Non-native Accents Research Articles

Neurophysiological and Images Studies in a Case of Foreign Accent Syndrome Secondary to Multiple Sclerosis

Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) is rare speech disorder that affects about 80 persons in all the world, it´s a rare speech disorder characterized by segmental (abnormality in time of pronunciation of vocal and consonant) and prosodical deficits (abnormality in rhythm and intonation of words and phrases) without abnormal grammatical abnormalities, the patient´s speech resembles a nonnative accent. The most of cases present like an acquired abnormality of the speech due to a damage of the central nervous system. It could be secondary to neurologic or psychogenic disturbances. We present a case of FAS. It was a 65 years old woman with diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. Neurophysiological and Image tests were done to her. Visual Evoked Potential showed abnormality of nerve conduction on visual system due to demyelinating, Somatosensory Evoked Potential showed abnormality of nerve conduction on somatosensory way at left parietal area, probably due to demyelinating. EEG revealed paroxysmal activity on bilateral Fronto-Centro-Temporal regions, a peak of energy on theta band in all of derivation, predominantly in lower Frontal and Temporal regions and increase of absolute and relative power as well as mean frequency of theta band on lower Frontal and Temporal regions. 3T MRI showed hyperintense yuxtaxial image in cortical regions, hypointense images in brain stem, demyelinating plaques on left Frontal, Parietal and Temporal subcortical areas and in periventricular regions. We conclude that FAS is a rare disorder, it could be associated to Multiple Sclerosis.

English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in ESP contexts. Students' attitudes towards non-native speech and analysis of teaching materials

This paper focuses on non-native accents in ESP classrooms. In particular it looks at native and non-native speakers of English accents used in the audio material accompanying six ESP textbooks. In a second study, a group of undergraduate ESP students of Law and Tourism were asked to assess some of the non-native speakers accents found in these materials, focussing on aspects such as fluency, pronunciation, intelligibility and foreign accent. More specifically, they were asked to rate the following non-native accents of speakers in English: French, German, Polish, Chinese and Spanish. Results from the first part of the study show that native speaker models continue to be present in ESP textbooks to a far higher degree than non-native ones. In the second part, the non-native accents that students rated most positively were those of German and Polish speakers, and those seen in the most negative terms were French and Spanish. In general, the Law students tended to value native accents more than non-native ones, whereas students of Tourism broadly accept both native and non-native accents.

Perception of intelligibility and qualities of non-native accented speakers

PurposeTo provide effective treatment to clients, speech-language pathologists must be understood, and be perceived to demonstrate the personal qualities necessary for therapeutic practice (e.g., resourcefulness and empathy). One factor that could interfere with the listener’s perception of non-native speech is the speaker’s accent. The current study explored the relationship between how accurately listeners could understand non-native speech and their perceptions of personal attributes of the speaker. Additionally, this study investigated how listeners’ familiarity and experience with other languages may influence their perceptions of non-native accented speech. MethodsThrough an online survey, native monolingual and bilingual English listeners rated four non-native accents (i.e., Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Indian) on perceived intelligibility and perceived personal qualities (i.e., professionalism, intelligence, resourcefulness, empathy, and patience) necessary for speech-language pathologists. ResultsThe results indicated significant relationships between the perception of intelligibility and the perception of personal qualities (i.e., professionalism, intelligence, and resourcefulness) attributed to non-native speakers. However, these findings were not supported for the Chinese accent. Bilingual listeners judged the non-native speech as more intelligible in comparison to monolingual listeners. No significant differences were found in the ratings between bilingual listeners who share the same language background as the speaker and other bilingual listeners. ConclusionsBased on the current findings, greater perception of intelligibility was the key to promoting a positive perception of personal qualities such as professionalism, intelligence, and resourcefulness, important for speech-language pathologists. The current study found evidence to support the claim that bilinguals have a greater ability in understanding non-native accented speech compared to monolingual listeners. The results, however, did not confirm an advantage for bilingual listeners sharing the same language backgrounds with the non-native speaker over other bilingual listeners.

What's in an accent? General spontaneous biases against nonnative accents: An investigation with conceptual and auditory IATs

AbstractNonnative accents are prevalent in our globalized world and constitute highly salient cues in social perception. Whereas previous literature has commonly assumed that they cue specific social group stereotypes, we propose that nonnative accents generally trigger spontaneous negatively biased associations (due to a general nonnative accent category and perceptual influences). Accordingly, Study 1 demonstrates negative biases with conceptual IATs, targeting the general concepts of accent versus native speech, on the dimensions affect, trust, and competence, but not on sociability. Study 2 attests to negative, largely enhanced biases on all dimensions with auditory IATs comprising matched native–nonnative speaker pairs for four accent types. Biases emerged irrespective of the accent types that differed in attractiveness, recognizability of origin, and origin‐linked national associations. Study 3 replicates general IAT biases with an affect IAT and a conventional evaluative IAT. These findings corroborate our hypotheses and assist in understanding general negativity toward nonnative accents.

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

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.

Application of the pairwise variability index of speech rhythm with particle swarm optimization to the classification of native and non-native accents

This paper presents a technique that applies the pairwise variability index (PVI), a rhythm metric that quantifies variability in speech rhythm, to the classification of speech varieties. The technique combines the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm with a generalization of several rhythm metrics that are based on the PVI. The performance of this optimization-oriented classification is compared with classification that uses conventional (both PVI-based and interval-based) rhythm metrics. Application is made to the classification of native and non-native Arabic speech using data are from the West Point Arabic Speech Corpus; experiments are based on segmental durations and use Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification. Results show that the optimization-oriented classification provides a better discrimination between native and non-native speech varieties than classification based of the conventional rhythm metrics. When added to different combinations of these conventional metrics, the optimization-oriented procedure consistently improves classification rates.

The Effect of Non-Native Accents and Stereotypes on Speaker Perception and Comprehension

The paper argues that linguistic forms per se do not have any positive or negative meaning and that one form is not better than the other. However, this is not fully perceived outside the narrow linguistic community. Very often it is demonstrated by the apparent stigmatization of non-native accents by native speakers of the language. This phenomenon seems true in reference to many communities and languages. Different sociolinguists have conducted research to prove the ungrounded nature of linguistic partiality. They try to account for the listeners’ attitudes towards non-native speech by incorporating the model of dual cognitive processing methods, namely implicit and explicit. They believe that attitudes are formed by the interaction of these two cognitive mechanisms. The negative attitude can be cured by application of more explicit cognitive techniques.

Habla Español? A Conceptual Approach to the Role of Nonnative Accent at the Workplace

To date, despite the ever increasing number of foreign-born employees entering the workforce, research has failed to provide an overarching theory to explain the role of nonnative accent at the wor...

Non-Native Accent, Favoritism and the Law

Social science has predominantly discussed accent bias against non-native speakers, although not always. In this paper, positive consequences and favoritism of non-native accent will be reviewed along with the legal provision available in the USA to counter accent based discrimination. Specifically, this paper will present how listeners exhibited preferential treatments towards speakers with non-native accent and how some non-native speakers are more immune to negative discrimination. Brief introduction to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act will also be presented as a potential legal provision available to employees, students and to anyone if they are discriminated against due to their non-native accent.Crossing the Border: International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 5(2) 2017: 3-14

Nonnative Accent Discrimination with Words and Sentences

Background: Accent detection studies have shown native listeners to be highly sensitive to the presence of nonnative accents. This study examined the robustness of this sensitivity. Methods: We evaluated listeners' accent discrimination performance when presented with a stimulus set consisting of multiple nonnative accents, as well as words and sentences that were unique in each trial. Listeners heard pairs of talkers reading the same word or sentence and indicated whether the talkers' native languages were the same or different. Talkers included two native talkers and six nonnative talkers from three native language backgrounds. Results: Listeners were highly sensitive to the difference between native and nonnative accents, confirming earlier findings, but were much less sensitive to the difference between two nonnative accents. Furthermore, while stimulus length affected listeners' sensitivity to the difference between native and nonnative accents, this factor had a minimal effect on their sensitivity to the difference between two nonnative accents. Conclusion: The findings suggest that task and stimulus characteristics have a significant effect on the degree of sensitivity to nonnative accents.

Automatic Non-native Dialect and Accent Voice Detection of South Indian English

Speech recognition has achieved enormous improvements presently. However, robustness is still one of the big tribulations, e.g. performance of recognition fluctuates penetratingly depending on the speaker, particularly as the speaker has robust accent that is not coated in the training corpus. The speaker variability, such like gender, accent, age, speaking rate, and phone realizations, are vital problems in speech recognition. The mainly South Indian accent identification is a recent challenging problem closely related to other relatively recent fields of the multilinguality area like non native speech identification and language identification. This paper explains an automatic recognition system for English accents from 5 different South Indian State. The approach is based on a corresponding set of random nets with situation independent HMM units. The random topology was in addition substituted by pronunciation transcription constraints so as to integrate accent specific automatic word recognizers.

Contributors

Previous article FreeContributorsPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreN’DRI THÉRÈSE ASSIÉ-LUMUMBA ([email protected]) is a professor at Cornell University in the Africana Studies and Research Center, president of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES), immediate past president of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), currently distinguished visiting professor at the University of Johannesburg, extraordinary professor at Stellenbosch University, and Carnegie Diasporan Fellow at the University of Ghana.BRAD BARHAM’s ([email protected]) research program centers on themes related to Wisconsin agriculture, technology adoption and innovation, and environment and development issues, especially in Latin America, related to migration, education, and job opportunities for rural youth and bargaining power of women and human capital outcomes of their children.MATTHEW THOMAS BECKER ([email protected]) is a visiting assistant professor of political science at the University of Tampa. He earned his PhD in political science at the University of Mississippi, where he taught for 2 years. He was a 2012–13 David L. Boren Fellow to Bosnia and Herzegovina.NANCY BREKKE ([email protected]) is associate professor of psychology at Lake Forest College. Her primary interests lie in the fields of social cognition; stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination; and psychology, law, and public policy. She is currently studying the psychophysiology of prejudice, biases against people with nonnative accents, and racial/ethnic categorization processes.SARAH DRYDEN-PETERSON ([email protected]) leads a research program that focuses on the connections between education and community development, specifically the role that education plays in building peaceful and participatory societies. Her work is situated in conflict and postconflict settings and with Diaspora communities. She is concerned with the interplay between local experiences of children, families, and teachers and the development and implementation of national and international policy. She is on the faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.SETH GITTER ([email protected]) is associate professor of economics at Towson University. He holds a PhD from the Agricultural and Applied Economics Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research focuses on a variety of issues in Latin American countries including early childhood development, cash transfers, schooling, migration, and fair-trade coffee.R. SERGIO GUGLIELMI ([email protected]) is professor of psychology at Lake Forest College. His research interests focus on the physiological correlates of emotional states (e.g., psychophysiology of prejudice; stress, burnout, and health). More recently, he has applied structural equation modeling procedures to the examination of important educational issues (e.g., effectiveness of bilingual education, understanding the US achievement gap).BETHANY MULIMBI ([email protected]) is a doctoral student in the Culture, Communities, and Education concentration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research focuses on the interplay between how formal education systems, individual schools, and teachers address the needs of students of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, particularly in southern Africa.JENNA NOBLES ([email protected]) is an associate professor of sociology and the associate director of the Center for Demography and Ecology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.LEON TIKLY ([email protected]) is professor in education at the University of Bristol, Graduate School of Education. He is visiting professor at the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation at the University of Johannesburg and at the International Centre for Teacher Education at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.JESSA LEWIS VALENTINE ([email protected]) earned her PhD in sociology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research centered on the intersection of immigration and education issues appears in Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, and American Journal of Education. She is managing consultant at DVP-PRAXIS.HERMAN G. VAN DE WERFHORST ([email protected]) is professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam, and director of the Amsterdam Centre for Inequality Studies (AMCIS). His comparative research focuses on educational systems in relation to inequalities, particularly educational careers, labor market outcomes, and civic engagement. Rewarded with a Vici grant, his current research project centers on educational institutional contexts and inequality of educational opportunity. Previous article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Comparative Education Review Volume 61, Number 1February 2017 Sponsored by the Comparative and International Education Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/689923 PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Non-native accents and stigma: How self-fulfilling prophesies can affect career outcomes

This article proposes a framework examining the impact of non-native accents on speakers' work and career outcomes, namely, career advancement and career satisfaction. Drawing on stigma theory, we present a conceptual model to assess cognitive, affective, and behavioral reactions towards non-native accents. We contend that speaking with a non-native accent is linked with (i) managers' perceptions of speakers' fluency, (ii) expectations concerning non-native speakers' performance abilities, (iii) positive regard in social interactions and (iv) supervision style towards speakers with non-native accents. Moreover, we suggest that speaking with a non-native accent may lead speakers to (i) feel excluded and devalued at work, and (ii) assume an avoidance approach at work. Together, these effects can create a self-fulfilling prophecy that negatively affects non-native speakers' work and career outcomes. We also suggest that the strength of accents' consequences depend on the presence of particular person-related (accent prestige, exposure to the non-native accent, and non-native speakers' goal orientation) and job-related factors (nature of the job and company ethnocentrism). Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Individual differences in the perception of regional, nonnative, and disordered speech varieties.

Speech perception abilities vary substantially across listeners, particularly in adverse conditions including those stemming from environmental degradation (e.g., noise) or from talker-related challenges (e.g., nonnative or disordered speech). This study examined adult listeners' recognition of words in phrases produced by six talkers representing three speech varieties: a nonnative accent (Spanish-accented English), a regional dialect (Irish English), and a disordered variety (ataxic dysarthria). Semantically anomalous phrases from these talkers were presented in a transcription task and intelligibility scores, percent words correct, were compared across the three speech varieties. Three cognitive-linguistic areas-receptive vocabulary, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control of attention-were assessed as possible predictors of individual word recognition performance. Intelligibility scores for the Spanish accent were significantly correlated with scores for the Irish English and ataxic dysarthria. Scores for the Irish English and dysarthric speech, in contrast, were not correlated. Furthermore, receptive vocabulary was the only cognitive-linguistic assessment that significantly predicted intelligibility scores. These results suggest that, rather than a global skill of perceiving speech that deviates from native dialect norms, listeners may possess specific abilities to overcome particular types of acoustic-phonetic deviation. Furthermore, vocabulary size offers performance benefits for intelligibility of speech that deviates from one's typical dialect norms.

Comparative acoustic analyses of non-native English: The search for systematic variation

Previous research has shown that exposure to multiple foreign accents facilitates adaptation to an untrained novel accent (Baese-Berk et al. 2013). The explanation offered is that L2 speech varies systematically, such that there are commonalities in the productions of non-native speakers, regardless of their language background (e.g. L2 speech is slower and many of English's contrasts are difficult for speakers of other languages). The current work conducted a systematic acoustic comparison between two native English speakers and six non-native accents that closely matched those used in Baese-Berk et al. (2013). All talkers, taken from the Wildcat Corpus, were male, and the non-native voices had comparable foreign accentedness ratings (Van Engen et al. 2010). VOT and formant values of stressed and unstressed vowels were analyzed, comparing each non-native accent to the native English talkers. Additionally, pairwise variability indices were calculated for vocalic and consonantal intervals as measures of rh...

Perceptual adaptation to nonnative speech by school-aged children

With training, listeners can improve their understanding of speech in adverse listening conditions, including those stemming from the environment (e.g., competing noise) and the talker (e.g., unfamiliar accents). For example, listeners can increase their ability to understand a specific nonnative talker and, when trained with multiple talkers with the same nonnative accent, can generalize their learning to novel talkers with that accent. The current study extends these findings by investigating children’s perceptual adaptation to nonnative speech. School-aged children can retune specific speech sound category boundaries, but little is known about their abilities to adapt to naturally produced nonnative speech. To assess children’s adaptation to nonnative speech, 6- and 9-year-old children were presented with sentences produced by multiple Mandarin-accented talkers and repeated what they heard (training condition) or were not given training (control condition). A posttest assessed their understanding of se...

Social dominance orientation, nonnative accents, and hiring recommendations.

Discrimination against nonnative speakers is widespread and largely socially acceptable. Nonnative speakers are evaluated negatively because accent is a sign that they belong to an outgroup and because understanding their speech requires unusual effort from listeners. The present research investigated intergroup bias, based on stronger support for hierarchical relations between groups (social dominance orientation [SDO]), as a predictor of hiring recommendations of nonnative speakers. In an online experiment using an adaptation of the thin-slices methodology, 65 U.S. adults (54% women; 80% White; Mage = 35.91, range = 18-67) heard a recording of a job applicant speaking with an Asian (Mandarin Chinese) or a Latino (Spanish) accent. Participants indicated how likely they would be to recommend hiring the speaker, answered questions about the text, and indicated how difficult it was to understand the applicant. Independent of objective comprehension, participants high in SDO reported that it was more difficult to understand a Latino speaker than an Asian speaker. SDO predicted hiring recommendations of the speakers, but this relationship was mediated by the perception that nonnative speakers were difficult to understand. This effect was stronger for speakers from lower status groups (Latinos relative to Asians) and was not related to objective comprehension. These findings suggest a cycle of prejudice toward nonnative speakers: Not only do perceptions of difficulty in understanding cause prejudice toward them, but also prejudice toward low-status groups can lead to perceived difficulty in understanding members of these groups. (PsycINFO Database Record

Classification of regional dialects, international dialects, and nonnative accents

Talkers׳ regions of origin and native languages will significantly shape their speech production patterns. Previous results suggest that listeners are highly sensitive to whether a talker is a native or nonnative speaker of the language. Listeners also have some ability to categorize or classify talkers by regional dialect or nonnative accent. However, most previous studies have included variability in only one of these categories (many nonnative accents or many regional dialects). The present study simultaneously examined listeners’ perceptual organization of regional dialects and nonnative accents. Talkers representing six United States regional dialects, six international native dialects, and twelve nonnative accents were included in two tasks: an auditory free classification task—in which listeners grouped talkers based on perceived region of origin—and ladder task—in which listeners arranged talkers based on their perceived distance from standard American English. Listeners were sensitive to the distinction between native and nonnative accents, even when presented with a very wide range of dialects and accents. Further, subgroups within the native and nonnative clusters in the free classification task suggested several organizing factors, including perceived distance from the local standard, specific acoustic-phonetic talker characteristics, and speaking rate.

Auditory perceptual simulation: Simulating speech rates or accents?

When readers engage in Auditory Perceptual Simulation (APS) during silent reading, they mentally simulate characteristics of voices attributed to a particular speaker or a character depicted in the text. Previous research found that auditory perceptual simulation of a faster native English speaker during silent reading led to shorter reading times that auditory perceptual simulation of a slower non-native English speaker. Yet, it was uncertain whether this difference was triggered by the different speech rates of the speakers, or by the difficulty of simulating an unfamiliar accent. The current study investigates this question by comparing faster Indian-English speech and slower American-English speech in the auditory perceptual simulation paradigm. Analyses of reading times of individual words and the full sentence reveal that the auditory perceptual simulation effect again modulated reading rate, and auditory perceptual simulation of the faster Indian-English speech led to faster reading rates compared to auditory perceptual simulation of the slower American-English speech. The comparison between this experiment and the data from Zhou and Christianson (2016) demonstrate further that the “speakers'” speech rates, rather than the difficulty of simulating a non-native accent, is the primary mechanism underlying auditory perceptual simulation effects.

Categorization training for non-native accented word recognition

Non-native accented speech is considered an adverse listening condition for native speakers (Mattys et al., 2012). Previously, accurate categorization of non-native accents was found to relate to accented speech-in-noise recognition (Atagi and Bent, 2015). The goal of the current study is to examine (1) the extent to which native speakers can be trained to categorize the language backgrounds of non-native talkers using feedback, and (2) the extent to which accent categorization training, relative to word and sex identification tasks, improves non-native accented word recognition. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three training tasks: an accent categorization task with trial-by-trial feedback (n = 10), a transcription task (n = 10), and a speaker sex categorization task (n = 10). Critically, all participants were exposed to the same set of training stimuli. Participants completed a transcription task with speech-shaped noise prior to and following training. We assessed keyword accuracy for non-native accented speech and native accented speech. Our results demonstrate that single-session training can improve accent categorization. Accent identification training, word identification, and sex identification all yielded more accurate non-native speech perception (post>pre). We find that irrespective of training task, exposure to non-native accents enhances intelligibility of non-native accented speech.