This paper reports on a study into the reactions of 'native' speakers of British English to Dutch-English pronunciations in the onset of a telephone sales talk. In an experiment 144 highly educated British professionals who were either familiar or not familiar with Dutch-accented English responded to a slight Dutch English accent, a moderate Dutch English accent or a 'Standard British English accent' (BrE). These accents were rated on the personality traits status and affect, on their intelligibility (orthographic transcription), comprehensibility (identification of key words), and interpretability (paraphrasing the purpose of the message). Although British English was more intelligible and comprehensible than both Dutch English accents, all three accents were equally interpretable. The results indicated that a British English pronunciation evoked more status than both Dutch English accents, and both British English and the slight Dutch English accent commanded more affect than the moderate Dutch English accent.
This paper reports on a between subject experiment inwhich the attitudes of 144 highly educated British professionals towards Dutch-accented English and RP were measured. Half of the respondents were familiar with Dutch English, and half unfamiliar. The test items consisted of samples of RP, moderately Dutch-English and lightly Dutch-English accents. Respondents were asked to rate one of the samples on a number of personality traits. An analysis of these traits rates showed a resolution into two factors: STATUS and AFFECT. RP speakers were assigned more Status than both Dutch accents. RP speakers and slightly accented Dutch-English speakers commanded more Affect than moderately accented Dutch English speakers. In addition, respondents unfamiliar with Dutch English had a more positive attitude towards speakers with a moderate Dutch English accent than respondents familiar with Dutch English and the latter assigned a lower affect to RP speakers than the former.
Although the model of English pronunciation in Dutch schools is, and always has been, British English (commonly known as Received Pronunciation, RP), not only teachers, but also informed laymen notice that the pronunciation of learners seems to be more and more influenced by American English. An investigation into the nature and spread of this influence therefore seems in order. This paper discusses some of the preliminary results of a research project which aims to give an inventory and description of the influence of American English (General American, GA) on the pronunciation of 10 phonological variables, among which are /æ/ in words like classroom and wineglass, and flapped /t/ in words like pretty and meeting. A second aim of the project is to find out to which the degree the American and British varieties are attractive to our population. Therefore a number of listening tests were administered: - a preference test, in which subjects had to indicate which pronunciation of a lexical item they thought (a) best (i.e. confirm to the school norm) and (b) they would prefer to use themselves. - an identification test, in which subjects had to indicate whether an item was pronounced in RP or in GA. - a matched guise test consisting of 12 versions of the same story, read by 8 speakers, 4 of them in both varieties. A preliminary inventory shows that in roughly 25% of all the pronunciations of single lexical items (word list style) we can speak of an 'American-like' pronunciaton. The variables that are pronounced most frequently GA-like are flapped /t/ in little, /æ/ in classroom, /a/ in hockey and postvocalic /r/ in morning. It also appears that RP is still the preferred variety on both the preference tests, although this preference decreases slightly when asked which pronunciation they would prefer to use themselves. Roughly 65% of the items was correctly identified as being RP or GA. Finally, the matched guise test showed a significantly high rating of GA female voices on all factors except for the factor 'school-norm'. RP males and females scored relatively high on this factor as well as on 'social status', but dropped considerably on the 'activity' factor and remained below the GA voices on 'personal affect'.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.