Our January 2017 meeting:

Date and Time:  Sunday, 29 January 2017 - 1:30pm - 4:00pm
Place:  Room 541, Building 5, Aichi University (Toyohashi Campus). Need to know the way?

Main Speaker: Takayuki Nagamine (M.A. Linguistics. University College, London)

Taka, a former student at Aichi University of Education, talked about the current trend in pronunciation which seems to be shifting from pursuit of native-like pronunciation to mutual intelligibility among the speakers, in the form of English as an International Language (EIL) or English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). It is known that the phonetic variables in an accent trigger different attitudes in the hearer towards the speaker, which is also true of L2 English. However, there has been little research into the phonetic features produced by Japanese learners of English and the need to pay more attention to them in terms of intelligibility and attitudes. Taka presented his own study identifying the phonetic variables produced by Japanese university students. A real-time accent judgement paradigm was used and was demonstrated with participants to show some possible effects accents can cause for a wide range of listeners from different backgrounds. Here, Taka is seen with some of the participants:

Implications from the study for English Language Teaching in Japan were also discussed.

Plus: Irum Shahzadi talked about  'English in Pakistan - its roles and Pakistani English as a variety.'

Irum is an English teacher from Pakistan who is currently studying at Aichi University of Education.

Read Taka's reflections on this session.

Members: free   Non-members: 1,000 yen

Find out about December's meeting