Accent and Second Language Listening Comprehension

Tauroza, Steve; Luk, Jasmine

doi:10.1177/003368829702800104

Cited by 77 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 20 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, those who, with Hung, propose that we view Hong Kong English as a legitimate 'new variety' (Bolton, 2000(Bolton, , 2002Bolton & Lim, 2002) appear unaware of the work on attitudes to the accent by Luk (1998) and Tauroza and Luk (1997). In these studies it was found that Hong Kong children rated their own accent lower than RP in all ratings concerned with professionalism, attractiveness and even empathy.…”

Section: Sociolinguistic Considerations: Attitudes Towards the Hong Kmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Spoken English of Hong Kong: A Study of Co-occurring Segmental Errors

Stibbard¹

2004

Language, Culture and Curriculum

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There is broad agreement as to many of the segmental features of the Hong Kong accent of English: neutralisation of vowels which contrast in Standard Southern British English or General American, non-release of final stops, simplification of consonant clusters and devoicing of coda consonants. However, while it is apparent that there is no reason why these features should not co-occur within single words, such co-occurrences have not been identified in previous studies, perhaps because treatments of HK pronunciation have generally used lists of words and have thus elicited atypically careful pronunciation. The connected speech data used in the present study indicates that findings from word lists may not apply to more naturalistic speech. In this study, speakers produced many words with more than one segment sounding like another English phoneme, sometimes affecting all the segments of a word. Although overt signs of misunderstanding hardly arose, this indicates merely that the lack of such overt signals is no sign of acceptability. Arguments that Hong Kong English pronunciation should be viewed as 'phonological' in its own right are rejected as inappropriate, both on grounds that this interpretation is not supported by the phonetics of the data, and more conclusively on sociolinguistic grounds.

show abstract

Section: Sociolinguistic Considerations: Attitudes Towards the Hong Kmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Spoken English of Hong Kong: A Study of Co-occurring Segmental Errors

Stibbard¹

2004

Language, Culture and Curriculum

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Rather, it is familiarity based on previous exposure to the accent that dictates comprehension (Smith and Bisazza 1982;Ortmeyer and Boyle 1985;Tauroza and Luk 1997). Harding's (2011) study took this body of research a step further by investigating possible factors that impact comprehension of unfamiliar accents.…”

Section: Effects Of Accent Familiarity On Listening Comprehensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From One to Multiple Accents on a Test of L2 Listening Comprehension

Ockey

French

2014

Applied Linguistics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Concerns about the need for assessing multidialectal listening skills for global contexts are becoming increasingly prevalent. However, the inclusion of multiple accents on listening assessments may threaten test fairness because it is not practical to include every accent that may be encountered in the language use domain on these tests. Given this dilemma, this study aimed to determine the extent to which accent strength and familiarity affect comprehension and to provide a defensible direction for assessing multidialectal listening comprehension. A strength of accent scale was developed, and one US, four Australian, and four British English speakers of English were selected based on a judgment of their strength of accent. Next, TOEFL test takers (N = 21,726) were randomly assigned to listen to a common lecture given by one of the nine selected speakers, and respond to six comprehension items and a survey designed to assess their familiarity with various accents. The results suggest that strength of accent and familiarity do affect listening comprehension, and these factors affect comprehension even with quite light accents. AbstractConcerns about the need for assessing multidialectal listening skills for global contexts are

show abstract

“…Research has shown that familiarity with a particular accent makes that type of accented speech easier to understand than speech with an unfamiliar accent (Gass & Varonis, 1984;Major, Fitzmaurice, Bunta, & Balasubramanian, 2002;Tauroza & Luk, 1997). This may be because "the phonetic characteristics of foreign-accented speech are highly systematic and quite consistent across talkers from the same native language background" (Bradlow & Bent, 2008, p. 708).…”

Section: Accent Familiarity and Ratingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Relationship Between Raters' Prior Language Study and the Evaluation of Foreign Language Speech Samples

Winke

Gass

Myford

2011

ETS Research Report Series

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study investigated whether raters' second language (L2) background and the first language (L1) of test takers taking the TOEFL iBT® Speaking test were related through scoring. After an initial 4‐hour training period, a group of 107 raters (mostly of learners of Chinese, Korean, and Spanish), listened to a selection of 432 speech samples that 72 test takers (native speakers of Chinese, Korean, and Spanish) produced. We analyzed the rating data using a multifaceted Rasch measurement approach to uncover potential biases in the rating process. In addition, 26 of the raters participated in stimulated recall sessions, during which they watched videos of themselves rating. Using the video as a prompt, we asked them to discuss and explain their rating processes at the time of rating. The results from our bias interaction analyses revealed that matches between the raters' L2 and the test takers' L1 resulted in some of the raters assigning ratings that were significantly higher than expected. As a whole, raters with Spanish as an L2 were significantly more lenient toward test takers who had Spanish as an L1, and raters with Chinese as an L2 were significantly more lenient toward test takers who had Chinese as an L1. Analyses of the qualitative data, assisted by the program QSR NVivo 8, revealed information concerning the raters' awareness of their biases.

show abstract

Accent and Second Language Listening Comprehension

Cited by 77 publications

References 20 publications

The Spoken English of Hong Kong: A Study of Co-occurring Segmental Errors

The Spoken English of Hong Kong: A Study of Co-occurring Segmental Errors

From One to Multiple Accents on a Test of L2 Listening Comprehension

The Relationship Between Raters' Prior Language Study and the Evaluation of Foreign Language Speech Samples

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About