PREDICTORS OF PRONUNCIATION ACCURACY: A REEXAMINATION

Abstract

Suter (1976) studied the correlations between English pronunciation accuracy scores and a battery of 20 variables for 61 normative speakers of English. Although he found that 12 of the 20 were significantly correlated with pronunciation accuracy, he did not attempt to assess the relative importance of the 12 in accounting for the criterion's variance. By limiting his analysis to a consideration of zero order correlations it was not possible to determine which of the significant predictors were true predictors of pronunciation accuracy in and of themselves and which were only significant predictors by virtue of their substantial correlations with other, more efficient predictors of pronunciation accuracy. In the present paper we apply more advanced techniques to the analysis of the predictors and conclude that only 4 variables, one of them a composite of 2 of Suter's predictors, are useful in accounting for the variability of subjects' pronunciation accuracy scores.

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