Abstract

This study intends to explore the relationship between the degree of foreign accent (DFA) of a group of non-native speakers of English and their levels of ethnic group affiliation (EGA) and willingness to communicate (WTC), in a context where the languages do not regularly coexist and where the learnt language has a foreign language status.
We analyzed the oral production and the reported levels of EGA and WTC of a group of 28 Argentinian English language students, who were native speakers of Spanish and lived in Argentina at the time of the study. The group had a mean age of 23.5 and was mostly constituted by females. None of the participants had an advanced command of any other language besides Spanish and English or had lived abroad for purposes other than tourism. All of them were studying English at university, either to become English teachers of English translators.
The results showed that the participants scored highly both on reported EGA and WTC, thus indicating that the sample is not only highly affiliated with their cultural group, but also highly motivated to speak in English. Also, their DFA as perceived by the judges, who were proven to be reliable (Cronbach’s Alpha = .77), were likewise high (mean = 4.43 / 7). However, it was found that there were no correlations between the DFA and the levels of EGA and WTC. Considering the characteristics of Argentina and the findings of other studies, the lack of correlations between DFA and EGA and WTC could be attributed to contextual factors that were not originally included in this research, such as L2 use, an influence that was briefly explored in an additional experiment carried out on a fraction of the original participants.
The findings of this study have helped broaden our understanding of the underlying causes of foreign accent in a context where the mother tongue and the learnt language of the speaker do not coexist. Furthermore, it has put into perspective the actual influences of certain psychological factors, such as identification and motivation, in the prediction of the DFA. In fact, it seems that in this case, the effect of contextual influences may outweigh the effect of personal ones, and should most certainly be considered on future works on this topic.