Effect of hesitation sound phonetic quality on perception of language fluency and accent
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Date
2021
Authors
Trebon, Tillena
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Nonnative speech has different pausing patterns compared to native speech. There are two types of pauses: filled and unfilled. Unfilled pauses are silent. Speakers make sounds during filled pauses. Different languages use different sounds for filled pauses; this is described as phonetic quality. English speakers use “uh” and Spanish speakers use “eh” to hesitate. When the phonetic quality of a hesitation sound (henceforth “HS”) is consistent with the HS used by native speakers, the HS is native. HSs with phonetic quality inconsistent with a native speaker HS are non-native. Studies show that proficiency and speech community influence whether L2 speakers produce native or nonnative HSs. However, no study has investigated the perceptual consequences of using nonnative versus native HSs. This study investigates the effect of HS phonetic quality on perception of language fluency and accentedness. In Experiment 1, participants rate sentences for fluency and accent. In Experiment 2, participants listen to two sentences with different HSs and choose which sentence sounds more accented and more fluent. Experiment 1 results show that HS phonetic quality did not impact listener judgements about accentedness or fluency. However, in Experiment 2, listeners rated nonnative HSs less fluent and more accented. This project has important implications for how learners treat pausing when practicing their L2 and for understanding how listeners process pauses when listening to nonnative speech.
Description
1 page.
Keywords
linguistics, pausing, speech perception, second language, language