Intelligibility

Abstract

The global spread of English has led to a valid concern: that speakers of different varieties of English will soon become unintelligible to one another. Intelligibility has long been the subject of investigations from various scholars dating back more than half a century ago. This chapter probes on PhE intelligibility to other speakers of English, factors affecting PhE intelligibility, issues and significance of PhE intelligibility. PhE is among the included varieties in Smith and Rafiqzad’s very extensive study on the intelligibility. The chapter shows that the mesolectal speaker of PhE is the most intelligible speaker of PhE compared to the acrolectal speaker and basilectal speaker of PhE. For the listener factors, familiarity with the words’ pronunciation facilitates the intelligibility of PhE. Dita argues that the intelligibility of PhE is influenced by linguistic context more than pronunciation.

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