Foreign-accented speech perception ratings: a multifactorial case study

Abstract

Seventy-eight native English speakers rated the foreign-accented speech (FAS) of 24 international students enrolled in an Intensive English programme at a public university in Texas on degree of accent, comprehensibility and communicative ability. Variables considered to potentially impact listeners' ratings were the sex of the speaker, the first language family of the speaker (Asian, Hispanic and Middle-Eastern students participated), the speaker's proficiency level (students were enrolled in low-, intermediate- and advanced-proficiency courses) and listeners' self-reported familiarity (low, medium or high) with FAS. The results of a multifactorial ANOVA and Tukey's pairwise comparisons of means suggest that all variables significantly correlate with listeners' judgements in all three rating areas, which lend further support to previous research. More importantly, the present multifactorial ANOVA identified significant interactions of all variables; this indicates that listeners' perception of FAS, rather than being solely determined by one factor alone, is shaped by a complex interplay of several characteristics of the FAS sample. We discuss each of these interactions in turn and discuss their implications for future research and English-as-a-second-language (ESL) teaching.