DICTATION AS A MEASURE OF MUTUAL INTELLIGIBILITY: A PILOT STUDY

Abstract

An experiment using dictation in foreign and native accents of English suggests that this is a fruitful device for the study of individual and group differences affecting mutual intelligibility. Prior listener‐experience with the voice of the speaker appears to be a prominent factor in intelligibility, indicating that accommodation to the speaker over time is a crucial variable, and that language teachers are apt to be the poorest judges of their students’ability to communicate with strangers. A combination of age, education, and ESL teaching experience seems to increase ability to comprehend unfamiliar speakers. Bilingual Spanish‐English listeners have an advantage in decoding Spanish‐accented English, while American Indians scored below ESL students in ability to decode a heavy Spanish accent. Neither clear nor noise‐contaminated tapes showed consistent superiority in maximizing discrimination among listener groups.

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