English voices in ‘Text-to-speech tools’: representation of English users and their varieties from a World Englishes perspective

Ali Karakaş

doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.8n.5p.108

Abstract

English has experienced grave transformations recently in terms of socio-demographic and geographical characteristics. While such transformations have resulted in diverse types of English uses and various English users, the existing ELT materials still fail to represent the global varieties and dynamic uses and users of English. Moving from a World Englishes perspective, this paper investigates a corpus of online Text-to-Speech tools and software to discuss their suitability for teaching English according to the plurithic view of English, which throws focus on various users and uses of English. Analysed via quantitative content analysis, the data showed that TTS tools promoted the Inner circle (native-English) varieties over the Outer and External circle (non-native) varieties and non-native accents. In addition, the absolute absence of users from the Expanding circle was observed as no speakers from this circle was available in the tools analysed. The findings suggest that a satisfactory World Englishes perspective has not yet been taken into consideration in the present Text-to-Speech tools. There is, thus, a crucial need for a shift in the design of such tools to get them adjusted to represent different types of English users and uses.

Highlights

English language teaching (ELT) profession enjoys a long history, which has gradually been shaped by advancements in technology and theories of learning and language
With respect to the research question 1, which sought to find out the extent to which World Englishes (WE) varieties are represented in the TTS tools, the analysis highlighted that American English (AmE) and British English (BrE) are the most widely represented varieties across the 50 TTS tools as shown in the following fi ure
As regards the number of speakers playing the voices of the TTS tools, it was found that AmE has the highest number of speakers, followed by BrE

Summary

Introduction

English language teaching (ELT) profession enjoys a long history, which has gradually been shaped by advancements in technology and theories of learning and language. Taught primarily as a foreign language (EFL) in non-English dominant settings as required part of school curricula, English has been going through dramatic transformations for several decades in terms of its speaker profile, areas of use, and functions of its linguistic features. It has, in statistical terms, more non-native English speakers (NNESs) than its native English speakers (NESs), as noted long ago by some linguists Brumfit 2001; Crystal, 2008) It is dynamically used all around the world in various domains, ranging from education, tourism, aviation, business to politics. Because of changes in socio-demographic and geographic characteristics of English, English has pluralized and taken up the role of a world lingua franca.

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