Attitudes Towards Accented Speech

This study investigated the attitudes of Native and Non-Native Speakers towards non-native accents of English. The providers of the non-native accents were 8 second language speakers of English of Eastern European, Latino, South-East Asian and Arabic first languages, including 4 males and 4 females. The participants were 32 Native Speakers of General American English and 39 Non-Native Speakers from East and South-East Asia. The instrument included bi-polar adjective scales, divided into two main factors, Manner of Speaking and The Speaker, as well as Likert scale and open-ended questions about the importance of pronunciation and structure in the acquisition of a second language. The data were analyzed through univariate and multivariate analyses of variance and content analyses. The results revealed quantitative and qualitative differences between the Native Speakers and the Non-Native Speakers in their attitudes to and perceptions of non-native accents of English. The Non-Native Speakers showed a significantly more positive attitude to the non-native accents of English, as well as a high awareness of the difficulties involved in acquiring a non-native accent. The effect of Gender was slightly significant, as the Female subjects revealed a more positive attitude to four of the eight non-native x gender accents. There were also interesting Nationality and Gender related differences regarding the most liked and the least liked individual accents. The findings are interpreted in view of the familiarity principle in light of language typology, second language learning experience, gender and ethnic empathy. Factors of socio-political nature were associated with negative familiarity, mainly observed on the Latino and Arab Male accents.

This research is on foreign accents. The researcher-authora non-native fluent English speaker discovered through a lit-review that all people speak in accent. This research focused on attitudinal self-accented speech perceptions of Kisii-Kenyans in the USA and further investigated what North American English (NAE) speakers perceptions are toward the Kisii-Kenyan accentedness. Two groups participated in this study. First, college educated Kisii-Kenyan adults, and second, NAE speakers participated in the study. A likert scale type of questionnaire was used to collect data from the first group and was analyzed for result. The second group listened to speech clips from two Kisii-Kenyan volunteers and hence assessed their accentedness and intelligibility. The findings revealed Kisii-Kenyans perceptions of themselves as confident and positive in their accented English speech. On the American perceptions it is not conclusive, and the assessments do not reveal any validity of judging Kisii-Kenyans as incomprehensible and unintelligible.

There is a consistent stigma associated with nonstandard U.S. English accents, and language attitude studies have documented that both standard and nonstandard dialect speakers rate speakers of nonstandard accents lower than standard-accented speakers on a variety of personality characteristics. Whether nonnative speakers of English share these negative assessments of nonstandard accents is not clear. The present study investigates the attitudes of native as well as nonnative speakers of English toward various regional and social U.S. English accents and if length of stay in the U.S. has an effect on nonnative speakers' adopting language stereotypes similar to native speakers. Finally, the study seeks to determine if the subjects can correctly identify the accents and if identification has an effect on ratings for nonnative speakers. Three U.S. English accents, Midwestern, Southern, and African American Vernacular English (AAVE) were evaluated using a 7-point Likert scale by three groups of raters. The groups were native speakers of English, nonnative speakers of English present in the U.S. for six months or less, and nonnative speakers of English present in the U.S. between two and six years. After rating the speakers, the raters attempted to identify the accents of the speakers. The results showed that all three groups of raters evaluated the Midwestern-accented speech highest on all pairs of characteristics. Both groups of nonnative speakers had similar ratings to native speakers for Midwestern speech, only nonnative speakers in the U.S. for two or more years had similar ratings to native speakers for the Southern speech. Both groups of nonnative speakers rated AAVE-accented speech lower than native speakers. Nonnative speakers were less successful in identifying Midwestern and Southern-accented English, but were more successful in identifying AAVE-accented English. Skill at identification had little correlation to attitudes expressed by nonnative speakers. The results indicate that time spent in the U.S. is not a factor in adopting the notion of a prestige variety for nonnative speakers. The results also indicate that nonnative speakers become more sensitive to regional accents with extended time in the U.S., but that time is not a factor in nonnative speakers' developing bias toward social accents.

Increasing numbers of Latino immigrants continue to enter the United States. Many people have strong feelings about Spanish and Spanish-accented speech, and they believe that these immigrants should learn to speak English as soon as possible. This has given rise to official English bills at both the state and federal levels. This study investigates the attitudes that Iowans have toward Spanish-accented English and how these attitudes relate to language and political issues in Iowa. The study examines three questions: (1) Do native English speaking Iowa university students react more negatively to accented English as opposed to non-accented English? (2) Are native Spanish speakers more likely to be assigned certain negative characteristics (according to native English speaking Iowans) than native English speakers or other non-native English speakers? (3) Do native English speaking Iowans react more negatively to accented English when they hold negative opinions toward immigration and cultural diversity in Iowa? Twenty-six native English-speaking Iowa State University students who were long-time Iowa residents were surveyed about their opinions on language and political issues in Iowa, and their reactions to speech samples by native English speakers, native Spanish speakers, and other non-native English speakers and evaluated them on several characteristic scales. The data were analyzed using the Wilcoxon rank sums test on the SAS system. The results showed that the evaluators reacted more negatively to accented speech, especially the Spanish-accented speech. The native Spanish speakers were assigned negative characteristics, such as unintelligent and unreliable, more often than the other non-native English speakers and the native English speakers. The results for the third research question were mixed. They seemed to show some correlations between attitudes toward language and political issues and attitudes toward accent for the other non-native English speakers. However, the results also appeared to reveal a clear distinction between the attitudes of the higher-bias group and the lower-bias group.

To what extent do our accents determine the way we are perceived by others? Is a foreign accent inevitably associated with social stigma? Accent is a matter of great public interest given the impact of migration on national and global affairs, but until now, applied linguistics research has treated accent largely as a theoretical puzzle. In this fascinating account, Alene Moyer examines the social, psychological, educational and legal ramifications of sounding 'foreign'. She explores how accent operates contextually through analysis of issues such as: the neuro-cognitive constraints on phonological acquisition, individual factors that contribute to the 'intractability' of accent, foreign accent as a criterion for workplace discrimination, and the efficacy of instruction for improving pronunciation. This holistic treatment of second language accent is an essential resource for graduate students and researchers interested in applied linguistics, bilingualism and foreign language education.