Nativeness perception and speaker voice as predictors of (non-)native English speaker evaluations in four ELF contexts

Abstract

We investigated to what extent responses (N=6617) by four non-native English listener groups (The Netherlands: n=1701; Germany: n=1606; Spain: n=1647; Singapore: n=1663) assigned nativeness to standard, native British and American English accents, compared with a typical Dutch English accent. We assessed to what extent assigned nativeness impacted speaker evaluations (status, affect, dynamism), and to what extent a speaker's voice influenced speaker evaluations by analyzing listener responses to verbal and matched guises. Results showed that perceptions of a speaker's nativeness significantly impacted speaker evaluations on all dimensions, and therefore we conclude that speaker evaluations are also based on perceptions of the nativeness of a speaker. In addition, speaker evaluations were influenced by a speaker's voice to such an extent that this can lead to significantly more positive/negative speaker evaluations of both native and non-native English speakers. Finally, this study confirms the relevance and superiority of the matched-guise technique in accentedness research, compared with the verbal-guise technique, since the former successfully minimizes the actual impact of voice.