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Article published In:
25 years of Intelligibility, Comprehensibility and Accentedness
Edited by John M. Levis, Tracey M. Derwing and Murray J. Munro
[Journal of Second Language Pronunciation 6:3] 2020
► pp. 458–482

International intelligibility revisited

L2 realizations of NURSE and TRAP and functional load

ORCID logo | University of Vienna
The Lingua Franca Core (LFC) proposes that NURSE is the only vowel quality important for international intelligibility, yet research findings regarding this issue are mixed. Moreover, it is unclear whether phonetic (rather than phonemic) substitutions of NURSE also affect international intelligibility more negatively than other phonemic vowel substitutions, though this seems unlikely on the basis of considerations of functional load (FL). This study compares the international intelligibility of two vowel substitutions typical of Austrian learners of English: the phonetic replacement of NURSE with a rounded and diphthongized vowel, and the phonemic replacement of TRAP with a vowel close to cardinal [e]. The findings suggest that, contrary to the LFC but in line with FL considerations, the phonetic substitution of NURSE is more intelligible to an international audience than the substitution of TRAP with [e]. However, differences in intelligibility between the two substitutions were largely ‘neutralized’ once contextual support was available.
Keywords: English as a lingua franca (ELF), international intelligibility, Lingua Franca Core (LFC), functional load (FL), TRAP, NURSE
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Participants
      • 2.1.1Speaker
      • 2.1.2Listeners
    • 2.2Speech materials
      • 2.2.1Target words
      • 2.2.2Construction of test sentences
    • 2.3Procedure
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Effect of word type on intelligibility
    • 3.2Effect of word type X condition on intelligibility
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Limitations and suggestions for further research
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jslp.20012.thi
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