L2 SPEECH INTELLIGIBILITY: EFFECTS OF CODA MODIFICATION, DEGREE OF SEMANTIC INFORMATION AND LISTENERS’ BACKGROUND

Furthermore, listeners whose L1 is not typologically similar to Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and who reported being highly familiar with the English spoken by Brazilians tend to perform better on the Intelligibility Test. Overall, this study highlights the importance of bringing to the classroom different varieties of the target language, as a way to boost L2 users’ familiarity with different accents. Contact with different accents should benefit listeners, who are more likely to understand pronunciation patterns that are frequent in the language spoken by a particular group of L2 users.

Moreover, accent familiarity is also expected to benefit speakers by bringing awareness about the pronunciation patterns that hinder intelligibility more often and that could be modified to improve communication.