JELF 2015; 4(2): 347–358

Topic & Comment

George O’Neal*
ELF intelligibility: the vowel quality factor
DOI 10.1515/jelf-2015-0026

As readers of this journal are surely aware, one of the catalysts for ELF research
was the desire to elucidate the relationship between intelligibility and phonol-
ogy in ELF interactions (Jenkins 2000). Many ELF researchers claim that some
aspects of pronunciation are far more consequential to the maintenance of
mutual intelligibility in ELF interactions than others (Jenkins 2000, Jenkins
2002, Jenkins 2007; Walker 2010; Deterding 2012, Deterding 2013; Matsumoto
2011; O’Neal forthcoming-a). While this claim is not controversial, exactly which
aspects of pronunciation are most consequential is still a matter of debate.
Surprisingly, many ELF scholars claim that vowel quality, which is defined
from an articulatory perspective as the distinctive features that compose vowel
articulation such as tongue height, lip rounding, and tongue root advancement,
is not very important to the maintenance of mutual intelligibility. Some ELF
scholars, using observations of recorded ELF interactions and ethnographic
methods, claim that the vowel /ɜː/ is the only vowel quality that is critical to
the maintenance of mutual intelligibility (Jenkins 2000, Jenkins 2002; Walker
2010). Other ELF researchers, using psycholinguistic methods, add the vowel
/æ/ and the diphthong /ei/ to the vowel qualities that are important to the
maintenance of mutual intelligibility (Cole 2002; Deterding and Kirkpatrick
2006; Deterding 2012, Deterding 2013). Accordingly, it is fair to say that many
ELF researchers claim that vowel quality is not high on the list of phonetic
features that ensure mutual intelligibility.
This small study investigates whether vowel quality is critical to the main-
tenance of mutual intelligibility in ELF interactions among Japanese undergrad-
uate students and non-Japanese exchange students at a large public university
in Japan. In order to do so, this study utilizes conversation analytic methodology
in a way pioneered by Matsumoto (2011). In this approach, in order to justify the
claim that a vowel quality is unintelligible, one of the participants to the
interaction has to orient to the vowel as unintelligible; that is, one of the
participants must manifest in some way that he or she does not understand

*Corresponding author: George O’Neal, Niigata University, Niigata, Japan,

E-mail: cerebralabstraction@gmail.com

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348 George O’Neal

the pronunciation. Likewise, in order to justify a claim that a vowel quality is

intelligible, one of the participants to the interaction must orient to the vowel as
intelligible. Of course, ELF speakers do not always assess the intelligibility of
pronunciation during an interaction, but they do during a segmental repair
sequence, within which ELF speakers negotiate the intelligibility of the pronun-
ciation of a word; in other words, the intelligibility of pronunciation can be
manifest through interaction (Matsumoto 2011). Therefore, this small study
examines the negotiation of intelligibility in segmental repair sequences within
which vowel quality is oriented to as unintelligible and then modified into a
more intelligible variant.
This study uses the transcription conventions of conversation analysis (here-
after, CA) to transcribe the examples (see the appendix for the CA transcription
symbols). However, words that are oriented to as unintelligible and subject to
segmental repair are transcribed in broad transcription according to the
International Phonetic Alphabet (hereafter, IPA) rather than standard CA tran-
scription so as to allow for a detailed examination of the phonetic changes that
occur during the segmental repair sequences. But because CA transcription uses
brackets to indicate simultaneous speech and IPA transcription also uses brack-
ets but for phonetic notation, some modifications are necessary so that both
transcription systems can be used together. In the examples, simultaneous
speech will be enclosed with braces (e.g., { }), phonetic notation in broad
transcription in IPA will be enclosed with brackets (e.g., [ ]), and phonetic
transcriptions in IPA that are also part of simultaneous speech will be enclosed
with both braces and brackets (e.g., {[ ]}). Otherwise, the transcription of the
examples follows CA transcription standards.
The segmental repair sequences examined in this study are drawn from a
collection of repair sequences. A repair sequence is the temporary stopping of
the current ongoing action to deal with interactional trouble (Schegloff 1992,
Schegloff 1997, Schegloff 2000). The collection was compiled from recorded
interactions that were part of the compulsory homework assignments of an
English communication course at a large public Japanese university between
early 2011 and late 2014. Japanese students and foreign exchange students
attended the course. The homework assignments required students to record a
conversation in which they exchanged opinions about a topic covered in class
with another student from a different first language background. Although
students were required to discuss one topic in each assignment, many conversa-
tions digress into other topics, and are therefore considered naturalistic dialo-
gues. The teacher was not present during the recording of the conversations, but
all students understood that the teacher would listen to the conversations at a
later time for the purposes of evaluation. Pronunciation was not one of the

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 ELF intelligibility: the vowel quality factor 349

evaluation criteria of the homework assignments. The recordings range from

short six-minute interactions to much longer thirty-minute interactions.
In order to protect the privacy of the students, all names in the examples are
pseudonyms. Background information about the ELF speakers in the examples,
such as first language background, biological gender, academic specialty, and
national origin, is listed before the examples, but this should not be taken as an
implicit claim that participants actually oriented to any of these characteristics
as relevant features of the interaction. All the recordings are audio only, so the
data does not include the visual components of the interactions. It is unknown if
the visual aspect of the interactions affected the intelligibility of the pronuncia-
tions, but it may have. If it had, this analysis will not be able to detect it in any
way.
In what follows, I examine four segmental repair sequences within which
vowel quality is negotiated to overcome a miscommunication. In the first exam-
ple, Yuya, a male Japanese student who majors in economics, and Bai, a female
Chinese exchange student who majors in Japanese, are discussing a birthday
party that Bai will attend, which leads to the following exchange in which the
word cake will be subject to segmental repair.

(1) 1 Yuya: eh will you ((motorcycle passes by)) buy her presents?
2 (0.8)
3 {her? }
4 Bai: {oh. }
5 (0.7)
6 we:: (.) we bought her:: a [kɑk].
7 (1.1)
8 Yuya: [kɑk]?
9 (0.1)
10 wha- {what is}
11 Bai: {[keik] }. {[keik]}.
12 Yuya: {oh:: } [keik].
13 Bai: [keik]. yeah.
14 Yuya: hm hm hm.

In line 1, Yuya asks Bai a question, which is the first pair part of a question–
answer sequence that obligates the production of an answer from Bai. In line 6,
Bai attempts to answer the question, but she articulates cake as [kɑk], to which
Yuya orients as unintelligible in line 8. Yuya’s response in line 8 shows that

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350 George O’Neal

mutual intelligibility has faltered. In overlap with Yuya, Bai initiates a repair
sequence and self-repairs her own pronunciation in line 11, articulating cake as
[keik] twice. In line 12, in overlap with Bai, Yuya first deploys the discourse
marker oh, which displays a claim of sudden understanding, and then repeats
[keik], which manifests that mutual intelligibility has been reestablished. In line
13, Bai again articulates [keik], and then confirms Yuya’s understanding of cake
with the deployment of the discourse marker yeah, to which Yuya responds with
three sub-vocal affirmations. This brings the embedded segmental repair
sequence and the superordinate question–answer sequence to a successful
conclusion.
The facet of pronunciation in this example that both likely caused mutual
intelligibility to falter and probably contributed to the restoration of mutual
intelligibility was vowel quality. In the process of reestablishing mutual intellig-
ibility, the articulation of cake was repaired from [kɑk] to [keik], so it can be said
that the vowel quality in the word oriented to as unintelligible was a likely cause
of the miscommunication; furthermore, it can also be said that the diphthong
vowel in the word oriented to as intelligible was the probable catalyst of the
restoration of mutual intelligibility. In other words, the negotiation of the
pronunciation into a more intelligible form, which necessitated the change of
a monophthong vowel quality to a diphthong vowel quality, allowed these ELF
speakers to overcome a miscommunication and achieve mutual intelligibility.
Example (1) demonstrates that using a monophthong vowel in place of a
diphthong vowel can harm mutual intelligibility. But the next example shows
that the exact opposite can also be true: using a diphthong vowel in place of a
monophthong vowel can also damage mutual intelligibility. In example (2), Pan,
a female Taiwanese exchange student who majors in Japanese and computer
science, and Chihiro, a female Japanese student who majors in economics, are
talking about a field trip that Chihiro’s economics seminar will take to Taiwan,
which leads to the following exchange in which the word plan is subject to
segmental repair.

(2) 1 Pan: may I ask you::r. (0.8) you::r. (0.5) uhm. (0.8) your travel
[plein]?
2 (1.7)
3 Chihiro: sorry?
4 (0.4)
5 Pan: your [plein].
6 (1.2)
7 Pan: {in:: }
8 Chihiro: {[plein]}. ah. yeah airplane.

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 ELF intelligibility: the vowel quality factor 351

9 (0.4)
10 Pan: yeah. the [plein].
11 (0.8)
12 your travel [plein].
13 (2.0)
14 Chihiro: ah. m- my travel [plæn]?
15 (0.9)
16 Pan: hm.
17 (0.3)
18 Chihiro: [plæn]?
19 (0.4)
20 Pan: yeah.
21 (0.7)
22 Chihiro: ah ah ah. yes. (.) uh the (0.2) first day is we are going to
observe the factory.
23 Pan: uh hm.

In line 1, Pan asks Chihiro a question, which is the first pair part of a question–
answer sequence that obligates the production of a response. Within the ques-
tion, Pan articulates plan as [plein]. However, after a long silence that presages
interactional trouble, Chihiro says “sorry?” in line 3, which demonstrates both
that a problem has emerged in the interaction and that mutual intelligibility has
faltered. In line 5, Pan attempts to repair “your plan,” but she again articulates
plan as [plein]. In line 7, Chihiro orients to [plein] as a reference to an airplane
for travel, but in lines 10 and 12, Pan attempts to repair “your plan” again, to
which Chihiro orients as an indication that her first interpretation of [plein] as an
airplane was not what Pan intended. In line 14, Chihiro first deploys the
discourse marker ah, which displays a claim of potential understanding, and
then Chihiro proffers the pronunciation repair candidate [plæn]. In line 16, Pan
nominally confirms the pronunciation repair candidate [plæn] with an affirma-
tive hm but in line 18 Chihiro again proffers the pronunciation repair candidate
[plæn], which Pan explicitly affirms with a yeah in line 20. This demonstrates
that mutual intelligibility has been restored, but the production of an answer to
the question posed by Pan in line 1 is still obligated. In line 22, Chihiro finally
answers the question, which demonstrates that the embedded segmental repair
sequence and the superordinate question–answer sequence have been brought
to a successful conclusion.
The facet of pronunciation in the second example that both likely caused
mutual intelligibility to falter and likely contributed to the restoration of mutual

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352 George O’Neal

intelligibility was again vowel quality. The articulation of plan was repaired from
[plein] to [plæn], so it can be said that the diphthong in the word oriented to as
unintelligible was the probable cause of the miscommunication; furthermore, it
can also be said that the monophthong in the word oriented to as intelligible
was the possible catalyst of the restoration of mutual intelligibility. That is, the
negotiation of the pronunciation to a more intelligible form, which necessitated
the change of a diphthong vowel quality to a monophthong vowel quality,
allowed the ELF speakers to overcome a miscommunication and achieve mutual
intelligibility.
Examples (1) and (2) furnish evidence that ELF speakers can change vowel
quality to restore mutual intelligibility, but in each example, only one vowel was
subjected to segmental repair to restore intelligibility. However, sometimes
miscommunications are more complicated and require multiple simultaneous
segmental repairs. In example (3), the ELF speakers will simultaneously repair
two vowel qualities. In the third example, Daisuke, a male Japanese student who
majors in legal studies, and Zhang, a female Chinese exchange student who
majors in Japanese and English, are discussing the university clubs that they
joined, which leads to the following exchange in which the word hockey is
subjected to extensive segmental repair.

(3) 1 Daisuke: eh (0.6) uh my (0.5) eh my hobby is eh: ice [hɔ.ke].

2 (1.5)
3 Zhang: i- ice what? exs- excuse me?
4 Daisuke: ah ice [hɔ.ke].
5 (0.6)
6 Zhang: ice [hɔ.ke] wha- what is that?
7 (0.2)
8 Daisuke: andu:: (.) skate it¼
9 Zhang: ¼ah¼
10 Daisuke: ¼is skate¼
11 Zhang: ¼skate. skate.
12 (0.2)
13 Daisuke: hai. yes. skate and [hɔ.ke].
14 (0.6)
15 Zhang: ah [hɑ.ki]. {oh. }
16 Daisuke: {hai.} yeah. [hɑ.ki]. yes.

In line 1, Daisuke tells Zhang about his hobby that informed his choice of
university club to join, which is the first pair part of a telling–receipt sequence

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 ELF intelligibility: the vowel quality factor 353

that obligates some recognition of the telling from Zhang. But after a long
silence that adumbrates interactional trouble, in line 3, Zhang orients to [hɔ.
ke] as unintelligible, which demonstrates that mutual intelligibility has faltered.
In line 4, Daisuke attempts to self-repair through repetition, but in line 6 Zhang
again orients to [hɔ.ke] as unintelligible and explicitly requests an explanation.
In lines 8 through 11, Daisuke and Zhang collaborate in a quick lexical repair of
[hɔ.ke], which is equated to skating. But then in line 13 Daisuke indicates that
skating and [hɔ.ke] are simultaneous but separate activities, which seems to
have been sufficient for Zhang to finally realize the semantic intent of [hɔ.ke]. In
line 15, Zhang first deploys the discourse marker ah, which displays a claim of
sudden realization, and then other-repairs [hɔ.ke] to [hɑ.ki], after which Zhang
deploys the discourse marker oh. This demonstrates that mutual intelligibility
has been restored. Next, in line 16, Daisuke utilizes the pronunciation [hɑ.ki] in
his turn, accommodating to Zhang’s pronunciation.
The aspects of pronunciation in this example that both likely caused mutual
intelligibility to falter and likely contributed to the restoration of mutual intellig-
ibility were the vowel qualities in two separate syllables. [hɔ.ke] was repaired to
[hɑ.ki], so it can be said that the vowel qualities in the first and second syllables in
the word oriented to as unintelligible were the probable causes of the miscommu-
nication; furthermore, it can also be said that a combination of the lexical repair in
lines 8 through 13 and the segmental repair of the vowel qualities in line 15
contributed to the restoration of mutual intelligibility. As in other examples, the
negotiation of the pronunciation into a more intelligible form, which necessitated
the segmental repair of the two vowel qualities, contributed to the ability of the
ELF speakers to overcome a miscommunication and achieve mutual intelligibility.
All of the examples demonstrate that ELF speakers can modify vowel quality
to restore intelligibility after a miscommunication. But sometimes ELF speakers
decide to remove vowels altogether rather than modify them. Like example (3),
example (4) also involves the segmental repair of more than one segmental
phoneme, but in example (4) the segmental repairs are asynchronous rather
than simultaneous, and the ELF speakers will remove an extraneous vowel
altogether and modify the vowel quality of another vowel. In example (4),
Momoko, a female Japanese student who majors in economics, and Sana, a
female Russian exchange student who majors in oriental languages, are about to
end their conversation, which leads to the following exchange in which the word
hat is subjected to segmental repair.

(4) 1 Momoko: so:: (0.4) see you on <friday>?

2 Sana: ↑yeah an I will like uhm (.) put on my uhm:: new (.) hm
[hɛ.tə] that I told you about.

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354 George O’Neal

3 Momoko: [hæn]? [hɛ.ɾɚ]? what. uh?

4 (0.6)
5 Sana: [hɛt].
6 (0.3)
7 Momoko: [hɛt],
8 (0.4)
9 Sana: [hɛt].
10 (0.6)
11 Momoko: [hæt].
12 (0.8)
13 ↑ah:: like uh:: >winter [hæt]?<
14 (0.7)
15 Sana: yeah yeah uhm::¼
16 Momoko: ¼ah okay. on your facebook?
17 Sana: yeah.

In line 1, Momoko initiates a conversation closing, but in line 2 Sana informs

Momoko that she will wear her new [hɛ.tə] that she previously told Momoko
about, which is the first pair part of a telling–receipt sequence that obligates the
production of some recognition of the telling from Momoko. However, in line 3,
Momoko orients to [hɛ.tə] as problematic, which demonstrates both that [hɛ.tə]
is unintelligible and that mutual intelligibility has faltered. In line 5, Sana self-
repairs [hɛ.tə] to [hɛt], but in line 7, Momoko does not indicate that mutual
intelligibility has been restored; in fact, Momoko just repeats [hɛt] with a small
rise in intonation that shows that [hɛt] is just as unintelligible as [hɛ.tə]. Next, in
line 9, Sana attempts to repair through repetition, but Momoko again does not
indicate that this reestablishes mutual intelligibility. In line 11, Momoko other-
repairs [hɛt] to [hæt], and then after a brief silence, in line 13, Momoko deploys
the discourse marker ah, which displays a claim of sudden realization. Next,
Momoko proffers “winter hat” as a lexical repair candidate within which hat is
articulated as [hæt]. The next relevant action due is a confirmation or rejection
of the lexical repair candidate “winter hat”. In line 15, Sana confirms the lexical
repair candidate “winter hat” with two affirmatory yeahs, which concludes the
repair sequence, and then in line 16, Momoko finally receipts the telling from
line 2, which concludes the telling–receipt sequence. This demonstrates that the
embedded repair sequence and the superordinate telling–receipt sequence have
been brought to a successful conclusion.
This example more than any other in this small study reveals the extent to
which maintaining mutual intelligibility can be a collaborative process.

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 ELF intelligibility: the vowel quality factor 355

Considerable interactional work went into the negotiation of mutually intelligi-

ble pronunciation over multiple turns. [hɛ.tə] was repaired to [hæt], so it can be
said that the vowel qualities in the first and second syllables of the word
oriented to as unintelligible were the likely causes of the miscommunication;
furthermore, it can also be said that the repair of the vowel quality in the first
syllable and the removal of the schwa vowel from the second syllable were the
probable catalysts for the restoration of mutual intelligibility. That is, the seg-
mental repair of a vowel quality and the removal of an extraneous vowel
allowed the ELF speakers to overcome a miscommunication and achieve mutual
intelligibility.
Although this study only contains four examples and is therefore of limited
generalizability, it does reveal two important things: (i) several vowel qualities
can be critical to the maintenance of mutual intelligibility among the ELF
speakers in the examples; (ii) the way in which vowel quality was repaired in
these extracts reveals which aspects of vowel quality are most significant for the
ELF speakers in the examples. Although Jenkins (2000, Jenkins 2002) and
Walker (2010) claim that /ɜː/ is the only vowel quality that is important for
maintaining mutual intelligibility, several vowel qualities were oriented to as
restoring mutual intelligibility in the examples, which suggests that vowel
qualities other than /ɜː/ are also important for mutual intelligibility, at least
among the ELF speakers in the examples. The results of this study do corrobo-
rate, however, two of the suggestions of Deterding (2013) as regards the relation-
ship between vowel quality and mutual intelligibility. Deterding (2013) proposes
that the vowel /æ/ represents another vowel quality that is important to the
maintenance of mutual intelligibility. In example (2), an unintelligible vowel
was repaired to /æ/ to restore intelligibility, and in example (4), a different
unintelligible vowel was repaired to /æ/ to reestablish intelligibility. This is
consistent with the suggestion that /æ/ is an important component of mutually
intelligible pronunciation. Furthermore, Deterding (2013) also suggests that
some of the vowel quality distinctions between monophthong and diphthong
vowels are important to the maintenance of mutual intelligibility. This sugges-
tion is consistent with the segmental repairs in examples (1) and (2), within
which monophthongs were repaired to diphthongs and diphthongs were
repaired to monophthongs. However, it would be irresponsible to not add the
caveat at this point that two examples that support each point made by
Deterding (2013) are not overwhelming evidence, but it is corroborating evidence
nonetheless.
As other ELF studies of intelligibility do, this study could claim that /ei/, /æ/,
/ɑ/, and /i/ are crucial to mutual intelligibility because these vowel qualities were
used to restore mutual intelligibility after a miscommunication in the examples.

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356 George O’Neal

However, the idea that these vowels are crucial to mutual intelligibility is not
actually what the results of this small study best demonstrate. This is because four
examples of segmental repair are not generalizable to a population as variable and
heterogeneous as ELF speakers; it would be not at all surprising if the pronuncia-
tions that were oriented to as unintelligible in these examples were used again in
different contexts with different ELF speakers and were oriented to as intelligible.
More interesting, perhaps, is that the examples show the process of segmental
repair as an effective communication strategy with which ELF speakers can over-
come miscommunication (Matsumoto 2011; O’Neal forthcoming-a, O’Neal forth-
coming-b). Although the examples involve the repair of different vowel qualities,
they all result in the successful restoration of intelligibility. That is, each example
manifests something different about the relationship between phonetics and intel-
ligibility in ELF, but each example demonstrates exactly the same thing about the
relationship between interaction and intelligibility in ELF: successful interactions
are based more on the willingness to negotiate linguistic form and function than
on the approximation to any set of linguistic features (Matsumoto 2011; McBride
2014; O’Neal forthcoming-a, O’Neal forthcoming-b). Accordingly, the findings of
this study support the conclusions of a host of other ELF research that claim that
effective communication is dependent more on negotiation of form and function
and less on mimicking any single exogenous standard.
Last, it is important to clarify one thing this study does not claim. Although
this study claims that vowel quality is more important than previous ELF
research suggests, this study does not assert that vowel quantity, which is the
phonetic length of a vowel, is unimportant to mutual intelligibility in ELF in
general or even in the four examples in this paper. Although the negotiation of
vowel quality is certainly involved in the restoration of mutual intelligibility in
the four examples in this study, vowel quantity may have been involved as well.
However, no acoustic measurements of vowel quantity changes were taken, so it
must be said that it is possible that adjustments to vowel quantity contributed to
the restoration of mutual intelligibility in the examples but were just left unde-
tected. Be that as it may, this study is agnostic as regards the importance of
vowel quantity to mutual intelligibility in ELF interactions. Furthermore, this
study does not claim to have discovered which vowel qualities are most impor-
tant to the maintenance of mutual intelligibility. Using ethnographic methods,
Jenkins (2000, Jenkins 2002) arrived at one set of conclusions concerning the
relationship between vowel quality and mutual intelligibility. Using psycholin-
guistic methods, Deterding (2012, Deterding 2013) arrived at a different set of
conclusions. This study uses conversation analytic methods, and arrives at yet
another set of conclusions. Although there is some overlap in results, the lack of
convergence indicates that further research into the relationship between

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 ELF intelligibility: the vowel quality factor 357

phonology and intelligibility in ELF needs to be carried out in reference to

different disciplinary perspectives. After all, Jenkins (2007) herself has hinted
that the Lingua Franca Core (LFC) might need modification and that more
research is required on the LFC. And it is the readership of this journal that is
in the best position to do exactly that.

Acknowledgments: I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the

editor of this journal for pertinent and helpful comments on earlier versions of
this paper. I am also very grateful to Qing Ma, Yumi Matsumoto, Kazuo Fukuda,
Yoshio Otake, Shigeru Kato, Paul McBride, Garreth Kay, Carmen Hannah, Robbie
McInnes, Simon Pryor, and the Conversation Analysis Network Kansai group for
help with proofreading and analysis of the examples.

Appendix: transcription symbols

{} simultaneous speech (e.g., two speakers talking at the same time)
[] speech in the phonetic transcription of the IPA
{[ ]} simultaneous speech in the phonetic transcription of the IPA
¼ latched utterance (e.g., no silence between the utterances)
(.) micro silence (e.g., less than one tenth of a second of silence)
(1.5) a timed silence (e.g., one and a half seconds of silence)
(( )) extralinguistic information (e.g., background noises, etc.)
- sudden cut off of speech
: elongated sound
. falling intonation
, slightly rising intonation
? rising intonation
↑ sudden increase in pitch
word speech that is said with volume higher than the surrounding speech
>word< speech that is said faster than the surrounding speech
<word> speech that is said slower than the surrounding speech

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Bionote
George O’Neal

George O’Neal teaches English at Niigata University, Japan. He has taught English to
humanities, business, engineering, medical, and law students. He is the author of several
papers that examine the relationship between intelligibility and pronunciation in ELF
interactions in Japan from a conversation analytic perspective.

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