Stretching the boundaries
Malaysian ESL learners’ evaluative reactions to inner circle English accents
Nowadays, international communication using English as the medium is a common occurrence. To communicate
effectively, English as a second language (ESL) speakers need to possess relevant communicative skills including understanding and
being familiar with inner circle accents. This paper seeks to find out ESL learners’ evaluative reactions to four inner circle
accents, representing British, American, Australian and New Zealand English varieties, through an accent perception and a survey
task conducted on Malaysian undergraduates at a public university in Malaysia. The participants responded to descriptors on
speaker attributes categorized into three dimensions: competence, social appeal and accent
preference while or after listening to a recorded passage read in one of the four accents by male and female
speakers. The learners showed a tendency to prefer certain accents more than others. In general, the best rated accent was the
British accent for the male speakers and the American accent for the female speakers. The New Zealand accent was rated the lowest
among the male speakers and one of the lowest among the female speakers. The study also found that speaker’s competence, speaker’s
social appeal and accent preference were positively correlated. These findings highlight the importance of listening practices and
exposure to various English accents in ESL classrooms to prepare students for international and intercultural communication.
Article outline
- Introduction
- English accent evaluations
- Accent preferences and speaker attributes
- Methodology
- Participants
- Speech samples
- Research procedure
- Normality analysis
- Reliability analysis
- Results and discussion
- Learners’ general evaluation of speakers’ accents or attributes
- Learners’ evaluation of specific dimensions of speaker attributes
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
References (54)
References
Ahmed, Z. T., Abdullah, A. N., & Chan, S. H. (2014). Malaysian university students’ attitude towards six varieties of accented speech in English. Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 5(5), 181–191.
Alt. usage. English Audio Archive ([URL]) or ([URL])
Aron, A., & Aron, E. N. (2002). Statistics for the Behavioral and Social Sciences: A Brief Course. New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.
Ballard, L. (2013). Student attitudes toward accentedness of native and non-native speaking English teachers. MSU Working Papers in SLS, 41, 47–73.
Bayard, D., & Green, J. A. (2005). Evaluating English accents worldwide. Te Reo, 481, 21–28.
Best, C. T. (1995). A direct realist view of cross-language perception. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Theoretical and methodological issues in cross-language speech research (pp. 171–204). Timonium, MD: York Press.
Best, C. T. (2001). Discrimination of non-native consonant contrasts varying in perceptual assimilation to the listener’s native phonological system. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1091, 775–794.
Bradley, D. (2004). Regional characteristics of Australian English. In E. W. Schneider, K. Burridge, B. Kortmann, R. Mesthrie and C. Upton (Eds.). A Handbook of Varieties of English (pp. 645–655). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Carey, M. D., Mannell, R. H., & Dunn, P. K. (2011). Does a rater’s familiarity with a candidate’s pronunciation affect the rating in oral proficiency interviews? Language Testing, 28 (2), 201–219.
Chan, J. Y. H. (2016). A multi-perspective investigation of attitudes towards English accents in Hong Kong: Implications for pronunciation teaching. TESOL Quaterly, 501, 285–313.
Chan, J. Y. H. (2018). The choice of English pronunciation goals: different views, experiences and concerns of students, teachers and professionals. Asian Englishes, 1–21.
Cheng, L. R. L. (1999). Moving beyond accent: Social and cultural realities of living with many tongues. Topics in Language Disorders, 191, 1–10.
Dalton-Puffer, C., Kaltenboeck, G., & Smit, U. (1997). Learner attitudes and L2 pronunciation in Austria. World Englishes, 16(1): 115–128.
Derwing, T. M., & Munro, M. (1997). Accent, intelligibility, and comprehensibility: Evidence from four L1s. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 19(1), 1–16.
Derwing, T. M., & Munro, M. J. (2009). Putting accent in its place: Rethinking obstacles to communication. Language teaching, 42(4), 476–490.
Díaz, N. R. (2015). Students’ preferences regarding native and non-native teachers of English at a university in the French Brittany. 32nd International Conference of the Spanish Association of Applied Linguistics (AESLA): Language Industries and Social Change. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 1731, 93–97.
Forrester, V., & Lok, B. (2008). Native English teachers in Hong Kong building communities of practice? Asian Social Science, 4 (5), 3–11.
Friedrich, P. (2000). English in Brazil: Functions and attitudes. World Englishes, 19 (2), 215–223.
Gass, S., & Varonis, E. M. (1984). The effect of familiarity on the comprehensibility of nonnative speech. Language Learning, 341: 65–87.
Gill, M. M. (1994). Accent and stereotypes: Their effect on perceptions of teacher and lecture comprehension. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 22 (4), 348–361.
Gluszek, A., & Dovidio, J. F. (2010). The way they speak: A social psychological perspective on the stigma of nonnative accents in communication. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(2): 214–237.
Gurkan, S., & Yuksel, D. (2012). Evaluating the contributions of native and non-native teachers to an English language teaching program. WCES 2012. Procedia-Social and Behavioural Sciences, 461: 2951–2958.
Hendriks, B., van Meurs, F., & Reimer, A. K. (2018). The evaluation of lecturers’ nonnative-accented English: Dutch and German students’ evaluations of different degrees of Dutch-accented and German-accented English of lecturers in higher education. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 341, 28–45.
International Dialects of English Archive ([URL])
Jenkins, J. (2007). English as a lingua franca: Attitude and identity. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Jeon, M. (2009). Globalization and native English speakers in English Programme in Korea (EPIK). Language, Culture and Curriculum, 22 (3), 231–243.
Kachru, Braj. (1985). Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: The English language in the outer circle. In Quirk, R. & Widdowson, H. G. (Eds.) English in the world: Teaching and learning the language and literatures (pp. 11–30). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Kaur, P., & Raman, A. (2014). Exploring native speaker and non-native speaker accents: the English as a lingua franca perspective, The International Conference on Communication and Media 2014, 18–20 October, Langkawi, Malaysia. Procedia-Social and Behavioural Sciences, 1551, 253–259.
Kawanami, S., & Kawanami, K. (2010). Japanese learners’ perception and attitudes toward English accents. Let Kyushu-Okinawa Bulletin, (10), 1–14.
Kelch, K., & Santana-Williamson, E. (2002). ESL students’ attitudes toward native- and nonnative-speaking instructor’s accent. The CATESOL Journal, 14(1): 57–72.
Kim, J. (2012). English accents and L2 learner’s identity. International Journal of English and Education, 1(2), 127–152.
Kuhl, P. K. (1991). Human adults and human infants show a ‘perceptual magnet effect’ for the prototypes of speech categories, monkeys do not. Perception & Psychophysics, 501, 93–107.
Ladegaard, H. J. (1998). National stereotypes and language attitudes: The perception of British, American and Australian language and culture in Denmark. Language and Communication 181, 251–274.
Lasagabaster, D., & Sierra, J. M. (2005). What do students think about the pro and cons of having a native teacher? In E. Llurda (Ed.), Non-Native language teachers: Perceptions, challenges, and contributions to the profession. (pp. 217–241). Springer: New York.
Luo, W. H. (2007). A study of native English-speaking teacher programs in elementary schools in Taiwan. Asia Pacific Education Review, 8(2): 311–320.
Mahboob, A. (2004). Native or non-native: What do the students think? In L. D. Kamhi-Stein (Ed.), Learning and teaching from experience. (pp. 121–147). Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
Major, R. C., Fitzmaurice, S. M., Bunta, F., & Balasubramanian, C. (2002). Testing the effects of regional, ethnic, and international dialects of English on listening comprehension. Language Learning, 551: 37–69.
Marsden, S. (2007). On the emergence of regional varieties of New Zealand English. New Zealand English Journal, 211: 64–72.
McGee, K. (2009). Attitudes towards accents of English at the British Council, Penang: What do the students want? Malaysian Journal of ELT Research, 51: 162–205.
McKay, S. L., & Bokhorst-Heng, W. D. (2008). International English in its sociolinguistic contexts. Routledge: New York.
McKenzie, R. M. (2008). Social factors and non-native attitudes towards varieties of spoken English: A Japanese case study. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 18(1), 63–88.
Munro, M. J., & Derwing, T. M. (1995). Processing time, accent, and comprehensibility in the perception of native and foreign-accented speech, Language and Speech, 381, 289–306.
Munro, M. J., & Derwing, T. M. (1999). Foreign accent, comprehensibility, and intelligibility in the speech of second language learners, Language Learning, 491, 285–310.
Munro, M. J., Derwing, T. M. & Morton, S. L. (2006). The mutual intelligibility of L2 speech Studies in Second Language Acquisition
, 28 (1), 111–131.
Pilus, Z. (2013). Exploring ESL learners’ attitudes towards English accents, World Applied Sciences Journal 21 (Special Issue of Studies in Language Teaching and Learning), 143–152.
Plakans, B. S. (1997). Undergraduates’ experiences with and attitudes toward international teaching assistants. TESOL Quarterly, 31(1), 95–119.
Scales, J., Wennerstrom, A., Richard, D., & Wu, S. H. (2006). Language learners’ perceptions of accent. TESOL Quarterly, 40(4), 715–738.
Timmis, I. (2002). Native-speaker norms and international English: A classroom view. ELT Journal, 56(3): 240–249.
Wahid, R., & Sulong, S. (2013). The gap between research and practice in the teaching of English pronunciation: Insights from teachers’ beliefs and practices. World Applied Sciences Journal 211 (Special Issue of Studies in Language Teaching and Learning), 133–142.
Walkinshaw, I., & Duong, D. H. (2012). Native and non-native speaking English teachers in Vietnam: Weighing the benefits. TESL-EJ, 16(3), 1–17.
Walkinshaw, I., & Duong, D. H. (2014). Native and non-native teachers: Student perceptions in Vietnam and Japan. SAGE Open 4(2), 1–9.
Wan Abdul Halim, W. F. S. (2016). The native speaker programme in Malaysia: Boon or Bane? Jurnal Kemanusiaan, 25(1), 1–11.
Winke, P., Gass, S., & Myford, C. (2012). Raters’ L2 background as a potential source of bias in rating oral performance. Language Testing, 30(2), 231–252.
Zhang, Q. (2009). Hong Kong people’s attitude towards varieties of English. Newcastle Working Papers in Linguistics, 151, 151–173.
Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Tsang, Art
2020.
Are learners ready for Englishes in the EFL classroom? A large-scale survey of learners’ views of non-standard accents and teachers’ accents.
System 94
► pp. 102298 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 6 august 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.