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10 - The Role of Co-Textual and Contextual Cues for Intelligibility in ELF Interactions

from Part II - Zooming in on ELF

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2020

By
Veronika Thir
Edited by
Anna Mauranen  and
Svetlana Vetchinnikova
Anna Mauranen
Affiliation:
University of Helsinki
Svetlana Vetchinnikova
Affiliation:
University of Helsinki
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Summary

It has been suggested that co-textual and contextual cues do not contribute much to phonological intelligibility in ELF interactions, since many non-native ELF users seem largely unable to draw on such cues when processing each other’s accents (Jenkins 2000). This small-scale, qualitative study investigates the role played by co-textual and contextual information in instances of phonological unintelligibility in ELF interactions. The results suggest that the non-native ELF users in this study tend to ‘interpret’ rather than ‘decode’ the incoming acoustic signal in relation to co-textual and contextual cues, provided they are available. The findings also indicate that such cues are not always beneficial to the listener, as they can also ‘mislead’ them by supporting an incorrect identification of a word.

Keywords

intelligibilitypronunciationco-textcontextlisteningspoken word recognition
Type
Chapter
Information
Language Change
The Impact of English as a Lingua Franca
 , pp. 267 - 290
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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