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Faculty Publications
Age And Understanding Speakers With Spanish Or Taiwanese Accents
Document Type
Article
Journal/Book/Conference Title
Perceptual and Motor Skills
Volume
97
Issue
1
First Page
11
Last Page
20
Abstract
This pilot study concerned the intelligibility of accented speech for listeners of different ages. 72 native speakers of English, representing three age groups (20-39, 40-59, 60 and older) listened to words and sentences produced by native speakers of English, Taiwanese, and Spanish. Listeners transcribed words and sentences. Listeners also rated speakers' comprehensibility, i.e., listeners' perceptions of difficulty in understanding utterances, and accentedness, i.e., how strong a speaker's foreign accent is perceived to be. On intelligibility measures, older adults had significantly greater difficulty in understanding individuals with accented speech than the other two age groups. Listeners, regardless of age, were more likely to provide correct responses if they perceived the speaker easier to understand. Ratings of comprehensibility were highly correlated with ratings of accentedness.
Department
Department of Communicative Disorders
Original Publication Date
1-1-2003
DOI of published version
10.2466/pms.2003.97.1.11
Recommended Citation
Burda, Angela N.; Hageman, Carlin F.; Scherz, Julie A.; and Edwards, Harold T., "Age And Understanding Speakers With Spanish Or Taiwanese Accents" (2003). Faculty Publications. 3309.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/facpub/3309