published_or_final_version / Language Studies / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / abstract / Psychology / Master / Master of Philosophy

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in the pronunciation and intelligibility of instructed and uninstructed second language (L2) learners over time, and to identify instructional, environmental, and methodological factors playing a role in pronunciation and intelligibility. / Seventeen L2 graduate students at an English-medium university recorded three personal anecdotes over five months. The students also regularly logged their exposure to and use of English. Nine of the students (instructed group) were concurrently taking an oral communication course focussing on suprasegmental pronunciation. Classroom instruction was regularly observed and recorded. All 17 students were interviewed at the end of the study. / L1 listeners heard anecdotes from three instructed and three uninstructed students, matched for length of residence and first language (L1). Listeners also heard anecdotes from four L1 English speakers. One group of listeners retold each anecdote after hearing it (discourse-level task). The other group paused the recording of each anecdote whenever a word was unclear (word-level task). Each group of listeners also rated excerpts for accentedness, comprehensibility, and fluency. / Results of quantitative and qualitative analyses showed that: (a) no unambiguous changes in the pronunciation or intelligibility of either L2 learner group occurred over time; (b) word-level intelligibility measures more consistently differentiated L1 and L2 groups, and the instructed and uninstructed L2 groups; (c) compared to the instructed group, the uninstructed group logged relatively more English exposure/use for academic activities and relatively less for interactive social activities; (d) many instructed L2 learners did not believe that their pronunciation had noticeably improved, but almost all expressed satisfaction with their ability to communicate in English; (e) at the end of the study, many uninstructed learners reported persistent difficulties in communicating in English. / The results suggest that instruction in suprasegmental aspects of pronunciation sometimes may not lead to improved intelligibility or pronunciation. In addition, some L2 learners can be as intelligible as L1 speakers, depending on the listening task. Finally, results suggest that L2 learners' perceptions of their communicative ability and their patterns of L2 exposure/use are related. Implications for university preparation and support programs for L2 graduate students are discussed.

There has been some research in recent years which has attempted to demonstrate the effect of needs, attitudes and stereotyped beliefs on social judgements and perception (see, for instance , Secord,1959). One type of experimental design that highlights the role that such factors play in perception consists of observing and comparing the reactions of a subject when presented with the same stimulus under different labelling conditions .

Based on the multiple resource model, a more difficult auditory task should use more attentional resources and leave fewer resources to attend to visual information. Research suggests that trying to listen to and understand a speaker with an accent is difficult. In addition, stimuli that are considered threatening can raise stress levels and reduce the amount of attentional resources available. In the present study, participants watched one of four videos that portrayed a bank robber delivering a statement with either a Midwestern or Serbian accent and with either high or low level of threat. For the perpetrator’s appearance, participants provided significantly more correct and fewer incorrect details if they heard the Midwestern accent or the low threat statement. These results support the multiple resource model and suggest that further research is needed with the model in eyewitness memory. / Department of Psychological Science

This thesis has explored the relationship between attitudes toward New York City speech expressed by twelve New York City speakers currently attending Ball State University and values in the speech of these informants of three phonological variables: (1) presence of word final or preconsonantal /r/, (2) height of the midfront vowel /eh/, and (3) height of the midback rounded vowel /oh/. A Likert attitude scale was used to measure attitude. Of thirteen null hypotheses tested, one was rejected. It was therefore concluded that for the sample studied, there is no relationship between attitude toward New York City speech and values of /r/. /eh/, and /oh/.Contrary to reports of other investigators, attitudes toward New York City speech of the sample studied were generally positive. As speech styles increased in formality, however, all of the informants exhibited a tendency, to depart from distinctive, New York City values for /r/, /eh/, and /oh/.

This exploratory, mixed-design study investigates whether intelligibility is "enough," that is, a suitable goal and an adequate assessment criterion, for evaluating proficiency in the pronunciation of non-native English speaking graduate students in the academic domain. The study also seeks to identify those pronunciation features which are most crucial for intelligible speech. / Speech samples of 19 non-native English speaking graduate students in the Faculty of Education at McGill University were elicited using the Test of Spoken English (TSE), a standardized test of spoken proficiency which is often used by institutions of higher learning to screen international teaching assistants (ITAs). Results of a fined-grained phonological analysis of the speech samples coupled with intelligibility ratings of 18 undergraduate science students suggest that intelligibility, though an adequate assessment criterion, is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for graduate students to instruct undergraduate courses as teaching assistants, and that there is a threshold level (i.e., minimum acceptable level) of intelligibility that needs to be identified more precisely. While insights about the features of pronunciation that are most critical for intelligibility are inconclusive, it is clear that intelligibility can be compromised for different reasons and is often the result of a combination of "problem areas" that interact together. / The study has some important implications for ITA training and assessment, for the design of graduate student pronunciation courses, and for future intelligibility research. It also presents a first step in validating theoretical intelligibility models which lack empirical backing (e.g., Morley, 1994).

This study is primarily concerned with the issue of determining whether it is worthwhile to try to teach the correct pronunciation of subphonemic segments in ESL courses. It focuses specifically on the allophones [J, J] produced by the Flapping (or Tapping) of medial and final alveolar stops in North American English. Through an exhaustive examination of the ESL and TESL pronunciation manuals that have been published in the last thirty years or so, an assessment is first made of the manner and extent to which this widespread phonological process has been dealt with by the authors of such books. These findings are then compared with the opinions expressed by researchers in the field of second language education in order to determine what sort of consensus currently exists on this issue. The general conclusion is that since flaps are demonstrably the most salient of all NAE allophones and occur as phonemes in the first language of many ESL learners, these segments should be given due consideration in any pronunciation curriculum.

The thesis mainly concerns itself with an analysis of the present day pronunciation of Xhosa-English. The isolation and identification of the segmental phonemes and the phonemes of stress, intonation and transition form the core of the work. The author has attempted to give continuity by introducing a subsidiary theme, the Lado hypothesis as stated on page 1. In conformity with the the methodology imposed by the Lado formula, it was first necessary to establish two things: first, a standard background against which the characteristics of XEP could be compared, and secondly, to give briefly, but in sufficient detail for our purpose, the main phonological features of the mother tongue.