Relevant Acoustic Phonetics of L2 English: Focus on Intelligibility

Intelligibility is the ultimate goal of human communication, and measuring it objectively remained elusive until the 1940s when physicist Harvey Fletcher pioneered a psychoacoustic methodology. This book proposes data-driven intelligibility analyses to answer questions about L2 speakers of English whose native language lacks segments or suprasegments, and how they compensate for them. The findings are based on nearly 12,000 measured speech tokens produced by all the participants, in keeping with Baken and Orlikoff (2000) and widely accepted Just Noticeable Difference thresholds.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 332 pages
Publication date: 20 May 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Intelligibility is the ultimate objective of human communication, a quest that has eluded objective measurement until the 1940s when physicist Harvey Fletcher pioneered a psychoacoustic methodology. Fletcher's theory of Critical Bands, rooted in anatomical and auditory reality, was clinically demonstrated by von Bekesy. Their approach to intelligibility has revolutionized our understanding of speech encoding and decoding processes.

In this book, we apply their insights to analyze the intelligibility of non-native speakers of English from various language backgrounds. We examine the pronunciation of 67 non-native speakers, including Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Serbian, Croatian, Somali, and Spanish speakers, who read the Speech Accent Archive elicitation paragraph. We compare and contrast their pronunciation with that of 10 native speakers of General American English (GAE) who read the same paragraph.

Data-driven intelligibility analyses are proposed in this book to address key questions. Can L2 speakers of English, whose native language lacks specific segments or suprasegments, produce them intelligibly? If not, what segments or suprasegments do they substitute for them? Do the compensatory strategies used interfere with intelligibility?

The findings reported in this book are based on nearly 12,000 measured speech tokens produced by all the participants. This extensive dataset includes over 2,000 vowels, 500 stop consonants, 3,000 fricatives, 1,200 nasals, 1,500 approximants, over 1,200 syllable onsets, as many as 800 syllable codas, and over 1,600 measurements.

The insights gained from this research shed light on the strategies employed by non-native speakers to compensate for linguistic deficiencies and the impact of these strategies on intelligibility. It provides valuable information for language educators, speech therapists, and researchers interested in understanding the challenges faced by non-native speakers and developing effective strategies for language learning and communication.

Weight: 640g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367617578