Acoustical Science and Technology
Online ISSN : 1347-5177
Print ISSN : 1346-3969
ISSN-L : 0369-4232
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The role of acoustic similarity in listening to foreign-accented speech: Recognition of Spanish-accented English words by Japanese native listeners
Sanae Matsui
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JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS

2024 Volume 45 Issue 4 Pages 216-223

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Abstract

Non-native speakers exhibit distinct speech characteristics from native speakers, referred to as foreign accents. Previous studies have shown that foreign-accented speech can be more easily understood than native speech when the native language of the talker matches that of the listener (e.g., Spanish-accented English perceived by Spanish native speakers) due to acoustic-phonetic similarities between the speech input and the listener's own accent. The present study applied this idea to a case where the native languages of the talker and the listeners differ but where the accents of the talker and listener could share acoustic-phonetic similarities (Spanish-accented English perceived by Japanese native speakers). We examined whether English words with a Spanish accent were recognized more quickly when the stimuli were acoustically closer to the accent of Japanese native listeners than those with Received Pronunciation (RP) were. A word identification experiment was conducted, where Japanese native speakers heard stimuli with RP and a Spanish accent. The results confirmed that the acoustic similarity somewhat facilitated word recognition, even for stimuli with a foreign accent. However, this advantage did not exceed the recognition of stimuli with a native accent. These results suggest a persistent bias towards easier recognition of stimuli produced by native speakers.

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© 2024 by The Acoustical Society of Japan

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