Govor, Vol. 38 No. 1, 2021.
Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.22210/govor.2021.38.01
(Un)acceptability of foreign accent
Lidija Orešković Dvorski
orcid.org/0000-0001-7688-0276
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Hrvatska
Sažetak
Foreign accent, the inability to master the elements of a foreign language phonetics and
phonology, is a rather common subject when it comes to foreign language learning. The
interference, resulting from the differences between the mother tongue and a foreign language,
may have a negative effect on the foreign language learner’s social status. Attitudes towards
foreign accent and the method of its correction have changed throughout the history following
the approaches and trends in foreign language teaching, such as the shift in terminology (error
vs deviation from the norm, native speaker vs authentic pronunciation). The aim of this paper
was to present the research of foreign accent perception in French, as well as the attitudes regarding the importance of its correction. The study included the assessment of foreign accent
among 16 first year Croatian-speaking students enrolled in French language and literature Master program. The evaluators were 97 French language and literature students, 13 teachers
and 10 French native speakers. Individual analysis of the speakers revealed the most frequent
errors and their relation to the pronunciation scores, as well as the impact of the years of French language learning, self-evaluation of their pronunciation or duration stay in French speaking countries. The most frequent pronunciation scores (Table 3) on a five-point scale were 3 (34.1%) and 4 (27.7%). The overall pronunciation score, presented in Table 4, falls within [3.1–3.5] 95% confidence interval. Table 6 presents statistically significant differences in
average scores based on the combinations of characteristics of the speakers and evaluators,
indicating higher average scores among student evaluators (M = 3.2; SD = 0.8), when compared to teachers’ average scores (M = 2.8; SD = 0.4) for the speakers that started learning
French before the age of 10. As for the mispronunciation types’ impact on the average score,
statistically significant differences were found for mispronunciation of vowels and consonants,
as shown in Table 7. Average score of the unacceptable pronunciation deviations (19%), when
compared to 58.5% of students with lower average scores (3, 2 and 1), might suggest that evaluators are rather tolerant regarding pronunciation deviations, which might reflect the status of pronunciation in foreign language learning.
Ključne riječi
foreign accent; pronunciation assessment; foreign accent (un)acceptability; Croatian; French as FL
Hrčak ID:
260699
URI
Datum izdavanja:
21.7.2021.
Posjeta: 1.412 *