The Influence of Listener Ideology on Perception of Non-Native Speech Volume
Datum
2021
Autor:innen
Zeitschriftentitel
ISSN der Zeitschrift
Bandtitel
Verlag
University of Oregon
Zusammenfassung
Implicit attitudes about social groups are often associated with the language varieties used by those groups. As a result, listeners not only make social evaluations based on a person’s language and accent, but may also perceive speech differently based on social expectations for speakers. However, there is little work investigating the influence of differences in social beliefs among listeners, rather than social differences between speakers, and even less work examining the perception of intensity (volume). This study investigated the relationship between a listener’s social ideology and the way they perceived the volume of non-native (“foreign-accented”) speech. Native English speakers listened to a series of sentences in native-accented English, non-native English, and native Turkish, Spanish, and Mandarin, and they were asked to rate the volume of each sentence they heard. Next, they indicated their agreement with either nationalist or globalist ideological attitudes. Across intensity conditions, participants perceived native-accented English as louder than both non-native English and non-English languages. Ideology comparisons were limited, with the participant pool heavily skewed toward globalism, but the data suggest ideology may predict the extent to which listeners perceive a volume difference between native and non-native English. Implications for real-world interaction are discussed, and further research is recommended.
Beschreibung
1 page.
Schlagwörter
Linguistics, Speech perception, Non-native speech, Ideology