The Perception of Second Language Fluency and Foreign Accents

從聽覺感知探討第二語言口語流暢度及腔調

吳貞慧(Chen-Huei Wu)

第二語言習得 ； 口語流暢度 ； 腔調 ； 口音 ； 聽覺實驗 ； 華語 ； second language fluency ； foreign accent ； speech perception

華語文教學研究

10卷2期（2013 / 06 / 01）

117 - 141

英文

本研究採用聽覺評分方式探討華語為第二語言之口語流暢度及腔調的現象。語料為隨機選取自華語學習者自然語料庫的課堂語料，評分項目包括口語流暢度、母語化程度、腔調、不流暢現象、發音、文法正確性、字彙選擇及理解度等。相關性分析顯示口語流暢度與不流暢現象及字彙選擇最為相關；腔調則與發音最為相關。主成分分析顯示第一主成分代表口語表達的整體印象分數；第二主成份將變項分成兩組：口語流暢度與形成語言的知識要素相關；腔調與語音相關，而第二主成分主要是由母語化程度及腔調組成；第三主成分則代表口語流暢度。複迴歸分析進一步驗證不流暢現象與字彙對於預測口語流暢度有顯著的影響，而母語化程度則是造成腔調的主要變項。

This study examined the factors contributing to perceptions of second language fluency and foreign accents by randomly selecting speech samples from the Spontaneous Chinese Learner Speech Corpus for perceptual ratings. Eight rating questions that reflected the oral proficiency of fluency, nativeness, accentedness, disfluencies, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and comprehensibility were evaluated. The correlation analysis revealed that the fluency rating was correlated with disfluencies and vocabulary and accentedness correlated with nativeness and pronunciation. The principal component analysis showed that all the rating variables contributed similar weights to the first principal component (PC1), which represents the general impression of oral proficiency. The PC2 classified the rating variables into two categories. One group consisted of the knowledge factors of fluency, disfluency, grammar, vocabulary, and comprehensibility, whereas the other group included the sound-related factors of nativeness, accentedness, and pronunciation. The PC2 was mainly composed of nativeness and accentedness. The PC3 stood for the characteristics of oral fluency. Further multiple regression analysis showed that disfluencies and vocabulary have a substantial causal effect on fluency, whereas nativeness has a substantial effect on accent. The results have implications for the relationship between speech planning and fluency based on the Levelt speech production model.

1. Hellwig, Birgit. (n.d.). Elan-linguistic annotator. http://www.lat-mpi.eu/tools/elan/.
2. Anderson-Hsieh, Janet,Johnson, Ruth,Koehler, Kenneth(1992).The relationship between native speaker judgments of nonnative pronunciation and deviance in segmentals, prosody, and syllable structure.Language Learning,42(4),529-555.
3. de Bot, Kees(1992).A bilingual production model: Levlet's speaking' model adapted.Applied linguistics,13(1),1-24.
4. Hosoda, Megumi,Stone-Romero, Eugene(2010).The effects of foreign accents on employment-related decisions.Journal of Managerial Psychology,25(2),113-132.
5. Lennon, Paul(1990).Investigating fluency in EFL: A quantitative approach.Language Learning,40(3),387-417.
6. Lev-Ari, Shiri,Keysar, Baz(2010).Why don't we believe non-native speakers? The influence of accent on credibility.Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,46,1093-1096.
7. Levelt, Willem. J. M.(1989).Speaking: From intention to articulation.Cambridge, MA:MIT Press.
8. Lindemann, Stephanie(2005).Who speaks "broken English"? US undergraduates' perceptions of non-native English.International Journal of Applied Linguistics,15(2),187-212.
9. Munro, Murray J.(1998).The effects of noise on the intelligibility of foreign-accented speech.Studies in Second Language Acquisition,20(2),139-154.
10. Munro, Murray J.,Derwing, Tracey M.(2001).Modeling perceptions of the accentedness and comprehensibility of L2 speech.Studies in Second Language Acquisition,23,451-468.
11. Munro, Murray. J.,Derwing, Tracey M.(1998).The effects of speaking rate on listener evaluations of native and foreign-accented speech.Language Learning,48(2),159-182.
12. Munro, Murray. J.,Derwing, Tracey M.,Morton, Susan L.(2006).The mutual intelligibility of L2 speech.Studies in Second Language Acquisition,28(1),111-131.
13. Riggenbach, Heidi(ed.)(2000).Perspectives on Fluency.Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press.
14. Shih, Chilin(2006).The language class as a community: A task design for speaking proficiency training.Journal of Chinese Language Teachers Association,41(2),1-22.
15. Shih, Chilin,Wu, Chen-huei(2011).Evaluating second language fluency.Proceedings of New Tools and Methods for Very-Large-Scale Phonetic Research,Philadelphia, USA.:
16. Trofimovich, Pavel,Baker, Wendy(2006).Learning second language supra-segmentals: Effect of L2 experience on prosody and fluency characteristics of L2 speech.Studies in Second Language Acquisition,28,1-30.
17. Wu, Chen-huei(2011).University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.