Subproject 4: Non-native speakers

Subproject 4 focuses on non-native speech, particularly international English. English as a lingua franca (ELF) is becoming increasingly common as a conference language, with non-native speakers often posing a major problem to interpreters. In this study, however, we approach the issue not from the interpreters’ point of view but from the listeners’ perspective: we aim to study the impact of non-native speech on audience comprehension, comparing the communicative effectiveness of a speaker imperfectly using English as a lingua franca with that of professional interpreters working from that speech into their A language (German). Our experimental audience is drawn from among subject-matter experts who would claim that they can understand a presentation in English just as well as in their mother tongue German. The experiment will seek to test whether listening to non-native English is as effective in technical communication as hearing a speech in simultaneous interpretation into one’s native language.

This project is carried out by Karin Reithofer.