The linguistic stereotyping hypothesis holds that even brief samples of speech varieties associated with low-prestige groups can cue negative attributions regarding individual speakers. The converse phenomenon is reverse linguistic stereotyping (RLS). In RLS, attributions of a speaker’s group membership trigger distorted evaluations of that person’s speech. The present study established a procedure for ascertaining a proclivity to RLS for individual listeners. In addition to RLS, variables reflecting degree of multicultural involvement (e.g., proportion of friends who are nonnative speakers, amount of language study) predicted speech evaluations. Although the RLS measurement procedure outlined here requires more demanding administration than mere paper-and-pencil self-reports, it has the advantage of reflecting authentic RLS processes. Measuring individuals’ RLS levels can help screen teachers, job interviewers, immigration officials, and others who are called on to make judgments about the oral proficiency of speakers of nonprestige language varieties.

Few prior studies have examined degree of fidelity between raters' assessments of oral performances and objectively observable prosodic indices of accentedness. Prosodic indices of accentedness quantify trait-relevant variance, whereas rater background variables represent trait-irrelevant variance. The present study, therefore, investigated the extent to which raters' background characteristics and instrumentally measured prosodic indices of speakers' accentedness jointly influenced the rating of oral performances. Seventy U.S. undergraduate students rated the speaking and teaching proficiency of 11 international teaching assistants (ITAs). Using the PRAAT computer program, 5 min of continuous speech from each of the ITAs were instrumentally analyzed for a number of indices of speech rate, pausing, stress, and intonation. Dependent variables were undergraduates' ratings of ITA oral proficiency and instuctional competence. Rater background variables such as the listener's native speaker status and experience as a language tutor explained 7–9% of the variance in oral performance ratings, whereas 18–19% was attributable to the prosody variables. These findings suggest that U.S. undergraduates are sensitive to trait-relevant indicators of ITA oral proficiency. At the same time, their speech evaluations are subject to substantial bias based on their own backgrounds.

This study compared five research‐based intelligibility measures as they were applied to six varieties of English. The objective was to determine which approach to measuring intelligibility would be most reliable for predicting listener comprehension, as measured through a listening comprehension test similar to the Test of English as a Foreign Language. The speakers included 18 English users representing six distinct varieties. These speakers’ speech was evaluated by 60 listeners, users of the same English varieties who completed the listening comprehension test as well as five intelligibility tasks, all recorded by the speakers. The five measures of intelligibility included responses to true/false statements, scalar ratings of speech, perception of nonsense sentences, perception of filtered sentences, and transcription of speech; these measures were compared in terms of their relationship to listening comprehension scores using linear mixed‐effects models. Results showed that the measure of intelligibility based on listeners’ responses to nonsense sentences was the strongest predictor of the listening comprehension scores.Open Practices: This article has been awarded an Open Materials badge. Study materials are publicly accessible in the IRIS digital repository at http://www.iris-database.org. Learn more about the Open Practices badges from the Center for Open Science: https://osf.io/tvyxz/wiki.

With the ascendency of English as a global lingua franca, a clearer understanding of what constitutes intelligible speech is needed. However, research systematically investigating the threshold of intelligibility has been very limited. In this article, we provide a brief summary of the literature as it pertains to intelligible and comprehensible speech, and then report on an exploratory study seeking to determine what specific features of accented speech make it difficult for global listeners to process. Eighteen speakers representing six English varieties were recruited to provide speech stimuli for two English listening tests. Sixty listeners from the same six English varieties took part in the listening tests, and their scores were then assessed against measurable segmental, prosodic, and fluency features found in the speech samples. Results indicate that it is possible to identify particular features of English speech varieties that are most likely to lead to a breakdown in communication, and that the number of such features present in a particular speakers’ speech can predict intelligibility.