Intelligibility assessment of Japanese accents

Tsuzuki, Masako; Nakamura, Sachiko

doi:10.1075/veaw.g40.16tsu

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Tiff en (1974) studied the intelligibility of English spoken by educated Nigerian to British listeners. Suenobu et al (1992), Tsuzuki and Nakamura (2009) addressed the intelligibility of English spoken by Japanese university students to American listeners. Deterding and Kirkpatrick (2006) focused on the intelligibility of Southeast Asian Englishes, and identified some features of pronunciation that were contributing factors to misunderstanding.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Empirical Study on the Intelligibility of English Spoken by Chinese University Students

Zhang

2015

Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper reports an empirical study on the intelligibility of English spoken by Chinese University students, aiming to identify the factors that hamper intelligibility and suggest the pedagogical priorities in pronunciation teaching. The participants were 45 university sophomores, whose recorded data were transcribed and evaluated correspondingly by 45 educated listeners from 22 different countries. The results reveal that although the speakers' English may have strong accents, it is intelligible to international listeners to a great extent. Phonological problems that hamper intelligibility are vowel length and quality, simplification of diphthongs, voiced and voiceless plosives, dental fricative, word ending nasals, consonant clusters as well as stress, rhythm and intonation. Brought to you by | Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan Authenticated Download Date | 7/2/15 2:22 AM 37 ZHANG Lingli 37 ZHANG Lingliteaching of English worldwide, calling for a paradigm shift in approaches to English studies. A number of researchers also pointed out the limitations of existing approaches to the teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL), and advocated the teaching of English as a lingua franca (ELF; or English as an International Language, EIL) (e.g. Alsagoff, McKay, Hu & Renandy, 2012;Cook, 1999;Kirkpatrick, 2007;Mckay, 2002). Specifi cally, in the teaching of English pronunciation, Jenkins (2000) identifi ed the Lingua Franca Core, the pronunciation features which are central to intelligibility in ELF communication. Walker (2010) provided tenable ways of teaching pronunciation based on ELF in terms of teaching priorities, techniques, materials and assessment. Consensus has been reached that intelligibility instead of native speaker accent should be the goal of pronunciation teaching since it is of paramount importance for international communication (Jenkins, 2000;Levis, 2005;Walker, 2010;Wells, 2005).This study aimed to identify the main factors that hamper the intelligibility of English spoken by Chinese university students and suggest teaching priorities for English pronunciation classes in Chinese context. Brought to you by | Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan Authenticated Download Date | 7/2/15 2:22 AM 54 An Empirical Study on the Intelligibility of English Spoken by Chinese University Students

show abstract

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Empirical Study on the Intelligibility of English Spoken by Chinese University Students

Zhang

2015

Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Cruz (2005) showed how minimal pairs could illustrate meaning confusion derived from mispronunciation in Brazilian learners when producing English. Tsuzuki and Nakamura (2009) conducted a study in which they investigated the English intelligibility of Japanese learners. The results showed that three types of mispronunciation were found to seriously hinder intelligibility including mispronunciation in consonants (such as plosives and liquids), alternation of vowel lengths, and misplacement or absence of word stress.…”

Section: Issues In English Pronunciation: An Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Common mistakes in pronouncing English consonant clusters: A case study of Vietnamese learners

Tran¹,

Nguyen²

2022

CTUJS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Pronunciation plays a significant role in English teaching and learning around the world and this particular field has received much attention from several scholars. The study was conducted to investigate common mistakes made by Vietnamese university learners while pronouncing English consonant clusters. This is a quantitative study with the participation of 39 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. To collect data for the study, a pronunciation test was employed. The results show that the common mistakes made by the learners varied, depending on the types of consonant clusters. Specifically, clusters containing voiceless plosives led to the highest mispronunciation. There was also a tendency to simplify the complex clusters of three-consonant by deleting the first, second consonant, or in some cases, both. Accordingly, this study suggests pedagogical implications for teachers and learners in similar contexts in Vietnam in acquiring the pronunciation of English.

show abstract