TY - JOUR
T1 - Relative salience of suprasegmental features on judgments of L2 comprehensibility and accentedness
AU - Kang, Okim
N1 - Funding Information: The study was conducted with partial funding from the Spaan Foundation at the University of Michigan English Language Institute Testing and Certification Division . The authors express appreciation to Emily Gung for assistance with online data collection and to Lucy Pickering for assistance in computer assisted speech analysis.
PY - 2010/6
Y1 - 2010/6
N2 - Suprasegmentals have been emphasized in ESL/EFL pedagogy since the advent of communicative language teaching. However, it is still unclear how individual suprasegmental features affect listeners' judgments of non-native speakers' accented speech. The current study began to specify relative weights of individual temporal and prosodic features for listeners' judgments on L2 comprehensibility and accentedness. Using the PRAAT computer program, 5 min of continuous in-class lectures from 11 international teaching assistants (ITAs) were acoustically analyzed for measures of speech rate, pauses, stress, and pitch range. Fifty eight US undergraduate students evaluated the ITAs' oral performance and commented on their ratings. The results revealed that suprasegmental features independently contributed to listeners' perceptual judgments. Accent ratings were best predicted by pitch range and word stress measures whereas comprehensibility scores were mostly associated with speaking rates. ITAs' acoustic profiles as well as listeners' comments on their rating offer practical implications to ITA program developers, ESL teachers, and future research in accented speech.
AB - Suprasegmentals have been emphasized in ESL/EFL pedagogy since the advent of communicative language teaching. However, it is still unclear how individual suprasegmental features affect listeners' judgments of non-native speakers' accented speech. The current study began to specify relative weights of individual temporal and prosodic features for listeners' judgments on L2 comprehensibility and accentedness. Using the PRAAT computer program, 5 min of continuous in-class lectures from 11 international teaching assistants (ITAs) were acoustically analyzed for measures of speech rate, pauses, stress, and pitch range. Fifty eight US undergraduate students evaluated the ITAs' oral performance and commented on their ratings. The results revealed that suprasegmental features independently contributed to listeners' perceptual judgments. Accent ratings were best predicted by pitch range and word stress measures whereas comprehensibility scores were mostly associated with speaking rates. ITAs' acoustic profiles as well as listeners' comments on their rating offer practical implications to ITA program developers, ESL teachers, and future research in accented speech.
KW - Accentedness
KW - Comprehensibility
KW - International teaching assistants
KW - Suprasegmentals
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U2 - 10.1016/j.system.2010.01.005
DO - 10.1016/j.system.2010.01.005
M3 - Article
SN - 0346-251X
VL - 38
SP - 301
EP - 315
JO - System
JF - System
IS - 2
ER -