This study investigated how native language background interacts with speaking style adaptations in determining levels of speech intelligibility. The aim was to explore whether native and high proficiency non-native listeners benefit similarly from native and non-native clear speech adjustments. The sentence-in-noise perception results revealed that fluent non-native listeners gained a large clear speech benefit from native clear speech modifications. Furthermore, proficient non-native talkers in this study implemented conversational-to-clear speaking style modifications in their second language (L2) that resulted in significant intelligibility gain for both native and non-native listeners. The results of the accentedness ratings obtained for native and non-native conversational and clear speech sentences showed that while intelligibility was improved, the presence of foreign accent remained constant in both speaking styles. This suggests that objective intelligibility and subjective accentedness are two independent dimensions of non-native speech. Overall, these results provide strong evidence that greater experience in L2 processing leads to improved intelligibility in both production and perception domains. These results also demonstrated that speaking style adaptations along with less signal distortion can contribute significantly towards successful native and non-native interactions.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
December 2011
December 15 2011
Bidirectional clear speech perception benefit for native and high-proficiency non-native talkers and listeners: Intelligibility and accentednessa)
Rajka Smiljanić;
Rajka Smiljanić
b)
Department of Linguistics, University of Texas at Austin
, Austin, Texas 78712
Search for other works by this author on:
Ann R. Bradlow
Ann R. Bradlow
Department of Linguistics, Northwestern University
, Evanston, Illinois 60208
Search for other works by this author on:
b)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail: [email protected]
a)
Portions of this work were presented at the XVIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Saarbrucken, Germany, 2007 and at the 155th and 157th meetings of the Acoustical Society of America in Paris, France, May 2008 and Portland, OR, May 2009.
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 130, 4020–4031 (2011)
Article history
Received:
October 29 2010
Accepted:
September 22 2011
Citation
Rajka Smiljanić, Ann R. Bradlow; Bidirectional clear speech perception benefit for native and high-proficiency non-native talkers and listeners: Intelligibility and accentedness. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 1 December 2011; 130 (6): 4020–4031. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.3652882
Download citation file:
Pay-Per-View Access
$40.00
Sign In
You could not be signed in. Please check your credentials and make sure you have an active account and try again.
Citing articles via
All we know about anechoic chambers
Michael Vorländer
A survey of sound source localization with deep learning methods
Pierre-Amaury Grumiaux, Srđan Kitić, et al.
Does sound symbolism need sound?: The role of articulatory movement in detecting iconicity between sound and meaning
Mutsumi Imai, Sotaro Kita, et al.
Related Content
Cognitive factors as predictors of accented speech perception for younger and older adults
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (June 2017)
Foreign‐accented speech in noise.
J Acoust Soc Am (October 2008)
General adaptation to accented English: Speech intelligibility unaffected by perceived source of non-native accent
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (April 2021)
Second-language experience and speech-in-noise recognition: Effects of talker–listener accent similarity
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (September 2011)