The effect of accent strength in lecturers’ Dutch-English pronunciation on the speaker evaluations of Dutch students with different study backgrounds.

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of accent strength on speaker evaluations in an educational context, and the effect of educational background and language sensitivity on students’ evaluations of the speakers as well. 183 Dutch students filled in an online questionnaire in which they evaluated two fragments of a lecture in English, that were recorded by six male speakers and classified on degree of accentedness (moderate, slight and native) by expert judges. The moderately accented speakers were evaluated as less competent, less confident and less qualified teachers than the slightly accented and native instructors. There was no effect of accent strength on perceptions of comprehensibility and intelligibility. Arts students rated speakers higher on dependability and likeability than students of natural sciences. Students that scored high on language sensitivity rated the speakers higher on competence, likeability and intelligibility. Language sensitivity was shown to be a predictor of perceptions of likeability and intelligibility.