Effects of accent, ethnicity, and lecture topic on undergraduates' perceptions of nonnative English-speaking teaching assistants

Rubin, Donald L.; Smith, Kim

doi:10.1016/0147-1767(90)90019-s

Cited by 193 publications

(142 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…In general, these studies confirm that 'nonstandard' accents are dispreferred (e.g., Lambert, 1967;Rubin & Smith, 1990), and that associations made based on foreign accent generally lead to the disfavoring ofthe speaker (Brennan & Brennan, 1981a;Brennan & Brennan, 1981b;Giles, 1971;Triandis, Loh & Levin, 1966), even to the point of disliking the speaker and discounting the speaker's message (Ryan, 1982). In fact, the expectation of a foreign accent based on the visual perception of foreignness is enough to trigger an anti-foreign bias and negatively affect comprehension, even where no foreign accent was in fact present (Rubin, 1992;Rubin & Smith, 1990). …”

Section: The Literature On Language Attitudes Toward Foreign-accentedsupporting

confidence: 53%

Measuring Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Toward Foreign Accented Speech

Pantos

2012

Journal of Language and Social Psychology

115

105

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Section: The Literature On Language Attitudes Toward Foreign-accentedsupporting

confidence: 53%

Measuring Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Toward Foreign Accented Speech

Pantos

2012

Journal of Language and Social Psychology

115

105

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“…The experiments described in these two sections used a number of different tasks to explore a range of linguistic phenomena that exhibit varying degrees of stereotyping. Given the documented effects of social and linguistic stereotypes on speech processing (Rubin and Smith 1990;Niedzielski 1999;Strand 1999;Hay and Drager 2010), further research is essential to disentangle the effects of these factors on facilitation vs. interference of multi-dialect exposure in speech processing. In an exemplar model, the competing linguistic representations would be realized with greater variance and potentially bimodal distributions of exemplars.…”

Section: Processing Costs Associated With Exposure To Multiple Varietiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sound change in the individual: Effects of exposure on cross-dialect speech processing

Clopper

2014

Laboratory Phonology

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Speech perception is highly robust to variation, but familiarity with a particular source of variation can nevertheless lead to significant processing benefits. In the domain of cross-dialect speech perception, familiar local and standard varieties have been shown to facilitate lexical and semantic processing relative to unfamiliar dialects. However, more recent research suggests that individuals with exposure to both a local non-standard variety and a regional or national standard variety exhibit a mix of lexical processing costs and benefits, suggesting that familiarity with multiple different linguistic systems can result in both independent processing benefits for each variety as well as competition among variable multi-dialect representations. In an exemplar model of language processing, this complex pattern of results suggests several loci for sound change within an individual language user. Although the processing benefits associated with the local variety may contribute to long-term maintenance of variation through divergence from a regional or national standard, the processing benefits associated with the standard may contribute to dialect leveling and convergence towards the standard. Competition between these forces for maintenance and leveling will be observed most strongly in individuals with extensive exposure to both a non-standard local variety and a regional or national standard.

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“…Gass and Varonis (1984) also found that familiarity with non-native speech in general facilitates comprehension (Gass & Varonis, 1984). Finally, it has been shown that students with more experience with international teaching assistants better understand accented speech (Rubin, 1992;Rubin & Smith, 1990).…”

Section: Rater Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Professional and non-professional raters’ responsiveness to fluency and accuracy in L2 speech: An experimental approach

2017

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It is general practice to use rater judgments in speaking proficiency testing. However, it has been shown that raters' knowledge and experience may influence their ratings, both in terms of leniency and varied focus on different aspects of speech.The purpose of this study is to identify raters' relative responsiveness to fluency and linguistic accuracy in an occupational context, and to investigate whether professional and non-professional raters with a broad exposure to L2 speech demonstrate similar responsiveness to these two aspects. To this end, an experimental approach was applied. Fluency and accuracy were separated and systematically manipulated. As it is known that foreign accentedness of speech influences raters' judgments, this factor was accounted for. Seventeen responses to a Dutch L2 exam in a vocational context were converted into four different versions manipulated for morphosyntactical accuracy and/or fluency, and read by a Dutch L2 actor, resulting in 68 stimuli. Fifty-five professional raters and 41 non-trained, potential stakeholders holistically rated all stimuli. All raters had extensive prior exposure to spoken L2 Dutch.Linear mixed modeling showed that improvement of either fluency or accuracy led to significantly higher ratings by both linguistically trained and non-trained raters. This finding confirms that both groups perceive these aspects to be important features of speaking proficiency. Raters seemed research-article2017Article 502 Language Testing 35(4)to be more responsive to improvement of accuracy than of fluency. The linguistically non-trained raters seemed to appreciate the fluency improvement more than linguistically trained raters. The linguistically trained raters rewarded morpho-syntactical improvement relatively higher than the non-trained raters. This latter effect was explained by the finding that the linguistically trained raters seemed to be more preoccupied with accuracy, according to their responses to a questionnaire. This result suggests that raters with linguistic expertise were more attentive to accuracy whereas non-trained raters were relatively more attentive to fluency.

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Effects of accent, ethnicity, and lecture topic on undergraduates' perceptions of nonnative English-speaking teaching assistants

Cited by 193 publications

References 5 publications

Measuring Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Toward Foreign Accented Speech

Measuring Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Toward Foreign Accented Speech

Sound change in the individual: Effects of exposure on cross-dialect speech processing

Professional and non-professional raters’ responsiveness to fluency and accuracy in L2 speech: An experimental approach

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