| This study examines reactions to the accented speech of six female adult ESL learners. Three native Chinese speakers and three native Russian speakers were recorded reading a telephone message in English during the first and last weeks of attending an accent correction course. While the investigator employed a matched guise technique, three ESL instructors and 51 managers were then asked to evaluate the voices they heard on the 12 recordings. Evaluations were made on the following instruments: Mulac's Speech Dialect Attitudinal Scale (1975, 1976), a Degree of Foreign Accent Scale, the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines (1986), and an occupational impression classification questionnaire in which the managers selected one of three positions (machine operator, floor supervisor, or manager) for each voice sample.;When rated by the ESL experts, group post-instruction phase scores were significantly higher than the pre-instruction phase scores. Main effects of the managers' ratings for prepost and student were significant with a significant interaction between the pre/post variable and the student variable on three subscales (Aesthetics, Socio-Intellectual Status, and Dynamism) of the SDAS.;At the pre-instruction phase there was a strong relationship between judgement of occupational fit and perceived variations in accent. Virtually no such relationship was noted in the post-instruction phase. Managers judged native Chinese speakers to fit "manager" positions more often than native Russian speakers. However, managers were rarely able to correctly identify the Russian speakers' accents.;Four out of six students were more likely to be judged as fitting a management position at the post-instruction stage. The managers also provided qualitative data, describing how they would characterize voices judged to be appropriate for management level positions, as well as perceptions of speech style influence on hiring for management level positions. Thirty-nine out of fifty-one managers indicated they would be less likely to recommend hiring someone for a management level position if the individual had a speech style they rated less favorably. |
