World Englishes and Issues of Intelligibility

Abstract

Understanding, or “intelligibility” in a broad sense, should be divided into three categories which make it accessible for examination and analysis in more specific terms: intelligibility: word/utterance recognition; comprehensibility: word/utterance meaning (locutionary force); and interpretability: meaning behind word/utterance (illocutionary force). This chapter presents an example to show that successful communication in English is not assured by the participants exhibiting good pronunciation the focus of so much attention in ESL and EFL teaching and learning – or even good lexis and grammar; utterances have pragmatic effects which cannot be interpreted without situational, social, and cultural awareness. These three categories may be thought of as degrees of understanding on a continuum of complexity of variables, from phonological to pragmatic, with intelligibility being lowest and interpretability being highest. The chapter also offers supporting evidence that familiarity with several different English varieties makes it easier to interpret cross-cultural communication in English.

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