Intelligibility of non-native Lombard speech for non-native listeners

Abstract

Previous study [C-N. Li, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 114, 2364 (2003)] has shown that foreign-accented Lombard speech is more intelligible than normal speech when presented in noise to native English listeners. This research extends that work and examines the intelligibility of non-native English speakers’ Lombard speech perceived by listeners from the same L1 background. Twelve Cantonese speakers and a comparison group of English speakers read 48 simple true and false English sentences in quiet and in 70 dB of cafeteria noise. Normal and Lombard sentences were masked with noise at a constant signal-to-noise ratio, and presented along with noise-free stimuli to eight native Cantonese speakers who assessed intelligibility by transcribing the sentences in standard English orthography. Analyses indicated that for both groups of speakers, sentences presented in noise were less well perceived than those presented without noise. The Cantonese speakers’ utterances were more intelligible than were the native English productions. However, in noisy conditions, the Lombard speech of the Cantonese speakers was correctly transcribed less often than their normal utterances, and the English speakers’ Lombard speech was not more intelligible than their normal speech.