Listener bias and intelligibility of unfamiliar varieties of a language
| Autor: | Kenzo S. Kimura, Susannah V. Levi |
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| Rok vydání: | 2023 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 153:A172-A172 |
| ISSN: | 1520-8524 0001-4966 |
| DOI: | 10.1121/10.0018562 |
| Popis: | Speech intelligibility depends on a combination of the speech itself and of the listener. In terms of speech, unfamiliar varieties (such as foreign-accented speech or speech produced in an unfamiliar dialect) are generally less intelligible than speech produced in a variety that matches that of the listener. In terms of the listener, studies have found that listener experience affects intelligibility of unfamiliar varieties of a language. The current study explores the extent to which a listener’s biases toward globalization and immigration predict speech intelligibility. High and low predictability sentences from three men (US English, Scottish English, Mandarin-accented English) were mixed with background noise. Fifty L1 US English listeners first typed the final word of each sentence and were then asked to answer questions related to their views on globalism and nationalism. As expected, listeners were more accurate in the high compared to low predictability sentences. Surprisingly, the Mandarin-accented speaker was the most intelligible. A follow-up study with duration-normalized samples found the same result. Contrary to expectations, listener responses to the globalist-nationalist survey had no impact on intelligibility. This may suggest that difficulty understanding unfamiliar varieties of a language is not related to listener attitudes. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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