The intelligibility and comprehensibility of French-accented English in an academic context

Abstract This study investigates the intelligibility and comprehensibility of French-accented speech in an academic context. L1 French and L1 English listeners heard speech samples in three different accent conditions: a marked French accent, an unmarked French accent and a Southern British English (SBE) accent. They were asked to perform two word recognition tasks, a speech comprehension task and provided subjective ratings of certainty, comprehensibility, cognitive load and accentedness. Results showed that for English listeners sharing the same first language (L1) had a facilitating effect, whereas varying the levels of French-accentedness had a detrimental effect. French listeners, however, did not find French-accented speech significantly more intelligible and comprehensible than SBE-accented speech. These findings deepen our knowledge of the relationship between intelligibility, comprehensibility, accentedness and cognitive load.