Effects of listener characteristics on foreign-accentedness rating of a non-standard English dialect

Abstract

This project analyzes what characteristics of listeners affect whether they perceive Chicano English as foreign-accented English. Many Americans assume Chicano English (CE) is non-native English spoken by native Spanish speakers, but CE is often spoken as a native dialect of English. CE is a very common dialect in Tucson, Arizona, and this project examines the correlation between listeners' ethnicity, familiarity with Hispanic people, and political stance on immigration, and their perception of CE as foreign-accented. Stimuli are sentences read by CE and other Tucson speakers that contain phonetic environments where CE has features that distinguish it from Standard American English (SAE) . The listener population is Southern Arizonans of various ethnicities with varying degrees of exposure to CE and Spanish. The experiment uses a Foreign Accentedness Rating (FAR) task, as well as classification of stimuli as spoken by a Hispanic vs. Anglo speaker and background questions on listeners' language background and political opinions. Highly accurate identification of ethnicity is predicted, as well as correlations between some measures of the listeners' background and strength of FAR rating of CE speakers. Conclusions involve the effect of long-term exposure to a local dialect and sociolinguistic status on perceived degree of foreign accent.