Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Meeting of the English Language Education Society of Japan
日本英語教育学会第 43 回年次研究集会論文集

Impact of Accented English on Listener Attitude Towards Speakers’ Credibility- Learning Pronunciation and Its Economic Rationality –Risa Nabei
Graduate School of Education, Waseda University 1-6-1 Nishiwaseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-8050
E-mail: risa_nabei@asagi.waseda.jp
Abstract This study investigates how speakers’ accent impact their credibility, specifically the effects of Japanese
accented English on the attitudes of listeners with different language backgrounds. A total of 30 participants comprised fromthree different language groups (native speakers of English, ESL, and EFL) listened to the recordings of three presentersspeaking in English with different levels of Japanese accent: light, middle and heavy. The results showed that there were no
statistically significant differences in perceived credibility given to different levels of accentedness according to the language
group. All participants found the least accented speech the most credible, and the most heavily-accented English was rated ashaving the lowest credibility. Implications for pronunciation teaching are discussed.
Key words accent, accented English, listener attitude, credibility, pronunciation instruction.

Impact of Accented English on Listener Attitude Towards Speakers’ Credibility- Learning Pronunciation and Its Economic Rationality –鍋井
早稲田大学大学院

教育学研究科理沙〒169-8050 東京都新宿西早稲田 1-6-1

E-mail: risa_nabei@asagi.waseda.jp

概要

本実験では日本人の英語が外国人からどのような評価をされているのか調査することを目的とした。特に日本語訛りの英語が聞き手（被験者）が話者に対して感じる credibility に与える影響について考察する。日本語訛りの度合いが異なる（強・中・弱）1 分程度の同じ内容の 3 つの英語のセールストークを language background の異なる被験者に聞かせ、それぞれのセール
ストークについて被験者が感じた credibility について調査した。被験者は日本語を母語としない 1) ネイティブ 13 人 、2) 英語
圏での英語 (ESL) 学習者 9 人 、3) 英語圏以外での英語 (EFL) 学習者 8 人で構成し現実に近い環境とした。結果は被験者のlanguage background に関わらず、日本語訛りの度合が弱い（ネイティブの発音に近い）発音のセールストークの方が、訛りが中程度及び強いセールストークよりも、聞き手が話し手に対して抱く credibility が高いことが示唆された。

1. Introduction

non-native speakers but also among those non -English

1.1. Overview of the problem

native speakers who use different languages as their

It is undeniable that English has become a global

mother tongues.

languageof

Faced with the increasing number of prospective ESL

communications technology such as the Internet has(English as a second language) and EFL (English as aenabled business people to deal with the others in any

foreign language) speakers in the international markets,geographical locations worldwide. In this increasingly

businesspersons have come to wonder if some English

globalised business world, English is becoming more

accents have more acceptability than other accents. Which

important than ever as it is often a prominent and only

accent is likely to have the most amount of credibility

communication

when one communicates with customers and clientsofbusiness

tool

not

[1].

only

The

development

betweennativeandRisa Nabei, " Impact of Accented English on Listener Attitude Towards Speakers’ Credibility- Learning Pronunciation and Its Economic Rationality –,"日本英語教育学会第 43 回年次研究集会論文集, pp. 19-29, 日本英語教育学会編集委員会編集, 早稲田大学情報教育研究所発行, 2014 年 3 月 31 日.
This proceedings compilation published by the Institute for Digital Enhancement of Cognitive Development, Waseda University.
Copyright © 2014 by Risa Nabei. All rights reserved.

around the world [2] [3]? Knowing which accent will be

Accentedness

perceived as the most credible will give businesspersons

The construct definition of accentedness which isadvantage over their rivals as knowledge of people’s

adopted here in the present thesis follows Munro andreactions to the varied accents they ma y encounter on a

Derwing’s work on L2 speech perception and production

day to da y basis might facilitate their preference of[8] [9]. They define accentedness as “the degree to which

products and purchase decisions.

the pronunciation of utterance sounds different from an

However, according to Tsalikis, DeShields, and LaTour

expected production pattern” [10: p.112].

[4], there have been relatively few studies on theused in this study to indicate how much the pronunciationcredibility of a salesperson as perceived by his or her

differs from that of standard in order to show thepotential client on the basis of the former’s accent. In fact,

heaviness of the accent that speaker possesses.

The term iswhile many studies have attempted to mea sure subjects’
attitudes towards varied accented English in the field of
language

attitudestudiesandsociolinguistics,

Credibility

such

Investigating credibility of the accented speech has

investigation seems to have been overlooked in thereceived attention

business literature.

credibility

Moreover, these language attitude

has

only recentl y [4],been

extensively

butstudied

the

term

in

socialstudies mostly examined English native speakers’ attitude

psychology andtowards accented English, but there appear to be few

credibility as attributions concerning a communicator who

studies which investigate attitude towards non -nativeis the basis for the acceptance or rejection of his/her

speaker’s English.

assertions.

Itsociology

has

been

[11].

also

Delia

widely[12] defines

accepted

thatcredibility has two major dimensions: expertise and1.2. Purpose of the study
In light of the current situation in which man y Japanesetrustworthiness after Hovland and Weiss [13] initiatedhave an urgent need to acquire English in order to survive

experiment which tests whether trivia statements arethis increasingly globalised and competitive businessperceived differe ntly according to the level of speakers’

world, it seems highly useful to investigate how theaccentedness,

Japanese people’s English is perceived by the rest of theconstructs of credibility following the above conception

world. On these grounds, I attempt in this study toas ‘believability’ and ‘truthfulness’ as a measure toevaluate reactions of people with various language

determine how speakers’ accent impacts their credibilit y.

backgrounds

English,As my stud y attempts to measure similar aspects ofspecifically focusing on how speaker’s accent impacts

credibility with above investigations, I employed the term

their credibility.

‘trustworthiness’ andtowards

Japanese

accented

empirical

investigation

Lev-Arionandcredibility.

Ke ysar[3]‘believability’ toimpact of accented speech on credibility.

For

their

interpreted

evaluatetheIn addition, as

the study b y Tsalikis, DeShields, and LaTour [4] suggests

1.3. Definition of terms
Accentthat ‘willingness to recommend (the speaker)’ is a good
indicator of credibility, I also used this aspect to measure

According to Powesland and Giles [5], an accent is athe credibility of accented English speakers .

manner of pronouncing words that differs from thestandard speech of culture, with the grammar and syntax
being consistent with the standard. Derwing et al. [6]2. Review of Literature

refer

of

2.1 Perceptions of native English speakers towards

English-speaking countries as the ways in which t hespeech differs from the standard English and the impact

varieties of English
One of the earliest attempts to assess the impact ofsuch differences have on speakers and listeners. Bothnon-native accented speeches on listeners’ perceptions isdefinitions indicate that an accent is different from thecalled “matched guise technique”, developed by Lambertstandard but onl y in terms of pronunciation. An accent isinoften mistaken with the term dialect and they tend to beparticipants who listen to a series of single speakers who

used interchangeably. However, a dialect differs from theread out the same prepared passage. The texts are

standard both in terms of vocabulary and grammar indifferent from each other in only one aspect; the y are readaddition to the pronunciation [7].

in a number of accents. Before the task, participants aretoaforeign

accentinthecontext

20

the

late

1950s

[14].

The

procedure

involvestold that they will listen to a variety of different speakers,

non-native accents received low status evaluation and thewhen in fact, it is read by the same speaker in a number

overall preference for the three native accents.

of different guises. Participants are required to listen toThis technique was also employed to investigate theeach recorded passage and to evaluate the speaker, most

attitudes of non -native speakers towards varieties ofoften on a bipolar scale, in relation to a number ofEnglish. Results of these studies indicated that thepersonality traits such as intelligent/ unintelligent, or

perceptions

honest/dishonest. The listeners’ ratings on the scale areaccented English are quite similar to that of native

therefore considered to represent their impressions about

speakers. Eisenstein [21] investigated the attitudes ofvarieties of accents. Two of their earliest research [14]English language learners in New York towards three[15] showed that unaccented speech received morevarieties of General American English, Black American

favourable reactions than accented speech by the listeners

English (now more referred as African American English)

who were unaware of the fact that they were hearing theand New York accent English (a non -standard variety ofsame speaker both times.

English which is spoken in city areas of New York). Theof

non-native

Englishspeakers

towards

These original studies of Lambert et al. [14] [15] haveresults indicated that even during the earl y stages ofgenerated a number of similar studies and h ave added tolanguage learning, adult ESL students were able tothe understanding of native and non -native speakerrecognise dialect differences in English speech, and it

attitudes towards language varieties. Studies conducted by

was also discovered that as the learners become more

Giles [16] utilising this technique also showed thatproficient in English, their preference became simil ar to

speakers using the standard, i.e. received pronunciation

those of native speakers, that means, they become more

(RP) were rated as more competent, confident, andfavourable for the General American English.

educated than speakers using a non-standard accent. In

Munro, Derwing and Morton [10] investigated theanother study conducted by Brown, Giles, & Thakerar,

perception of non -native speakers on the other non -native[17] participants who listened to the recordings of a

speakers’ accented English. In their study, listeners frombi-dialectal speaker using both Welsh and RP rated the RP

nativespeaker to be more intelligent, happy, active, ambitious,

languageand even good-looking than the Welsh accented speaker.

foreign-accented English utterances from native speakers

These studies illustrate that listeners judge speakers moreof Cantonese, Japanese, Polish, and Spanish who learn

on accent than contents of the passages.

English as their second language. Results revealed that

Cantonese,

Japanese,backgrounds

Mandarin

evaluated

the

and

English

same

s et

of

regardless of native language background, the listenergroups

2.2 Perceptions of non-native English speakers towards

showedmoderate

to

hi gh

correlationsonvarieties of English

intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness scores.

As greater varieties of accented English came t oThere were high degree of similarities in the ways inattention, a “verbal-guise technique” [18], a modified

which Cantonese, Japanese, mandarin, and native English

version of a matched -guise technique began to be used. A

listeners responded to utterances from intermediate -levelverbal-guise technique uses recordings made not b y one

ESL speakers from linguistic backgrounds similar to andand the same speaker but by several speakers in order todifferent from their own.

represent different degree of accentedness. Although thisvariant sacrifices external validities such as p ause,

2.3 Perceptions of accented speech: credibility

intonation and speed, it allows more varieties of accented

Attention to the studies of listeners ’ reactions t oEnglish tested, and there is one important advantage overaccented English in the business field specifically camethe original one that “it precludes the possibility offrom the firms that operate in overseas markets. They had

listeners recognizing that the voices on the various taped

to decide whether to adapt their marketing strategies forrecordings belong to one and the same speaker” [19].

each country market or their marketing activities acrossDalton-Puffer et al. [20] employed the verbal-guiseworld markets, especially on their advertising activities

technique in order to examine the attitudes of English[22]. Tsalkis, DeShields, and LaTour [4] conducted alearners in Austria. The participants were asked to

study in the personal selling context that compared theevaluate two Austrian non -native accents of English andeffectiveness and credibility of the salespersons who

three native English accents. The results showed that two

speak English with Greek accent to those who speak with21

standard American English accent. After listening to each

2.4 How Japanese accented English is evaluatedspeaker, the judges were asked to rate the speaker onPrevious studies have shown that accented English tend

fifteen bipolar adjectives scales (e.g. intelligent/ notto be seen as less favourable and even less credible thanintelligent, professional/ not professional, convincing/ notstandard English. Then, how about Japanese -accented

convincing). A six-point scale was utilised for theirEnglish? The number of research which investigate

experiment. As a result, the salespersons with thepeople’s perception of Japanese English is very limited,

standard American accent were rated more favourably

however, the study conducted by Scott et al. [1] show

across all fifteen adjectives than those who spoke with thesome implications how Japanese accented English is

Greek accent. A replication of the study by Tsalikis,

perceived. The purpose of their stud y was to determine

Ortiz-Buonafina, and LaTour in Guatemala [23], also

therevealed that speakers with the standard accent werebusinesspersons from around the world. The stud y wasevaluated more favourably across all fifteen adjectives

conducted to meet the demand of business people to know

than

the

foreign-accented

speakers.

These

English-language

accentpreferencesofresults

which accent can give them an advantage over those who

indicated that the salespersons with standard (American)

speak other accents [24] [25]. The researchers conducted

English were perceived more effective and credible thanmeta-analysis on four empirically based studies which

the salespersons with a foreign accent.

investigated the English -language accent preferences ofprospective and practicing businesspersons from around

This emergence of the concept “credibility” in research

the world [26] [27] [28]. These four studies represented

on the relation between accents and success in businessthe accent preferences of prospective and practicing

activities has triggered more general research recently.

business persons from the United States, the Pacific Rim,

Lev-Ari and Keysar [3] investigated the impact ofaccented speech on truth judgements
statements.

In

participants

except for the tie between General American English and(American

Received Pronunciation (British) English, which were thetwo most preferred accents, participants preferred thestatements by native or non -native speakers of English,

studied representative accents in this descending order:

such as “Ants don’t sleep”. In order to avoid prejudice

Australian English, Estuar y English, Indian English, andaffecting

were

Japanese English. The result showed that Japanese

informed prior to the experiment that the statements wereaccented English as the least preferred accent. The

prepared for the speakers, and were not based on the

researchers concluded it was not clear why Japanese

speakers’ own knowledge. Although the participants knew

accented English was least preferred but suggested thethat the speakers were simply reciting from a preparedpossibility that it may have been due to the participants’script, they judged as less truthful the statements read by

unfamiliarity with Japanese accent.

ofstudy,of the trivia

students) were asked to judge the truthfulness of trivia

ratings

their

the United Kingdom, and Malaysia. Outco me showed thattruthfulness,participants

the people with foreign accents.

This outcome, as well as previous research int oIn the following experiment, Lev-Ari and Ke ysar tested

people’s perception of foreign accented English, iswhether the awareness reduces the impact of accent on

intriguing in the wa y it raises a question as to how theparticipants’ judgement of truthfulness. They told theEnglish spoken in Japan is perceived by those in otherparticipants that they were being tested to see if accents

parts of the world. As has been mentioned above,

have any negative impacts on credibility. The experimentprevious research which examined the impact of accented

was conducted with identical recorded trivia statements,

Englishasking listeners to rate the difficulty of understanding theutterances of native and non -native English speakers, but

speaker on a continuous scale. The result turned out thatnot focused on how the different levels of accentedness ofwhile participants rated statements with mild accent justnon-native speakers’ English affect listeners’ perception,

as truthful as statements by native speakers, they rated

let alone how Japanese accented English affect listeners’

heavily accented statements as less truthful, indicating

perception. However, such research seems highly requiredthat listeners were unable to undo t he impact of heavy

as it is quite clear in the near future that more Japanese

accent even when informed. The results of above two

people will become compelled to interact with people

experimentsfrom various kinds of language backgrounds.

suggestthattheamountofcredibility

decreases with the severity of the accent.

22

onpeople’s

perception

mainlycompared2.5 Research Question

resource located in Hokkaido if the listener agreed on

In light of such pressing requirement, it seems worth

paying at least 1,000 dollars.

investigating how the Japanese learners of English aremeasure the credibility because the participants are likely

evaluatedunfamiliar with the product and therefore the y have to

by

the

peoplefromdifferent

languageThis topic was chosen to

backgrounds especially in terms of credibility. The main

rely on the speakers for their decision of purchase.

objective of the present study is to investigate whether

presentation could sound quite fictitious as the product isJapanese

not tangible. The fact that the commodity was notaccented

Englishaffects

listener

attitudes

towards speakers’ credibility.

Thetangible was one of the important reasons of this choicesince if the product was such entities as a car, theResearch questions are as follows:

listeners would be able to judge the credibility of theRQ1: Does accented English affect listener attitudes

speech based on their knowledge of the products.

towards speakers’ credibility?

Seven male Japanese recorded a scripted presentation

RQ2: Does the listeners’ language background affect theirwith an effort to deliver the message in a natural andassessment of the credibility of speakers of accented

realistic flow. Each recording lasts approximately 60

English?

seconds.

The level of accentedness of each speaker wasclassified according to the judgements of two professional

3 MethodEnglish teachers; one is a trained Japanese phonetician of

3.1 Subjects

English with over three decades of teaching experience,

A total of thirty people participated in this study. Of

and another one is an English native speaker specialisingwhich, thirteen are native speakers of English. Thesein teaching English communication skills with sevennative speakers enrolled in the undergraduate exchange

years of experience in Japan.

programs between their local and Japanese universities.

The judges listened to all seven presentations and

The duration of the program is approximately six months,

ranked them in order of the level of accentedness ,and eight of them had never studied Japanese language

considering the features relevant to pronunciati on such as

before joining this program. On the other hand, the rest of

segment and prosody. As their rankings matched, those

five students had studied Japanese for one or two years

presentations judged to be with the lightest, median, andprior to this program. The level of their Japanese was

the heaviest accents were selected for this study as

lower intermediate according to the Japanese teacher who

samples of light, middle and heavy accented English. All

was teaching them at the time of data collection.

speakers are in their middle twenties and have relatively

Nine students are those who use English a s their second

similar voice qualities.

language (ESL). The y are born and raised in the countries
where English “holds special stat us as a medium of

3.4 Procedures and rating scalecommunication” [7:p.108]. In this study, students from

Participants enrolled in this study were told that three

Singapore, Malaysia, and Philippines participated. Other

sales presentations would be given by Japanese men ineight participants are from countries where English is

English, and the contents of the speeches were ident ical.

learned as a foreign language (EFL) and is used forThis was done to make listeners concentrate on listening

international

business,to the presentation, avoiding the situation in which the

diplomacy and tourism. Four Chinese, three Koreans, one

communication,

such

as

in

participants come to wonder which nationality, or what

German, and one Spanish participated in this research. All

kind of person the speaker is. The order of the threeof their English were at the level of above 80 scores inpresenters was two patterns : half of the participants

TOFEL iBT.

listened to the recording in order of middle, light andheavy accent whereas the rest heard them in middle,
heavy and light order. Only two patterns were used as the

3.3 Materials
A hypothetical sales presentation (see Appendix A) was

number of the participants was small, and middle accent

prepared in three different levels of Japanese -accented

speech was given first in order to give a standard level ofEnglish;accent.

light,

middleandheavy.

The

commodity

promoted in this presentation is a water right with which

After listening to each speaker, the participants were

the buyer will be entitled to the ownership of water

asked to rate the speaker based on their impressions on

23

5-likert scales in addition to one open question (seedifferent levels of Japanese -accented English. This design

Appendix B).

Subjects were instructed not to take muchinvestigates one statistical interaction and two maintime on each question but answer them with their first

effects so as to investigat e how much influence thoseimpressions. However, they were given as much time asfactors have on the credibility of the speaker, that is, 1)

they needed to complete the questionnaire.

interaction effect between accentedness and language

At the end of the questionnaire, there are somegroup, and 2) main effects of accentedness and language

additional questions measuring their mother tongue,

group respectively.

exposure to Japanese -accented English, and the duration

The repeated-measures two-way ANOVA showed thatof their stay in Japan.

theeffectof interaction between accentedness

andlanguage group was found not significant, F (4,54) =3.5 Questionnaire design

1.282; p < .289.

Questionnaire consists of five 5 -likert scale questions

language group was not statistical, F(2,27) = .503; p

and one open question was used to measure the credibility< .610. However, it was found

given

The

accentedness has statistically significant effect on theparticipants were asked to rate the speaker on five scales

credibility, F (2,27) = 51.738; p < .000. This model alsotodifferent

degreesofaccentedness.

It also indicated that the main effect ofthat the level ofin which the larger number indicates higher credibility orsuggests thatpurchase incentive.

= 66% of the variance in credibilit y

The sum of Q3, Q4 and Q5 represents how muchscores can be explained by accentedness. According tocredibility each speaker gained from the participants.

Mauchl y’s test of sphericity, there is no problem with

Eachsphericity as the p value is greater than .05.

question

examines

one

of

the

constructsofcredibility: the amount of trustworthiness, believability,
andwhether

he

can

be

recommendedasa

The descriptive statistics of this design are shown in

good

Table 4.1, along with the detailed result of this statisticalsalesperson. Thus, the sum of all items well indicates thetest in Table 4.2. The result presented i n Table 4.2 iscredibility of an each speaker.

visualised in Figure 4.1 which shows rather strong

Q1 and Q2 were used to determine whether it was asimilarities in the ways in which all three language

type of the product or quality of the speech listenersgroups responded to speeches with three levels of

positivel y/ negatively reacted. Purpose of setting Q1 andaccentedness respectively. Figure 4.2 shows estimatedQ2 were to ask participants his/her impression on themarginal means of the credibility scores to give a simpler

product and quality of the salestalk separately so as toview of the result.

collect the data purely related with the credibility of thesalesperson.

Table 4.1
Descriptive statistics o f credibility sco res g iven to e ac h lev el

4. Resultsof accented presentatio ns by three lang uage g ro ups

A major research question posed in this study is toinvestigate how speakers’ accent impacts their credibility:
RQ1: “Does accented English affect listener attitude

Credibility
scores given to

towards speakers’ credibility?” Another question was alsoLight accentexamined whether there is a difference in language
attitudes of 1) native speaker of English, 2) ESL speakers,
and 3) EFL speakers towards Japanese -accented English:
Middle accent

RQ2: “Does the listeners’ language background affecttheir assessment of the credibility of speakers of accented
English?”The repeated-measures two-wa y ANOVA was used t oHeavy accent

analyse above two questions as this study has more thantwo

independent

variables(languagegroup

Descriptive Statistics
LanguageGroup
MeanNative
11.23
ESL
10.89
EFL
11.00
Total
11.07
Native
7.85
ESL
7.22
EFL
7.50
Total
7.57
Native
6.62
ESL
7.44

SD
2.587
1.691
1.852
2.100
2.115
2.728
1.309
2.096
1.609

N
13
9
8
30
13
9
8
30
13

2.698

9

and

EFL

5.25

1.669

8

accentedness) and tests the same people more than once:

Total

6.50

2.113

30

the participants listen to the same salestalk in three24

Table 4.2
Results of repeated-measures ANOVA of the role ofaccent on the credibility
Source of
SS
df
MS
F
P
variation
Between-subjects
Effects
La ngu a ge
Grou p
Error

6.992

2

3.496

0.503

0.61

187.49 7

27

6.944

332.93 4

2

166.46 751.738.000 *

16.498

4

4.125

1.282

0.289

173.74 6

54

3.218

Figure 4.2
The distribution of credibility scores according to
speakers’ level of accentedness.

Within-subjects
Effects
Accente dness
Accente dness*
La ngu a ge
Grou pError(Acc entedness)* p < .05

Figure 4.1
The distribution of credibility scores given to eachaccent by three language groups
5. DISCUSSION
5.1

RQ1

The results shown in the previous section suggest anumber of possible interpretations. For RQ1: “Doesaccented English affect the listener attitude towards
speakers’ credibility?” findings indicate that a speaker’s
accent affects listeners’ perception of credibility. The
listeners found the light accent was more credible than
middleandheavy

accents.

This

outcomesupports

previous research that indicated accented speech reduces
the credibility of the speaker [3] [4] [24]. The result also
agrees with widely demonstrated research in which
speakers of standard varieties of English tend to be rated
most positively in terms of competence (traits such as
intelligence and confidence). Considering that the light
The results indicated that regardless of which language

accent used in this study was near native English

group the participants belong to, they all reacted in the

speaker’s pronunciation, and a trait of credibility can besame manner towards the Japanese-accented English, andconsidered as a part of competence [4], the result of

foundpresent study ma y well be argued that it supports thethe least accented English to be more credible

than middle and heavy accents.

above previous research.

A further Post -Hoc Tukey HSD test revealed that

There could be several possible reasons why thesignificant difference can be found onl y between light andsignificant

heavy, and light and middle accents but not between

credibility scores given to light and heavy, and light andmiddle and heavy accents (p < .05). Although the median

middle accents but not between middle and heavy accents.

of credibility scores of each accent are different, aThis may have occurred due to a small number of

boxplot shows that the score distribution of middle andparticipants. However, apart from such a technical reason,

heavy accents are quite similar (see Figure 4.2).

there may be a case for saying that only a native -like25

differences

were

only

found

betweenpronunciation is good enough to raise one’s credibility.

of

Lev-Ari and Keysar’s experiment [3] showed thestandard

varieties

and

when

the

non-standard varieties of English [29].

judgesspeak

In fact, a study

similar result in which participants perceived recorded

conducted by Eisenstein [21] revealed that non-native

trivia statements b y speakers with mild and heavy accent

speakers were able to recognise accents as good as native

as less true than those by native speakers, but there was

speakers.

no significant difference between mild and heavy accents.

language learners in New York towards three varieties ofThey argue based on their outcome that people perceive

US English: General American English, African American

information as less truthful when the speaker has an

English and Ne w York accent (a non-standard variety ofaccent, because they tend to misattribute the difficulty ofEnglish which is spoken in the city areas of New York).

understanding the speech to the truthfulness of the

The results indicated that even novice adult ESL students

statement. On the basis of the above, it could be argu ed

were able to identify the accent differences in thethat both middle and heavy accents in the present study

utterances.

He

investigatedtheattitudesofEnglishwere difficult to understand for the participants, andA research conducted by Munro, Derwing, and Morton

hence they attributed the difficulty of understanding the[10] and Rossiter [30] also indicated that there were

presentation to a reduced credibility. If this is a case, only

salient similarities in the ways in which native anda native-like, or a light accents are free from thenon-native English speakers responded to utterances frompossibility of disturbing the “processing fluency” [3: p.3]

native and non-native speakers.

of the listeners, but both middle and heavy accents werestudies suggest that non-native English speakers canequally perceived as difficult and therefore less credible.

identify foreign-accented English almost as good as

Results of these two

Another possibility is that heaviness of accent might

native speakers, and tend to evaluate the accented speech

have caused listeners to get a preconceived idea thatin the same way as do the native speakers. These findings

listening to the speech would be difficult, and led them toseem to give supportive reasons why there was nogive generous scores to the one with heavy accentsignificant inter-group difference in the credibility scoresbecause of their sympathy towards the speaker who tries

in the present study.

hard to speak an unfamiliar language. This might have

Another possible interpretation of the result concerns

raised the credibility scores given to heavily accented

the current English education in non -native English

speech, and pushed them up closer to that of middle

countries. Whether listeners are EFL or ESL, people tend

accent.

tohavelearnedEn glishusing

nativespeakers’pronunciation as their models since they first encountered
5.2

English. Consciously or unconsciously, this English

RQ2

For RQ2: “Does the listeners’ language backgroundeducation ma y have led the participants to choose only

affect their assessment of the credibility of speakers of

the native-like pronunciation as more credible. The result

accented English?” the results indicate that regardless of

may impl y that whether ESL or EFL, learners of English

which language group the participants belong to, the y all

tend to look towards standard varieties of native English

reacted in the same manner toward the Japanese -accented

for “notions of correctness” [31: p.151].

English, and found the light -accented English morecredible than that with middle and heavy accents.

6. CONCLUSIONS, PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS,

I raised the possibility that ESL and EFL speakers

and LIMITATIONS

might be more sympathetic to the accented English thanThe results of the present stud y indicate t hat regardlessnative English speakers and thus, give higher scores forof the language backgrounds, listeners evaluate the light

middle and heavy accents than do native speakers.

accented speech as more credible than middle and heavy

However, it turned out that was not the case. Even thoughaccents when listening to the English spoken by Japanesethe finding was unlike what I had hypothesised, the result

learners of English. This finding is consistent with studiesof the present study is consistent with the widel y acceptedin social psychology and global marketing literature that

notion in the field of speech perception that standard

noted presenters speaking in standard varieties of English

varieties of English tend to be evaluated as more

evoke more favourable judgements of credibility thanfavourable than non-native varieties of English. This

presenters speaking a nonstandard or foreign -accented

appears to be the case both when the judges are speakers

English.

26

The investigation also showed si gnificant differences

English to raise

onl y between credibility scores given to light and heavy,

pronunciati on. Because the English language is ultimately

students’ awarenessof theirown

and light and middle accents but not between middle anda tool for communication and students will most likely

heavy accents. This finding is notable because it may

have to use English once they join the global businesssuggest that only speakers with native -like and light

community.

accents are free from the possibility of reduced credibility.

There are several limitations to this study. One problem

Furthermore, it was also found that this result applies to

may have resulted from using different speakers for each

all the judges from different language backgrounds: 1)

level of accentedness, rather than using a matched guisenative speakers of English, 2) ESL and 3) EFL speakers.

technique traditionally employed in the previous language

Despite their different levels of exposure to the English

attitude studies. As previously mentioned, the verbal

language, the three groups were unanimous in evaluating

guise technique utilised in this study does not control foronl y the light accented English as highly credible.

paralinguistic differences in the speeches of different

These findings seem to suggest that only a native -like,speakers.

or light accent can raise the credibility of the speaker andpresentations also could have compromised the result.

imply that if speakers are to raise their credibility onl y by

Participants could listen to only one speech for each ofpronunciation,theynative -likethe three levels of accentedness. The number of recorded

pronunciation.

In fact, several researches have overtly

utterances was limited as it was felt that listener fatigue

shown that General American English and Received

might compromise the validity of the data collected if

Pronunciation are widely accepted and preferred bymore than three speech recordings of the required lengthpurchasers around the world [4] [22] [24] and present a

were used. These limitations ought to be overcome in any

very straight forward recommendation that “Prospective

future work.

need

to

attainSmallnumberofrecordedbusinessand practicing businesspersons who desire high levels ofEnglish-language accent acceptability around the world
should develop either a General American English or a

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[4] Tsalikis, J., DeShields, O. W. Jr., & LaTour, M. L.
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forbusiness

purposes since these two accents are the most preferred
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However,aimingtoimprove

students’

Englishpronunciation to the level of the native standard seems
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classes, in which many other aspects of English other thanpronunciation have to be taught as well, and thus teachers
do nothaveadequatetime

to focusonteaching

pronunciation at such a high level, not to mention that
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There is also a concern that teaching only native
varieties of English as a goal might give an impression to
the students that nonstandard, or foreign -accented English
are not correct.
With the above concerns taken into consideration,
however, it still seems to be fair to the students 1) toinform them that accents of English may be linked to thecredibility that speakers can win from their interlocutors
and 2) to teach both segmental and prosodic features of27

G. (1999). Pacific Rim business students’ perceptionsof six representative English -language accents. In
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Canadian Modern Language Review, 65 (3),395-412.
[31] McKenzie, R. M. (2008). The role of variety
recognition in Japanese university students’ attitudes
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[9] Munro, M. J., & Derwing, T. M. (1995). Foreign
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(2006). The mutual intelligibility of foreign accents.
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States Speech Journal, 26(3), 188-194.
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[19] Berk-Seligson, S. (1984). Subjective Reactions to
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[25] Scott, J. C., Green, D. J., & Rosewarne, D. (1997).
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28

Appendix A.

Appendix B.

Questionnaire
Hypothetical Sales Presentation
Selling Water Reserve Land

Based on the message you have just heard; give us youropinion of the speaker (salesperson) by circling the

Hi. I am Taka. Do you have time now?

appropriate number.

Well, let metalk to you for just a few minutes…
1. If you had enough money, would you buy the productI would like to tell you about a really good investment.

he is selling?

It’s an investment in water rights. Well, it’s not justordinary water, but water full of good minerals, calcium

5

4

3

2

1

Yes

Probabl y Yes

Not sure

Probably No

Noand etcetera, etcetera.
Our company, TOKYO GOODWATER COMPANY owns
2. Would you recommend this product to your friend?

massive land with water resources in Hokkaido. Hokkaido
is located in the northernmost part of Japan, and 70% of

5

4

3

2

1

its land is covered with forest. The land is full of nature

Yes

Probabl y Yes

Not sure

Probably No

Noand so does have good -quality of water.
It’s not known to many people yet, but actually, man y

3. Would you recommend this salesperson to yourfamous athletes, especially baseball players, drink thisfriend?

water. You know Ichiro, right? He drinks it, too!
Well, we are raising money for further development

5

4

3

2

1

Yes

Probably Yes

Not sure

Probably No

No

now, so that we can extract more water, and sell it tomore people.

4. To what extent do you think this person can be seen

You can be a shareholder of our company,

and be an owner of this wonderful water!

as a trustworthy salesperson by his client?
Trustworthy

5

4

3

2

1

not trustworthy

You can start from bu ying just one share, you know.
One share costs you just 1,000 dollars.
investment!

It’s a promising

5. How much credibility do you think ther e is in thisPlease think about it!

person’s talk?

How willing are you to believe him?

Believable

5

6. In

evaluating

4

this

3

2

1

salesperson,

not believable

which

of

the

following characteristics of his voice influenced you
the most?
1.

Intonation (ups and downs of the voice)

2.

Speed

3.

Accent4.

Don’t know

7. Could you write down an y comments on the speech?
How was his salestalk? In what way can he improve
the way he talks?

29