タイトル

Pronunciation Teaching and Research: Inclusion
and Exclusion

著者

Yonesaka, Suzanne M.

引用

年報新人文学(15): 2‑7

発行日

2018‑12‑25

［巻頭言］
Foreword

Pronunciation Teaching and Research:Inclusion and Exclusion

Suzanne M. Yonesaka

When I first came to Japan, judging from the advertisements for English teachers, there wasdefinitely a hierarchy regarding the preferred accent. Although speakers of American or CanadianEnglish were acceptable, speakers of British English were highly esteemed, especially those whoused BBC pronunciation. Speakers of Australian and New Zealand English were a last resort, andspeakers of other varieties such as Singapore English or Indian English were not even in the running.

This hierarchy was a hyper-real reflection of concepts that were fundamental to the English language

teaching world at that time: first, the concept of native speaker/nonnative speaker; and second, theconcept that native speakers are the ideal, and perhaps only possible, models. This state of affairs also

influenced pronunciation teaching and research: both in the classroom and in the research laboratory,002

native speakers provided the yardstick as to whether an utterance was well-formed and well-pronounced.

However, at the same time, a revolution was underway. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the linguist

Braj Kachru (1932–2016) introduced his paradigm of the three circles of English, a paradigm thatstrongly inf luenced the way teachers thought about World Englishes. Imagine three concentriccircles. The Inner Circle represents places such as the UK, the US, and Australia, where English has a

traditional historical base and is now used as a primary language. The middle circle, called the Outer

Circle, represents places such as India, Malaysia, and Kenya, where English serves as a lingua franca

among ethnic groups and where it may also be the language of higher education and government

functions. The outermost circle, the Expanding Circle, includes countries such as Japan and China

where English has no historical or governmental role, but is widely studied and is used for international

communication. Despite criticisms, this model is useful for helping learners and teachers move beyond
the false dichotomy of native speaker/nonnative speaker.

A parallel development has occurred in the teaching and research of pronunciation as well. For

many years, the teaching and research of pronunciation has been influenced by the nativeness principle,

which holds that it is possible and desirable to achieve native-like pronunciation (Levis, 2005). This

principle is clearly grounded in the native speaker/nonnative speaker dichotomy and on the notion thatthe native speaker is the only possible model for pronunciation learners.

More recently, after decades of research, notably by Tracey Derwing and Murray Munro

Pronunciation Teaching and Research: Inclusion and Exclusion003

in Canada, the teaching of pronunciation has begun to be dominated by the intelligibility principle

which claims that learners need to be understandable. Although many learners want to get rid of theiraccents, research (e.g. Munro & Derwing, 1999) shows that intelligibility does not always correlatewith accent. An accent is a marker of belonging to a given social group, which is one reason why manylearners keep their accents. The intelligibility principle also claims that intelligibility is always co-constructed with the listener. Just as“beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, intelligibility is in the earof the listener as well as in the mouth of the speaker, an idea that fits our understanding of how speakers

and interlocuters work together to negotiate meaning. Derwing and Munro also proposed the concept

of comprehensibility, which measures how easy or difficult it is for the listener to make out what thespeaker is saying, in other words, how much effort is involved. These three concepts—intelligibility,comprehensibility, and accent—along with the idea that pronunciation is a two-way street, have helped
trigger a flood of pronunciation research around the world.

Pronunciation instruction and research has traditionally involved (in Kachru's terms) thecombination of Expanding Circle speakers + Inner Circle listeners. Native-speaker researchers andnative-speaker classroom teachers judge the intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accent of learners

from Expanding Circle countries. However, the intelligibility principle has motivated a large number ofstudies exploring how intelligibility and comprehensibility are affected by other combinations of speakerand listener, such as Outer Circle speaker + Inner Circle listener, or Inner Circle speaker + Expanding004

Circle listener. In particular, research within the English as a Lingua Franca framework has begun

to examine the Expanding Circle speaker + Expanding Circle listener combination. Such research

looks at how speakers and listeners with different mother-tongue backgrounds (for example, a Chinese

student and a Saudi Arabian student in an ESL classroom in Canada) negotiate and achieve intelligible
pronunciation (e.g. Jenkins, 2000; Matsuura, 2007; Sicola, 2009).

What about pronunciation instruction and research in Expanding Circle contexts such asJapan, where learners share the same mother-tongue? First, when Japanese learners speak English

together, it is predicted that convergence—the gradual accommodation of speech features to those of theinterlocutor—can occur. This may lead to increased intelligibility between the two learners, but it canalso reinforce the Japanese accent (Walker, 2005; Walker & Zoghbor, 2015). More research is needed

to discover teaching techniques that will minimize such convergence. Second, Japanese learners need

the opportunity to use English in a Lingua Franca context, that is, to give and receive pronunciation

feedback with other learners who are not Japanese. Fortunately, this can be accomplished throughtechnology, for example through the many websites that feature speakers of English as a Lingua Francaand through Skype sessions with students in other Asian countries. Japanese learners must use thetechnology that is available to get massive amounts of listening input from a variety of speakers fromall three Circles so that they will be better prepared for a globalized world. The effect of technology onlearner pronunciation is another area of focus in pronunciation research.

Pronunciation Teaching and Research: Inclusion and Exclusion

005

Finally, teachers will always be a pronunciation model for students. If Japanese teachers ofEnglish know from personal experience that their speech is intelligible to Japanese learners, then they

can be confident that they can act as pronunciation models for their students (Walker & Zoghbor, 2015).

In addition, Japanese teachers of English in elementary and secondary classrooms should provide

feedback on pronunciation; unfortunately, research tends to indicate that junior-high and senior-highJapanese learners want pronunciation feedback, but receive little. English teachers need training

on when and how to provide pronunciation feedback, and perhaps more importantly, they need theconfidence to do so. Research is also exploring teachers’and learners’beliefs and attitudes toward
pronunciation.

If we think of the humanities as a huge ancient tree, the teaching of pronunciation is only a twig

on the very young branch of applied linguistics. Due in some part to the shift away from the nativenessprinciple to the intelligibility principle, this twig has begun to blossom. The nativeness principle

excludes nonnative pronunciation models, the intelligibility principle includes them. The nativenessprinciple tells learners what they cannot pronounce, the intelligibility principle builds on what they can.

By including rather than excluding, not only pronunciation teaching and research, but other branches of（ヨネサカ

スザンヌ・北海学園大学人文学部教授）

the humanities continue to thrive, despite the political forces that threaten inclusion in the world today.

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Pronunciation Teaching and Research: Inclusion and Exclusion