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Article published In: English Text Construction
Vol. 13:2 (2020) ► pp.178–211

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Language attitudes and L2 pronunciation

An experimental study with Flemish adolescent learners of English

 | Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Published online: 10 December 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/etc.00040.rob
Abstract
Since pronunciation serves as a vehicle for both intelligibility and identity, exploring learners’ attitudes towards different accent varieties can allow both pedagogical and sociolinguistic insights into second language acquisition. This study investigates the attitudes of Flemish secondary school students towards RP and General American and the relation between these attitudes and the students’ actual pronunciation in English. Participants rated British and American accents in a verbal guise experiment, and speech recordings provided a sample of respondents’ own pronunciation. Results diverged from previous findings: while participants had more positive attitudes towards RP, they spoke with a higher proportion of GA phonological features. Almost half of the participants did not aim to speak with either a British or an American accent.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Accent aims
    • 1.2Pronunciation instruction
    • 1.3Attitudes towards language, attitudes towards culture
    • 1.4English in Flanders
      • 1.4.1Societal context
      • 1.4.2English in Flemish secondary schools
  • 2.Research aims and hypotheses
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Participants and procedure
    • 3.2Phonological variables
    • 3.3Elicitation materials
      • 3.3.1Production test stimulus text
      • 3.3.2Verbal guise stimulus texts
      • 3.3.3Verbal guise questionnaire
      • 3.3.4Background information questionnaire
    • 3.4Data analysis
      • 3.4.1Accent scoring
        • 3.4.1.1Accent scores
        • 3.4.1.2Categorisation of target tokens
        • 3.4.1.3Acoustic analysis of LOT vowel
      • 3.4.2Attitude scores
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Attitudes
    • 4.2Pronunciation
    • 4.3Correlation between language attitudes and pronunciation
    • 4.4Accent aims
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Attitudes and pronunciation
    • 5.2Accent aims
    • 5.3Pronunciation instruction and culture attitudes
    • 5.4Limitations of this study and suggestions for future research
  • 6.Conclusion
  • References
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