Participatory culture and the L2: attitudes and intelligibility of non native speech in fan-produced audiovisuals

This paper examines participatory culture from the perspective of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) studies through the analysis of two fan movie trailers (cf. H. Jenkins 2001, Young 2008, Luiz 2009), produced in English by a group of Italian fans as to make it internationally accessible. The first two trailers for Metal Gear Solid: Philanthropy were released in Italian-accented English; however, the final cut was voiced over by ENL speakers. The paper will present the findings of a study on attitudes to accented speech and potential intelligibility issues. Jennifer Jenkins’ Lingua Franca Core (LFC) (Jenkins 2000) was chosen as a point of reference for the identification of marked segmental and suprasegmental features in the trailers, which were tested for intelligibility via a survey administered to 30 respondents, also aimed at detecting the influence of pre-existing bias against accented speech (Jenkins 2007, Lippi-Green 1997, Rajadurai 2007).