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The interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit
1Department of Linguistics, Northwestern University, 2016 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA. t-bent@northwestern.edu
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|September 30, 2003
Summary
Native language background significantly impacts speech intelligibility. Non-native listeners benefit from hearing speakers with similar native language backgrounds, a phenomenon known as the matched interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Second Language Acquisition
- Speech Perception
Background:
- Native language background influences speech intelligibility.
- Understanding non-native speech perception is crucial for effective communication.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how native language background affects non-native speech intelligibility.
- To examine the role of shared and different native language backgrounds between talkers and listeners.
Main Methods:
- Recordings of native Chinese, Korean, and English talkers reading English sentences.
- Sentence recognition task administered to native English, Chinese, Korean, and mixed-background listeners.
Main Results:
- Native English listeners found the native English talker most intelligible.
- Non-native listeners showed similar intelligibility for high-proficiency, same-background non-native talkers and native talkers (matched interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit).
- This benefit extended to different language backgrounds (mismatched interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit).
Conclusions:
- Native language background plays a significant role in speech intelligibility.
- The interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit highlights the importance of shared linguistic experience.
- Findings contribute to understanding talker-listener interactions in cross-linguistic communication.
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