The Case for a Quantitative Approach to the Study of Nonnative Accent Features

Area of Science:

• Phonetics and Phonology
• Sociolinguistics
• Second Language Acquisition

Background:

• Limited empirical data exists on the prevalence of specific nonnative accent features among native and nonnative speakers.
• Existing research often focuses on a few well-known features, potentially overlooking less common or newly emerging ones.
• Generalizability of findings from well-known features to lesser-known ones remains uncertain.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and demonstrate a quantitative approach for analyzing nonnative accent features.
• To identify phonetic features that effectively differentiate nonnative from native speech.
• To investigate the prevalence of accent features and regional variability in Dutch-accented English.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of phonetic distances between speech transcriptions to identify distinguishing features.
• Hypothesis testing on accent features by comparing their prevalence in native versus nonnative speakers.
• Inclusion of diverse native English (US, UK) and Dutch (Belgium, Netherlands) speakers to account for regional variations.

Main Results:

• Empirical support was found for some established Dutch-accented English features.
• Certain assumed nonnative features were found to be infrequent among nonnatives or common among natives.
• New potential accent features were identified, alongside factors influencing the expression of known features.

Conclusions:

• The quantitative approach effectively identifies and analyzes nonnative accent features.
• Findings validate some known features while challenging others, highlighting the need for empirical data.
• The study expands the understanding of accent phenomena by revealing novel features and modulating factors.