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Non-native listeners perceiving foreign accentedness of English speech

New evidence from Chinese and Spanish listeners

Bibliographic Data

ID21180943
AuthorsXiaojiao Xue (0000-0003-1149-6278, Yangzhou University), Yixue Shan (0000-0002-1470-1567, Yangzhou University), Xinyu Wang (0009-0005-8004-6336), Richard Erick Dunham (0000-0003-0744-2461, Yangzhou University)
Year2023
Volume95
Pages263-275
Publication date2023-09-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCírculo de lingüística aplicada a la comunicación (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1576-4737 • E-ISSN: 1576-4737
PublisherUniversidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5209/clac.79695
OpenAlexW4387134353
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited42

As an international language, English is an important tool for people of different native languages to communicate with each other. Many empirical studies, proving that foreign accents are prevalent in L2 learners’ oral English, involved native speakers as raters of foreign accents. This study compared the rating patterns of listeners from Chinese, Spanish and English language backgrounds with different English proficiencies for foreign accents in English speech and investigated the acoustical cues used by these listeners. Results showed that Chinese listeners, sharing language backgrounds with talkers, tended to be more tolerant for the Chinese accent in English speech. Spanish listeners had a stricter criterion for mild Chinese accents, proving that the influence of listeners’ L1 on their perception of foreign accents can be different for different degrees of accents. The effects of listeners’ L2 proficiency was found for Chinese listeners’ perception of accents and the number of acoustic predictors used by non-native English listeners. The study provides more evidence about the mechanism of native and non-native listeners’ perception of foreign accent and offers implications for the recruitment of raters for the assessment of oral English

First language · Foreign language · Linguistics · Perception · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Psychology · Speech Recognition and Synthesis

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Unique citing works1
Citations per year1
Citation span2026 - 2026 (1)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 1
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