English-L1 raters assessed recorded L2 speech\n samples from 29 Finnish learners of English and provided scalar judgments for their comprehensibility and accentedness. Four\n linguistically trained graduate students evaluated the samples for segmental accuracy, speech rate, word stress and intonation.\n Results of linear mixed models indicated no significant effect of raters’ L1 variety on global comprehensibility and accentedness\n ratings. While American and British raters relied on same pronunciation features in their comprehensibility judgments, they placed\n different levels of importance on pronunciation features when making accentedness judgments. Particularly, both groups primarily\n exhibited sensitivity towards segmental errors in their assessments of accentedness, whereas American raters demonstrated an\n additional sensitivity to intonation. The findings underscore the complexity of accent perception based on the L1 variety of\n listeners.","PeriodicalId":91766,"journal":{"name":"Journal of second language pronunciation","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of second language pronunciation","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1075/jslp.23018.gha","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study investigated the impact of listeners’ dialectal variations within the same L1 on perceptions of L2
speech comprehensibility and accentedness. Thirty untrained British and American English-L1 raters assessed recorded L2 speech
samples from 29 Finnish learners of English and provided scalar judgments for their comprehensibility and accentedness. Four
linguistically trained graduate students evaluated the samples for segmental accuracy, speech rate, word stress and intonation.
Results of linear mixed models indicated no significant effect of raters’ L1 variety on global comprehensibility and accentedness
ratings. While American and British raters relied on same pronunciation features in their comprehensibility judgments, they placed
different levels of importance on pronunciation features when making accentedness judgments. Particularly, both groups primarily
exhibited sensitivity towards segmental errors in their assessments of accentedness, whereas American raters demonstrated an
additional sensitivity to intonation. The findings underscore the complexity of accent perception based on the L1 variety of
listeners.