School of Languages and Linguistics

As English has been used widely as a lingua franca for communication, language testers have started to evaluate the proposal for introducing non-native accents into the listening input of English tests. This study aims to further this debate from both the psychometric and learner perspectives by not only investigating how accents influence test takers’ performance, but also eliciting their subjective perception of accents. 80 young L1-Mandarin test takers were recruited and divided into four groups, with each group listening to one accented version of the same test. The four accents used in this study were Australian, Spanish, Vietnamese and Mandarin English accents. Test takers subsequently completed a Likert-scale questionnaire, which measured their accent perception on three sub-scales, Familiarity, Comprehension and Attitude. Results indicate that the Mandarin accent group performed significantly better than the other three groups in the test and also perceived the Mandarin accent significantly more comprehensible, lending support for the shared-L1 effect. No significant difference is observed among the three non-Mandarin groups whether in the test scores or the Comprehension sub-scale. There is no significant difference in test takers’ perception of the four accents in terms of Familiarity or Attitude. The central implication from this study is that there is potential for the inclusion of non-native accents into listening tests provided the shared-L1 effect can be properly addressed.

This thesis documents the design and validation of a computer-mediated interactional competence (IC) test for L2-Chinese speakers. Adopting an argument-based approach to test validation, the researcher designed the test following a task-based needs analysis (TBNA), eliciting the perspectives from L2-Chinese speakers, L1-Chinese teachers and L1-Chinese interactants on what L2-Chinese speakers struggle the most with interpersonal interaction in L2 Chinese. Findings from the TBNA informed the design of a nine-item IC test that targets test-takers’ ability to manage disaffiliative social actions, is delivered on a mobile-phone application, covers three sub-language use domains (everyday life, work and study) and includes three degrees of interactiveness in terms of task methods (1st pair part voice messaging, 2nd pair part voice messaging and live video chat). The specification of the IC test construct and development of the rating scale were based on everyday-life domain experts’ indigenous criteria on IC. 36 domain experts listened to and commented on 22 pilot test-takers’ performances on the test. A thematic analysis on domain experts’ interview transcripts and written comments returned five indigenous categories that formed the five rating categories in an indigenous IC scale. Analysing pilot test-taker discourse through Conversation Analysis and Membership Categorisation Analysis, the researcher theorised the a-theoretical indigenous rating scale into a theorised IC scale, which has disaffiliation management, affiliative resources, morality, reasoning, and role enactment and orientation as its five rating categories. 105 test-takers participated in the main testing study, whose performances were rated in a fully-crossed design by two raters using the theorised IC rating scale. Many facet Rasch analysis on rating results showed that item performance, rater reliability and rating scale functioning were satisfactory. Correlational analyses on test-takers’ IC test performance and an external measure of proficiency revealed that proficiency has limited predictive strength on IC. Lower proficiency L2 speakers could outperform higher proficiency L2 speakers and even L1 speakers. This suggests that IC is an ability that needs to be taught and assessed separately from proficiency for L1 and L2 speakers alike. The extrapolative power of the IC test was ascertained through a self-assessment questionnaire and a peer-assessment questionnaire. Test-takers’ self assessment and peer assessment were correlated with their test performance, the results of which showed that the IC test can reasonably predict test-takers’ IC in non-assessment, real-life settings. Test-takers’ attitude towards the test was also elicited in the questionnaire, which was favourable and supported the use of IC items in general proficiency testing. Although the role-play IC test in this thesis is based on L2 Chinese, findings from this thesis are potentially applicable to other test tasks and target languages due to the highly theorised nature of the IC construct, which is not specific to any context, language, or task type. The theorised IC rating scale embodies a holistic IC construct that goes beyond the mechanics of interaction and ventures into the affective, moral, logical, and categorical dimensions of interaction. This IC model is theoretically robust as it is consistent with other more holistic models on interpersonal interaction such as Dell Hymes’s original conceptualisation of communicative competence and Aristotle’s three artistic proofs. Future research can adapt the current IC test and localise the theorised IC scale to see if findings from this study still obtain when applied to other target languages, task types and assessment contexts.

School of Languages and Linguistics - Theses

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