Evaluation of speakers with foreign-accented speech in Japan: the effect of accent produced by English native speakers

Abstract

Foreign-accented speakers are generally regarded as less educated, less reliable and less interesting than native speakers and tend to be associated with cultural stereotypes of their country of origin. This discrimination against foreign accents has, however, been discussed mainly using accented English AQ1 in English-speaking countries. This study investigates the attitudes of Japanese people towards foreign-accented Japanese and their difference depending on the area of their residency, which will provide a valuable comparison to previous studies on the attitude towards foreign accent. Two groups of participants, one living in a metropolitan area and the other in a rural area, listened to a short Japanese passage spoken by Japanese native speakers and non-native (native English) speakers, and evaluated what they thought of each speaker's likely personality, job and social status. The participants rated native speakers higher than non-native speakers in competence and integrity, and rated both types of speakers equally only in social attractiveness. The results show that despite some admiration of and respect for western culture in Japanese society, when their judgement is based on auditory speech, Japanese participants evaluate fluent native speakers of Japanese more favourably than foreign-accented speakers.

Attitudes to English teachers' accents in the Gulf

“…Adults tend to continue to give preferential social ratings to their own native accent (Lambert et al. ; Tsurutani ); this can mean distinguishing between localised varieties of the same language. For instance, in Abrams and Hogg's () study investigating listeners' attribution of social and status values to two Scottish and one RP‐accented speaker, Scottish listeners rated the in‐group accent (Dundee) more highly in opposition to a Glasgow accent, but this in turn received higher ratings when compared to the RP‐accented speaker.…”

The Reference Frame Effect: An Intergroup Perspective on Language Attitudes

“…People often make assumptions about and attribute to others various traits simply based on how they speak. Indeed, research on the social evaluation of speech styles, or language attitudes, has shown that the use of particular languages, dialects, and accents can have significant consequences for users of those forms (see Dovidio & Gluszek, 2010, 2012Giles & Marlow, 2011;Giles & Watson, 2013). Language attitudes have been theorized to result from two sequential cognitive processes: identification and stereotyping (e.g., Lambert, 1967;Ryan, 1983).…”

Influence of generational cohort and experience with non-native speakers on evaluation of speakers with foreign-accented speech

“…A perception test of the same format as that used in the current study was conducted with university students from two areas in 2010 (Tsurutani 2012). The group who resided in the metropolitan area were chosen for comparison since some members of this group had contact with foreign students.…”

“…In this study, people from older generations participated in the same perception test as that completed by university in the previous study (Tsurutani 2012). Due to the age of participants, they may differ in terms of life experiences, and such differences may result in considerable variety in their views.…”