P-05 Intelligibility and comprehensibility of nativized lexis in ELF: The case of Japanese English

The present study examines international intelligibility and comprehensibility of nativized English lexis from Japanese as determined by tertiary student listeners in four countries. Specifically, the study seeks to determine which linguistic features of Japanized English lexis reduce intelligibility and comprehensibility for listeners from the US, the Philippines, South Korea, and Indonesia. The results indicate that morphological and semantic modifications tend to be more challenging to American, Filipino, and Indonesian listener groups than phonological ones, and that difficulty rank orders of individual items tend to be shared by the American and Filipino groups. On the other hand, some loanword expressions give Korean listeners an advantage in identifying the word or word meaning. Other factors influencing intelligibility and comprehensibility, such as English proficiency and cultural/linguistic contexts are also discussed.