In communication between first (L1) and second (L2) language users, the default has long been for L2 speakers to assume most, if not all, responsibility for adjusting their speech to accommodate their interlocutor. This not only places an undue burden on the speaker, but also furthers the assumption of listener passivity in communication. One…

The study explores the attitudes of undergraduate Flagship students in the United States towards Arabic-accented speech in English. It examines the Familiarity Principle among these students and analyzes their attitudes based on socio-intellectual status, aesthetic quality, and dynamism of Arabic-accented speech. The study also discusses the…

This dissertation examines the Chinese practice of adopting English names in the context of Chinese international students studying at American institutions of higher education. This work adopts the position of Bourdieu (1991) that there is a fundamental unity of the market, in that economic and political capital is connected to linguistic and…

In Asia, English is used as a lingua franca (ELF; Kirkpatrick, 2010). For Thai university graduates to be successful in their future careers, being able to understand various accents with Thailand's major trading partners, particularly American, Chinese, and Japanese, seems vital. As a listening test which includes these accents is needed, the…

Rater variation in performance assessment can impact test-takers' scores and compromise assessments' fairness and validity (Crooks, Kane, & Cohen, 1996). Rater variation can also undermine a test's validity and fairness; therefore, it is important to investigate raters' scoring patterns in order to inform rater training. Substantial work has…

Research suggests that listener perceptions of a speaker's oral language use, or a speaker's "comprehensibility," may be influenced by a variety of speaker-, listener-, and context-related factors. Primary speaker factors include aspects of the speaker's proficiency in the target language such as pronunciation and…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how an instructor's accent influences students' learning achievement. Furthermore, this study also explored how students' accent preference may affect their learning. Unlike native voices, accented voices were not natural to the native speakers; therefore, it required more cognitive resources for…

This study investigated the intelligibility of Chinese graduate students to their Indian, Chinese, Korean, and American peers. Specifically, the researcher sought to determine the teaching priorities for English for Academic Purposes in the US, where listeners have a wide variety of native languages. Research on Second Language Acquisition…