Non-Native Attitudes to /θ/ and /ð/: A European Case Study

Rias van den Doel; Anne-France C. H. Pinget; Hugo Quené

doi:10.2478/rela-2018-0020

Authors

Rias van den Doel Utrecht University, the Netherlands
Anne-France C. H. Pinget Utrecht University, the Netherlands
Hugo Quené Utrecht University, the Netherlands

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2478/rela-2018-0020

Keywords:

attitudes, dental fricatives, endonormative, Euro-English, exonormative, non-native speakers

Abstract

This paper investigates the evaluation of the English sounds /θ/ and /ð/ as produced by European non-native speakers. Using the data from a larger web survey, we compared the error judgements by different native and non-native users of English. This was done to establish whether there is any normative convergence among European non-native speakers, or if this was counteracted by other patterns, such as the presence or absence of these sounds in their L1s. Our analysis shows that while European non-native judges do not differ consistently from native-speakers in their judgements, there are also subtle differences between different groups of non-native speakers, implying that we should be careful not to generalise across groups about non-native attitudes to these sounds.

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