Associating speaker variables with English pronunciation ratings in Spanish tertiary education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30827/portalin.vi41.27083Keywords:
bilingual education, EMI, level, English pronunciation, intelligibilityAbstract
Although the use of English in the ever-changing context of bilingual tertiary education has been extensively studied to date, pronunciation research in the field is still scarce. This paper aims at providing empirical data regarding the hypothesised impact of bilingual education programmes on pronunciation performance operationalised through the notions of intelligibility, comprehensibility and foreign-accentedness. For this purpose, 60 advanced speakers of English from a Spanish university (enrolled both in bilingual and monolingual degree courses) were recorded and assessed by 330 international English speakers from 30 different L1s. Both the speakers and the listeners completed a basic sociodemographic questionnaire. The independent variables were related to the participants’ (1) reported exposure to bilingual instruction at the previous and current levels of education, as well as (2) their overall level in English and (3) their exposure to English abroad. The findings showed that bilingual education was in no way associated with differences in pronunciation ratings. However, the speakers’ level and their experience abroad were correlated with the comprehensibility and foreign-accentedness scores. The results are not only consequential for the understanding of the (lack of) impact of bilingual variables on pronunciation, but they also allow to examine the adequacy of the CEFR phonological descriptors.
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References
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Barrass, J. P., Baffoe-Djan, J. B., Rose, H., & Boggs, J. A. (2020). Intelligibility and Comprehensibility of Korean English Speakers’ Phonological Features in Lingua Franca Listening Contexts. The Journal of AsiaTEFL, 17(1), 124-142. doi:10.18823/asiatefl.2020.17.1.8.124
Benoît, C., Grice, M., & Hazan, V. (1996). The SUS test: A method for the assessment of text-to-speech synthesis intelligibility using Semantically Unpredictable Sentences. Speech Communication, 18(4), 381-392.
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences (Second edition ed.). New York Psychology Press.
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Crowther, D., Trofimovich, P., Saito, K., & Isaacs, T. (2015). Second language comprehensibility revisited: investigating the effects of learner background. TESOL Quarterly, 49(4), 814-837.
Dalton-Puffer, C. (2008). Outcomes and processes in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL): current research from Europe. In W. Delanoy, & L. Volkmann (Eds.), Future Perspectives for English Language Teaching (pp. 139-157). Carl Winter.
Dalton-Puffer, C. (2011). Content-and-Language Integrated Learning: From Practice to Principles? Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 31, 182-204.
Derwing, T. M., & Munro, M. J. (1997). Accent, Intelligibility, and Comprehensibility: Evidence from Four L1s. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 19(1), 1-16.
Derwing, T. M., & Munro, M. J. (2015). Pronunciation fundamentals: Evidence-based perspectives for L2 Teaching and Research. John Benjamins.
Diogo, S., Queirós, A., Carvalho, T., Manatos, M., & Soares, D. (2019). 20 years of the Bologna Declaration – a literature review on the globalisation of higher education reforms. EDULEARN19 Proceedings (pp. 5196-5204). 10.21125/edulearn.2019.1283
Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. Oxford University Press.
El Confidencial. (2014). Nuestro acento en inglés nos delata: estos son los errores más comunes. El Confidencial (24 January 2014). https://www.elconfidencial.com/alma-corazon-vida/2014-01-24/nuestro-acento-en-ingles-nos-delata-estos-son-los-errores-mas-comunes_79791/
Fielden Burns, L. V., Rico García, M., & Hernández Linares, R. (2018). The growth of EMI tertiary programs in Spain: novel approaches to developing linguistic competence in instructors. LSP in Multi-disciplinary contexts of Teaching and Research. Papers from the 16th International AELFE Conference, Vol. 3 (pp. 40-46). https://easychair.org/publications/paper/tRR3. https://doi.org/10.29007/qpdg
Flege, J. E. (1988). Factors affecting degree of perceived foreign accent in English sentences. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 84(1), 70-79.
Foskett, N. (2010). Global markets, national challenges, local strategies. In F. Maringe, & N. Foskett (Eds.), Globalization and internationalization in higher education. Theoretical, strategic and management perspectives (pp. 35-50). Continuum.
Gallardo del Puerto, F., & Gómez Lacabex, E. (2017). Oral production outcomes in CLIL: an attempt to manage amount of exposure. European Journal of Applied Linguistics, 5(1), 31-54.
Gallardo del Puerto, F., & Martínez Adrián, M. (2013). ¿Es más efectivo el aprendizaje de la lengua extranjera en un contexto AICLE? Resultados de la investigación en España. Padres Y Maestros, 263, 25-28.
Gallardo del Puerto, F., Gómez Lacabex, E., & García Lecumberri, M. L. (2009). Testing the effectiveness of Content and Language Integrated Learning: the assessment of English pronunciation. In Y. Ruiz de Zarobe, & R. M. Jiménez Catalán (Eds.), Content and Language Integrated Learning. Evidence from Research from Europe (pp. 63-80). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Galván, F. (2010). Por qué a los españoles se nos da mal el inglés. El País (9 July 2010). https://elpais.com/diario/2010/07/19/opinion/1279490411_850215.html
Gilbert, J. B. (2010). Pronunciation as orphan: what can be done? Speak Out! IATEFL Pronunciation Special Newsletter, 43, 3-7.
Hellekjær, G. O. (2010). Language matters: assessing lecture comprehension in Norwegian English-Medium higher education. Language Use and Language Learning in CLIL Classrooms (pp. 233-258). John Benjamins.
IBM Corp. (2020). IBM SPSS [computer software]. Armonk, NY.
Jenkins, J. (2000). The Phonology of English as an International Language. Oxford University Press.
Jeong, H. J., Thorén, B., & Othman, J. (2017). Mutual intelligibility of Malay- and Swedish-accented English: an experimental study. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1), 43-53.
Joto, A., Nagase, Y., & Funatsu, S. (2007). Effect of VOT on intelligibility of English voiceless stops produced by native speakers of Japanese [Conference Presentation]. PTLC2007: Phonetics Teaching and Learning Convention, London, United Kingdom. http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/ptlc/proceedings/ptlcpaper_31e.pdf
Juan Antonio Cutillas Espinosa. (2017). "A Relaxing Cup of Lingua Franca Core": Local Attitudes Towards Locally-Accented English. Atlantis (Salamanca, Spain), 39(1), 11-32.
Kachru, B. B. (1985). Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: The English Language in the Outer Circle. In R. Quirk, & H. Widdowson (Eds.), English in the World: Teaching and Learning the language and the literature. Cambridge University Press.
Kang, O., Thomson, R. I., & Moran, M. (2018). Empirical Approaches to Measuring the Intelligibility of Different Varieties of English in Predicting Listener Comprehension. Language Learning, 68(1), 115-146. doi:10.1111/lang.12270
La Razón. (2019). Los españoles son los europeos que peor hablan inglés. La Razón (13 July 2019). https://www.larazon.es/familia/los-espanoles-son-los-europeos-que-peor-hablan-ingles-PO24191608/
Lasagabaster, D. (2008). Foreign language competence in content and language integrated courses. The Open Applied Linguistics Journal, 1(1), 30-41.
Levis, J. M. (2018). Intelligibility, oral communication, and the teaching of pronunciation. Cambridge University Press.
LimeSurvey Gmbh. (2019). LimeSurvey: An Open Source Survey Tool. Retrieved from www.limesurvey.org.
Lippi-Green, R. (1994). Accent, standard language ideology, and discriminatory pretext in the courts. Language in Society, 23(2), 163-198.
Merino, J. A., & Lasagabaster, D. (2018). The effect of content and language integrated learning programmes' intensity on English proficiency: A longitudinal study. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 28(1), 18-30.
Minematsu, N., Okabe, K., Ogaki, K., & Hirose, K. (2011). Measurement of objective intelligibility of Japanese accented English using ERJ (English Read by Japanese) Database. Interspeech Proceedings, Florence, Italy. (pp. 1481-1484).
Muñoz, C., & Llanes, À. (2014). Study Abroad and Changes in Degree of Foreign Accent in Children and Adults. The Modern Language Journal, 98(1), 432-449. https://doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2014.12059.x
O'Neal, G. (2015c). Interactional intelligibility: the relationship between consonant modification and pronunciation intelligibility in English as a Lingua Franca in Japan. Asian Englishes, 17(3), 222–239.
Otto, A., & Estrada, J. L. (2019). Towards an Understanding of CLIL Assessment Practices in a European Context: Main Assessment Tools and the Role of Language in Content Subjects. CLIL Journal of Innovation and Research in Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education, 2(1), 31-42. https:// doi:10.5565/rev/clil.11
Pérez Cañado, M. L., & Lancaster, N. K. (2017). The effects of CLIL on oral comprehension and production: a longitudinal case study. Language, Culture, and Curriculum, 30(3), 300-316.
Pérez-Cañado, M. L. (2018). CLIL and educational level: A longitudinal study on the impact of CLIL on language outcomes. Porta Linguarum, 29, 51-70. Pérez-Cañado, M. L., & Lancaster, N. K. (2017). The effects of CLIL on oral comprehension and production: a longitudinal case study. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 30(3), 1-19.
Rallo Fabra, L., & Jacob, K. (2015). Does CLIL Enhance oral skills? Fluency and pronunciation errors by Spanish-Catalan learners of English. In M. Juan-Garau, & M. Salazar Noguera (Eds.), Content-based Language Learning in Multilingual Educational Environments (pp. 163-177). Springer.
Rallo Fabra, L., & Juan-Garau, M. (2010). Intelligibility and foreign accentedness in a Context-and-Language-Integrated-Learning (CLIL) setting [Conference Paper]. 6th International Symposium on the Acquisition of Second Language Speech, New Sounds 2010. (pp. 373-378).
Ramos García, A. M. (2013). Higher Education Bilingual Programmes in Spain. Porta Linguarum: Revista Internacional de Didáctica de las Lenguas Extranjeras, 19(19), 101-112. https://doi:10.30827/Digibug.29632
Ramos García, A. M., & Pavón Vázquez, V. (2018). The linguistic internationalization of higher education: a study on the presence of language policies and bilingual studies in Spanish universities. Porta Linguarum: Revista Internacional de Didáctica de las Lenguas Extranjeras, Monográfico III, 31-46.
Richter, K. (2015). English-Medium Instruction and Pronunciation A longitudinal case study of Austrian business students at the University of Applied Sciences Vienna. [PhD Dissertation]. University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Saito, K., Trofimovich, P., & Isaacs, T. (2016). Second language speech production: Investigating linguistic correlates of comprehensibility and accentedness for learners at different ability levels. Applied Psycholinguistics 37(2), 217-240.
Tomczak, M., & Tomczak, E. (2014). The need to report effect size estimates revisited. An overview of some recommended measures of effect size. Trends in Sport Sciences, 1(21), 19-25.
Trofimovich, P., & Isaacs, T. (2012). Disentangling accent from comprehensibility. Bilingualism (Cambridge, England), 15(4), 905-916.
Volín, J., Skarnitzl, R., & Henderson, A. (2018). Perceptual impact of foreign-accented speech. In J. Volín, & R. Skarnitzl (Eds.), The Pronunciation of English by Speakers of Other Languages (pp. 73-94). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Walker, R. (2010). Teaching the Pronunciation of English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford University Press.
Wang, H. (2007). English as a lingua franca: Mutual intelligibility of Chinese, Dutch and American speakers of English. LOT.
Barrass, J. P., Baffoe-Djan, J. B., Rose, H., & Boggs, J. A. (2020). Intelligibility and Comprehensibility of Korean English Speakers’ Phonological Features in Lingua Franca Listening Contexts. The Journal of AsiaTEFL, 17(1), 124-142. doi:10.18823/asiatefl.2020.17.1.8.124
Benoît, C., Grice, M., & Hazan, V. (1996). The SUS test: A method for the assessment of text-to-speech synthesis intelligibility using Semantically Unpredictable Sentences. Speech Communication, 18(4), 381-392.
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences (Second edition ed.). New York Psychology Press.
Council of Europe. (2001). Common European Framework for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Cambridge University Press.
Council of Europe. (2018). Common European framework of reference for languages: learning, teaching, assessment. Companion volume with new descriptors. Council of Europe.
Crowther, D., Trofimovich, P., Saito, K., & Isaacs, T. (2015). Second language comprehensibility revisited: investigating the effects of learner background. TESOL Quarterly, 49(4), 814-837.
Dalton-Puffer, C. (2008). Outcomes and processes in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL): current research from Europe. In W. Delanoy, & L. Volkmann (Eds.), Future Perspectives for English Language Teaching (pp. 139-157). Carl Winter.
Dalton-Puffer, C. (2011). Content-and-Language Integrated Learning: From Practice to Principles? Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 31, 182-204.
Derwing, T. M., & Munro, M. J. (1997). Accent, Intelligibility, and Comprehensibility: Evidence from Four L1s. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 19(1), 1-16.
Derwing, T. M., & Munro, M. J. (2015). Pronunciation fundamentals: Evidence-based perspectives for L2 Teaching and Research. John Benjamins.
Diogo, S., Queirós, A., Carvalho, T., Manatos, M., & Soares, D. (2019). 20 years of the Bologna Declaration – a literature review on the globalisation of higher education reforms. EDULEARN19 Proceedings (pp. 5196-5204). 10.21125/edulearn.2019.1283
Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. Oxford University Press.
El Confidencial. (2014). Nuestro acento en inglés nos delata: estos son los errores más comunes. El Confidencial (24 January 2014). https://www.elconfidencial.com/alma-corazon-vida/2014-01-24/nuestro-acento-en-ingles-nos-delata-estos-son-los-errores-mas-comunes_79791/
Fielden Burns, L. V., Rico García, M., & Hernández Linares, R. (2018). The growth of EMI tertiary programs in Spain: novel approaches to developing linguistic competence in instructors. LSP in Multi-disciplinary contexts of Teaching and Research. Papers from the 16th International AELFE Conference, Vol. 3 (pp. 40-46). https://easychair.org/publications/paper/tRR3. https://doi.org/10.29007/qpdg
Flege, J. E. (1988). Factors affecting degree of perceived foreign accent in English sentences. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 84(1), 70-79.
Foskett, N. (2010). Global markets, national challenges, local strategies. In F. Maringe, & N. Foskett (Eds.), Globalization and internationalization in higher education. Theoretical, strategic and management perspectives (pp. 35-50). Continuum.
Gallardo del Puerto, F., & Gómez Lacabex, E. (2017). Oral production outcomes in CLIL: an attempt to manage amount of exposure. European Journal of Applied Linguistics, 5(1), 31-54.
Gallardo del Puerto, F., & Martínez Adrián, M. (2013). ¿Es más efectivo el aprendizaje de la lengua extranjera en un contexto AICLE? Resultados de la investigación en España. Padres Y Maestros, 263, 25-28.
Gallardo del Puerto, F., Gómez Lacabex, E., & García Lecumberri, M. L. (2009). Testing the effectiveness of Content and Language Integrated Learning: the assessment of English pronunciation. In Y. Ruiz de Zarobe, & R. M. Jiménez Catalán (Eds.), Content and Language Integrated Learning. Evidence from Research from Europe (pp. 63-80). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Galván, F. (2010). Por qué a los españoles se nos da mal el inglés. El País (9 July 2010). https://elpais.com/diario/2010/07/19/opinion/1279490411_850215.html
Gilbert, J. B. (2010). Pronunciation as orphan: what can be done? Speak Out! IATEFL Pronunciation Special Newsletter, 43, 3-7.
Hellekjær, G. O. (2010). Language matters: assessing lecture comprehension in Norwegian English-Medium higher education. Language Use and Language Learning in CLIL Classrooms (pp. 233-258). John Benjamins.
IBM Corp. (2020). IBM SPSS [computer software]. Armonk, NY.
Jenkins, J. (2000). The Phonology of English as an International Language. Oxford University Press.
Jeong, H. J., Thorén, B., & Othman, J. (2017). Mutual intelligibility of Malay- and Swedish-accented English: an experimental study. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1), 43-53.
Joto, A., Nagase, Y., & Funatsu, S. (2007). Effect of VOT on intelligibility of English voiceless stops produced by native speakers of Japanese [Conference Presentation]. PTLC2007: Phonetics Teaching and Learning Convention, London, United Kingdom. http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/ptlc/proceedings/ptlcpaper_31e.pdf
Juan Antonio Cutillas Espinosa. (2017). "A Relaxing Cup of Lingua Franca Core": Local Attitudes Towards Locally-Accented English. Atlantis (Salamanca, Spain), 39(1), 11-32.
Kachru, B. B. (1985). Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: The English Language in the Outer Circle. In R. Quirk, & H. Widdowson (Eds.), English in the World: Teaching and Learning the language and the literature. Cambridge University Press.
Kang, O., Thomson, R. I., & Moran, M. (2018). Empirical Approaches to Measuring the Intelligibility of Different Varieties of English in Predicting Listener Comprehension. Language Learning, 68(1), 115-146. doi:10.1111/lang.12270
La Razón. (2019). Los españoles son los europeos que peor hablan inglés. La Razón (13 July 2019). https://www.larazon.es/familia/los-espanoles-son-los-europeos-que-peor-hablan-ingles-PO24191608/
Lasagabaster, D. (2008). Foreign language competence in content and language integrated courses. The Open Applied Linguistics Journal, 1(1), 30-41.
Levis, J. M. (2018). Intelligibility, oral communication, and the teaching of pronunciation. Cambridge University Press.
LimeSurvey Gmbh. (2019). LimeSurvey: An Open Source Survey Tool. Retrieved from www.limesurvey.org.
Lippi-Green, R. (1994). Accent, standard language ideology, and discriminatory pretext in the courts. Language in Society, 23(2), 163-198.
Merino, J. A., & Lasagabaster, D. (2018). The effect of content and language integrated learning programmes' intensity on English proficiency: A longitudinal study. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 28(1), 18-30.
Minematsu, N., Okabe, K., Ogaki, K., & Hirose, K. (2011). Measurement of objective intelligibility of Japanese accented English using ERJ (English Read by Japanese) Database. Interspeech Proceedings, Florence, Italy. (pp. 1481-1484).
Muñoz, C., & Llanes, À. (2014). Study Abroad and Changes in Degree of Foreign Accent in Children and Adults. The Modern Language Journal, 98(1), 432-449. https://doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2014.12059.x
O'Neal, G. (2015c). Interactional intelligibility: the relationship between consonant modification and pronunciation intelligibility in English as a Lingua Franca in Japan. Asian Englishes, 17(3), 222–239.
Otto, A., & Estrada, J. L. (2019). Towards an Understanding of CLIL Assessment Practices in a European Context: Main Assessment Tools and the Role of Language in Content Subjects. CLIL Journal of Innovation and Research in Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education, 2(1), 31-42. https:// doi:10.5565/rev/clil.11
Pérez Cañado, M. L., & Lancaster, N. K. (2017). The effects of CLIL on oral comprehension and production: a longitudinal case study. Language, Culture, and Curriculum, 30(3), 300-316.
Pérez-Cañado, M. L. (2018). CLIL and educational level: A longitudinal study on the impact of CLIL on language outcomes. Porta Linguarum, 29, 51-70. Pérez-Cañado, M. L., & Lancaster, N. K. (2017). The effects of CLIL on oral comprehension and production: a longitudinal case study. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 30(3), 1-19.
Rallo Fabra, L., & Jacob, K. (2015). Does CLIL Enhance oral skills? Fluency and pronunciation errors by Spanish-Catalan learners of English. In M. Juan-Garau, & M. Salazar Noguera (Eds.), Content-based Language Learning in Multilingual Educational Environments (pp. 163-177). Springer.
Rallo Fabra, L., & Juan-Garau, M. (2010). Intelligibility and foreign accentedness in a Context-and-Language-Integrated-Learning (CLIL) setting [Conference Paper]. 6th International Symposium on the Acquisition of Second Language Speech, New Sounds 2010. (pp. 373-378).
Ramos García, A. M. (2013). Higher Education Bilingual Programmes in Spain. Porta Linguarum: Revista Internacional de Didáctica de las Lenguas Extranjeras, 19(19), 101-112. https://doi:10.30827/Digibug.29632
Ramos García, A. M., & Pavón Vázquez, V. (2018). The linguistic internationalization of higher education: a study on the presence of language policies and bilingual studies in Spanish universities. Porta Linguarum: Revista Internacional de Didáctica de las Lenguas Extranjeras, Monográfico III, 31-46.
Richter, K. (2015). English-Medium Instruction and Pronunciation A longitudinal case study of Austrian business students at the University of Applied Sciences Vienna. [PhD Dissertation]. University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Saito, K., Trofimovich, P., & Isaacs, T. (2016). Second language speech production: Investigating linguistic correlates of comprehensibility and accentedness for learners at different ability levels. Applied Psycholinguistics 37(2), 217-240.
Tomczak, M., & Tomczak, E. (2014). The need to report effect size estimates revisited. An overview of some recommended measures of effect size. Trends in Sport Sciences, 1(21), 19-25.
Trofimovich, P., & Isaacs, T. (2012). Disentangling accent from comprehensibility. Bilingualism (Cambridge, England), 15(4), 905-916.
Volín, J., Skarnitzl, R., & Henderson, A. (2018). Perceptual impact of foreign-accented speech. In J. Volín, & R. Skarnitzl (Eds.), The Pronunciation of English by Speakers of Other Languages (pp. 73-94). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Walker, R. (2010). Teaching the Pronunciation of English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford University Press.
Wang, H. (2007). English as a lingua franca: Mutual intelligibility of Chinese, Dutch and American speakers of English. LOT.
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Published
2024-01-31
How to Cite
Pietraszek, M. (2024). Associating speaker variables with English pronunciation ratings in Spanish tertiary education. Porta Linguarum An International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Learning, (41), 189–207. https://doi.org/10.30827/portalin.vi41.27083
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