Exploring the Link Between the Levels of Ethnocentrism and Accentedness of Foreign Language Learners

The current research project aims to investigate the relationship between the ethnocentric tendencies of advanced adult learners of English as a foreign language and their levels of accentedness understood as proximity of an L2 speaker's articulation to the native-like target language pronunciation model constructed in the mind of a listener. The participants were all English Philology students whose native language was Polish. Their ethnocentrism was measured with the Ethnocentrism Scale, and the levels of accentedness were rated by two independent judges with similar experience in English pronunciation teaching and the same L1 as the participants. The pronunciation samples were collected in a controlled reading task, recorded and evaluated for the degree of accentedness on a global 9-point Likert scale, with higher scores denoting higher levels of accented speech. The results of this empirical study showed a significant positive correlation between the ethnocentric tendencies and TL accentedness (r = .35, at p < .05). Moreover, the outcomes of a t-test indicated that the accentedness of those with higher levels of ethnocentrism was rated as deviating significantly more from the native-like standard pronunciation than that in the group with low ethnocentric tendencies. Several pedagogical implications were proposed based on the study findings.