Learners‟ view of their own English pronunciation

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easily comprehensible than natives. Their negative attitude towards non-native English could be often observed, when they giggled when they listened to the Egyptian speaker, or when they mentioned typical non-native accents that they heard such as Asian or Indian speakers and said that they found these pronunciations slightly ridiculous. This is reflected in the following comment by Tamás:

In the case of Indian speakers, it [their accent] doesn‟t really bother me, but I feel that it‟s a bit funny inside, as if I felt that he was speaking incorrectly, though he may have a wider vocabulary than mine […], still, I get the impression that he doesn‟t speak English that well.

Hungarian English was treated similarly, in which case a strong accent was often explicitly ridiculed or at least commented on according to the learners. They mentioned specific stigmatized features, for instance, the trill [r], the pronouncing the sounds [θ] and [ð] as [s], [t] or [z] [d] and [w] as [v]. Besides being offensive, ridiculing and stigmatising non-native accents by Hungarian learners, especially accent features related to their own mother tongue, might be a cause of cognitive dissonance, as these accent features may occur in their own pronunciation as well, which can be a source of insecurity for learners about their own English pronunciation as well.

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likewise influential in the formation of their own accent. However, there is some indication that the participants‟ own pronunciation is linked to their identity and their desired self-image (cf.

Dörnyei et al., 2006). Firstly, the learners in the study invariably reported that being understood when communicating in English was of paramount importance. Secondly, because of their appreciation of native speaker speech varieties, when being exposed to them, they tried to imitate what they perceived as native-like features. They also tended to mimic their teacher‟s idiolect if they considered it to be close to a native speaker variety. This was considered important because by deploying a native-like accent, the participants intend to signal that they are proficient, educated and confident users of English. Nevertheless, there was an element of conscious selection among accent varieties, which has a more personal significance to learners, reflecting their identity. Nearly all the learners managed to identify a person, typically from the media, who they considered to be the ideal model for pronunciation. The underlying reason for this was that they found this person or character appealing, somebody that they could relate to or regard as a role model. An example for this was Kálmán‟s appreciation of a highly positioned expert in an American software company, whose presentations he regularly watched on YouTube. Since Kálmán was planning to work in IT, he considered this person as a model, which was linguistically signalled by trying to emulate his pronunciation. This may also explain his strong preference for American English, mentioned above; which was also indicated by the participant‟s recorded pronunciation, which tended to contain distinctive features of American English, such as rhotic R-s and dark L-s. These findings suggest that pronunciation in an L2 can be used for expressing the speaker‟s identity. This supports Dörnyei‟s (2005) theory that a learner‟s ideal self is a strong motivating force in language learning, yet, contrary to Walker (2010), it implies that expressing one‟s identity through one‟s accent in English does not

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necessarily make reference to national identity but is more complex and personal. In fact, L1 accent features were disliked and stigmatised, as they were seen as indicators of imperfect language knowledge. Therefore, learners with attitudes similar to those observed in the participants of the present investigation may be unlikely to consciously accept L1 accent features in their own pronunciation or in that of others.

Last but not least, an important concept which emerged from the accounts of participants was naturalness. This means that the participants reported that they tended to feel inhibited, anxious and sometimes even frustrated when they had to invest too much energy in their pronunciation, that is, trying to emulate what they regarded as the desirable native speaker variety, because it distracted them from conveying a message, made them less fluent and sometimes negatively affected their willingness to communicate in English. Also, they found it pretentious and irritating when another non-native speaker made too much effort to pronounce sounds in an emphatically native-like manner. On the other hand, extensive use of stereotypical L1 features, such as pronouncing the TH sound as [s] or pronouncing the letters of words with their Hungarian sound equivalents were also subject to negative comments. Thus, naturalness represented a balance between adopting characteristics of native English accents in order to sound proficient, and allowing for some degree of natural L1 sound transfer to facilitate production and make speaking in English uninhibited and unselfconscious. This suggests that the two main criteria for ELF pronunciation, intelligibility and expression of a national identity (Walker, 2010) may have to be reconsidered when applied in the Hungarian context in that the latter criterion may be less important, while an additional aspect, naturalness, seems to bear more relevance to Hungarian learners.

112 3.5.3.1 Pronunciation targets

The learners reported that their ideal target regarding their English pronunciation was to approximate a native variety, typically British or American English, and use it consistently in order to sound more proficient and to avoid the stigma of having a Hungarian accent. How much effort they were willing to invest in this was proportionate to how important they considered English in their future studies or profession. For example, Kálmán had plans of working in IT, so he thought he would have to speak in English in the future, and Mária and Ferenc were planning to study English at university, so they made more effort to work on their pronunciation, while Béla did not see any role for English in his life and thus did not care so much about how he spoke. The former learners showed a great deal of intrinsic motivation as well, while Béla seemed to be more extrinsically motivated. As he put it:

If I come to work with foreign people or if my work requires it in the future [I would make an effort], but if I just use it [English] when I go on holiday… It won‟t motivate me just to learn it for myself.

He later mentioned trying to sound more British during the language exam, because he considered it more official, as he remembered hearing it in the audio materials of his textbook.

Teachers were also mentioned as models for pronunciation, albeit only as a secondary source compared to films, and only when learners believed that the teachers‟ pronunciation was similar to an ENL variety. An example for this was the following extract:

Interviewer: Who do you consider to be a model for your own pronunciation?

Ferenc: Well, my teachers, definitely.

113 Interviewer: Is your teacher native or non-native?

Ferenc: Non-native. But she has been in England a lot, so she speaks quite good English. She speaks British English.

Thus, it can be concluded that having native-like English accent seemed to be a predominant criterion for learners‟ pronunciation target if they attributed some significance to English in their lives. British English pronunciation, by which learners presumably meant RP, the speech variety they were used to from teaching materials, is a dominant pronunciation model besides GA, which learners typically encounter outside school. Because of learners‟ native-like pronunciation targets, teachers were also expected to conform to and model these speech varieties.

3.5.3.2 Accommodation

Some learners reported a tendency to accommodate to their interlocutors, which meant varying the degree to which they were trying to sound native-like. The purpose of this was either to be more intelligible, to appear as a proficient speaker of English, to avoid negative judgment and being ridiculed, or to blend in with the other speakers in case they used English in an ESL context. Learners tended to be less like with less proficient interlocutors and more native-like with people whose proficiency they considered better, including non-native and native speakers, in order to project a good image about themselves.

Mária: at school, my group mates speak good English and most of them have a better pronunciation than I do, so in these cases, I pay more attention to speak more with the original English [sic] pronunciation. And for example if I speak to someone who has been learning English for only a year, they would find it more difficult to understand

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like pronunciation […] and it would be more understandable if I use Hungarian-like English [pronunciation].

Learners also mentioned that they usually tried to mimic the actual native variety they were exposed to, which could happen automatically when exposed to a variety a lot, either in a real-life context, or through films or series.

3.5.3.3 Markers of identification

Some learners told that they consciously tried to adopt a speakers‟ pronunciation because they found the person appealing. For example, Kálmán explained that he tried to adopt the pronunciation of an IT professional whose videos he often watched on YouTube. Tamás also said that he tried to imitate the English accent of Effy, a character from the British drama series Skins, with a distinctive Estuary English accent, because he found her personality appealing.

The variety learners tried to adopt was also related to a more general cultural affiliation or appreciation of an ENL pronunciation. These efforts to emulate a certain native accent could be observed on certain sounds in learners‟ own pronunciation, which could be considered as markers of identification. Examples for these were the liquid [r], the [w] sound, sometimes used hypercorrectly in place of [v] as well, and the effort to produce the [θ] and [ð] sounds. Kálmán‟s pronunciation also featured dark [l] sounds, typical of American English, the variety he said to be more appealing to him.

115 3.5.3.4 Naturalness of pronunciation

Another aspect that learners deemed to be significant regarding their pronunciation was the energy they had to invest in modifying their natural accent, which exerted an influence on the speaking process and their willingness to communicate. Learners considered it to be important to speak with a pronunciation that they found natural, meaning that they did not need to make an extra effort to modify their accent and they could speak in an uninhibited and unselfconscious manner, which could even make a positive impression on the listener. As Tamás explained:

If you speak in a relaxed way, you do not feel frustrated and this will not bother the person listening to you. One of my classmates tries to articulate every sound emphatically, which is disturbing […] the important thing is that it [my pronunciation] should be natural, that I don‟t feel nervous and I am understood […] I cannot change basic things in my pronunciation.

According to the learners, paying too much attention to pronunciation required a great deal of mental energy on their part, which distracted them from the communicative process itself, and anxiety about one‟s own pronunciation could also have a debilitating effect on learners‟

willingness to speak in English. As Helga put it, “The important thing is rather that pronunciation shouldn‟t hinder me in whether I say something or not. So the important thing is that I‟m fluent, not how I pronounce it”. Learners‟ accounts of how they felt about their own pronunciation indicated that there may potentially be a great deal of conflict between their pronunciation targets, what pronunciation they considered ideal for themselves and what English accent they would feel comfortable with. The main source of this conflict seemed to be learners‟ perceived as to what their English pronunciation was supposed to be like, based on representations of English pronunciations mainly in ELT and in the media. The significance of an ENL-centred

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pronunciation model for learners, investigated further in Study Three based on the above findings, is presented in the following chapters.