Phonological variation that cause communication breakdown among speaking of no-native English. Pedagogic Implications

Abstract

At present, English is being used as a second language in interactions among English native speakers and non-native speakers from different nationalities. The spread of English often creates special challenges related to mutual intelligibility of non-native speakers whose first languages are different. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: (i) to identify elements of speech that contribute to unintelligibility between non-native speakers of different L1s, and (ii) to analyze the impact that an activity on English as an international language (EIL) had on 21 pre-service students –whose L1 was Spanish- attending a pronunciation course at Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Argentina. The speech data for this study were collected from 14 international students studying at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. The students, who came from various backgrounds were paired with a different-L1 partner and recorded in a dyadic interaction task. Each pair of students then participated in a stimulated recall task, listening to their recording and identifying instances of communication breakdown. These recordings were transcribed and analyzed by the 21 student teachers. Then, using the Lingua Franca Core as an analytical framework (Jenkins, 2000), they identified cases of communication breakdown for possible sources of unintelligibility. Results revealed that non-native production of some segments, especially when they are combined with misplacement of nuclear stress, were the greatest source of unintelligibility between different- L1 speakers. Most listeners acknowledged having gained some awareness of the importance of EIL for their own language development. Some pedagogical implications for the teaching of EIL were discussed.