Intelligibility of native and non-native Dutch speech
Speech Communication
Non-native speech perception in adverse conditions: A review
Speech Communication
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In native speech, durational patterns convey linguistically relevant phenomena such as phrase structure, lexical stress, rhythm, and word boundaries. The lower intelligibility of non-native speech may be partly due to its deviant durational patterns. The present study aims to quantify the relative contributions of non-native durational patterns and of non-native speech sounds to intelligibility. In a Speech Reception Threshold study, duration patterns were transplanted between native and non-native versions of Dutch sentences. Intelligibility thresholds (critical speech-to-noise ratios) differed by about 4dB between the matching versions with unchanged durational patterns. Results for manipulated versions suggest that about 0.4-1.1dB of this difference was due to the durational patterns, and that this contribution was larger if the native and non-native patterns were more deviant. The remainder of the difference must have been due to non-native speech sounds in these materials. This finding supports recommendations to attend to durational patterns as well as native-like speech sounds, when learning to speak a foreign language.