Factors affecting the perception of foreign-accented speech by native and non-native listeners

Abstract

Previous research has shown that several factors influence the perception of foreign-accented speech. Beyond talker-related factors, such as native language, length of residency, and age of acquisition, other factors, such as listener experience, listening context, and lexical characteristics, play an important role. To futher investigate these issues, the current study explored the perception of foreign-accented speech by native speakers of American English and Korean learners of English. In an accent rating task, listeners evaluated English sentences produced by native and non-native speakers (Korean and Mandarin) for strength of accent. Sentences contained three key words that varied by lexical frequency (high or low) and phonological neighborhood density (high or low). The same listeners also completed a sentence recognition task with a similar set of materials in which they listened to sentences and typed in the words they recognized. Results showed that lexical frequency and neighborhood density, overall, significantly influenced perceived accentedness and recognition accuracy for both groups. However, these effects were mediated by the native language of the talker and listener. These findings support previous research showing lexical frequency and density effects in the perception of foreign-accented speech and suggest that these effects may interact with talker and listener background.