Intelligibility of second language (L2) English has become an important goal in English pronunciation teaching. However, intelligibility research primarily focused on L2 English users and L2 production features; only a handful of studies have examined other effects on the intelligibility of L2 English. In line with the three-part model of…

The rise of medical tourism and the increasing number of international patients from Asian countries have led Thai healthcare professionals to serve a lot of Asian patients and to encounter a complexity of language use in their workplace. There is a necessity for these professionals to strive for an understanding of Asian accents spoken by the…

As English becomes an established lingua franca in the ASEAN region, what should be the pedagogical approach to oral skills and pronunciation teaching in the region? Should teachers target common features and patterns developing in ASEAN English or target more "Western" pronunciation? This study strives to balance the discussion of the…

In the context of English as a global language in which the interaction is not only between native speakers and ESL speakers but also among non-native speakers themselves, there is a need to investigate how well L2 listeners can judge and successfully comprehend accented English produced by other L2 speakers; particularly, how the specific…

The purpose of this study is to measure the comprehensibility of the Expanding Circle nations' citizens, namely Burmese, Cambodians, Indonesians, Laotians, Thais and Vietnamese towards the Outer Circle Englishes, namely Bruneian English, Malaysian English. Philippine English and Singaporean English. Ten universities in the Expanding Circle that…

A questionnaire study was conducted to examine how 120 highly experienced EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers in Japan adjust their pronunciation in order to facilitate and refine their students' learning skills to approach mutual intelligibility in second language (L2) classrooms (i.e. "pronunciation-specific teacher talk").…

The term "intelligibility" is widely viewed as denoting an ideologically neutral concept and therefore useful in speculating about the future of the English language, especially in the context of its expansion at the current exponential rate and the danger or otherwise of its breaking up into mutually incomprehensible languages, the way Latin did…

This paper first briefly reviews the concept of intelligibility as it has been employed in both English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and world Englishes (WE) research. It then examines the findings of the Lingua Franca Core (LFC), a list of phonological features that empirical research has shown to be important for safeguarding mutual intelligibility…

The purpose of this paper is to investigate what characteristics make American Native Speakers of English (ANSE) different from Korean Speakers of English (KSE) when they are asked to introduce themselves in English. In particular, components and topics of self-introduction, the use of word number and class, and the use of discourse markers (DM)…

Much research on world Englishes (WE) since the 1980s has yet to impact significantly upon recent applied linguistics work in the areas of instruction, curriculum, testing and policy. Much of the received wisdom has been informed by the paradigm established by the earlier study of International English (IE) and its attendant foci in teaching…

This paper tests claims concerning the English as Lingua Franca (ELF) movement's position within the world Englishes paradigm. To do so, it considers the writings of Jennifer Jenkins, a leader in this movement, on what she calls "phonological intelligibility", and the writings of Larry Smith, an established scholar on intelligibility in…

This article discusses the potential value of developing pupils' intercomprehension skills at elementary school. This development construes Europe as a plurilingual and intercultural space in which the linguistic and cultural identity of each community finds its place. However, the construction of Europe also faces the challenges of assuring…

Reviews the construct of speech intelligibility as expounded by Cathford half a century ago in a landmark treatise and in the collaborative efforts of Smith, Nelson, and Rafiqzad to examine its relevance to intercultural communication in a new millennium beset by the contradictory global tensions of homogeneity and fragmentation. (Author/VWL)

This book presents a range of views on the concept of the native speaker, considering psycholinguistic, linguistic, and sociolinguistic aspects. It examines the Critical Period Hypothesis; the role of the standard language; the kinds of knowledge (metalinguistic, discriminating, communicational, and skills) that the native speaker possesses; and…

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)