Perception Of Accent Research Articles

Non-native listeners perceiving foreign accentedness of English speech: new evidence from Chinese and Spanish listeners

As an international language, English is an important tool for people of different native languages to communicate with each other. Many empirical studies, proving that foreign accents are prevalent in L2 learners’ oral English, involved native speakers as raters of foreign accents. This study compared the rating patterns of listeners from Chinese, Spanish and English language backgrounds with different English proficiencies for foreign accents in English speech and investigated the acoustical cues used by these listeners. Results showed that Chinese listeners, sharing language backgrounds with talkers, tended to be more tolerant for the Chinese accent in English speech. Spanish listeners had a stricter criterion for mild Chinese accents, proving that the influence of listeners’ L1 on their perception of foreign accents can be different for different degrees of accents. The effects of listeners’ L2 proficiency was found for Chinese listeners’ perception of accents and the number of acoustic predictors used by non-native English listeners. The study provides more evidence about the mechanism of native and non-native listeners’ perception of foreign accent and offers implications for the recruitment of raters for the assessment of oral English.

Student perceptions of diverse accents of English in a multilingual London post-1992 university

ABSTRACT Previous research in language attitudes has focused primarily on the attitudes of international students toward different accents of English, the attitudes of home or domestic students in the UK remain still under researched. However, the higher education sector in England is not homogenous, with the two-tier system between research-intensive universities and teaching intensive, or post-1992 universities. There is a lack of understanding of the language attitudes toward diverse accents of English of this underrepresented group of students found primarily in post-1992 institutions. With this in mind, this article has explored student perceptions of diverse accents at a post-1992 university through the Bakhtinian notion of heteroglossia. Contrary to previous attitude studies, our findings suggest that the participants have higher levels of empathy toward varieties of English signaled through accent and that the heteroglossic context of London had had a positive impact on those attitudes. However, the participants still expressed a detectable tension between conforming to the imposed norms of standard language use and pushing against them. The paper concludes with a call to challenge traditional deficit views of multilingualism and increase student critical language awareness in a safe structured environment.

Listener Factors Related to the Perception of Accented Speech

The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of the listener’s education and occupation on intelligibility, comprehensibility (ease of understanding), and accentedness in speakers of Russian-accented American English (RA), Southern-accented American English (SA), and General American English (GAE). Native English listeners ( N=126) rated various aspects of each sample presented via a questionnaire. All aspects of speech other than rate were rated highest in the GAE sample followed by the SA and RA samples. Intonation and fluency aspects of accented speech appeared to be influenced by the differences in educational or occupational backgrounds. The study also discussed additional influential factors for the perception of accented speech such as clarity, accentedness, and acceptability of speech for SLPs. This study contributes to increase the awareness of factors associated with the negative perception of regional and foreign accents.

INDONESIAN EFL POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS' PERCEPTION TOWARD ACCENT IN LISTENING COMPREHENSION

Listening comprehension has been one of the most challenging proficiency for EFL learners in Indonesia, including for postgraduate students. In this research, the researcher aims to investigate postgraduate students’ perception of accents within listening comprehension. Furthermore, this research employed a mixed method and an online open-ended questionnaire as the instrument. 33 Indonesian participants who attended Indonesian and Indian universities were willing to join the research. Moreover, the Questionnaire consisted of 11 questions that needed to be answered by the participants. In addition, the researcher analyzed the data by chart and percentage to show the difference between the participants’ responses. The result revealed that 93.9% of postgraduate students were primarily familiar with the American accent rather than the British accent throughout their education. It is because most of the schools in Indonesia adopt an American accent for their English course.Furthermore, 87.9% of the participants used an American accent when speaking in English, and 63.6% sometimes had difficulty understanding Americans. Additionally, 66.7% of the participants stated that the speaker's speed was the significant problem they had in listening comprehension. However, all of the participants found that accent also had the utmost role in listening comprehension because the accent they listened to correlated to their understanding of vocabulary being spoken by the speaker in the listening comprehension audio. Thus, based on the research, Indonesian postgraduate students perceived accent as pivotal in listening comprehension. The speaker's accent on the listening comprehension audio determined how well they could do the listening comprehension test.

Portraying accent stereotyping by second language speakers.

Stereotyping towards the second language accent of second language learners is extensively seen even when the content of learner speech can be understood. Previous studies reported conflicting results on accent perception by speakers of second languages, especially among homogenous learners. In this paper, we conducted a survey and two experiments to test whether Mandarin-speaking advanced learners of English may give harsher accent ratings to their fellow learners than to Standard American English speakers. The survey was designed to understand the L2 listeners' beliefs about accented speech. In Experiment 1, participants rated short audio recordings of L2 learner' and Standard American English speech; in Experiment 2, they did the same in a more detailed word-in-sentence accent rating task. Results showed a markedly high level of perceived L2 accentedness for several learner speech stimuli despite good intelligibility, especially for the strongly-accented Cantonese passage and for specific vowel and consonant types. The findings reveal the existence of native-speakerism in China and highlight existing accent stereotypes. Implications for policymaking and language teaching are discussed.

Hearing Durational Process in A Huli Song

Hearing Durational Process in A Huli Song

Perception of regional and nonnative accents: a comparison of museum laboratory and online data collection

Abstract Online testing for behavioral research has become an increasingly used tool. Although more researchers have been using online data collection methods, few studies have assessed the replicability of findings for speech intelligibility tasks. Here we assess intelligibility in quiet and two noise-added conditions for several different accents of English (Midland American, Standard Southern British, Scottish, German-accented, Mandarin-accented, Japanese-accented, and Hindi-English bilingual). Participants were tested in person at a museum-based laboratory and online. Results showed little to no difference between the two settings for the easier noise condition and in quiet, but large performance differences in the most difficult noise condition with an advantage for the participants tested online. Technology-based variables did not appear to drive the setting effect, but experimenter presence may have influenced response strategy for the in-person group and differences in demographics could have provided advantages for the online group. Additional research should continue to investigate how setting, demographic factors, experimenter presence, and motivational factors interact to determine performance in speech perception experiments.

An Error Analysis of the Perception Based on Accent in Japanese

Japanese has many words that have similar syllables but different meanings. However, for non-native speakers, these differences in meaning are quite difficult to spot as they can only be distinguished by tone also refers to accent. This study aims to analyze the misperception of accents in words with the same syllable. The data collected in this study were conducted through a perception test. These words were categorized based on the error types of the specified syllables. This study’s respondents are 20 students of the 3rd and 5th semester Japanese Department of Universitas Komputer Indonesia in the 2022/2023 academic year. The results showed that accent perception errors in respondents mostly occurred in Odaka accent patterns and many words with accents of 4 mora. Perception errors occur because students are unfamiliar with the vocabulary and accent patterns. This is related to the length of student learning.

Examining linguistic and experimenter biases through “non-native” versus “native” speech

AbstractThere is a consensus in psycholinguistic research that listening to unfamiliar speech constitutes a challenging listening situation. In this commentary, we explore the problems with the construct ofnon-nativeand ask whether using this construct in research is useful, specifically to shift the communicative burden from the language learner to the perceiver, who often occupies a position of power. We examine what factors affect perception of non-native talkers. We frame this question by addressing the observation that not all “difficult” listening conditions provide equal challenges. Given this, we ask how cognitive and social factors impact perception of unfamiliar accents and ask what our psycholinguistic measurements are capturing. We close by making recommendations for future work. We propose that the issue is less with the terminology ofnativeversusnon-native, but rather how our unexamined biases affect the methodological assumptions that we make. We propose that we can use the existing dichotomy to create research programs that focus on teaching perceivers to better understand talkers more generally. Finally, we call on perceivers and researchers alike to question the idea of speech being “native,” “non-native,” “unfamiliar,” and “accented” to better align with reality as opposed to our inherently biased views.

Internal structure of intonational categories: The (dis)appearance of a perceptual magnet effect.

The question of whether intonation events are speech categories like phonemes and lexical tones has long been a puzzle in prosodic research. In past work, researchers have studied categoricality of pitch accents and boundary tones by examining perceptual phenomena stemming from research on phoneme categories (i.e., intonation boundary effects-peaks in discrimination sensitivity at category boundaries, perceptual magnet effects-sensitivity minima near the best exemplar or prototype of a category). Both lines of research have yielded mixed results. However, boundary effects are not necessarily related to categoricality of speech. Using improved methodology, the present study examines whether pitch accents have domain-general internal structure of categories by testing the perceptual magnet effect. Perceived goodness and discriminability of re-synthesized productions of Dutch rising pitch accent (L*H) were evaluated by native speakers of Dutch in three experiments. The variation between these stimuli was quantified using a polynomial-parametric modeling approach. A perceptual magnet effect was detected: (1) rated "goodness" decreased as acoustic-perceptual distance relative to the prototype increased (Experiment 1), and (2) equally spaced items far from the prototype were more frequently discriminated than equally spaced items in the neighborhood of the prototype (Experiment 2). These results provide first evidence for internal structure of pitch accents, similar to that found in color and phoneme categories. However, the discrimination accuracy gathered here was lower than that reported for phonemes. The discrimination advantage in the neighborhood far from the prototype disappeared when participants were tested on a very large number of stimuli (Experiment 3), similar to findings on phonemes and different from findings for lexical tones in neutral network simulations of distributional learning. These results suggest a more transient nature of the perceptual magnet effect in the perception of pitch accents and arguably weaker categoricality of pitch accents, compared to that of phonemes and in particular of lexical tones.

English as a Lingua Franca: Perceptions of Indonesian Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) on English Pronunciation and Accents Identity

<p>The research examines how Indonesian non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) perceive various English accents including Indonesian English speakers around them and their English accents as well in terms of native or non-native viewed from the lens of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). In addition, the research also investigates how they perceive pronunciation identity reflected in their English accents. Qualitative methods were employed by using written online interviews. The participants consisted of five (5) Indonesian NNESTs whose English teaching experiences range from 10 to 32 years in universities in Jakarta. They were asked about their perception of accents and their colleagues’ accents and EFL practice in Indonesian English language teaching, especially in their environment where English is expected as the <em>lingua franca</em> of communication. The data were collected using written semi-structured interviews through email and speaking tests recorded through WhatsApp and analyzed using interpretivism adapted from the approach of phenomenology<strong> </strong>in teaching English. The result reveals their acceptance of being identified as belonging to a particular ethnicity or nationality due to salient characteristics of their accents as part of pronunciation identity. In addition, the result also shows acceptance of varied accents worldwide, yet they also unconsciously show their preference for American and British accents if they could choose to do so.</p>

Are Serbian and English listeners insensitive to lexical pitch accents in Serbian?

The paper investigated possible perceptual insensitivity effects in the perception of lexical pitch accents by native and non-native listeners, that is, by Serbian and English listeners, respectively. The objective of the study was to explore which word-prosodic categories listeners used when they were required to contrast and recall sequences of lexical pitch accents. To that effect, Serbian and English listeners performed a Sequence Recall Task (SRT) in which they contrasted pairs of non-words with different Serbian lexical pitch accent types, and recalled the sequences of these non-words under different memory load conditions. Listeners' answers were coded correct and incorrect and the accuracy scores between the groups were compared and analyzed. Both groups had almost identical levels of accuracy and they performed well above chance level on each contrast. Neither group exhibited any effects of perceptual insensitivity to lexical pitch accents. English (non-native) listeners did not differ in their performance from native Serbian listeners, which, contrary to what previous research suggested, implied that one's native language word-prosodic category inventory did not preclude the encoding of non-native word-prosodic categories. Instead, non-native listeners were capable of deploying different prosodic resources such as post-lexical pitch accents to recall the sequences.

Identification of Minimal Pairs of Japanese Pitch Accent in Noise-Vocoded Speech

The perception of lexical pitch accent in Japanese was assessed using noise-excited vocoder speech, which contained no fundamental frequency (fo) or its harmonics. While prosodic information such as in lexical stress in English and lexical tone in Mandarin Chinese is known to be encoded in multiple acoustic dimensions, such multidimensionality is less understood for lexical pitch accent in Japanese. In the present study, listeners were tested under four different conditions to investigate the contribution of non-fo properties to the perception of Japanese pitch accent: noise-vocoded speech stimuli consisting of 10 3-ERBN-wide bands and 15 2-ERBN-wide bands created from a male and female speaker. Results found listeners were able to identify minimal pairs of final-accented and unaccented words at a rate better than chance in all conditions, indicating the presence of secondary cues to Japanese pitch accent. Subsequent analyses were conducted to investigate if the listeners' ability to distinguish minimal pairs was correlated with duration, intensity or formant information. The results found no strong or consistent correlation, suggesting the possibility that listeners used different cues depending on the information available in the stimuli. Furthermore, the comparison of the current results with equivalent studies in English and Mandarin Chinese suggest that, although lexical prosodic information exists in multiple acoustic dimensions in Japanese, the primary cue is more salient than in other languages.

Contributing Factors to Chinese English Learners’ Perceptions of Different English Accents

This mixed-methods study investigated Chinese tertiary-level students’ perceptions of different English accents existing in mainland China. Also examined were their perception changes and factors that contributed to their perception changes. An electronic questionnaire survey was employed to investigate the general trend and the possible correlations and differences in the participants’ perceptions of different English accents. Follow-up interviews and diary studies were conducted to examine the participants’ perception changes and the contributing factors. The main findings show that the participants were inclined to accord privileged status to Inner Circle English accents, whereas their perceptions of Outer Circle and Expanding Circle English accents tended to remain unfavourable. Their perceptions were found to be under the substantial influence of the ongoing exonormative English education, English language assessment system and employment requirements. We also found that the explicit instruction of the development of English and the frequent cross-cultural communication were likely to engender changes in the participants’ language beliefs and perceptions of different English accent varieties.

Listener engagement: the missing link in research on accented speech

Abstract Reverse linguistic stereotyping (RLS) is a process whereby a speaker’s perceived group membership triggers differential perception of aspects of their speech. RLS has been suggested to cause drops in intelligibility and recall, though why perception of a non-existent accent can negatively affect listening outcomes has not been sufficiently elucidated. The current study suggests an explanation may lie in differential levels of engagement among listeners. A sample of 430 Japanese university students listened to a short speech from either a speaker of Chinese Pronunciation of English or Received Pronunciation and rated them on aesthetics, comprehensibility, perceived intelligibility, engagement, and recall. Multiple linear regression suggested that only engagement served as a significant predictor to recall, though the other variables all had significant indirect effects when engagement was included as a mediating variable. These results indicated that listener engagement is a key variable which may help improve our understanding of accented speech perception.

Formation of the skill of perception of pitch accent at the initial stage of learning the Japanese language

This paper is devoted to the formation of the skill of perception of Japanese pitch accent. Pitch accent is one of the most challenging aspects of learning Japanese. In addition, the relevance of the study is also confirmed by the fact that in Russian and Japanese textbooks for beginners there are no tasks on the perception of Japanese pitch accent. In the practical part of the study, we conducted an experiment. 23 students from Northeastern Federal University who began studying the Japanese language in September 2021 took part in this experiment. The students of the experimental group began to study the Japanese language according to the introductory phonetic course developed by A. Burakova. As a result of the study, we came to the conclusion that the tasks developed as a part of the introductory phonetic course had a positive effect on the perception of pitch accent at the initial stage of learning the Japanese language.

The Perceptual Ability to Identify Japanese Language Accent Patterns by Indonesian Learners

Research on the acquisition of suprasegmental sounds in Japanese has been carried out both in terms of production and perception. The conducted research shows that there are difficulties in acquiring Japanese sounds. This study focused on the perception of Japanese accents, with the aim of describing the learner’s ability to identify Japanese accent patterns. The data sources of this research are Japanese learners at beginner level. Data were collected using a test instrument, through a hearing test, in the form of a set of words which selected based on the category of words and patterns of Japanese accents to be measured by listening and recording techniques. The results showed that based on the results of the hearing test, of the 17 participants who completed the test reached the highest score 47.14 (S01), and the lowest score of 15.41 (S14), with an overall average score of 29.16 and Standard Deviation (SD) 7.9018. These scores represent the participants’ ability to identify Japanese accent patterns is in the very low category. The results indicate that the learners have difficulty identifying Japanese accent patterns. In fact, the vocabulary in research instrument was the basic vocabulary that had been learned by them. It can be concluded that the acquisition of vocabulary is not in line with the suprasegmental elements attached to these words. The results of this research need to be continued by applying listening exercises of Japanese accent.

How pronunciation distance impacts word recognition in children and adults.

Although unfamiliar accents can pose word identification challenges for children and adults, few studies have directly compared perception of multiple nonnative and regional accents or quantified how the extent of deviation from the ambient accent impacts word identification accuracy across development. To address these gaps, 5- to 7-year-old children's and adults' word identification accuracy with native (Midland American, British, Scottish), nonnative (German-, Mandarin-, Japanese-accented English) and bilingual (Hindi-English) varieties (one talker per accent) was tested in quiet and noise. Talkers' pronunciation distance from the ambient dialect was quantified at the phoneme level using a Levenshtein algorithm adaptation. Whereas performance was worse on all non-ambient dialects than the ambient one, there were only interactions between talker and age (child vs adult or across age for the children) for a subset of talkers, which did not fall along the native/nonnative divide. Levenshtein distances significantly predicted word recognition accuracy for adults and children in both listening environments with similar impacts in quiet. In noise, children had more difficulty overcoming pronunciations that substantially deviated from ambient dialect norms than adults. Future work should continue investigating how pronunciation distance impacts word recognition accuracy by incorporating distance metrics at other levels of analysis (e.g., phonetic, suprasegmental).

Accent Perceptions and Identity Conflicts of University Students in China

ABSTRACT This paper examines university students’ perceptions towards different English accent varieties and their non-unitary and conflicting identity (re)construction responding the changing configuration of English in China. Findings from interviews and diaries indicate that the participants’ perceptions appear to be under the substantial influence of the different identities they intend to assume. The incompatibility existing in their different identities leads to identity conflicts and attitude schizophrenia. The article proposes a revision of the ongoing teaching paradigm in order to project the current spread and development of English and to attend to the genuine linguistic demands and identity appeals of English language learners in China.

The N400 reveals implicit accent-induced prejudice

Our perception of someone's accent influences our expectations about what they might say or do. In this experiment, EEG data were recorded while participants listened to cliché sentences matching or not the stereotypes associated with the speaker's accent (upper-class Parisian accent or banlieue accent, a negatively connoted accent associated with youth from suburban areas; e.g. “I always listen to rap in my car” said with a banlieue accent (congruent) or an upper-class accent (incongruent)). Mismatches between social accent and stereotypical content triggered an event-related potential (ERP) known as the N400, albeit more anterior than the one observed for semantic violations, as well as a P3. These results are in line with other studies – conducted in particular with gender stereotypes – suggesting that stereotypes are stored in semantic categorical knowledge and that mismatches trigger integration difficulties and checking and updating mechanisms, and extend them to socially marked accents.