ABSTRACT
Listeners often feel comfortable making non-linguistic judgements about speakers, including drawing conclusions about their education, economic status and personality based on their pronunciation. This is particularly true of reactions to non-native speakers (NNSs), whose pronunciation is often measured against native speaker (NS) norms. However, there are also several other factors that affect listeners’ evaluations, such as where they believe, or are told, the speaker is from and what this person looks like. Educators, researchers and NNSs themselves may wish to take an understanding of such factors into account when deciding how to respond to negative evaluations of non-native pronunciation. The chapter’s first section introduces key terms and approaches used to investigate attitudes towards NNS pronunciation and the findings from studies that employed these methods. The chapter’s later sections consider other social factors that affect how people evaluate and react to NNSs. Finally, the chapter suggests future directions for teachers and researchers interested in addressing issues related to listeners’ attitudes towards non-native pronunciation.
