Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 904

Part of General Poster Session (Other abstracts in this session)

'Just-Noticeable-Differences', but Sizeable Implications: the Case for Non-Native Speaker Prosody

Authors: Todd, Richard (1); Grunfeld, Elisabeth (2)
Submitted by: Todd, Richard (University of Sheffield, United Kingdom)

Recent perceptual work, such as Todd (2012), details how fine-grained differences between the utterances of foreign- and British-born ethnic minority speaker-types may distinguished, or confused, when listeners are provided with minimal cues. This provides further valuable understanding of human listener performance and robustness in one type of adversity. By broadening illustrations such those of Riney & Flege (1998) it also arguably indicates how the ‘perfection’ of second (or subsequent) language acquisition (on phonetic grounds) can still be an arduous (if not unachievable) task for extremely proficient non-native speakers. None of such studies however, have contemplated how the implications of perceived speaker-foreignness (even if only ‘just noticeable’) can develop into a further ‘adversity’.

This work highlights an adversity that is latent; one which the non-native/foreign-accented speaker must often bear alone. Here, the issue of listener misperception is raised. However, the difficulty is not in direct relation to the Ethnic Group Attribution of a speaker. It instead, concentrates on the way (in)frequency of social interaction between foreign out-groups (e.g., non-native speakers) and the population at large and can (i) severely impact on the extent to which various language attitudes and hegemonic practices harden; (ii) unwittingly pose risks to comprehension and thereby maintain separations and anxieties of the effected minority-group speakers; and lastly, (iii) exacerbate perceptions of speaker credibility or honesty.

Taking the matter of emphatic utterances, the study leans on the legal, and most particularly forensic, context to illustrate the extent to which interlocutor differences can push a ‘just noticeable’ nuance in speech production closer to a meaning or inference quite removed from what the respective listener/speaker group would expect. In doing this, the work reveals that some anxieties which foreign or non-native talkers express about formal (and moreover, critical) speech scenarios could be justified. Thus, it is not only about these speakers finding the right words, but them seemingly lacking the ‘right’ way to say those same words that can undermine them at times.

References:

Ingels, S. "The Effects of Self-Monitoring Strategy Use on the Pronunciation of Learners of English", in J. Levis & K. LeVelle (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1st Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference, 67-89, 2010.

McKiman, D.J. and Hamayan, E.V. "Speech Norms and Attitudes Toward Outgroup Members: a Test of a Model in a Bicultural Context", Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 3, 1, 21-38, 1984.

Munro, M.J. & Derwing, T.M. "Foreign Accent, Comprehensibility, and Intelligibility in the Speech of Second Language Learners", Language Learning, 45, 1, 73-97, 1995.

Riney, T. J. & Flege, J. E. "Changes Over Time in Global Foreign Accent and Liquid Identifiability and Accuracy", Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 20, 213–243, 1998.

Todd, R. "Identifications of Speaker-Ethnicity: Attribution Accuracy in Changeable Settings", Proceedings of the IVth ISCA Workshop on Experimental Linguistics, ExLing 2011, 135-138, 2011.

Todd, R. "On Non-Native Speaker Prosody: Identifying 'Just-Noticeable-Differences' in Speaker-Ethnicity", Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Speech Prosody, Speech Prosody 2012, (2012; in press).

Wells, J. Jamaican Pronunciation in London. London: Basil Blackwell, 1973.

Sociolinguistics Symposium 19

Programme: accepted abstracts

'Just-Noticeable-Differences', but Sizeable Implications: the Case for Non-Native Speaker Prosody