London: With English becoming lingua franca
and having more non-native speakers in the world than native
speakers, there is need for a new approach in teaching of
pronunciation of the language, a new study suggests.
The emphasis on `correct` pronunciation of English as
depicted in films like `My Fair Lady` should be discontinued
in favour mutual intelligibility among non-native speakers, as
well as celebrating the national identity of non-native
speakers, it says.
Therefore, a Chinese or Indian speaker of English need
not seek to `disguise` his or her origins in seeking to speak
the language `properly` - instead they should feel free to
speak with their dialects and accents intact so long as what
they said was clear and intelligible.
Research presented at the University of Leicester`s
Festival of Postgraduate Research highlights the emphasis
based on replicating the phonology of native speakers – and
suggests instead that an intelligibility-oriented approach to
pronunciation teaching would be more appropriate.
Doctoral student, Wafa Zoghbor from the School of
Education said, "I was taught English as a foreign language
and after years of learning Standard English pronunciation. I
found a wide gap between the target I have been trying to
achieve and the level of intelligibility required to
communicate effectively.
"Very few users of English today would claim that aiming
at native-like pronunciation is necessary or even desirable. I
hope that my contribution to this field can challenge the
existing stereotypes of teaching English pronunciation," said
Zoghbor.
Her research explores the notion that teaching native
pronunciation might eliminate a significant indicator of an
individual`s identity.
She said, "We recognise Indian, South African, Egyptian
and Chinese speakers from their accents. As long as they are
intelligible and have the potential to communicate effectively
there should be no reason for them not to retain their accents
– something which they might like to do as this accent carries
their identity, ethnicity and indicates the group of people
they belong to."
The study expands on the work of Dr Jennifer Jenkins from
the University of Southampton who proposed a list of
pronunciation features which are the minimum requirement for
intelligible communication among non-native English language
speakers.
Zoghbor`s research compares the speech of two groups of
Arab learners, those who were taught pronunciation material
based on the phonological features suggested by Dr Jenkins,
and those who have used traditional pronunciation models based
on native-speaker varieties.
Zoghbor said, "English usage is expanding - every five
years it gets bigger; in 2008 there were three times as many
non-native English language speakers as native speakers, and
therefore you can no longer say that everyone in the world is
using the language incorrectly apart from the inner core of
native speakers. When using English as a lingua franca what
matters more than native-like pronunciation is
intelligibility."
She suggests that the goal of pronunciation teaching
needs to be switched from achieving native-like pronunciation
to aiming for intelligibility during communication, whilst at
the same time preserving an individual`s identity.
"It is difficult at this stage to confirm the findings of
the quantitative data that has been collected as it is being
processed. But through interviewing individuals who have been
using English as a second language, the responses reveal that
intelligibility is influenced by attitudinal more than
phonological factors."
Wafa Zoghbor, who is from Abu-Dhabi in the UAE, hopes
that her research will be replicated beyond the Arab societies
to expand the scope to different contexts.
Bureau Report
