This paper investigates spatio-temporal variability during the production of the lingual consonants /t, k, s, x, n, l, "r"/ by four Greek speakers with profound hearing impairment and with differences in the intelligibility of their speech. It examines important factors that have been documented to influence intelligibility, i.e.…

Background: The psychosocial impact of acquired dysarthria on the speaker is well recognized. To date, speech-and-language therapists have no instrument available to measure this construct. This has implications for outcome measurement and for planning intervention. This paper describes the Dysarthria Impact Profile (DIP), an instrument that has…

The aim of training for the hearing impaired children in auditory oral approach is to develop good speaking abilities. However profoundly hearing-impaired children show a wide range of spoken language abilities, some having highly intelligible speeches while others have unintelligible ones. This is due to hearing-impaired children's speech…

Background: Friedreich's ataxia is one of the most common hereditary disorders of the nervous system. Dysarthria is a pervasive symptom of Friedreich's ataxia, yet the clinical presentation of speech symptoms remains poorly understood, leaving clinicians without the evidence required to develop therapy interventions. Aims: The research reported…

Examines the future spread of English around the globe and the challenges of maintaining common standards and mutual intelligibility among different varieties of English. Discusses changes in Kachru's three circles of English speakers, and features of English as a global language. (Author/VWL)

Explores the Indian variety of English from the point of view of the discoursal strategies speakers adopt in verbal interaction. In particular, the paper examines how discoursal markers function in the Indian English conversational context. (29 references) (GLR)

Gondi, a Dravidian language spoken by 2.2 million people in central India, is a chain of dialects, some of which are not mutually intelligible. This study looked at a two-step sound change, responsible for this dialect division. (ER)

This study investigates the learning exchange between three- to six-year-old children and their grandparents, in Sylheti/Bengali-speaking families of Bangladeshi origin and monolingual English-speaking families living in east London. The following concepts from sociocultural theory are applied to this new area of intergenerational learning:…

Focuses on semicommunication and accommodation and discusses two longer extracts from a large corpus of authentic communication from Scandinavia. Various aspects of a comprehensive model of semicommunication are presented and discussed, showing code switching and accommodation are not considered antagonistic but rather as scalar phenomena covering…

Describes a project that aimed to find a more contextualized method of testing the comprehensibility of spoken language and then to use this method to test the comprehensibility of five native and nonnative varieties of South African English with as international an audience as time and resources would allow. (Author/VWL)

Two broad issues in the international teaching of English as a second language are discussed: the language standard to be taught (i.e., British, North American, Canadian, Australian, or some other native form), and mutual intelligibility as a principle by which to teach English. It is proposed that while language models are necessary for the…

A study of dialectal variation in Mexican Sign Language (MSL), the primary language for a large segment of Mexico's deaf community, is presented. Signs used by nine different sources representing various locations, ages, and social groups are compared. The first section reviews a number of previous informal assessments of dialectal variation in…

A discussion of the need to promote mutual comprehension among speakers of Romance languages describes one university program in France and looks at the possibility of extending multilanguage instruction to secondary education. The potential, and problems, of trying to teach students listening comprehension in several related languages are…

This article presents a survey of Greek EFL teachers' (N = 421) attitudes regarding their pronunciation beliefs and practices. It touches on two sets of questions. First, it refers to teachers' viewpoints regarding pronunciation-specific issues and the possible links between pronunciation teaching, English as an international language (EIL), and…

Mutual understanding and the strengthening of ties among the higher education systems of different countries depends largely on overcoming language barriers, and the national and international standardization of terminology would help in that process. (MSE)