Refinement of the matched-guise technique for the study of the effect of non-native accents compared to native accents

Nejjari, Warda; Gerritsen, Marinel; Hout, R.W.N.M. van; Planken, Brigitte

doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2018.12.001

Cited by 12 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The advantage of this technique over authentic lecture fragments is that it enables researchers to tightly control factors other than accent strength, such as different content. We opted for a verbal rather than a matched guise technique (Lambert, Hodgson, Gardner & Fillenbaum, 1960), in which one and the same speaker produces all the different accent varieties under investigation, because there are very few speakers who can, convincingly, produce different non-native accent strengths in addition to a native accent (Dalton-Puffer et al, 1997;Garrett, 2010;Nejjari, Gerritsen, van Hout & Planken, 2019).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of lecturers’ non-native accent strength in English on intelligibility and attitudinal evaluations by native and non-native English students

Hendriks

Meurs

Usmany

2021

Language Teaching Research

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The rapid spread of English medium instruction (EMI) across the globe has led to a growing number of non-native lecturers teaching in English to student populations that are increasingly international. The aim of the present study was to investigate to what extent lecturers with slight or moderate Dutch accents or native British English accents are evaluated differently in terms of intelligibility, comprehensibility and attitudinal impressions by non-native and native English-speaking listeners. In an experiment, 189 Dutch listeners, 175 international non-native listeners and 158 native English listeners evaluated fragments recorded by moderately accented Dutch, slightly accented Dutch and native English speakers. Findings showed that the moderately non-native accented lecturers were evaluated more negatively than lecturers with slight or native accents by both Dutch and international non-native listeners, but not by native English listeners. This suggests that non-native listeners evaluate the accents of non-native lecturers according to native speaker pronunciation norms.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of lecturers’ non-native accent strength in English on intelligibility and attitudinal evaluations by native and non-native English students

Hendriks

Meurs

Usmany

2021

Language Teaching Research

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“…To avoid participants responding to the voice characteristics of individual speakers, a matched-guise speaker was selected to produce the three accents (see S1 matched-guise speaker speech samples). The matched-guise speaker, who was a native speaker of Dutch, had been assessed in an earlier speech evaluation experiment [82], which showed that he could produce the three accents under study that represented the independent variable accent: (1) standard British English, (2) standard American English, and (3) the typical English accent of highly educated L1 speakers of Dutch. In the current study, the standard accents of British [83].…”

Section: Speakers: Matched-guise Speaker Control and Filler Speakersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We included speech samples from six male control speakers as stimuli to prevent listeners from deducing that the study was focused on the matched-guise speaker: two L1 speakers of standard British English, two L1 speakers of standard American English, and two L1 speakers of Dutch who have a typical Dutch accent in English (see S1 control speech samples). All but one (a Dutch-accented control) had been assessed by L1 speakers of English as having a representative accent in our previous study [see 82]. However, the Dutch-accented English control speaker who was not assessed was regarded by experienced linguists as a representative speaker of Dutch-accented English.…”

Section: Speakers: Matched-guise Speaker Control and Filler Speakersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One further speaker produced a speech sample in a standard British English accent that was presented to listeners at the beginning of the experiment (the filler speech sample; see S1 filler speech sample) to familiarize them with the task. This filler speaker had also been assessed in our earlier study as an L1 and standard speaker of British English [82]. All speakers were aged 35 to 60 at the time of recording, had at least a master's degree, and were English language and/or linguistics specialists in some capacity.…”

Section: Speakers: Matched-guise Speaker Control and Filler Speakersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Where does a ‘foreign’ accent matter? German, Spanish and Singaporean listeners’ reactions to Dutch-accented English, and standard British and American English accents

et al. 2020

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How well L2 English is understood and how L2 English speakers perceive one another within varying communication contexts has been studied relatively rarely, even though most speakers of English in the world are L2 speakers. In this matched-guise experiment (N = 1699) the effects of L1 and L2 English accents and communication context were tested on speech understandability (intelligibility, comprehensibility, interpretability) and speaker evaluations (status, affect, dynamism). German (N = 617), Spanish (N = 540), and Singaporean listeners (N = 542) were asked to evaluate three accents (Dutch-accented English, standard British English, standard American English) in three communication contexts (Lecture, Audio Tour, Job Pitch). The main finding is that the Dutch-accented English accent was understood as well as the two L1 English accents. Furthermore, Dutch-accented English evoked equally positive evaluations to the two L1 English accents in German listeners, and more positive evaluations than the two L1 English accents in Spanish and Singaporean listeners. These results suggest that accent training aimed at achieving an L1 English accent may not always be necessary for (Dutch) English language learners, especially when they are expected to mostly interact with other L2 speakers of English. More generally, our results indicate that L2 English speakers' understanding and their evaluation of L1 and L2 Englishes would not seem to reflect traditional language norms. Instead, they seem to reflect the socio-cultural embedding of a language norm in a Lingua Franca English speech community that does not view accent varieties as a hindrance to successful communication.

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“…La lecture naturelle est utilisée dans la plupart des études récentes utilisant cette méthode (p. ex. Nejjari et al, 2019), puisqu'elle permet de s'assurer que les différences dans l'évaluation des locuteurs sont liées seulement à leur prononciation et non au contenu du message (Avanzi et Boula de Mareüil, 2017 : 23). Les stimuli étaient d'une durée moyenne de 30 secondes et ont été présentés aux juges de manière aléatoire.…”

Section: Choix Et Présentation Des Stimuliunclassified

À la rencontre des voix francophones dans la ville de Québec : les attitudes des Québécois à l’égard de diverses variétés de français

2020

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Le Québec mise actuellement sur un accroissement des communautés immigrantes francophones pour faire face au vieillissement de la population et pour combler une rareté de main-d’oeuvre. Ainsi, des villes traditionnellement homogènes, comme la ville de Québec, voient leur paysage ethnoculturel se diversifier considérablement et rapidement, ce qui donne lieu à des débats sur la diversité culturelle grandissante et la place de l’immigration. Dans ce contexte, il importe de documenter les attitudes, positives ou négatives, de ses habitants à l’égard des variétés de français parlées par les nouveaux arrivants, marquées par un accent francophone étranger. Pour ce faire, nous utilisons une méthodologie inspirée du test du locuteur masqué, combinée avec un questionnaire, afin de faire évaluer la personnalité, les compétences, la compréhensibilité, la correction de la prononciation des locuteurs francophones ainsi que la volonté de nos participants d’établir des liens avec ces derniers dans un contexte amical, professionnel et public. Les résultats montrent que les attitudes sont généralement positives, mais qu’elles changent en fonction de la variété, et que les voix les mieux évaluées sont celles des Québécois.

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Refinement of the matched-guise technique for the study of the effect of non-native accents compared to native accents

Cited by 12 publications

References 28 publications

The effects of lecturers’ non-native accent strength in English on intelligibility and attitudinal evaluations by native and non-native English students

The effects of lecturers’ non-native accent strength in English on intelligibility and attitudinal evaluations by native and non-native English students

Where does a ‘foreign’ accent matter? German, Spanish and Singaporean listeners’ reactions to Dutch-accented English, and standard British and American English accents

À la rencontre des voix francophones dans la ville de Québec : les attitudes des Québécois à l’égard de diverses variétés de français

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