Tracey M. Derwing

Second Language Accent and Pronunciation Teaching: A Research-Based Approach

Empirical studies are essential to improving our understanding of the relationship between accent and pronunciation teaching. However, the study of pronunciation has been marginalized within the field of applied linguistics. As a result, teachers are often left to rely on their own intuitions with little direction. Although some instructors can successfully assist their students under these conditions, many others are reluctant to teach pronunciation. In this article we call for more research to enhance our knowledge of the nature of foreign accents and their effects on communication. Research of this type has much to offer to teachers and students in terms of helping them to set learning goals, identifying appropriate pedagogical priorities for the classroom, and determining the most effective approaches to teaching. We discuss these possibilities within a framework in which mutual intelligibility is the primary consideration, although social ramifications of accent must also be taken into account. We describe several problem areas and identify some misconceptions about pronunciation instruction. In addition, we make suggestions for future research that would address intelligibility, functional load, computer-assisted language learning, and the role of the listener. Finally, we recommend greater collaboration between researchers and practitioners, such that more classroomrelevant research is undertaken.

Processing time, accent, and comprehensibility in the perception of native and foreign-accented speech

In this study, a sentence verification task was used to determine the effect of a foreign accent on sentence processing time. Twenty native English listeners heard a set of English true/false statements uttered by ten native speakers of English and ten native speakers of Mandarin. The listeners assessed the truth value of the statements, and assigned accent and comprehensibility ratings. Response latency data indicated that the Mandarin-accented utterances required more time to evaluate than the utterances of the native English speakers. Furthermore, utterances that were assigned low comprehensibility ratings tended to take longer to process than moderately or highly comprehensible utterances. However, there was no evidence that degree of accent was related to processing time. The results are discussed in terms of the “costs” of speaking with a foreign accent, and the relevance of such factors as accent and comprehensibility to second language teaching.

Evidence in Favor of a Broad Framework for Pronunciation Instruction

We had native English-speaking (NS) listeners evaluate the effects of 3types of instruction (segmental accuracy; general speaking habits and prosodic factors; and nospecific pronunciation instruction) on the speech of 3 groups of English as a second language(ESL) learners. We recorded their sentences and extemporaneously produced narratives at thebeginning and end of a 12-week course of instruction. In a blind rating task, 48 native Englishlisteners judged randomized sentences for accentedness and comprehensibility. Six experiencedESL teachers evaluated narratives for accent, comprehensibility, and fluency. Although bothgroups instructed in pronunciation showed significant improvement in comprehensibility andaccentedness on the sentences, only the global group showed improvement in comprehensibilityand fluency in the narratives. We argue that the focus of instruction and the attentional demandson speakers and listeners account for these findings.

THE MUTUAL INTELLIGIBILITY OF L2 SPEECH

When understanding or evaluating foreign-accented speech, listeners are affected not only by properties of the speech itself but by their own linguistic backgrounds and their experience with different speech varieties. Given the latter influence, it is not known to what degree a diverse group of listeners might share a response to second language (L2) speech. In this study, listeners from native Cantonese, Japanese, Mandarin, and English backgrounds evaluated the same set of foreign-accented English utterances from native speakers of Cantonese, Japanese, Polish, and Spanish. Regardless of native language background, the listener groups showed moderate to high correlations on intelligibility scores and comprehensibility and accentedness ratings. Although some between-group differences emerged, the groups tended to agree on which of the 48 speakers were the easiest and most difficult to understand; between-group effect sizes were generally small. As in previous studies, the listeners did not consistently exhibit an intelligibility benefit for speech produced in their own accent. These findings support the view that properties of the speech itself are a potent factor in determining how L2 speech is perceived, even when the listeners are from diverse language backgrounds. This work was supported by two grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to the first two authors. The authors thank J. E. Flege and three anonymous SSLA reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of the paper as well as the listeners and speakers for their willingness to participate in the study. The listening stimuli used here were also used in a paper published in SSLA in 1997.

Putting accent in its place: Rethinking obstacles to communication

One of the most salient aspects of speech is accent – either dialectal differences attributable to region or class, or phonological variations resulting from L1 influence on the L2. Our primary concern is with the latter, because of the strong social, psychological, and communicative consequences of speaking with an L2 accent. The decline of audiolingualism led to a concomitant marginalization of pronunciation research and teaching. It was believed that pronunciation instruction could not be effective, in part because of the unrealistic goal of native-like speech in L2 learners, and also because of research findings that suggested that instruction had a negligible impact on oral production. The recent revival of interest in pronunciation research has brought a change of focus away from native-like models toward easy intelligibility. The effects of this change have yet to be fully realized in L2 classrooms. However, many L2 students themselves are keenly interested in pronunciation instruction, a fact not lost on individuals who have recognized a lucrative marketing niche in ‘accent reduction/elimination’ programs that may do more harm than good. Our presentation will relate the core issues of intelligibility, identity, social evaluation, and discrimination to appropriate pronunciation pedagogy for L2 learners.

The Effects of Speaking Rate on Listener Evaluations of Native and Foreign‐Accented Speech

This study tested the hypothesis that accented speech heard at a reduced rate would sound less accented and more comprehensible than speech produced at a normal rate. In 2 experiments, English native-speaker listeners rated a passage read by 10 high-proficiency Mandarin learners of English. In the first experiment, 20 listeners evaluated passages read slowly as more accented and less comprehensible than normal-rate passages. In the second experiment, in which a computer modified speaking rates, 20 new listeners preferred some speeded passages, but none of the slowed ones. Overall, the findings suggest that although native listeners may prefer to hear accented speech at slower rates, a general speaking strategy of slowing down may not help second language learners.

Teaching Native Speakers To Listen to Foreign-Accented Speech.

This study examined the effects of cross-cultural awareness training and explicit linguistic instruction on attitudes towards and comprehension of foreign-accented speech. One group of social work students received both types of instruction; another received only cross-cultural training, and a third group served as a control (they received no instruction but participated in the pre- and post-tests). Listening comprehension passages read in Vietnamese-accented speech before and after the eight-week instruction period and a sentence transcription task revealed no significant between-group differences. Attitude questionnaires indicated increased empathy for immigrants on the part of both experimental groups. The group that received explicit instruction regarding the characteristics of Vietnamese-accented English showed significantly greater improvement in confidence that they could interact successfully with individuals who speak English as a second language, while the group that received only cross-cultural awareness showed moderate gains. Similarly, the Accent-trained group believed that their ability to understand foreign accents improved as a result of instruction to a significantly greater degree than the other groups.

ESL learners' perceptions of their pronunciation needs and strategies

Abstract In this paper we examine the perceptions of 100 adult English as a second language (ESL) learners from a variety of first language backgrounds with regard to their pronunciation difficulties and the strategies they employ when they are faced with communication breakdown. The vast majority of pronunciation problems identified by students were segmental, yet their most commonly used strategies when they had not been understood were paraphrase, self-repetition, writing/spelling, and volume adjustment. Their responses were analysed according to first language groups and proficiency levels. Students were also asked to indicate whether their accents were affected by context, and whether or not they felt they had any control over their pronunciation. Those who reported being able to control their accents also recounted how they did so. The findings are discussed with reference to pronunciation instruction and commercially available resources most often used in ESL programs across Canada. The authors make recommendations for second language teachers, drawing on research in both the pronunciation and communicative strategy literatures.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN L1 FLUENCY AND L2 FLUENCY DEVELOPMENT

A fundamental question in the study of second language (L2) fluency is the extent to which temporal characteristics of speakers’ first language (L1) productions predict the same characteristics in the L2. A close relationship between a speaker’s L1 and L2 temporal characteristics would suggest that fluency is governed by an underlying trait. This longitudinal investigation compared L1 and L2 English fluency at three times over 2 years in Russian- and Ukrainian- (which we will refer to here as Slavic) and Mandarin-speaking adult immigrants to Canada. Fluency ratings of narratives by trained judges indicated a relationship between the L1 and the L2 in the initial stages of L2 exposure, although this relationship was found to be stronger in the Slavic than in the Mandarin learners. Pauses per second, speech rate, and pruned syllables per second were all related to the listeners’ judgments in both languages, although vowel durations were not. Between-group differences may reflect differential exposure to spoken English and a closer relationship between Slavic languages and English than between Mandarin and English. Suggestions for pedagogical interventions and further research are also proposed.

Evaluations of foreign accent in extemporaneous and read material

Previous research has yielded apparently contradictory evidence about whether the utterances of second language learners are likely to be perceived as more foreign accented when the speech material has been read or produced extemporaneously. One difficulty with some previous studies is that different test material was used under the two speaking conditions. It is possible that, in some studies, utterances read by L2 learners were evaluated as more accented than extemporaneous speech, not because speakers were unable to implement knowledge about individual segments or prosodic features when under pressure to read in the L2 (as has been supposed), but because of a higher frequency of errors or even a reduction in fluency as a result of less familiarity with vocabulary or syntactic structures, or a preponderance of relatively difficult phones in the reading material. In this study, native Mandarin speakers produced extemporaneous narratives and then read transcriptions of their own utterances. An analysis of accentedness ratings from native English judges revealed no advantage for the speakers in the extemporaneous speaking condition. However, evidence was obtained in support of the hypothesis that familiarity with particular non-native speech samples and/or speakers may lead to perceptions of greater foreign- accentedness.