Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
What is intelligibility?
2
Intelligibility in the EIL context
Magdalena Laßhofer
PS English as an International Language
What is intelligibility?
"the capacity (of a speaker) to make one's
speech understandable to people from
a wide range of language backgrounds"
(Walker et al. 2021, 7)
"the extent to which a speaker’s message is actually understood by a listener" (Derwing 1995, in Kaur 2018, 3)
mutual intelligibility
Both parties participating are responsible to make communication successful. It is neither exclusively the speaker's nor the listener's responsibility (M04: slide 4).
Intelligibility has an interactive nature.
Participants must co-construct intelligibiltiy by utilizing communication strategies to come to a mutual understanding (Kaur 2018, 8).
mutual intelligibilty
Accomodation strategies
accomodation strategies
Receptive phonological accommodation
Listeners adapting their listening strategies by...
- ...changing their expectations from what kind of speech they normally percieve to include diffentent sounds, words, phrases, expressions etc.
Productive phonological accomodation
Speakers adapting their speaking strategies by...
- ...slowing down, articulating more clearly, adapting one's choice of words, employing paraphrasing strategies, etc.
(Walker 2017, 4)
global context
With English being the most widely spoken language in the world, different versions or different "Englishes" have emerged.
These might differ in...
- pronunciation of words or utterances
- meaning of words or utterances
Both native speakers and non-native speakers will have difficulty adapting to a different version of English that they are used to.
(Kaur 2018, 4-7)
Consequences for teaching EFL
teaching EFL
Students must only be prepared to communivate with native speakers, but non-native speakers as well, if not even more so.
- Exposing students to a range of different varienties of English is beneficial, as they become more familiar with different varieties which in turn will facilitate understanding.
- Teach students to utilise acoomodation strategies in communication in order to successfully and intelligibly interact with other speakers.
(Kaur 2018, 7-8)
What affects intelligibility?
In Meeting 04 of PS English as an International Language we discussed intelligibility and, as a group, came up with a list of aspects that affect intelligibility of speech.
I have chosen some aspects that I deem are most important for English learners and I am going to comment on them as well as try to provide examples.
Volume
This not only refers to the volume of spoken language, but also the amount of background noise.
Though this is not a factor that concerns language or pronunciation per se, it is an important part of communication nonetheless. Chossing an appropriate volume is essential when interacting, as it immensely facilitates the job of the listener.
volume
speed
The right speed is an essential part of clear articulation.
Example:
speed
accent dialect
pronunciation
stess
use of idioms
Examples of being (un)intelligibile
Sources
Walker, R., Low, E.-L., & Setter, J. (2021). English pronunciation for a global world [PDF]. Retrieved
from www.oup.com/elt/expert
Walker, R. (2017). Accent, accommodation and intelligibility in ELF. Modern English Teacher, 26(4),
4-7.
Kaur, J. (2018). The intelligibility of English in global contexts: concepts, methods, findings and
implications. Foreign Language Education Research, 22, 1-10.
Slides from M04: PS English as an International Language.