Instruction videos: how degree of accentedness influences their effectiveness.
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2022-02-14
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en
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Abstract
The present study was interested in accents in an instructional video context. Accents are
abundant and part of our everyday life due to the ever-increasing globalization and English
being a Lingua Franca. Previous research has shown that accents can have negatively
influence comprehensibility, as well as various attitudes towards the speaker such as status,
likeability and competence. However, no study has yet investigated the influence of accents in
an instructional video context. As such, the current study is the first to investigate the effects
of various degrees of accent strength on the effectiveness of an instructional video in terms of
performance and attitudes towards the speaker. The experiment was carried out online where
Dutch native participants watched an accented video instruction (native, slight or moderate)
and answered questions pertaining to 1) multiple-choice questions, which tested their
estimated performance, 2) comprehensibility of the speaker, 3) attitudes towards the speaker
(status, likeability, competence). The present study found evidence that supports the notion
that comprehensibility and attitudes towards the speaker are negatively influenced by
moderate accents compared to slight and native English accents, except for competence,
which was higher for native than both slight and moderate. Performance was not significant
among the accent groups, but comprehensibility, competence and status did predict
performance. Thus, in an instructional video context, it is important to have a native speaker
be the representative of a company, since a native speaker commends higher status, likeability
and competence than a moderately accented speaker, which may result in higher performance.
However, it must be noted that the current study did not measure actual performance, but
instead measured estimated performance due to developments in COVID.
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