Phonological Awareness and Degree of Foreign Accent: An Exploratory Study

Research in foreign accent has reported various factors of accentedness. However, very little attention has been given to the relationship between L2 speakers’ accentedness and their awareness of, or sensitivity to, L2 phonological system. The present study aims to explore the relationship between ESL learners’ phonological awareness, as measured by several tasks, and their accentedness, as rated by native speakers of English. Twelve advanced adult ESL speakers participated in seven tasks purported to tap into their sensitivity to English sounds and sound structures. They also read an English passage, and four native speakers rated their foreign accentedness on a 9-point scale. The learners showed individual differences in their phonological awareness despite the fact that they were from an intact class presumably at the same proficiency level. They also exhibited varying degrees of foreign accent. Correlational analyses revealed that in general there was a nonsignificant correlation between the learners’ L2 phonological awareness and their accentedness, and that the awareness did not seem to have translated into L2 production. The study addresses some methodological and procedural issues that suggest crucial points for refinement of the phonological awareness tasks and the L2 speech data collection method.