Non-native speaker attitudes toward non-native English accents

The increasing number of proficient, non-native English speakers, both in U.S. academic institutions and around the globe, warrants considerable investigation into possible norms developing within non-native to non-native interactions. This report analyzes attitudes toward accent, a prominent indicator of foreignness, within non-native English speaker interactions. It presents relevant research on this topic, and it summarizes some of the major findings of an online survey that examined what attitudes, if any, non-native listeners may form on the basis of accent alone when listening to other non-native English speakers. The results suggest that listeners base attitude judgments more on native-likeness than on intelligibility. Also, speakers’ perceptions of their own non-native accent are more negative than how they actually rate themselves as compared to others.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Linguistics

Grantor

The University of Texas at Austin

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Episcopo, Sarah Ashley

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Hinrichs, Lars

• English language
• English language--Accents and accentuation
• Non-native speaker

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works.

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/2152/19153

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/19153