LISTENING TO DIFFERENT ENGLISH VARIETIES AND ACCENTS

Abstract

This study investigates how well English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners report understanding (i.e. comprehensibility) and actually understand (i.e. intelligibility) native and non-native accents of English, and how EFL learners’ self-reported ease of understanding and actual understanding of these accents are aligned. Thirty-three Dutch-speaking EFL learners performed a comprehensibility and accentedness judgement task, followed by an orthographic transcription task. The judgement task elicited listeners’ scalar ratings of authentic speech from eight speakers with traditional Inner, Outer and Expanding Circle accents. The strength of a speaker’s accent significantly affected listeners’ comprehensibility ratings. Most speakers were highly intelligible, with transcription accuracy ranging between 79% and 95%. The study foregrounds the effect of native and non-native accents on comprehensibility and intelligibility, and highlights the importance of multidialectal listening skills.