Document Type

Journal article

Source Publication

World Englishes

Publication Date

6-1-2010

Volume

29

Issue

2

First Page

257

Last Page

269

Abstract

This paper first briefly reviews the concept of intelligibility as it has been employed in both English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and world Englishes (WE) research. It then examines the findings of the Lingua Franca Core (LFC), a list of phonological features that empirical research has shown to be important for safeguarding mutual intelligibility between non-native speakers of English. The main point of the paper is to analyse these findings and demonstrate that many of them can be explained if three perspectives (linguistic, psycholinguistic and historical-variationist) are taken. This demonstration aims to increase the explanatory power of the concept of intelligibility by providing some theoretical background. An implication for ELF research is that at the phonological level, internationally intelligible speakers have a large number of features in common, regardless of whether they are non-native speakers or native speakers. An implication for WE research is that taking a variety-based, rather than a features-based, view of phonological variation and its connection with intelligibility is likely to be unhelpful, as intelligibility depends to some extent on the phonological features of individual speakers, rather than on the varieties per se.

DOI

10.1111/j.1467-971X.2010.01641.x

Print ISSN

08832919

E-ISSN

1467971X

Publisher Statement

Copyright © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.

Full-text Version

Accepted Author Manuscript

Language

English

Recommended Citation

Sewell, A. (2010). Research methods and intelligibility studies. World Englishes, 29(2), 257-269. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-971X.2010.01641.x

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