Reliably Biased: The Role of Listener Expectation in the Perception of Second Language Speech

Lindemann, Stephanie; Subtirelu, Nicholas Close

doi:10.1111/lang.12014

Cited by 54 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 84 publications

(121 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Despite claiming to want a NES teacher and to aspire to a NES accent, Omani students are receptive to other accents and appreciate highly proficient NNESTs. Didactic materials need to acknowledge this by providing greater exposure to competent NNES users in different social and professional contexts (Kubota ; Decke‐Cornill ; Jenkins ; Kirkpatrick ; Lindemann and Subtirelu ); for the Gulf market in particular, listening materials need to include exposure to proficient, accented English as spoken by NSs of South Asian languages, Arabic and Kiswahili. The inclusion of such accents in commercially produced material would likely give greater validation to competent users of English within the immediate local community and wider region.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Social information such as nationality or ethnic group (Al‐Kahtany ; Ladegaard ), age (Hay, Warren, and Drager ) educational background and economic status (Ryan and Bulik ) attributed (correctly or incorrectly) to the speaker may mediate how a speaker's accent is perceived (Lindemann and Subtirelu ). Such attributions and the resulting perceptions of a speaker's accent have social outcomes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Attitudes to English teachers' accents in the Gulf

Buckingham

2014

Int J App Linguistics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

While the spread of English as a lingua franca has led to calls for multidialectal competence, EFL learners often still consider inner circle native English speaker (NES) pronunciation as their learning goal, and may profess a preference for particular teachers based on their NES or non-native English speaker (NNES) status. This study investigates whether a teacher's NES/NNES status may affect Omani students' level of confidence towards the teacher. Using an adapted matched-guise technique with almost 350 students, the study reveals a preference for speakers and accents students understand to be from the UK, although students also responded favourably to Arabic native speakers. Where the NES/NNES variable remained constant, no significant difference in student's ratings of the teacher was found. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes to English teachers' accents in the Gulf

Buckingham

2014

Int J App Linguistics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…From the literature on social psychology (Brown et al., ; Krauss & Pardo, ), we know that listeners assess the speech of others on an everyday basis. People make attributions about speakers’ social status, background, and even physical properties (Krauss et al., ; Krauss & Pardo, ; Lindemann & Subtirelu, ). Our results show that individual differences between native speakers in their production of disfluencies carry consequences for listeners’ perceptions of a native speaker's fluency level.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Perception of Fluency in Native and Nonnative Speech

et al. 2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Where native speakers supposedly are fluent by default, nonnative speakers often have to strive hard to achieve a nativelike fluency level. However, disfluencies (such as pauses, fillers, repairs, etc.) occur in both native and nonnative speech and it is as yet unclear how fluency raters weigh the fluency characteristics of native and nonnative speech. Two rating experiments compared the way raters assess the fluency of native and nonnative speech. The fluency characteristics were controlled by using phonetic manipulations in pause (Experiment 1) and speed characteristics (Experiment 2). The results show that the ratings of manipulated native and nonnative speech were affected in a similar fashion. This suggests that there is no difference in the way listeners weigh the fluency characteristics of native and nonnative speakers.

show abstract

“…Social biases clearly intervene in the perception of accents (Lindemann and Subtirelu 2013). Listeners may assign lower ratings to their own accent vis-à-vis other accents considered to hold greater social prestige (Bayard et al 2001).…”

Section: Perceptions Of Accentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recognising English accents in the community: Omani students' accent preferences and perceptions of nativeness

Buckingham

2014

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Previous research has revealed that although EFL students may claim to prefer British/US accents they often have difficulty identifying them, especially when such accents may differ from 'standard' accents presented in ELT materials. In the Gulf, English is widely used as a lingua franca or as a second language by the large expatriate workforce. Particular accents in English characteristic for L1 speakers of Arabic or South Asian languages are commonly heard in the education and service sectors. This study investigates whether Omani university students are able to distinguish between native English speaker (NES) and non-native English speaker NNES EFL teachers' accents commonly heard in their educational context and their evaluations of these accents as pedagogical models. Specifically, the study seeks to ascertain whether a relationship exists between students' assumptions regarding the NES status of an EFL teacher and their evaluations of the teacher's accent as a suitable model for pronunciation. Results show that, in most cases, a moderate to strong correlation exists between these two variables, particularly among students who claim that having a NES teacher is desirable for the purpose of improving pronunciation

show abstract

Reliably Biased: The Role of Listener Expectation in the Perception of Second Language Speech

Cited by 54 publications

References 84 publications

Attitudes to English teachers' accents in the Gulf

Attitudes to English teachers' accents in the Gulf

The Perception of Fluency in Native and Nonnative Speech

Recognising English accents in the community: Omani students' accent preferences and perceptions of nativeness

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About