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    Intelligibility: ELT Journal March 2015

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    Intelligibility: ELT Journal March 2015

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    Intelligibility

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    Intelligibility: ELT Journal March 2015

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    Intelligibility

    Article  in  ELT Journal · March 2015


    DOI: 10.1093/elt/ccu073

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    Bedrettin Yazan
    University of Alabama
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    key concepts in elt

    Intelligibility
    Bedrettin Yazan

    Increases in the number of English users in the world and growing


    acceptance of indigenized varieties of English (‘Englishes’) have given

    Downloaded from http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on August 20, 2015


    rise to concerns that speakers of different English dialects will cease
    being intelligible to each other, resulting in failures in communication,
    especially in cross-cultural encounters (see Matsuura 2007). ‘Intelligibility’
    is therefore a relevant concept for English language teachers to the extent
    that they aim to prepare students to communicate successfully with
    users of various Englishes and in lingua franca contexts. However, it is a
    contested construct which has proved difficult to define and measure (see
    Derwing and Munro 2005; Kirkpatrick, Deterding, and Wong 2008).
    Munro and Derwing (1995) influentially conceptualized intelligibility
    in relation to comprehensibility and accentedness, as a basis for
    pronunciation pedagogy. They operationalize intelligibility as ‘the extent to
    which the speaker’s intended utterance is actually understood by a listener’;
    comprehensibility as ‘the listener’s perception of the degree of difficulty
    encountered when trying to understand an utterance’; and accentedness
    as the listener’s perception of how different a second language (L2) accent
    is ‘from the variety of English commonly spoken in the community’ (ibid.:
    291). In this conceptualization, while intelligibility refers to listeners’
    actual understanding, comprehensibility and accentedness mainly concern
    listeners’ perceptions. Consequently, Derwing and Munro (op.cit.) highlight
    the significance of the linguistic and sociocultural backgrounds from which
    hearers as well as speakers come.
    Jenkins (2000) has referred to the notion of ‘accommodation’ to explore
    the dynamic interplay between speakers and hearers, suggesting that
    L2 users of English strategically make adjustments in their speech
    which lead to convergence with or divergence from their interlocutors’
    speech. Therefore, successful interaction may depend not only on the
    pronunciation teaching L2 speakers of English receive but also on the
    extent to which English users and learners are prepared to listen to
    and understand varieties of L2 speech and to ‘maintain a positive and
    receptive attitude’ towards doing so (Munro 2008: 211).
    While the research pioneered by Derwing and Munro exclusively
    focused on the experiences of students living in an English-speaking

    ELT Journal Volume 69/2 April 2015; doi:10.1093/elt/ccu073  202


    © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
    Advance Access publication February 2, 2015
    country and instruction for them, Jenkins (2000, 2002) placed
    emphasis on the concept of intelligibility from the perspective of
    users of English as an international lingua franca. Based on her
    own research, she proposed a set of lingua franca core features for
    intelligibility-based pronunciation teaching, alongside a focus on
    both productive and receptive accommodation. This work repudiates
    adherence to native-speaker norms in instructional practices (and thus
    downplays the notion of accentedness), contending that accentedness
    and comprehensibility are not correlated; as Levis (2005: 370) puts it,
    ‘communication can be remarkably successful when foreign accents are
    noticeable or even strong’.
    Thus, thanks to the burgeoning research spearheaded by Munro
    and Derwing (op.cit.) in ESL settings and by Jenkins (2000, 2002),
    Kirkpatrick et al. (op.cit.), Matsuura (op.cit.), and Nelson (2011) in
    relation to English as a lingua franca (ELF) interactions, the paramount
    importance of ensuring intelligibility (as opposed to approximation

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    to native-speaker models) has been strongly argued for in relation to
    pronunciation teaching in ELT. The importance of intelligibility began
    to be highlighted in response to native-speaker oriented concerns
    about the possible negative effects on intelligibility of the pluricentrism
    of English (for example Quirk 1985). However, the situation has
    been reversed in a sense, in that—rather than lack of intelligibility
    among speakers of different Englishes—what is being emphasized
    by pronunciation-oriented ELF researchers nowadays is how people
    with different language backgrounds achieve intelligibility through
    accommodation while retaining their own ‘accents’ and how they
    can be trained towards mutual understanding, with a focus on the
    hearer’s responsibility as well as the speaker’s (Levis op.cit.; Kirkpatrick
    et al. op.cit.; Jenkins, Cogo, and Dewey 2011). This emphasis poses
    a challenge for teaching and teacher education, requiring the
    development of new pedagogical knowledge and competencies to teach
    the pronunciation, listening, and accommodation skills suitable for a
    world of interlocutor diversity.

    References Kirkpatrick, A., D. Deterding, and J. Wong. 2008.


    Derwing, T. M. and M. J. Munro. 2005. ‘Second ‘The international intelligibility of Hong Kong
    language accent and pronunciation teaching: a research- English’. World Englishes 27/3–4: 359–77.
    based approach’. TESOL Quarterly 39/3: 379–97. Levis, J. 2005. ‘Changing contexts and shifting
    Jenkins, J. 2000. The Phonology of English as an paradigms in pronunciation teaching’. TESOL
    International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Quarterly 39/3: 369–77.
    Jenkins, J. 2002. ‘A sociolinguistically based, Matsuura, H. 2007. ‘Intelligibility and individual
    empirically researched pronunciation syllabus learner differences in the EIL context’. System 35/3:
    for English as an international language’. Applied 293–304.
    Linguistics 23/1: 83–103. Munro, M. J. 2008. ‘Foreign accent and speech
    Jenkins, J., A. Cogo, and M. Dewey. 2011. ‘Review of intelligibility’ in J. G. H. Edwards and
    developments in research into English as a lingua M. L. Zampini (eds.). Phonology and Second
    franca’. Language Teaching 44/03: 281–315. Language Acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Intelligibility 203
    Munro, M. J. and T. M. Derwing. 1995. ‘Processing The author
    time, accent, and comprehensibility in the Bedrettin Yazan is an Assistant Professor of Applied
    perception of native and foreign-accented speech’. Linguistics in the Department of Curriculum and
    Language and Speech 38/3: 289–306. Instruction at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.
    Nelson, C. L. 2011. Intelligibility in World His research is focused on teaching English as an
    Englishes: Theory and Application. New York, NY: international language, language teacher learning and
    Routledge. identity development, collaboration between ESL and
    Quirk, R. 1985. ‘The English language in a global mainstream teachers, and non-native English speaking
    context’ in R. Quirk and H. G. Widdowson (eds.). teachers. He has recently co-authored a book (with Ali
    English in the World: Teaching and Learning the Fuad Selvi) entitled Teaching English as an International
    Language and Literatures. Cambridge: Cambridge Language (TESOL Press 2013).
    University Press. Email: byazan@bamaed.ua.edu

    Downloaded from http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on August 20, 2015

    204 Bedrettin Yazan


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