Evidence against the mismatched interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit hypothesis

Abstract

In a follow-up study to that of Bent and Bradlow (2003), carrier sentences containing familiar keywords were read aloud by five talkers (Korean high proficiency; Korean low proficiency; Saudi Arabian high proficiency; Saudi Arabian low proficiency; native English). The intelligibility of these keywords to 50 listeners in four first language groups (Korean, n = 10; Saudi Arabian, n = 10; native English, n = 10; other mixed first languages, n = 20) was measured in a word recognition test. In each case, the non-native listeners found the non-native low-proficiency talkers who did not share the same first language as the listeners the least intelligible, at statistically significant levels, while not finding the low-proficiency talker who shared their own first language similarly unintelligible. These findings indicate a mismatched interlanguage speech intelligibility detriment for low-proficiency non-native speakers and a potential intelligibility problem between mismatched first language low-proficiency speakers unfamiliar with each others' accents in English. There was no strong evidence to support either an intelligibility benefit for the high-proficiency non-native talkers to the listeners from a different first language background or to indicate that the native talkers were more intelligible than the high-proficiency non-native talkers to any of the listeners.