The Role of Motivation in Second Language Pronunciation

This thesis investigates the phonological ability of exceptional second language (L2) learners of English and their levels of motivation. This study is the first of its kind to do a large-scale examination of L2 learners whose first languages (L1s) do not belong to the same Indo-European language family as English. Fifteen non-native speakers (NNSs) of English filled out a questionnaire and produced four speech samples, including a picture description task, paragraph reading task, sentence reading and word reading task. Fifteen native speaker (NS) controls also produced the same speech samples. Four NSs judged all participants' accents. Six NNSs scored as highly as NSs on some of the speech segments using a 2-standard deviation (SD) cut-off point. There was no significant correlation between their scores on pronunciation and motivation.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of North Texas

Year dc:date

2005

Author dc:creator

• Wen, Tao-Chih

Contributors dc:contributor

• Larson-Hall, Jenifer
• Cukor-Avila, Patricia
• Yoon, Jiyoung

• English language -- Pronunciation by foreign speakers.
• English language -- Study and teaching -- Foreign speakers.
• Motivation (Psychology)
• Second language acquisition.
• motivation
• phonology
• second language
• pronunciation
• native speaker

Statement dc:rights

• Public
• Copyright
• Wen, Tao-Chih
• Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

oclc: 68651184
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc4829/
ark: ark:/67531/metadc4829

OAI identifier oai:identifier

info:ark/67531/metadc4829