Intelligibility is a multifaceted phenomenon essential to assessment and outcome measurement in accent management. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief discussion of some of the factors involved in measurement and interpretation of intelligibility of nonnative speakers. Through review of a sampling of relevant studies in speech production and perception, the complexity of intelligibility and its relationship to accentedness is explored. Intelligibility-The Accuracy of Understanding

more »

... In its narrowest sense, intelligibility is the accuracy with which a listener understands a talker. It can be measured by transcribing a series of utterances and counting each word. Alternatively, the number of content words (nouns, verbs) and modifiers (adverbs and adjectives) transcribed correctly can be counted, with errors on function words (articles, conjunctions, and prepositions), misspellings, and homonym errors ignored. In measurement of transcript accuracy, a ceiling effect can occur with high-intelligibility talkers. That is, in the optimal listening conditions frequently used in speech research, such as a quiet room with presentation of the listening stimuli through headphones, the talker may be completely intelligible. Thus, the intelligibility score may not accurately reflect real world 3