L2 SPEECH INTELLIGIBILITY: EFFECTS OF CODA MODIFICATION, DEGREE OF SEMANTIC INFORMATION AND LISTENERS’ BACKGROUND

• Autor(a) principal: Silveira, Rosane
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Outros Autores: Silva, Thaïs Cristófaro
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista Brasileira de Lingüística Aplicada (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://www.periodicos.letras.ufmg.br/index.php/rbla/article/view/13190
• topic: L2 speech, intelligibility, codas, pronunciation

The present study aims at investigating how the intelligibility of non-target word-final codas is affected by type of coda modification, degree of semantic information, and listeners’ first language (L1). Furthermore, a correlational approach is adopted to examine possible relations between intelligibility and the listeners’ second language (L2) proficiency level, familiarity with talkers’ L1, and length of residence in the talkers’ country. For this purpose, an Intelligibility Test was designed containing utterances with word-final codas that were produced with phonetic features typically found in the English spoken by Brazilians (e.g., palatalization and vowel insertion). This test and a background questionnaire were completed by 38 listeners from different nationalities. The results indicate that certain types of coda modification hinder intelligibility, and that semantic information improves intelligibility in some cases. Furthermore, listeners whose L1 is not similar to Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and who reported being highly familiar with the English spoken by Brazilians tend to perform better on the Intelligibility Test.