Relationships between experimental tasks

This section compares listeners’ behavior in Experiments 1 and 2 and discusses the differences and similarities in participants’ responses.

Figure 4.7 represents the accentedness ratings the 18 NNESs received from the listeners in Experiment 1. The two speakers with the highest score are higher proficiency speakers Kahui and Sam, with the mean ratings of 76.3 and 84.1 respectively. The lower proficiency speaker Vincent stands out as well, with a low mean rating of 12.6. The remaining speakers fall in

between these two extremes. In Figure 4.8 we can see the ratings for all the 24 NESs and NNESs in Experiment 2. Despite receiving a few higher judgments (less native-like), the median rating for all native English speakers was 1 (Definitely a first language speaker of English). The median ratings of non-native English speakers varied dramatically from 1 for Kahui and Sam to 7 for Vincent with the majority of rating medians falling between 3 and 6. The use of the whole

continua by the participants in accentedness judgment tasks in Experiments 1 and 2 suggests that the speakers were able to hear a degree of accent in the presented clips.

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The research questions that the two tasks were addressing were similar but slightly different. Experiment 1 asked about foreign accentedness, so, presumably, the listeners were comparing the speakers against an internal ideal of NZE. The NESs were not used for stimuli in this experiment, but it would be expected that NESs of NZE would receive a higher score than other NESs. In Experiment 2 the focus was on native-likeness, which is a much broader concept. It was specifically clarified in the instructions that it included first language speakers of any variety of English. As expected, all NESs had the same median of received ratings (1; Definitely a first language speaker of English).

The listeners’ responses in the two experiments were directly comparable. The mean ratings NNESs received in Experiment 1 were predictive of the mean ratings they received in Experiment 2 (Figure 4.9). On an individual level, the same two NNESs Kahui and Sam received the less accented score and Vincent received the most accented score in both tasks.

Figure 4.9: Individual NNESs' ratings in the 2 accentedness perception experiments; Emily, Hesse, and Jack filled

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I compared the relative accentedness ratings of Emily, Hesse, and Jack in the two experiments to make sure that the listeners actually answered different questions in the two experiments. In the answers to the second question of Experiment 2, Emily, Hesse, and Jack were regarded to be a NNES over 40% of the time; however, their passing performance is quite different: Emily passed for a NS of NZE over 40% of the time and for a NS of other varieties – less than 5%; Hesse and Jack, on the other hand, passed for a NS of another variety over 30% of the time and for a NS of NZE – less than 6% (Figure 4.10). These three speakers would then be expected to behave differently in regards to the accentedness ratings in the two experiments (see Figure 4.9). Emily should receive a higher accentedness score compared to Jack and Hesse in the first experiment where the question asked about foreign accentedness, but they may be expected to receive a similar score on native-likeness in Experiment 2. In fact, Emily, Hesse, and Jack’s median native-likeness ratings in Experiment 2 were the same (3; Figure 4.8). Welch’s t-test was used for pairwise comparisons of the ratings, and it confirmed that the mean ratings were not statistically different for Emily and Hesse, but they differed for Emily and Jack (p=0.02). This means that, when asked about native-likeness, Emily and Hesse were judged similarly native-like and Emily and Jack differently. The same test was used to compare the mean ratings received by these speakers in Experiment 1, and it found a statistical difference for both pairwise

comparisons Emily and Hesse (p=0.00005) and Emily and Jack (p=0.0003). This means that, when asked about foreign accentedness, Emily and Hesse and Emily and Jack were judged differently, and the difference for Emily and Jack in Experiment 1 was larger than that in

Experiment 2. So, as expected, the speakers with differences in passing (majority NS of the same variety vs majority NS of a different variety) were rated slightly differently in the two

experiments.

Figure 4.10 illustrates the percentage of time the speakers were assigned to different nativeness categories in terms of origin in Experiment 2. It can be seen that NESs all received a majority NES assignment. Kahui and Sam, who were rated most native-like on the accentedness scales, were also believed to be from New Zealand most of the time (see Section 5.1 for details). Emily received a majority New Zealand geographical assignment but got over 40% in the NNES category; this is reflected in her accentedness score, which had a much wider range compared to Kahui and Sam. Naturally, because these two questions were part of the same experiment, dramatically contrasting responses would not be expected. Having two different questions in the

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same experiment also allowed me to compare the second language accentedness scale to open- ended responses directly.

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Figure 4.11 shows the overall correspondences between the NNESs’ nativeness ratings and their geographical assignments in Experiment 2. It can be clearly seen that the speakers who were thought to be from English-speaking regions (Australia, North American, NZ, and UK & Ireland) received accentedness ratings on the ‘Definitely an L1 speaker of English’ side of the scale (e.g., median rating for Australia is 1). Predominantly non-English-speaking regions, on the other hand, were associated with a higher second language accentedness score (e.g., 5 for

Europe). However, one can also notice that this was not a clear-cut correspondence as some English-speaking regions received a few higher accentedness scores (up to 7 for all but Australia) and most non-English-speaking areas were associated with lower accentedness scores at least once. Undoubtedly, some of this variation can be explained through participant error, but it may also reflect the continuous nature of accentedness and native-likeness in perception as listeners take into consideration the speaker’s linguistic and social background (e.g., where the speaker was born, what language they speak at home, etc.; see more in Section 5.4).

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Figure 4.11: The accentedness ratings - region guesses correspondences for NNESs

In their comments (Section 5.4) the listeners indicated that they were not splitting

speakers into clear social categories of origin but rather were aware of the mixed nature of accent and its relationship with individual speaker histories. For example, listener 30 in Experiment 2 gave the L1 Korean speaker Gabriella a native-likeness score of 2, judged her to be from New Zealand, and commented that she has a ‘Māori or Pacific accent, but sounds kiwi’. The listener probably assessed the presence of target- and non-target-like features in her speech and

explained the mixed nature of her accent through sociolinguistic variation. Her accent was attributed to an ethnolect, and its non-standardness resulted in a higher accentedness score, which resembles Beinhoff’s (2008) finding that the concept of ‘native speaker’ is highly

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