Examining linguistic and experimenter biases through non-native versus native speech

Abstract

There is a consensus in psycholinguistic research that listening to unfamiliar speech constitutes a challenging listening situation. In this commentary, we explore the problems with the construct of non-native and ask whether using this construct in research is useful, specifically to shift the communicative burden from the language learner to the perceiver, who often occupies a position of power. We examine what factors affect perception of non-native talkers. We frame this question by addressing the observation that not all difficult listening conditions provide equal challenges. Given this, we ask how cognitive and social factors impact perception of unfamiliar accents and ask what our psycholinguistic measurements are capturing. We close by making recommendations for future work. We propose that the issue is less with the terminology of native versus non-native, but rather how our unexamined biases affect the methodological assumptions that we make. We propose that we can use the existing dichotomy to create research programs that focus on teaching perceivers to better understand talkers more generally. Finally, we call on perceivers and researchers alike to question the idea of speech being native, non-native, unfamiliar, and accented to better align with reality as opposed to our inherently biased views.