Do Language Attitudes Determine Accent? A Study of Bilinguals in the USA Alene Moyer SchoolofLanguages,LiteraturesandCultures,UniversityofMaryland, CollegePark,MD,USA This study presents new data on the degree of ‘foreign’ accent among immigrant learnersofEnglishintheUSA(totalN!50)asitcorrelatestolearnerorientationto the target language and target language culture. Correlation analyses confirm the significance of age of onset and length of immersion, as well as learner attitudes, including: (a) reasons for learning English; (b) perceived ability to improve in English;(c)desiretoimproveaccent;(d)self-confidenceinEnglish;(e)comfortwith assimilation to the target language culture (USA); and (f) intention to reside in the USAlong-term.Acloseexaminationofthedatapointstothreemainconclusions:(1) languageattitudesaresignificantforaccent,asaremoretraditionalmeasuressuchas ageofonsetwiththetargetlanguageandlengthofresidenceinthetargetlanguage environment; (2) attitudes toward the target language itself are more powerfully linked to accent than are culture-directed attitudes, though both are significant; (3)acombinationofexperienceandapositiveorientationappearstobeparticularly important forattaining greater authenticity inaccent. doi: 10.2167/jmmd514.0 Keywords: second language learning, language attitudes, bilingualism, age of acquisition, adult learners, Englishas a secondlanguage Introduction Therelevanceofaccentforsecondlanguageacquisition(SLA)canhardlybe questioned from an empirical point of view; it has long taken centre stage in such diverse frameworks as maturational constraints on neurocognitive faculties, on the one hand, and sociopsychological limits on linguistic and cultural assimilation to a new language, on the other. Fromthe perspective of education, accent has been a focal point of some of the most far-reaching foreignlanguageteachingmethodsinthe20thcentury,e.g.theDirectMethod and Audiolingualism. Yet these days, teachers have little hope of finding a standardised approach to pronunciation instruction, and despite decades of research,contradictoryfindingshaveuncoveredmorequestionsthananswers when it comes to explaining the pervasiveness of accent for late second language (L2) learners (see Derwing & Munro, 2005). Perhaps more impor- tantly, the impact of accent on communication is still poorly understood. In short, we have not sufficiently contextualised the relevance and scope of accent ! a timely concern in light of increasing multilingualism and multi- culturalism in the USA and globally.1 Given emerging multiple standards for (L2) English, does accent still matter, as long as the intended message is understood? Munro and Derwing 0143-4632/07/06502-17$20.00/0 –2007A.Moyer J.OFMULTILINGUALANDMULTICULTURALDEVELOPMENT Vol.28,No.6,2007 502 DoLanguageAttitudesDetermineAccent? 503 have explored this issue through their well known work on intelligibility (Derwing & Munro, 1997; Munro & Derwing, 1995). Several researchers have presented their own definitions for intelligibility as well, for example, as the listener’s apprehension of the intended message (Nelson, 1982), basic word andutterancerecognition(Smith,1992),andeventhesocialacceptabilityofan utterance (Nihilani, 1993; see also Gass & Varonis, 1984; Munro & Derwing, 1995).MunroandDerwinghaveshownthatpooraccentratingsareassociated with phonetic, phonemic and grammatical errors, as well as problems with intonation. To be sure, judgements of accent are also partly subjective, as listener familiarity with the L2 user’s mother tongue could influence perceptions of intelligibility, as could the listener’s own ideas about what (or moreaptly, who) representsalegitimate ‘standard’for English pronuncia- tion (seeGolombek &Jordan,2005). Thereisemergingevidencethataccurate production of certain segmental and prosodic features is essential to commu- nication,dependingonthephonemicdistinctionsofthe(target)language.For English, Jenkins (2000, 2002) has proposed that some phonemic distinctions are ‘core’ to successful communication, based on her studies of interactions between native and non-native speakers.2 Jenkins’ conclusion is that certain (language-specific) features must be accurately produced and perceived to ensure that meaning is unambiguous. Communication breakdown is most likely when non-natives focus on segmental cues, missing important con- textual information embedded in higher-level language features (e.g. supra- segmental, lexical, etc.) (Jenkins, 2002: 89). Phonological attainment, in terms ofbothperceptionandproduction,isthuscriticaltothesuccessfulnegotiation of meaning; it is not simply icing on the cake for otherwise fluent L2 users. Traditionally, the research on accent in a second language (L2) has addressed the basic question of whether anyone can really become native- like after the proposed critical, or sensitive, period (see Bongaerts et al., 1997; Flege, 1987; Flege et al., 1999; Moyer, 1999, 2004; Munro & Mann, 2005 for empiricalfindings;seeBialystok&Hakuta1999;Hyltenstam&Abrahamsson, 2003;Marinova-Toddetal.,2000forreviewsanddiscussion).Thefactthatonly a few ‘exceptional’ learners appear to do so suggests that a native-like accent inL2isnotarealisticexpectation(cf.Ioupetal.,1994;White&Genesee,1996). While some scholars continue to question any evidence contrary to the critical period hypothesis (e.g. Long, 2005), the issue is far from closed; constraints in phonological attainment are highly complex and not well understood, likely because their source is inherently unobservable. Further- more,itispossiblethat constraints long attributed toneurobiological changes (associatedwithmaturation)aremoreaffectivethanneurocognitiveinnature, as theseappeartobefundamentallylinked (Pulvermu¨ller &Schumann,1994; Schumann, 1994, 2001). Equally plausible is the possibility that observable constraintsarearesultofactuallanguageexperience,e.g.limitedcontactwith nativespeakersresultinginalackofinteractiveuseofthetargetlanguage,etc. (Flege & Liu, 2001; Jia & Aaronson, 1999; Moyer, 2004, 2007b, forthcoming a; Thompson, 1991; Yeni-Komshian et al., 2000). One aspect of language contact or experience that could potentially mitigate these constraints ! formal instruction ! has been shown to be significant for L2 accent (Bongaerts et al., 1997; Moyer, 1999, 2004; Thompson, 1991), with suprasegmental training on 504 JournalofMultilingualandMulticulturalDevelopment stress, pitch and intonation of particular benefit (Derwing & Rossiter, 2003; Elliott, 1997; Missaglia, 1999; Moyer, 1999, 2004). While language contact and usenaturallyvarygreatlyacrosslearners,thoseexposedearlyonarefarmore likely to enjoy instructional experience and greater personal contact with native speakers (Moyer, 2004, 2007). To the extent that these factors are confounded with age of onset (AO), they do not necessarily get their due, unless the researcher examines a wide array of variables and measures their influence alongside that of AO. Inaddition toanearly start,anative-like accent isoftenshownto correlate to long-term residence in the target-language country, however, statistical analyses of this factor’s significance have resulted in contradictory findings across studies (see Piske et al., 2001). One obvious problem is that simplistic measures of language contact (length of residence (LOR), for example) tell us nothing about the quality of that experience from the point of view of input and interaction. To illustrate this problem, we need only consider why some learners reside for years in-country, eventually making the transition to L2 dominancewhileothersdonot.Thereareindicationsthatlongerresidencein- country positively affects the learner’s sense of fluency, and corresponds to greater frequency of contact with native speakers and the likelihood of more instructioninthesecondlanguage,especiallyformaltrainingandfeedbackon pronunciation (Moyer, 2004). Such factors may predict an eventual shift in language dominance ! no minor artefact of L2 experience, as the functional and symbolic relevance of L2 relative to L1 is so important; those who rely more on L2 do end up sounding closer-to-native than those who retain the mother tongue as their primary means of communication (see Moyer, 2004, forthcomingb;Singleton,2000).Itisimportanttobearinmindthatalongerin- country residence will not lead to a shift in language dominance without sufficientneed,desireandsupport;suchanimportanttransitionispredicated on both positive sociopsychological orientations and favourable external circumstances. Some evidence exists to support this argument: strong significance for LOR is apparent when groups are highly differentiated in terms of years (e.g. 1!2 years versus 12" years in-country), with the long- term residents attaining far more authenticity in both production and perception of new (L2) speech sounds (Flege & Fletcher, 1992; Flege et al., 1995) (see fourth section). In addition to language contact and experience, a number of socio- psychologicalfactorshavebeenshowntoexertsignificantinfluenceonaccent, including concern for pronunciation accuracy, sense of identity, motivation to learn the target language and attitudes toward the target language culture, among others (see Moyer, 1999, 2004; Oyama, 1976; Piller, 2002; Purcell & Suter,1980;Smit,2002;Smit&Dalton,2000;Thompson,1991).Thisresearchis somewhat preliminary relative to the long-standing tradition of motivation research in SLA, but these new directions address the interrelationships between age and L2 experience, and thus represent a welcome expansion in the critical period literature. It should be noted, however, that some scholars remain sceptical about the significance of social and psychological factors, given that any observed statistical significance could be an artefact of their relationship toAO (Oyama, 1976). That problemnotwithstanding,factorslike DoLanguageAttitudesDetermineAccent? 505 AO and LOR represent far more than mere exposure to the second language; theyreflectanall-important,thoughidiosyncratic,balanceofcontact,useand orientation in L2 (see Moyer, 2007 for discussion), all of which influence both affective and cognitive strategies for improving pronunciation (Moyer, 2004, 2007). To summarise, three decades of evidence have established that many individualfactorsaresignificantforaccent,includingexperientialandlearner orientation factors pertaining to both the target language and its culture. Relatively few investigations have centred on sociopsychological factors as influentialforattainmentinL2phonology,perse,nevertheless,thesequestions bear closer scrutiny given that accent matters on both the collective and the individual levels; it affects not just communicative fluency but contributes to judgements of social belonging and identity as well. Recent scholarship has questioned traditional assumptions of the intractability of a foreign accent for late learners, indicating that many aspects of experience and orientation determine the likelihood that one can, and will, acquire an authentic accent. These broader considerations of learner orientation and experience motivate the current study. The Current Study The current study endeavours to examine learner attitudes as potentially significanttoaccent,basedonpreviousworkcitedabove.Theobjectivesofthe studyaretoframethesignificanceoflearnerattitudesagainstmoretraditional measures of L2 experience (AO and LOR), and to compare potentially differential effects among categories of attitudes. In keeping with these objectives, two main questions guide the study: (1) Are language attitudes relevant to phonological attainment once more traditional measures of language exposure, e.g. AO and LOR, are taken into account? (2) Are any differences apparent between attitudes toward the target language itself and attitudes toward the target language culture when it comes to accent in a second language? The first question addresses the significance of attitudes relative to AO and time spent in-country. The second question concerns the relative influence of learner attitudes when categorised as language-directed versus culture- directed, specifically. Correlation and multiple regression analyses will exa- mine these effects statistically, to find out whether attitudes are as impor- tant as the traditional measures of L2 experience, and to discover whether certain kinds of attitudes are associated with more native-like phonological acquisition. Participants All participants were students at a large university in the Mid-Atlantic regionoftheUSA,respondingtoflyerspostedaroundcampusforvolunteers. All identified themselves at the outset as either native (NS) or non-native 506 JournalofMultilingualandMulticulturalDevelopment Figure1 Participants’ NativeLanguages (NNSonly; N#42) speakers(NNS)ofEnglish,resultingin8whoservedasNScontrolsand42as NNS subjects (total N#50; 17 men and 33 women3). Participants ranged in agefrom18to49(Mean#25years). Several participantshadrecentlyarrived in the USA at the time of data collection, while others had been residents for many years (the range is vast, at 1 month!25 years; Mean#5 years). Seven were married to native English speakers. Participants represented 15 native languages, as shown in Figure 1.4 Instrument and procedure Participants completed a survey on their language learning background and specific aspects of their sociopsychological orientation as concerns the target language (English) and the USA. Response types were scalar, short response, or open-ended in nature, for the following areas.5 (1) Language exposure/experience factors ! AO, LOR in an English- speaking country, and marriage to a native speaker were noted, as were total years of English instruction. (2) Learner orientation factors ! language-related attitudes and culture- related attitudes were measured as follows: (a) reasons for learning English; (b) intensity of motivation for learning English; (c) perceived abilitytoimproveinEnglish;(d)desiretoimproveaccent;(e)self-rating offluency in English;(f) attitudestowardAmerican culture;(g) comfort withtheidea ofcultural assimilation(intheUSA);(h)perceivedeasein establishing contact with native speakers of English in the USA; and (i) intention to reside in the USA long-term. DoLanguageAttitudesDetermineAccent? 507 Thelinguisticaspectofthestudyelicitedread-aloudandfreespeechthrougha series of tasks in this order6: (1) A word list (65 in all) targeting phonemic distinctions and features predicted to be difficult for NNS of English (e.g. all vowels, and the consonantsandconsonantclusters ð,u,N,v,E,l,w,ts,da,ntN,mpl,nus, tw, bN, as well as terminal voicing of obstruents); (2) 10read-aloudsentenceswhichfocusedonword-levelstresspatternsand phonetic difficulties;7 (3) read-aloud paragraph-length texts; (4) a brief, free speaking task with prompt; and (5) a picture description and narration task. A range of controlled and guided tasks wereincluded to represent segmental and suprasegmental abilities more authentically than in isolated tasks alone. Raters and ratings Four self-identified native speakers of English volunteered to listen to the speech samples.8 All were American female students at the same university, ranging in age from 22 to 30 years, pursuing language-related degrees at the graduate level (literature, culture, applied linguistics, etc.). Inter-rater relia- bilityforalltaskratingswasverifiedstatistically.(Kendall’sTau-bscoresranged from 0.80 to 0.52, depending on rater pairing.) All recordings were broken down into separate tasks, and reordered in master tapes so that no rater heard any speaker’s collective tasks consecutively. This was done to minimise monotony and rater fatigue, and to minimise the chance that the rater would recognise individual speakers and assign ratings based on previous task performance. In this way, separate scores for each task could alsobeassignedandtaskperformancecouldbecompared.Forexample,each rater heard a randomised order of speakers and tasks as follows: Speaker J, Task 1 (word list), followed by Speaker S, Task 4 (impromptu speaking), followed by Speaker B, Task 2 (sentences), and so on in random order. Raters were asked to evaluate each individual speech sample for accent on a 5-point scale, with ‘1#no foreign accent’ and ‘5#strong foreign accent’. Raters also filled out a brief survey on their language learning background. None was a pure monolingual speaker of English; all raters knew at least one other language and characterised themselves as bilingual or multilingual in those languages. Results9 L2 user participants are clearly differentiated from the native speaker controlsintermsofaccentratingsaccordingtoPearson’sproductcorrelations (r).(Figure2showsatask-by-taskbreakdown.)Notaskdifferenceswithinthe groups are statistically significant, only the NS!NNS group distinction is significant according to a t-test (pooled Means for NS#1.18, where ‘1’#‘no foreign accent’; for NNS it is 2.9; t#6.23, Sig of t#0.0001). 508 JournalofMultilingualandMulticulturalDevelopment Figure2 Comparing Accent RatingsbyGroupMeans(AllTasks)(N#50) The significance of language exposure factors As expected, AO and LOR both show a linear, negative relationship to accent ratings, while the other two measures of language experience are not strongly linked to performance (see Table 1). Table 1 Correlatingaccent tolanguageexperience/exposure(NNS only;N#42) Accent ratings r p Ageofonset 0.69 0.0001*** Lengthofresidence 0.58 0.0001*** Married toNS 0.01 0.93 Years ofEnglishinstruction 0.17 0.28 *pB0.05;**pB0.01;***pB0.001 The significance of learner attitudes Learner attitudes were predicted to be significant for outcomes, assessed here as both culture-directed and language-directed attitudes. Table 2 shows theresultsfortheculture-directeditems.MostoftheNNSparticipants(31,or 74%)reportapositiveattitudetowardAmericanculture,while11(26%)report DoLanguageAttitudesDetermineAccent? 509 Table 2 Correlatingaccent tocultural attitudes (N#42) Accent ratings r p AttitudestowardAmericanculture 0.12 0.44 Comfortwith culturalassimilation 0.37 0.02* Perceived easeofcontact toNS 0.24 0.13 Intentionto reside long-term inUSA 0.34 0.03* *pB0.05;**pB0.01;***pB0.001 a negative or strongly negative attitude. Comfort with the idea of cultural assimilation in America reveals a different trend: 40, or 95%, feel they could easily assimilate while only 5% are unsure (several did not respond). Participants also described relative ease of establishing contact with native EnglishspeakersintheUSA:25sayitiseasyorveryeasy(60%),9areneutral and6believeitisnoteasy todoso(2didnotrespond).Ofthesefirst 3items, only comfort with assimilation is significant for accent ratings. The assimila- tion measurealsocorrelates significantly (negatively) to current age, which in turn is significant to outcomes at r#0.33 and pB0.03, meaning that older participants are less likely to feel comfortable with assimilating, possibly because they have a longer-established, personal sense of cultural belonging that is not American. Each learner’s intention to reside in the USAwas also measured. For this sample, 25 (60%) plan to stay in the USA permanently or for at least 5 years, while only 6 (14%) say they will stay for 2 years or less. The remaining 26% project a 2!5-year residence. Intention to reside is assumed to gauge the learner’slong-terminvestmentinL2asfollows:thosewhointendtostayinan English-speakingenvironmentlong-termaremorelikelytobeconcernedwith their accent and overall fluency (see Moyer, 2004 for comparable results). When the significance of this factor is examined more closely, two interesting relationships become clear: (1) those who intend to stay less than a year are tightly grouped in the poorestperformance range,i.e. they have the strongest foreign accents according to the raters; (2) those with both professional and personal orientation are likely to plan a longer residence (r#0.54; pB0.0001) and to demonstrate a more native-like accent (as the next set of findings shows). As for attitudes toward the target language itself, a number of correlations are noteworthy (Table 3). Ten participants, or 24%, say they are only professionally motivated, or career-oriented, when it comes to learning English, while 30 of the non-native participants (71%) report their reasons for learning English as both personal and professional. This combination of personal and professional orientation is statistically significant for closer-to- native accent ratings, suggesting that an investment in L2 that is complex is more significant than is any single type of motivation by itself (see similar findings in Moyer, 1999, 2004). The intensity of language-oriented motivation 510 JournalofMultilingualandMulticulturalDevelopment Table 3 Correlatingaccent tolanguageattitudes (N#42) Accent r p Reasons forlearning English 0.37 0.02* Intensityofmotivation towardlearning English 0.20 0.20 Perceived abilityto improve inEnglish 0.38 0.01** Desireto improve accent 0.52 0.0001*** Self-ratingoffluencyinEnglish 0.68 0.0001*** *pB0.05;**pB0.01;***pB0.001 is ‘very high’ according to 28 participants (67%) and ‘high’ for another 10 (23%), however, this factor is not significant for outcomes. At the same time, thesensethatonecanimproveinEnglishwithenougheffortisalsoquitehigh: 28 strongly believe it is possible for them to improve (66%), and only 5 (12%)answeredthisquestionnegatively(9wereneutral)(seesimilarresultsin Smit, 2002). The perception that one can improveis highly correlated to LOR, andtoamoreintegratedsetofreasonsforlearningEnglish(bothprofessional and personal). This group of learners is somewhat split when it comes to the desire to improve accent: 26 (62%) report a strong or very strong desire to improve, while 16 (38%) report that they are neutral or do not care. Of course, it is possible that those with an impressive accent report little desire to improve (for obvious reasons), and that those who realise their accent is identifiably non-native, but who can still communicate effectively, may similarly express littlemotivationforimprovement.Onanotherlevel,existingtensionsbetween language identities, group affiliations and perceptions of accent could also haveaprofoundinfluenceonone’smotivationtochangeanestablishedaccent (see Gatbonton et al., 2005; Piller, 2002). While this factor demonstrates a very significant,positive linktooutcomefortheseparticipants,whatthismeansin practical terms is uncertain. It is surely the case that not all learners have the samecapacitiestoimprove,evenifthedesireisthere(Yuleetal.,1987),sothe practical implications of such a desire arenot immediately obvious. Here,the surveys were useful for exploring what a strong desire to sound native could translate to in practical terms. Many of these learners initiate theirown kinds of pronunciation feedback opportunities, reporting that they read aloud to practice pronunciation and intonation specifically, that they mimic native speakers on television and radio, and that they often look up the pronuncia- tionofwordsinthedictionary.Oneparticipantevennotedthatherecordshis own voice to listen for pronunciation inconsistencies and inaccuracies. Asforself-ratingoffluencyinEnglish,22(52%)reportthattheyare‘fluent’ or ‘very fluent’, saying they are sometimes mistaken for native. Only 7 (17%) donotfeelfluent.Thisfactorshowsastrongcorrelationtooutcomes,meaning thatthosewiththehighestjudgementoftheirownabilitiesdo,infact,exhibit closer-to-native performance overall (see Smit, 2002 for similar results). This DoLanguageAttitudesDetermineAccent? 511 factor is not terribly revealing because it does not indicate any identifiable influence on accent, however, self-ratings of fluency are clearly tied to phonologicalabilitiesasjudgedbyothers ! confirmationthataccentisindeed a central aspect of language ability. Comparing the relative contributions of language attitudes A primary objective of this study was to explore the significance of language attitudes alongside the factors of AO and LOR. No claims can be made for causal relationships according to the limits of correlation analyses, however, a morecomplexstatistical modelsuchas multiple regression can be used to partial out the effects of one set of factors to reveal the remaining significanceofothers.Tomaximise thecontribution oftheexperientialfactors AO and LOR in the model a ‘Block’ analysis can combine their strength and measure it against a second ‘block’ ! the attitudinal factors. In the multiple regressionanalysisusedhere(Table4),weseethatthisfirstblockaccountsfor 34% of the variance (R), and that the second block ! reasons for learning Englishanddesiretoimproveaccent,twoofthemostsignificantfactors from thecorrelationanalyses ! addsanother16%totheexplanation.Togetherthese factors account for 71% of the variance ! an impressive finding. The bottom half of Table 4 shows that these two attitudinal factors hold their own, even aftertheinfluenceoftheotherfactorshasbeenaccountedfor,orpartialledout (see Sig column at bottom of Table 4). Results from these analyses are preliminary, but there is strong indication here that language attitudes are not completely conflated with AO. Any conclusions must necessarily be tentative regarding how influential these attitudinal variables are compared to experiential ones. At a minimum, Table 4 Multiple Regression Model! AO/LOR andlanguageattitudes R R2 R2 F df1 df2 Sig of F change change change Step1:AO"LOR 0.58 0.34 0.34 9.57 2 34 0.0001*** Step2:Desireto improve 0.71 0.50 0.16 5.64 2 32 0.008** accent"reasonsfor learning English Std. Beta t Sig error AO 0.03 0.04 0.27 0.78 LOR 0.02 -0.33 -2.37 0.02* Desireto improve accent 0.08 -0.36 -2.41 0.02* Reasons forlearning 0.22 -0.33 -2.69 0.01* English *Sig#0.05orless;**Sig#0.01orless;***Sig#0.001orless