ELF Learners’ Attitude towards English Accents

Abstract

It is observed that the majority of English non-native speakers (NNSs) use English as a Lingua Franca among themselves rather than as a foreign language to communicate with English native speakers (NSs). Nonetheless, the English language attitude of NNSs in the context of ELF has not been clear so far. Many studies on accent attitude have assumed that their participants had been aware of different English accents and had the ability to identify them, but it seems not true for a certain number of students. Therefore, this research surveyed 50 Chinese university students and 30 overseas students from other expanding circle countries. Three aspects were examined: (1) the ability to identify and understand different English accents; (2) the familiarity with different English accents; (3) the accent attitude in the aspects of pleasantness and acceptance. The results indicated that the accent attitude of participants correlated with their identification ability to some degree. Participants who were more familiar with different English accents tended to show higher acceptance for them. Their acceptance depended largely on the intelligibility of the accents. In addition, only a few students would like to show their cultural identity through speaking English with a local accent. This study addressed a significant research gap in the position of students’ identification ability for different English accents in the context of ELF. Based on this study, the educators in the expanding circle could be more aware of the impact of the development of ELF on students.