The role of accentedness in acceptability judgements in L3 Norwegian: an across-domain investigation

Abstract

Foreign-accented speech has been explored from various perspectives, yet the current study is one of the first to investigate the role of accentedness in relation to acceptability judgements in multilingual acquisition. We consider possible interactions of two domains, phonology and syntax, by presenting learners of L3 Norwegian with an Acceptability Judgement Task focusing on eight morphosyntactic properties. Stimuli were recorded with Polish, English and native Norwegian accents. The rationale of the study is based on activation competition; it is expected that a Polish or English accent may enhance activation of syntax of the relevant language and thus affect acceptability judgements. Test items were selected based on their grammatical similarities or dissimilarities between Norwegian and the two previously acquired languages, Polish and English. Prerecorded sentences were evaluated for grammaticality on a 7-point Likert scale. Participants included L1 Norwegian controls and L1 Polish–L2 English–L3/Ln learners of Norwegian divided into instructed and immersive groups. Results show significant effects of accent, group, and condition/grammaticality, as well as a significant group by condition/grammaticality interaction. Conditions not similar to Polish and English did not exhibit accent effects. Findings suggest that differences in ratings based on accentedness are linked to structural similarity and exposure conditions.

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ORCID for Roumyana Slabakova: orcid.org/0000-0002-5839-460X

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