The Effect of Foreign Accent and Speaking Rate on Native Speaker Comprehension*

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of foreign accent and speaking rate on native speaker comprehension. The speakers for the study were three native speakers of Chinese, with TSE (Test of Spoken English) comprehensibility scores of 180, 200, and 260, and one native speaker of American English. The speakers each read passages at three different speaking rates. The tape‐recorded passages were then presented to native speakers of American English who responded to them by taking a listening comprehension test and rating the speech samples. The results showed that the comprehension scores were significantly higher for the native passages than for the nonnative passages and significantly higher at the regular rate than at the fast rate for all speakers. It was also found that the increase in speaking rate from the regular to the fast rate resulted in a greater decrease in comprehension for the most heavily accented speaker than for the other speakers, indicating that speaking rate is more critical for the comprehension of heavily accented speech. In addition, the results suggested that prosodie deviance may affect comprehension more adversely than does segmentai deviance.