Yuying Kang (Shanxi Datong University, China / Jeonju University, Korea)
Abstract
In this experiment, we examined factors influencing listeners' perceptions of foreign accents in English. We used 119 sentences, sourced from Belfast, Leeds, and London in the IViE corpus, featuring five sentence structures (coo, dec, dqu, whq, and yonq) as stimuli. Thirty students from Shanxi Datong University rated the nativeness of speakers from 1 (most native-like) to 5 (least native-like). We collected the data using Praat and analyzed them with Excel and mixed-effects regression. Our results showed a significant negative correlation between listeners’ English proficiency and self-evaluations of pronunciation with their accent ratings. English majors perceived foreign accents more accurately than non-English majors. Additionally, the speaker’s region and sentence type impacted perceptions. Our phonetic analysis of high-score responses revealed that intonation, pauses, noise, and segmental deviations due to regional dialects were more noticeable in foreign-accent ratings.
Research Paper (In person; 25 minutes)
Applied Linguistics / Second Language Acquisition
Primarily of interest to teachers of university students
About the Presenter
Yuying Kang is a PhD candidate majoring in English at Jeonju University and a lecturer in the Business English Department at Datong University in China. Her research areas are phonetics, phonology, and English teaching and learning. She has published one paper on listening anxiety with her supervisor in a KCI journal and another paper on listening strategies in an international journal.
