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Accuracy and acceptability of second-dialect performance on American television

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2017

REMCO KNOOIHUIZEN
REMCO KNOOIHUIZEN*
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Faculteit der Letteren, English Language & Culture, Postbus 716, 9700 AS Groningen, The Netherlandsr.m.knooihuizen@rug.nl
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Abstract

This article analyses a case of second-dialect performance as an idealised instance of second-dialect acquisition, without mitigating factors such as access, analytical ability and motivation. It focuses on the Australian English and American English speech of three young Australian actors. An acoustic analysis of their short-vowel systems shows that they can successfully adapt to perform in an American English accent, but that their second-dialect system is less stable and more variable than their native system.

A foreign-accent rating experiment on the actors’ American English with American English judges shows that the actors on average are thought to sound slightly less American than the native American English-speaker controls. The discrepancy between the acoustic accuracy and listener acceptability may be explained by judges attending to different features from those included in the acoustic study.

This study of second-dialect performance shows what is maximally possible in second-dialect acquisition. Given the difference between the two measures of success, studies of second-dialect acquisition would benefit from including subjective measures in addition to acoustic accuracy.

Keywords

second-dialect acquisitionperformanceforeign-accent ratingAmerican EnglishAustralian English
Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , June 2019 , pp. 229 - 252
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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