Journal Article

Study Abroad and Changes in Degree of Foreign Accent in Children and Adults

Llanes, Àngels, Muñoz, Carmen

2014

Overview

The present study examines the impact of learning context and age on learners' degree of foreign accent. Participants of two different age groups (children vs. adults) learning English in two different contexts (at home vs. study abroad) were interviewed and asked to narrate a story and to fill out a questionnaire about their language use while abroad. A group of listeners rated the degree of perceived foreign accent of the oral productions of each of the groups. It was found that learning context played a significant role, with participants in the study abroad setting having a significantly milder foreign accent in the posttest. Although age did not influence the results statistically, child participants abroad experienced the greatest improvement and also spent more time speaking with native speakers than adult participants abroad. These results shed light on the characteristics of the study abroad experience that are beneficial for learners and on learner characteristics that optimize such an experience.

• Publisher: Blackwell Publishing Ltd,Wiley Subscription Services
• Subject: Accentuation / Adult education / Adults / age / Age differences / Age groups / Altersstufe / Auslandsstudium / Aussprache / Children / Dialects / Empirische Forschung / Englischunterricht / English / English as a second language / English language learners / Foreign Accent / Foreign language instruction / Foreign students / Fremdsprachenunterricht / Kontext / L2 pronunciation / Learning / learning contexts / Learning Environment / Listeners / Native Nonnative Speaker Communication / Native Speakers / Non-native accent / Nonnative languages / Perceptual learning / Phonologie / Phonology / Pronunciation / Second language acquisition / Second Language Learning / Study Abroad / Zweitsprache