Unpacking Intelligibility
Intelligibility is a nuanced concept involving factors like expression recognition, meaning comprehension, and sociocultural context. Various scholars offer perspectives on intelligibility, comprehensibility, and interpretability, emphasizing the interplay between speakers and listeners in successful communication. The role of recognizeability and form recognition is discussed in relation to fluent speech perception.
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Intelligibility a one-way process in which non-native speakers are striving to make themselves understood by native speakers whose prerogative it was to decide what is intelligible and what is not (Bamgbose 1998 : 10) Intelligibility (Ibid : 11) a complex of factors comprising recognizing an expression, knowing its meaning, and knowing what that meaning signifies in the sociocultural context. Note, Bamgbose s definition covers both speakers and listeners intelligibilities, they both contribute to the speech act and its interpretation .
Bamgboses Aspects Bamgbose agrees with Smith and Nelson in terms of intelligibility , comprehensibility , and interpretability . Smith & Nelson acknowledged earlier that these terms are used interchangeably in the matter of international intelligibility . Intelligibility word and utterances recognition Comprehensibility words and utterances meaning . E.g. propositional context, or Austin s (1962) illocutionary force. Interpretability the grasping of the speaker s intention in producing the utterance . E.g. Austin s Illocutionary force. The term interpretability, thus, replaces Nelson s intelligibility term to mean apprehension of the message in the sense intended by the speaker . (1982 :63)
James Comprehensibility James (1998: 212) states comprehensibility term from speaker s point of view as a cover term to refer to all aspects of the accessibility of the content-as opposed to the form- of utterances with the intelligibility being preserved for the accessible of the basic, literal meaning, the propositional content encoded in an utterance . James, therefore, conveys the same meaning that is been introduced by Bamgbose intelligibility , but with different term comprehensibility , and by the term intelligibility , he conveys the same meaning introduced by Smith & Nelson s comprehensibility . James parallels the term communicativity as he claims a higher order achievement because it s more ambitious notion, involving access to pragmatic force . intelligibility to the term
Intelligibility One the other hand, Brown argues that speakers are able to construct and interpret utterances in the light of beliefs about the other s state of knowledge, and to ascribe to each other the intentions which they would expect to experience themselves in uttering the utterance just heard in that particular context . (1995: 232-3).
Why recognizability and recognition of form can play only a relatively minor part in the successful conveying and receiving of messages among fluent speakers? This question relates to the quality of the production of the speech, and to the way in which the speaker speech sounds merge together in an acoustic blur in particular. (Brown 1990: 11). Fluent speech perception gets affected by two phenomena, co-articulation & assimilation.
Co-articulation The first phenomenon that affects the fluency. It is difficult to isolate individual sounds in the speech stream, and even within one single word. sounds get affected in the way they articulated by the neighboring sound. E.g. \t\ in too (rounded lips), \t\ in tea (spread lips). It is difficult to identify where one sound ends and the next begins.
Assimilation assimilation is a common phonological process by which one sound becomes more like a nearby sound. This can occur either within a word or between words. It occurs in normal speech, and it becomes more explicit in more rapid speech. In rapid speech, for example, "handbag" is often pronounced / h mb /. Elision is the omission of sounds. This is done to make the language easier to say, and faster. E.g. 'I don't know' /I duno/. Catenation is one of the ways speakers join words together. In catenation, a consonant sound at the end of one word joins with a vowel sound at the beginning of the next word. E.g. The two words an + apple become 'anapple' in speech, with catenation of the consonant n and the vowel a sounds.
Assimilation and Co-articulation Those phenomena are being reserved under certain circumstances such as, A. when dictating an address over the telephone. B. when conversing with an interlocutor who has hearing problems. C. with someone whose English proficiency or ability is low. The use of these two processes requires a certain speed of speech, and fluent speakers of English. According to Crystal, a native speaker can reach a rang of 400 to 450 syllables per minute.
Intelligibility in ILT Three-level system : Intelligibility, Comprehensibility, & Interpretability. Defining intelligibility in interlanguage talk : Few studies have been conducted from the view of L2 listeners or speakers in particular in the area of phonological form. There are very different set of conditions presented between the fluent speaker to the non- fluent speaker (i.e. NBES) communication. When focusing on fluent speakers communication there is a sum of shared knowledge taken for granted.
fluent speakers can be considered in terms of four parameters 1. Whether (and to what extent ) something is formally possible. 2. Whether (and to what extent) something is feasible. 3. Whether (and to what extent) something is appropriate (adequate, happy, successful) in relation to a context in which it is used and evaluated. 4. Whether (and to what extent) something is in fact done, actually performed, and what its doing entails. (Hymes 1972:12; emphasis in original). It is noteworthy that the author regards the third point parameter as sociolinguistic competence. successful communication involves a substantial degree of shared sociocultural knowledge (natives have a high degree of this knowledge and it s usually subconscious), and this knowledge acquired by the socialization processes of childhood (L1 speaker) or through prolonged contact or exposure with target society (L2 speaker), as she claims.
Natives competence NC enable them to assess what can and what cannot be a word and what syntactic and phonotactic placements are possible. NC know what other fluent speakers actually do in performance, and this knowledge involves a high degree of phonemic & phonetic intuition. E.g. they can notice that a word may not be cited completely (would have > would of). NC phonetic intuition lies in the way they pronounce and perceive sounds. E.g. the \r\ sound is replaced by \ \ unless it s followed by a vowel sound (later, firmer) contrasted to (bright).
The role of sociocultural background In EFL situations - may be appropriate if there is exposure to different sociocultural backgrounds In EIL situations there is no contextual feature of shared sociocultural knowledge. In ILT speakers have little in common apart from their non-bilingual proficiency in the L2 and the mutual desire to achieve a particular goal in an interaction Example of sociocultural background Author s conversation with teenage daughter (British) (P.76). the role of shared
Jennifers Definition finally, intelligibility importance to the phenomenon of recognition of phonological form in ILT. Like Smith & Nelson, I believe that it is important to standardize the use of the term intelligibility , and I have no problem with their restriction of its use to word and utterance recognition, etc.. I do not believe that the most serious misunderstandings occur at the level of comprehensibility and interpretability (1985: 335) where ILT is concerned . to my interpretation etc.., I of the term attach considerable
Noticeable matters Communication breakdown : Language is a guide to context. Context alone may not illuminate language use. It is people, not language codes, that understand one another
