Learners’ views of (non)native speaker status, accent, and identity: an English as an international language perspective

Abstract

The study examines perceptions of nonnative speakers (NNSs) of English toward accented speech and its relation with identity from the perspective of English as an international language (EIL). The data were collected from 51 Iranian EFL learners by means of questionnaires and interviews. The findings revealed the participants’ considerable uncertainty concerning the relationship between accent and socioeconomic and educational status as well as their reluctance to display their L1 identity through L1-accented speech. Furthermore, the results indicated that the participants are highly appreciative of NS accent, hold negative stereotypes of NNS accents and judge NNSs unfavorably. They exhibited a marked tendency to sound similar to NSs, regarding them as the best model of English accent to follow. The participants’ negative evaluations of NNSs’ accents of English are evidence of the dominance of Inner Circle speakers’ norms among the Expanding Circle speakers with implications for learning and teaching English as an international language.

English as an International Language: Perceptions of EFL Preservice Teachers in Higher Education Institutions in Indonesia

“…Moreover, Indonesia is a country rich in linguistic superdiversity with a complex linguistic ecosystem [30]; thus, multilingual connection across societies is prevalent in the country, as it is in African countries [31]. However, this finding also contradicts previous findings that EFL preservice teachers deem native speaker accents of English, e.g., British English, American English, Australian English, are more appropriate and acceptable for worldwide communication [32,33] and native speakers of English as more ideal teachers in English language teach-ing with authentic materials from inner circle countries [12,22].…”

Exploring Indonesian Learners’ Attitudes and Beliefs toward English Accents: A Case Study in an Indonesian University

“…These results show a shift of how NNESs' accent is perceived by Indonesian NNESs. This shift was not apparent in some investigations of NNESs' perceptions toward NESs' and NNESs' accents (see Huang and Hashim, 2019;Sa'd, 2018;Tsang, 2019). In Huang and Hashim's investigation (2019), the RP and GA were perceived as far superior to NNESs' and their own accent.…”

“…Chan (2015), for example, recorded negative views held by Cantonese university learners toward their local English accent. In a similar vein, Sa'd (2018) found that Iranian EFL learners 'refuse to display their identities through L1 accents'.…”

“…In the context of ELT, the positive evaluation is dominantly addressed to native speakers' variations (Moradkhani & Asakereh, 2018), and retention toward varieties other than these two varieties is still prevalent in classroom practices (Kirkpatrick, 2006;Sadeghpour &Sharifian, 2019). In a similar vein, several studies show that learners coming from the expanding circle countries still see the NS's accents as a norm to conform (Sa'd, 2018). Regarding the perception toward learners' own accents, however, some research indicates that there is a shift ranging from an ambivalent attitude (Ishikawa, 2017) to recognition that NS's accent is not the norm in international communication (Kung, 2018).…”

Perceptions of Dominance in English as an International Language (EIL) Pedagogy

“…Learners highly appreciate NS accent, tend to have negative stereotypes about NNS accents, and critically evaluate NNSs. Therefore, these learners are noticeably inclined to sound like NSs (Sa'd, 2018). Most of the time, learners "rate NNSs' foreign-accented speech unfavorably" despite adequate intelligibility because of inherently biased attitudes (Kim, 2008), whereas the main concern should be communication, understanding, and mutual intelligibility.…”