Intelligibility and comprehensibility of Japanese accented English: Critical pronunciation features and listener adaptation

With the global spread of English, clarifying what makes speech intelligible and how listeners adapt to accent diversity is important for English language teaching. This presentation addresses these questions in two studies focusing on Japanese accented English.

The first study examined key pronunciation features affecting intelligibility for both native and non-native listeners. One hundred participants (50 native and 50 non-native English speakers) transcribed highly controlled sentences, each containing two target words exemplifying one of three features of Japanese accented English – vowel deviations, consonant deviations, or vowel epenthesis. Analyses indicated that consonant deviations and vowel epenthesis impaired intelligibility more than vowel deviations, and descriptive analyses further pinpointed specific phoneme-level contributors.

The second study tested whether brief adaptation training using Japanese accented English with captions improves comprehension. One hundred and twenty participants (60 native and 60 non-native English speakers) completed a pre-test–training–post-test design. In the test phases, participants transcribed sentences to measure intelligibility and provided Likert-scale ratings to measure comprehensibility. During training, they were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: Japanese accented speech with/without captions or North American English with/without captions. Listeners showed adaptation to Japanese accented speech, though training effects were limited. Drawing on these findings, the presentation discusses pedagogical implications for pronunciation and listening instruction.

Bio: Naosuke is a final-year DPhil student in Applied Linguistics at the University of Oxford. He completed an MSc in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition at Oxford in 2019. His research interests lie in intelligibility and listener adaptation in accented English within Global Englishes contexts.

Teams link:
https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3aM_SoBsI8nakThXNUxEguh57-GSvT6JopDdhFnEBgr3I1%40thread.tacv2/1759499701700?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22cc95de1b-97f5-4f93-b4ba-fe68b852cf91%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22e0e2c03d-d313-4dab-bd7c-afbd83792648%22%7d