Work

Measuring Foreign Accent Strength in English

Year: 2014

Type: article

Abstract: With an eye toward measuring the strength of foreign accents in American English, we evaluate the suitability of a modified version of the Levenshtein distance for comparing (the phonetic transcriptions of) accented pronunciations. Although this measure has been used successfully inter alia to study the differences among dialect pronunciations, it has not been applied to studying foreign accents. Here, we use it to compare the pronunciation of non-native English speakers to native American English speech. Our results indicate that the Levenshtein distance is a valid native-likeness measurement, as it correlates strongly ( r = -0.81) with the average “native-like” judgments given by more than 1000 native American English raters.

Source: Language Dynamics and Change

DOI: 10.1163/22105832-00402001

Authors: Martijn Wieling, Jelke Bloem, Kaitlin Mignella, Mona Timmermeister, John Nerbonne

Institutions: University of Groningen, University of Tübingen, University of Amsterdam, Utrecht University

Language: English

Topic: Phonetics and Phonology Research

Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W2151466612

FWCI: 4.893

Cites: 37

Cited by: 44

Related to: 10