Perception du discours académique de locuteurs non anglophones

• Main Authors: Dan Frost, Alice Henderson, Jordan Wilhelm, Laura Abou Haidar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: ACEDLE 2021-09-01
• Series: Recherches en didactique des langues et des cultures
• Subjects: non-native academic discourse; intelligibility; phonology; perception tests; acquisition; didactics
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/rdlc/10119

The project IP-CAFES (Interphonology - Czech, Arabic, French, English and Spanish), is an international collaboration between partners in France, The Czech Republic and Spain. The project, which has just started, will be completed in 2022; this article therefore presents the context and the rationale for this study, the results will be published at a later date. We are interested in the psycho-social effects of communication in foreign languages, more specifically in problems of understanding and value judgements towards non-native speakers in an academic context. The study consists of a series of perception tests using stimuli created from speech extracts of non-native speakers in English. The duration and F0 of the stimuli will be modified by sound processing software, allowing us to explore our main research question: what are the prosodic parameters responsible for perception and comprehension problems? Using the matched-guise technique, we will be able to access judgements about FAS (foreign-accented speech). This project aims to deepen our understanding of the impact of FAS prosody on listeners. We hope that the results of this project will help us to improve pedagogical practices in teaching pronunciation and listening, and that this will have a positive impact on the quality of EMI (English Medium Instruction) and academic communication in France and elsewhere.