Abstract
This study examines two issues: (1) Whether listeners in the inner and expanding circles have the same perceptions of “natural” patterns in English pronunciation, and (2) whether listeners in the expanding circle, who have varied backgrounds, have the same perception patterns. Three groups of listeners participated in this study: 13 English native speakers (ENSs) as inner circle listeners, and 33 Japanese learners of English (JLEs) and 8 Indonesian learners of English (ILEs) as expanding circle listeners. They were asked to listen to sample sentences in four patterns: a fall and fall-rise intonation, with and without vowel epentheses between consonants. They rated the naturalness of speech on a 10-point Likert scale. The three groups’ evaluations of the recordings without vowel epenthesis were significantly higher than those with vowel epenthesis. While all groups showed similar tendencies in their perceptual evaluations, JLEs tended to rate recordings with vowel epenthesis lower than ENSs and ILEs. Results indicate that vowel epenthesis is a significant predictor of accentedness ratings in listeners from the inner and expanding circles, and that JLEs may stress it when judging the naturalness of their English pronunciation.
https://ror.org/02kpeqv85 
