This workshop focuses on linguistic studies of second language (L2) acquisition and the sociolinguistic importance of foreign accent in Japanese and some European languages. In recent years, the focus of L2 research has shifted from nativelikeness to comprehensibility. Various linguistic factors can affect speech comprehensibility, including pronunciation of segments, prosodic accuracy, grammatical accuracy, correctness of vocabulary, and paralinguistic information such as speech attitude and the confidence of the speaker. Furthermore, it is also influenced by psychological attitudes, impressions and assumptions on the part of the listener towards the speaker. This means that foreign accented speech with imperfect grammar is now theoretically acceptable.
However, some studies have reported negative impressions of foreign accented speech. For example, the authenticity of information in foreign accented speech still tends to be questioned more than for native speech, and the performance of interviewees has been rated lower. Also, other studies have reported that speech comprehension can be affected by speakers’ faces, whether they look like typical native English speakers or not. Of course, various kinds of paralinguistic effects occur in all languages, so it is still not clear what kinds of foreign accentedness most strongly influence sociolinguistic impression and linguistic function.
However, there is still a lot of uncertainty about how various linguistic features affect the perception of L2 speech communication in Japanese and European languages. So, in this workshop, the researchers will present results from their studies on these topics and discuss how such studies can contribute to sociolinguistically acceptable L2 acquisition and its effective teaching and learning.
