A survey on the difference of accents of english learners from different countries

A widely recognized problem of people who learn English as their second language L2 is that they have different ways of pronunciation and theyare often perceived to speak with a foreign

A SURVEY ON THE DIFFERENCE OF ACCENTS OF ENGLISH LEARNERS FROM DIFFERENT COUNTRIES

Supervisor: Dang Thi Hanh,MA Student’s name: Nguyen Trung Thanh

Class: English 9 Student’s code: 14D220201111

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all, I want to express my thankful toward my supervisor, Ms Dang Thi Hanh, MA This research could not have been completed without her enthusiastic She instructed, commented and provided me useful references and materials so I could complete my research Moreover, she spent her valuable time on guiding and encouraging me during the time I was conducting the research

Secondly, I want to show my special thanks to all lectures in the Faculty of Linguistics and Literature of TDU for their teaching and helping me widen English knowledge over the past four years

Finally, I also would like to extend my special thanks for giving me the opportunity and permission to carry out the research

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 5

1.1 Rationale 5

1.2 The significance of study 6

1.3 The organization of study 6

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 The definitions of language 7

2.2 The definitions of accent 8

2.3 The importance of accent 9

2.4 Factors affecting accent 9

2.4.1 Age of Learning (AOL) 9

2.4.2 Length of residence (LOR) 12

2.4.3 The effect of pauses 13

2.4.4 Mother Tongue 13

2.5 The relationship between cultural identity and accent 14

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH AIMS – RESEARCH QUESTIONS – HYPOTHESIS 16 3.1 Research Aims 16

3.2 Research Questions 16

3.3 Hypothesis 16

CHAPTER 4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 17 4.1 Design 17

4.2 Participants 17

4.3 Instruments 17

4.3.1 Questionnaire 18

4.4 Procedure 19

CHAPTER 5 EXPECTED OUTCOME 20 5.1 Mother Tongue 20

5.2 The pauses 20

5.3 Solutions 20 REFERENCES

APPENDIX

ABSTRACT

In areas such as business and education, many English language students will need the ability to communicate with English speakers possessing a wide range of both native and non-native English accents This paper will give you

an example between Korean students and Vietnamese students about the reasons when they are both speaking English but have totally different accents

By using questionnaire to understand what obstacles are actually causing the difference of accents, this paper will answer for the question “Why do English learners from different countries have different accents?”

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, we state the problem, give background information and

organize the study

1.1 Rationale

An accent is a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation An accent may be identified with the locality in which its speakers reside (a regional or geographical accent).Accents typically differ in quality of the voice, pronunciation and distinction of vowels, consonants and stress Although grammar, semantics, vocabulary, and other language characteristics often vary concurrently with accent, the word "accent" may refer specifically to the differences in pronunciation A widely recognized problem of people who learn English as their second language (L2) is that they have different ways of pronunciation and theyare often perceived to speak with a foreign accent There are various factors which affect L2 foreign accent apparently and potentially They include certain common factors and individual factors as well In these two articles, linguists are attempting to find the common and representative reasons for explaining the L2 foreign accent

In the first one, Flegeal (1995) provided a specific example by doing certain research with a group of Italian speakers of English, comparing to English native speakers in Canada; Piskeal (2001), in the second article, summarized a few main factors on a basis of the results done by Flege et al and other linguists Therefore, four common factors can be found from both articles as prominent reasons for L2 foreign accent, although they may still cause disagreement

1.2 The significance of study

Due to the limited amount of research on the difference of accents of English learners, the results of this study may contribute to the literature by providing insights into a different perspective of L2 learning Furthermore, this study will also contribute to the few studies that investigate the relationship between identity and accent as well factors affecting accent On a wide scale, this study may contribute to the debate regarding teaching pronunciation with a goal of achieving a native-like accent by providing some different perspectives At a local level, the results of this study will provide information about the reason why English learners from different country have different accents; therefore, giving them another issue to consider when formulating their beliefs about pronunciation

1.3 The organization of study

The study consists of five chapters

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Literature Review

Chapter 3: Research Aim – Research Questions – Hypothesis

Chapter 4: Research Methodology

Chapter 5: Expected Outcome

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents the definitions of language as well accent, its

importance and factors affecting accent It also includes the relationship between cultural identity and accent

2.1 The definitions of language

It is interesting that words as commonly used as language and dialect, prove quite difficult to define adequately The Miriam-Webster Online Dictionary (Miriam-Webster 2005) defines language in part as:

"1 a: the words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and understood by a community

b(1) : audible, articulate, meaningful sound as produced by the action of the vocal organs

(2) : a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings "

This definition includes the concepts of grammar, vocabulary and the expression of such grammar and vocabulary in any systematic form Wardhaugh (1998) notes the ability of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish speakers to understand each other's languages to a reasonable extent, however

by the definition above all three should be considered the same language Using the same reasoning, while a number of what are commonly called dialects of Chinese are mutually intelligible in written form, they are unintelligible in spoken form, and thus could be argued to be different languages

2.2 The definitions of accent

One definition of accent provided by Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary is

“a way of speaking typical of a particular group of people and especially of the natives or residents of a region.” Accents in the context of sociolinguistics not only define people but also perform as a way of showing their belonging to a particular speech community Therefore, accent is a symbol of social identity Becker (1995) states that “An accent is the part of a person’s language that serves to identify the speaker’s regional origin or national identity no matter what language the person is speaking” Accent, as one of the most effective indicators of identity (Seidlhofer, 2001; Sifakis and Sougari, 2005), not only influences communicative fluency but also has a role in judgments of social belonging and identity (Moyer, 2007) Southwood and Fledge (1999) define a foreign accent as: “Non-pathological speech produced by second language learners that differs in partially systematic ways from the speech characteristics of native speakers of a given dialect” As Moyer (2004) points out, there are indications that language fluency of a non-native speaker can be positively developed by long term residence in the target country; therefore exposure to high frequency contact with native speaker (e.g., Flege & Fletcher, 1992; Flege, Takagi, & Mann, 1995) However, there are also studies that have shown contradictory findings of the significance of the long term residence factor (e.g., Flege & Liu, 2001; Piske, MacKay, & Flege, 2001) Moyer (2009) argues that length of residence is an unreliable predictor of L2 phonological attainment because there are immigrants in many countries with many years residence who never came close to native like proficiency in accent

2.3 The importance of accent

As mentioned above, accent is a manner of pronunciation.Almost people agreed that accent plays an important role in daily communication and it is one

of the most important things that students have to master in order to communicate appropriately and fluently In fact, it is important to pay attention to pronunciation since it results in whether or not someone's message can be passed or not by other people More over, if someone cannot hear English well, she or he is cut off from the language And if someone cannot be understood easily, she or he is cut off from conversation with native speakers

We can conclude from the statements above that pronunciation gives a significant effect to the meaning of what someone says

For students learning English, to be able to understand others and communicate intelligibly, a language learners need to come into contact with different accents and be sensitised to the differences in pronunciation, so that they can be able to respond in the real world where they will constantly be coming into contact with different accents

2.4 Factors affecting accent

In learning English as a second language (L2), it is not easy to master

speaking skill For those who study L2, having accents of native English speakers is a tough challenge because of effects of many different elements In this research, we would like to analyze four basic factors affecting accent

2.4.1 Age of Learning (AOL)

Accent acquisition is one component of second language learning that learners sometimes may not feel comfortable with Research on accent acquisition is

divided between those scholars who believe that it can only occur during a critical age and those who do not According to Pallier, Bosch, and Sebastian (1997), adults find it harder than younger learners to acquire the native accent

of the second language The critical age period is the period in which the learner can still learn the new phonetic system of the new language Lennenberg (1967) claimed that there is a neurological critical age period and

it ends near the teenage years Oyama’s (1976) research point to the existence

of a critical age period for acquiring a native accent in the second language Scovel (1981) theorizes that there is one critical age period for second language accent acquisition that is neurological, involving the intervention of certain nerves in the human body Learners who start learning a second language after the age of twelve will never be able to acquire its true native accent, although there may be a few unique exceptions Long (1990) concurs with Scovel (1981), holding that the acquisition of the native accent occurs through exposure to the native accent before age six and not later than age twelve

However, Neufeld (1979) found that Canadian native English speakers who started to learn French as adults succeeded in acquiring the native French accent This proved that acquiring the accent of the second language was possible even after the presumed critical age period Similarly, Bongaerts, Planken, and Schils (1995) indicated that Dutch people who began learning English in a formal instructional setting after the age of twelve were able to

162 attain English pronunciation ratings within the same range as those attained by native speaker controls—the second language accent was perceived as native by native speakers Studies have been conducted on adult Dutch people learning English as a second language, on the learning of French

as a second language by Dutch subjects (Bongaerts, Van Summeren, Planken,

& Schils, 1997), and on late learning of Dutch as a second language (Bongaerts, Mennen, & Van der Slik, 2000) All these studies replicate the findings of Bongaerts et al (1995) Moyer (1999) investigated the second language phonological attainment of 24 Anglophone graduates of German, none of whom had had any exposure to that language before age 11, but were now employed as teachers of German at the university level According to the ratings of four native German speakers, the German accent of those Anglophone graduates did not match the accents of native speaker controls However, one of the subjects was mistaken by the raters for a native speaker This individual had begun learning German at age twenty-two, and was largely self-taught What distinguished him from his peers was a strong desire

to sound German

Much of the recent work of Flege and his colleagues has demonstrated the importance of environmental factors on second language pronunciation Time spent in a country where the target language is in use (Riney & Flege, 1998) and time spent in the company of native speakers (Flege, Frieda, & Nozawa, 1997) emerged as major determinants of quality of second language accent Klein (1993) argues that extensive and continuous exposure to the second language is an essential factor, but not enough in attaining native second language accent Accent can be acquired only if the learner is highly motivated to learn the language and has a strong desire to be like and sound like the native speakers This must be combined with good linguistic aptitude and the ability to learn the native second language accent even after the critical age period Asher and Garcia (1969) found that none of their subjects who immigrated to the United States had attained a true American accent regardless of the age of arrival and length of residency However, many were rated as having near-native English pronunciation The highest probability of this near-native pronunciation occurred when the subject had arrived in the

United States as a child between the ages of one and six years, and had lived there five to eight years They concluded that the younger the child, the higher the probability of pronunciation fidelity

2.4.2 Length of residence (LOR)

Length of Residence is another well-studied factor among different variables

It means the length of a speaker's residence in the target language environment and it only concerns with the period rather than the starting point

However, it is a controversial factor proved in certain research ( Purcell & Suter 1980, Flege & Fletcher 1992 and Flegeal 1995, all in Piskeal 2001) and disproved in other research (Oyama 1976, Tahtaal 1981 and Elliott 1995, all

in Piskeal 2001) According to Flege (1995), it shows that length of residence

is a very small although important factor among the variables because it is related to Age of Learning For those subjects, the earlier they learn English, the longer the residence length is, but it has only effects on foreign accent within the 'initial phase of learning' (Piskeal 2001) In other words, age of learning is still the primary factor compared to length of residence, in the critical period, age of learning with corresponding length of residence can affect the accent, but it will not influence the accent as an independent variable after the learning age

Another interesting conclusion pointed out by Uematsu (1998) after a research

on 48 Japanese school students in the U.S., in which he compared the AOL, LOR, foreign accent and TOFEL results The degree of foreign accent of the students highly correlated with AOL but not the LOR factor; in contrast, TOFEL results corresponded with LOR of those students but not the age reason It also suggested that the critical period only fitted for the degree of foreign accent rather than other areas in L2 language study, LOR was more related to the overall L2 language achievement It might be true from my

observation that in the same situation, young immigrants are more likely to be accent-free while their parents usually speak with strong accent although they have accuracy and fluency in their speech

2.4.3 The effect of pauses

The oral interview test used by the Foreign Service Institute to assess foreign language proficiency makes use of five variables: grammar, vocabulary, comprehension, accent, and fluency "Accent" is likely to be related to details

of segmental articulation, intonation, and rhythm These are all dimensions along which an L2 learner's performance might be compared to L2 phonetic

"norms." The term "fluent" is often used to describe L2 production (e.g., Elman et al., 1977) It is uncertain upon what acoustic dimensions the perception of degree of fluency depends, but the dimensions are likely to include the number, location, and duration of pauses, prolongations, and repetitions in sentences Non-native speakers seem to produce sentences containing more, and perhaps longer, pauses than native speakers (James, 1988) Removing pauses might make sentences spoken by non-natives sound more fluent, and thus lead to higher global foreign accent scores This hypothesis assumes that, as implied by the nominal components of the Foreign Service test, accent and fluency represent separate (or separable) perceptual dimensions However, that the perceived degree of fluency does not contribute

to foreign accent judgments, or that accent and fluency judgments interact in some complex fashion so that removing pauses from sentence spoken by non-native speakers would not improve the foreign accent scores accorded to their sentences

2.4.4 Mother Tongue

The importance of pronunciation in communication cannot be denied In fact it

is as important as grammar and vocabulary Yet, the evidence of mother