Who’s “Unintelligible”? The Perceiver’s Role

Abstract

Public discussion of Arizona policy regarding non-native English-speaking teachers often presupposes that assessments of a teachers intelligibility are clear-cut and obvious. This paper discusses research indicating that such judgments are by no means straightforward; fair and accurate assessments also require consideration of the role of the listeners. For example, listeners attitudes toward non-native speakers may influence how they interact with non-native speakers, as well as the degree to which they acknowledge those speakers proficiency. Even without clearly negative attitudes toward the speaker, listeners perception may be biased by expectations so that the same pronunciations are heard as different depending on the listeners beliefs about the speakers language background. In some cases, it is the perception of standard English that is inaccurate, effectively imposing a higher standard on non-native than on native speech. These findings suggest that impressionistic assessments of non-native English are very likely to result in discrimination. eScholarship