Guilt by reason of "accentedness" (and what should be done about it!)

Interesting study out of the UK: “Stereotyped accent judgements in forensic contexts: listener perceptions of social traits and types of behaviour” by Alice Paver et al., summarized by Neuroscience.com, as: "Do accents influence guilt perceptions?"  (I might also add that accents influence getting work!) It raises so many issues that I'd recommend that you read the full article yourself. The summary is not sufficient but is certainly provocative!!! Here is the Neuroscience,com summary: 

"Researchers analyzed responses from 180 participants who rated voices from 10 UK accents on social traits and likelihood of certain behaviors, including crimes. . . ." Leaving aside some obvious potential shortcomings of the design--some of which are acknowledged by the reseachers, such as using male speakers only and a design that sets up the focus on the "bias" before hearing the samples--the conclusions are . . . striking, to say the least:

"Accents influence perceptions of guilt, with those judged as “lower status” being considered more likely to commit crimes."

Now assuming that the results hold up later with

• An acceptable definition of what constitutes and accent
• Replication involving the other gender(s) and 
• Possibly a different general elicitation format, and that 
• The working class dialects do come with features that could  undermine the credibility or "hiring potential"--an intuition strongly confirmed or established in research over the decades . . . 

What should our approach be in the classroom in working with students who come to us with "working class" dialects who are aiming at white collar careers, for example? 

First, one of the other possibly relevant findings was that nonnative accents of the dialects tended to be seen as more trustworthy than the native speakers in the samples. Although it was not reported specifically which nonnative accents carried that "advantage," that sounds like good news for those who'd rather not get into accent work in the first place. Maybe. The distinction between "accent" and "pronunciation" that I give students is something like:

•  If when speaking slowly, your listeners have trouble understanding you, you need pronunciation work. Basic rhythm, stress and intonation instruction is key at that level. 
• If when speaking quickly and maybe under some stress, your listeners have trouble understanding you, you need accent work. Requires attention to better, more accurate production of key/professional terms and dialect features. pacing and voice quality settings. (May even include breath, posture and self-moitoring training.)

So, if your students come to you in a position where they have "absorbed" the features of a less prestigious, disadvantageous dialect and they are preparing for job interviews, f you can't help them at the accent-level, you may need work . . . or you may be doing so already and not know it! If you do need to upgrade your accent work toolkit, join us for the next haptic course next month!

Keep in touch!

Bill

Credit:
Clker.com

Original Research: Open access.
“Stereotyped accent judgements in forensic contexts: listener perceptions of social traits and types of behaviour” by Alice Paver et al. Frontiers in Communication

Beyond gesture: when visual-auditory-kinesthetic is not enough in pronunciation teaching!

Haptic engagement (adding touch to gesture) in pronunciation teaching began in 2005, in response to a number of potential problem(s) of using "simple" gesture in the classroom:

• Inconsistency of results! 
• Sometimes gesture seems to work well in learning and recalling pronunciation:
• As a motivator or generator of enthusiasm and releasing inhibitions, it can be terrific . . . sometimes!
• But sometimes not, depending on a number of factors. Research on efficacy of general gesture use in teaching has been consistently inconclusive, at best. Part of the reason for that, of course, is that the phonological distinctions, themselves, may be perceptually relatively ambiguous as well, such as that between [i], as in "seat" and [I] as in "sit" in English for learners of many other L1s.
• Some individuals and cultures are more "gesticular" than others.
•  Some of us are just better performers and more comfortable with having others mirror our movement in public. We found the teachers in Costa Rica to be some of most naturally "haptic" in that regard!
• Some of us are just not wired for it. In a few cases, such as the ambidextrous or highly visually eidetic (have photographic visual memory) may find this kind of teaching unsettling, to put it mildly. (But with careful control and use of pre-recorded video models, most can successfully work with the haptic system.)  
• Teacher training
• It has turned out, not surprisingly, to be exceedingly difficult to train teachers to use a common set of pedagogical gestures, especially when training is done online and not f2f. Our haptic pronunciation training here on campus has been very successful, but it goes on for 12 weeks, 2 or 3 hours per week. (But see note and links at the bottom for a new option next month!)

The intuitive "solution" turned out to be relatively straightforward:

• Anchor gesture with touch on stressed syllables or prominent words in phrases and sentences.
• Create instructional videos (of me, for the most part) that did the teaching, instead of requiring individual teachers to do it themselves, at least initially. 

The underlying reason or research justification for why that approach "worked" only emerged gradually . . . and recently, in fact! A new study by Fairhurst, M., Travers, E., Hayward, V. and Deroy, O. of Ludwig Maximilians-Universitat-Munchen, Confidence is higher in touch than in vision in cases of perceptual ambiguity, provides a striking piece of the puzzle.

In the experiment, subjects basically had to judge the relative length of two sticks. When the difference was more obvious, they relied solely on vision. When the difference was visually very close or ambiguous, however, they turned to touch to determine which was longer--even though the actual difference in length was actually insignificant. In other words, with touch their judgments were significantly more confident. In effect, "Seeing, as the expression goes, may be believing, but feeling is truth."

The main effect addresses the problem of movement and gesture being potentially difficult to locate consistently in the visual field of the learner and instructor. Although a pattern itself may look "the same" when performed at different locations in front of the learner, it may well not be recognized or remembered as such. (That has always been our experience.)  Unless you apply the magic . . . touch!

Touch as linked to gestural patterns such as those for  tense vowels with off-glides, where the touch occurs on the stressed vowel in a word or phrase, not only consolidates the voice and hand/arm movement and helps identify more consistent locations for the pedagogical gestures, but also gives learners confidence in finding them in the first place. That is especially the case where two sounds or patterns are both conceptually and phonologically in very close proximity, such as the space/distinction between [iy] and [ey] in English in this demonstration video from haptic pronunciation training, version 2.0. 

Now I realize this may all be a bit hard to "grasp" at first, but after you have had just a "touch" of haptic work, it makes perfect sense!

Need to know more and be trained in Haptic Pronunciation Training? Go here and then sign up here!

Source:
Confidence is higher in touch than in vision in cases of perceptual ambiguity, Scientific Reports, volume 8, Article number: 15604 (2018)

Pronunciation discrimination: Say it right now . . . hear it later (and vice versa)

Clip art: Clker

Clip art: Clker

There have been a few studies which suggest that pronunciation training improves aural discrimination and aural comprehension, including this one from 2001 by Ghorban and others. Most research in the last three decades in this area, for a number of reasons,  has focused on the opposite effect, that of comprehension on pronunciation or intelligibility.

One of the primary goals of HICP work is to prepare learners to be more effective "kinaesthetic" listeners who can continue improving their pronunciation beyond the classroom, essentially by being able to quickly capture the felt sense of models that they hear--and play it back haptically using the basic protocols--so that they can also either "record" it in memory or discard it.

That kinaesthetic monitoring and listening are generally seen as the final benchmarks of EHIEP training. At will, learners can "feel" phrases or sentences in their bodies, whether listening to themselves or someone else. Kinaesthetic monitoring generally does not interfere with conversation, allowing one to detect errors in performance and deal with them later, rather than right at that instant. Kinaesthetic listening works the same way, like an independent flash drive, that allows later recall and redo. Got a good feel for what we're saying here? If so, it'll sound even better later. 

Developing a touch for discriminating between objects (and sounds!)

How about this from Science Daily: "New research from the University of Notre Dame shows that people's ability to learn and remember information depends on what they do with their hands while they are learning.

Clip art: Clker

According to a study . . . people holding objects they're learning about process detail and notice differences among objects more effectively, while keeping the hands away from the objects helps people notice similarities and consistencies among those things." That suggests just why a "hands on" haptic approach to learning sounds and words, especially distinctions between L1 and L2 sounds, should work -- and why maintaining a "hands off" attitude toward pronunciation instruction . . . may not! "Now just hold ON!" (I can hear your saying.) Exactly.

"Phonetic" Justice

An excerpt from "Poetic Justice" by rapper, Kool Moe Dee. The full text of the linked rap is not recommended or endorsed, but he does make an interesting link, metaphorically--depending on your worldview, between phonetic and justice which is worth considering briefly:

"They play the weak cause the weak won't speak

But that just makes a fan go seek

A station that they know will bust this

(Who's on the radio) poetic justice

Poetic Justice

What goes around, comes around

Goes around, comes around (2x)

Doing justice to poetry

Poetic, phonetic, genetic, fanatic - you connect it."

The primary focus of HICP work has evolved to center on the classroom where

(1) There is minimal technology, only video playback.
(2) The instructor has minimal, if any training in phonetics and pronunciation.
(3) The students may be motivated (or not-probably not) to practice outside of class and may or may not be literate.
(4) All sound change work (what is still referred to by some as "pronunciation instruction") is seamlessly integrated into class work.
(5) The students generally cannot afford or wouldn't bother with an Android or iPhone pronunciation app. to work on their "intelligibility."

I had years earlier joked that I specialized in "those with accents and money." EHIEP protocols still work with  those clients, of course, but "phonetic justice" demands something more . . .