The Interlanguage Speech Intelligibility Benefit for Turkish Speakers of English

Yıl 2022, , 70 - 87, 28.04.2022

Tarık Uzun

https://doi.org/10.31464/jlere.1024616

Öz

This study is aimed at investigating the Interlanguage Speech Intelligibility Benefit (ISIB) via native English and Turkish listeners’ transcriptions of Turkish talkers’ words with pronunciation errors in English. Speech samples collected from talkers with a Turkish L1 background (N=16) were presented to 33 L1 English and 33 L1 Turkish listeners via an instrument to be filled with the transcriptions of erroneous target words. Results supported matched ISIB for listeners as Turkish talkers were more intelligible to Turkish listeners in a considerably higher number of target words. Similarly, a higher number of target words were more intelligible to Turkish listeners with statistically significant differences. Most of these words had been labelled erroneous due to L1 transfer caused by orthographic interference, mispronunciations of English sounds that do not exist in Turkish, and loanwords found in similar forms in Turkish. Turkish listeners appeared to rely on such cues in Turkish talkers’ speech.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Speech Intelligibility, Interlanguage, Native Listeners, Nonnative Listeners

Kaynakça

• Algethami, G., Ingram, J., & Nguyen, T. (2011). The interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit: The case of Arabic-accented English. In J. Levis & K. LeVelle (Eds.) Proceedings of the 2nd Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference, Sept. 2010, (pp. 30-42), Ames, IA: Iowa State University.
• Bayraktaroğlu, S. (2008). Orthographic interference and the teaching of British pronunciation to Turkish learners. The Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies 4, 107-143.
• Bent, T. & Bradlow, A. R. (2003). The interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit. Journal of Acoustical Society of America 114(3), 1600-1610. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.1603234
• Chu, P. C. K. & Taft, M. (2010). Interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit and mental representation of second language speech sounds. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Cognitive Science, (pp 404-405), University of Science and Technology of China Press.
• Cotton, D., Falvey, D. & Kent, S. (2008). Language leader coursebook and CD-ROM (upper-intermediate). Pearson.
• Derwing, T. M. & Munro, M. J. (1997). Accent, intelligibility, and comprehensibility: Evidence from four L1s. SSLA 20, 1-16.
• Field, J. (2005). Intelligibility and the listener: The role of lexical stress. TESOL Quarterly 39(3), 399-423.
• Gass, S. M. & Selinker, L. (2008). Second language acquisition: An introductory course. Routledge.
• Han, J., Choi, T., Lim, I., & Lee, J. (2011). The interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for Korean learners of English: Perception of English front vowels. Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics 11(2), 385-413. https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.11.2.201106.385
• Hansen Edwards, J. G., Zampini, M. L., & Cunningham, C. (2018). The accentedness, comprehensibility, and intelligibility of Asian Englishes. World Englishes 2018, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12344
• Hansen Edwards, J. G., Zampini, M. L., & Cunningham, C. (2019). Listener proficiency and shared background effects on the accentedness, comprehensibility and intelligibility of four varieties of English. Journal of Monolingual and Bilingual Speech 1(2), 333-356. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmbs.v1i2.11867
• Hayes-Harb, R., Smith, B. L., Bent, T. & Bradlow, A. R. (2008). The interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for native speakers of Mandarin: Production and perception of English word-final voicing contrasts. Journal of Phonetics 36, 664-679. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2008.04.002
• Jułkowska, I. A. & Cebrian, J. (2015). Effects of listener factors and stimulus properties on the intelligibility, comprehensibility and accentedness of L2 speech. Journal of Second Language Pronunciation 1(2), 211-237. https://doi.org/10.1075/jslp.1.2.04jul
• Lee, J., Han, J., Choi, T. & Lim, I. (2012). The interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit (ISIB) of English prosody: The case of focal prominence for Korean learners of English and natives. Phonetics and Speech Sciences 4(4), 53-68. https://doi.org/10.13064/KSSS.2012.4.4.053
• Lee, J. & Xue, X. (2013). The matched and mismatched interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for listeners (ISIB-L): Chinese L2 talkers’ production of English liquids. Studies in Phonetics, Phonology, and Morphology 19(1), 125-153. https://doi.org/10.17959/sppm.2013.19.1.125
• Levis, J. M. (2018). Intelligibility, oral communication, and the teaching of pronunciation. Cambridge University Press.
• Levis, J. M. (2020). Revisiting the intelligibility and nativeness principles. Journal of Second Language Pronunciation 6(3), 310-328.
• Levis, J. M., & Barriuso, T. A. (2012). Nonnative speakers’ pronunciation errors in spoken and read English. In J. M. Levis & K. LeVelle (Ed.). Proceedings of the 3rd Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference, September 2011 (pp. 187-194), Iowa State University.
• Li, G. & Mok, P. P. K. (2015). Interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for Mandarin: Is it from shared phonological knowledge or exposure to accented speech? In Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Chinese Spoken Language Processing (pp. 409-412). Hong Kong.
• Major, R. C. (2001). Foreign accent: The ontogeny and phylogeny of second language phonology. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
• Major, R. (2013). Foreign accent. In C. A. Chapelle (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. Wiley-Blackwell.
• Munro, M. J. (2008). Foreign Accent and speech intelligibility. In J. G. H. Edwards & M. L. Zampini (Eds). Phonology and Second Language Acquisition. John Benjamins Publishing.
• Munro, M. & Derwing, T. M. (1995). Processing time, accent, and comprehensibility in the perception of native and foreign-accented speech. Language and Speech 38(3), 289-306. https://doi.org/10.1177/002383099503800305
• Munro, M. & Derwing, T. M. (1999). Foreign Accent, comprehensibility, and intelligibility in the speech of second language learners. Language Learning 49(1), 285-310. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1995.tb00963.x
• Munro, M., Derwing, T. M. & Morton, S. L. (2006). The mutual intelligibility of L2 speech. SSLA 28, 111-131. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263106060049
• Podlipský, V. J., Šimáčková, Š. & Petráž, D. (2016). Is there an interlanguage speech credibility benefit? Topics in Linguistics 17(1), 30-44. https://doi.org/10.1515/topling-2016-0003
• Richards, M. G. (2016). Not all word stress errors are created equal: Validating an English word stress error gravity hierarchy. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Iowa State University, Ames: IA, USA.
• Shu, C., Wilson, I., & Perkins, J. (2016). Revisiting the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit. In Proceedings of the 16th Speech Science and Technology Conference. Western Sydney University.
• Song, J. (2011). The interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for experienced nonnative listeners: Perception of English lexical stress produced by Korean native speakers. In W. S. Lee & E. Zee (Eds), Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 1882-1885). Hong Kong.
• Stibbard, R. M. & Lee, J. (2006). Evidence against the mismatched interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit hypothesis. Journal of Acoustical Society of America 120(1), 433-442. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2203595
• Van Wijngaarden, S., Steeneken, H. J. M., & Houtgast, T. (2002). Quantifying the intelligibility of speech in noise for non-native listeners. Journal of Acoustical Society of America 111(4), 1906-1916. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.1512289
• Xie, X. & Fowler, C. (2013). Listening with a foreign-accent: The interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit in Mandarin speakers of English. Journal of Phonetics 41, 369-378. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2013.06.003