Introduction: Looking back and moving forward for online EPIP proceedings

This chapter is the introduction to the proceedings of the 8th International Conference English Pronunciation: Issues and Practices (EPIP 8) held May 8–10, 2024 at the University of Cantabria in Santander, Spain. It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, a copy of which can be found at http://crea tivecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Humánez-Berral, P., Henderson, A., & Kirkova-Naskova, A. (2025). Introduction: Looking back and moving forward for online EPIP proceedings. In A. Kirkova-Naskova, P. Humanez-Berral, & A. Henderson (Eds.), Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on English Pronunciation: Issues and Practices (pp. iv–xii). Université Grenoble-Alpes. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17273047 Introduction: Looking back and moving forward for online EPIP proceedings Pedro Humánez-Berral University of Cantabria Alice Henderson Grenoble-Alpes University Anastazija Kirkova-Naskova Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje These proceedings encompass extended accounts of selected oral presentations and plenaries from the conference English Pronunciation: Issues and Practices – EPIP8, held in 2024 at the University of Cantabria in Santander, Spain. EPIP is an international, bi-annual conference devoted to how English pronunciation is taught and learnt. Its main objective is to bring together and inspire connections between teachers and researchers from all over the world, be they preor in-service teachers, undergraduate or graduate students, early career or internationally renowned researchers. People from all career stages attend EPIP conferences, where they can network in person but also explore scientific, social and pedagogical issues related to English pronunciation. Some conference participants have the luxury of just attending, others invest a great deal of time and energy into preparing (and delivering) a talk – and then some of the latter submit proposals for the proceedings. A labour-intensive, three-stage process lies behind these compiled proceedings: first, conference presenters commit to shaping their work into a written text, which then undergoes a meticulous double-blind peer-review process, and finally the revised text is carefully edited by the co-editors – often involving many back-and-forth exchanges. Some contributions are rejected but, as EPIP prides itself on welcoming researchers into the field, reviewers are encouraged to provide constructive criticism and editors work hard to hone as many contributions as possible, respecting the principles of transparency and scientific rigour. To reach as many readers as possible and as quickly as possible, as editors we chose to make EPIP Proceedings available freely online starting in 2023 after the EPIP7 conference. Similar Humánez-Berral, Henderson & Kirkova-Naskova Looking back, moving forward v to the PSLLT archives1 at Iowa State University, the online EPIP proceedings2 are a reliable place to read innovative work being done now in our field, helping us all to update our knowledge even when we cannot attend conferences. We decided to use an Open Access digital archive and to procure Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) for each text. DOIs are important in the long term for the field, because documents remain accessible at a stable link. They are also crucial in the short term for many of our colleagues who live and work in countries where DOIs are (or are becoming) strategically important to their national institutions. Moreover, we sought to obtain the DOIs from a European institution (Zenodo3), because we support European Union aims of freedom, peace, social justice, scientific progress, and diversity in terms of culture and languages.4 Participating in the international open access and open data movement requires more than just good intentions. We also need an online space to ‘house’ the proceedings, and for this we chose HAL, the open science archive created by France’s ministry for research and higher education. Each time a reader opens or downloads a text via HAL, their actions are crossreferenced with search engines and interconnected with other services, such as ORCID. This is a win-win situation: the on-line profiles of authors are boosted, and so is our field’s representation in citation and abstract databases. HAL provides basic statistics on how readers use the archive, as Figure 1 shows. Figure 1 Downloads for 25 Texts in EPIP7 Proceedings5: August 1 and September 21, 2025 In August 2023 the EPI7 Proceedings went live online, yet the peak of interest came in 2024 – perhaps as colleagues began to prepare for EPIP8 which was held in May 2024. In the runup to EPIP96 in April 2026, at the University of Manchester, downloads have been increasing 1 https://apling.engl.iastate.edu/conferences/pronunciation-in-second-language-learning-and-teachingconference/psllt-archive/ 2 https://hal.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/EPIP/ 3 https://about.zenodo.org/:“Zenodo is derived from Zenodotus, the first librarian of the Ancient Library of Alexandria and father of the first recorded use of metadata, a landmark in library history.” 4https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/principles-and-values/aims-andvalues_en 5 https://hal.science/EPIP7/stat/dashboard. The number 25 includes the editors’ Introduction as well as the file compiling the Introduction and 23 contributions by authors. 6 https://epip9manchester.weebly.com/ Humánez-Berral, Henderson & Kirkova-Naskova Looking back, moving forward vi in autumn 2025 (e.g., up from approximately 1200 to 1800) and it will be interesting to continue tracking this activity via HAL. The EPIP7 proceedings include 23 finalised contributions, whereas EPIP8’s have only 10. To compare the research themes addressed at the two conferences, we thus turned to the books of abstracts: EPIP7 received 37 abstracts (word tokens 13,904: 2,737 word types) and EPIP8 46 abstracts (17,982 word tokens: 3,714 word types). As such, the analysis can reveal topics which were discussed at each conference, regardless of whether or not the presenter then submitted a text for publication in the Proceedings. Appendix 1 displays all the results of comparing the keywords7 as generated by AntConc.8 The keywords were generated by the AntConc software (Anthony, 2022), drawing on the conferences’ abstract booklets as corpora. One corpus was created for each conference, in which each abstract was a separate text, with references and the list of author-provided keywords removed. This helps to show how topics change over time, e.g., gestures and pointing appeared in the EPIP7 abstracts but do not appear for EPIP8. However, the number of occurrences of a term must be combined with its range is, i.e., in how many different abstracts it appears. A large number of occurrences may not necessarily be meaningful, e.g., the word <English> (EPIP7: 124 occurrences) and (EPIP8: 198 occurrences) occurs respectively across 86% and 82% of abstracts, merely confirming that it is a key topic of the conference. For each conference, the following paragraphs will draw on the selection of results presented in Table 1, in order to highlight which terms appeared frequently and in several abstracts, as well as what is missing or rare, what has increased or decreased, appeared or disappeared. A final paragraph focuses on which specific languages, language varieties or contexts were mentioned, referring to Table 2. Regarding terms used the least frequently, <CLIL>, <Foreign Language Anxiety> and <multilingual> do not appear in abstracts until EPIP8, where <foreign> (+ <accent> or + <accentedness>) is used in two abstracts, while <gesture> and <pointing> are lost. In both corpora, <shadowing>, <strategy> and <syllable> hold steady, but are mentioned in only one abstract. Once a term appears in at least 10 abstracts, it begins to constitute roughly a quarter of the total number of a conference’s abstracts, with a few developments worth highlighting. First, in the upward sense, <foreign language> has climbed from appearing in only 3 abstracts to 14 (30%) and <learners> bounds from 54% to 72%. The number of abstracts with the term <EFL> leaps from 27% to 39%, <instruction> rises from 32% to 43%, <feedback> rises from 13% to 22%, <acquisition> appears in 37% of EPIP8 abstracts (up from 19%). Minor increases include <intelligibility>, which moves up to 28% from 22%, while <comprehensibility> reaches 26% from 24%9. Reflecting a key objective of the conference – to bring together researchers and teachers – the following core topics are holding steady in EPIP abstracts, respectively the 7th and 8th conferences: <teaching> (54% and 48%), <learning> (43% and 48%), and <teachers> (32% and 37%). The sole notable inversion concerns <accent>, which has declined from 32% to 24% of abstracts, probably reflecting the notable sociolinguistic presence at the Grenoble EPIP. In relation to the ongoing terminological debate (Dewaele, 2018; Thomas & Osment, 2020), no occurrences of <LX> or <additional language> were found; 51% and 48% of abstracts continue to use the term <native>, respectively for EPIP7 and EPIP8, and the term <second language> appears in roughly 24% abstracts for both. 7 In contrast, for the Introduction to the EPIP7 Proceedings (Henderson & Kirkova-Naskova, 2023), we analysed the frequency of occurrence of author-provided keywords. 8 AntConc software developed by Anthony (2022). 9 See Appendix 1 for some terms occurring in between 3 and 10 abstracts. Humánez-Berral, Henderson & Kirkova-Naskova Looking back, moving forward vii One of the most surprising results is that <prosody> is referred to so infrequently: in 6 abstracts for EPIP7 but only 2 for EPIP8. To what extent might this reflect more than just its interest to EPIP presenters? Another is the appearance of <listener> in only 3 abstracts for EPIP7; this can be countered by looking at the full results (Appendix 1), where the plural <listeners> is mentioned in 19% of abstracts for both conferences. Table 1 Selected Results from Occurrences of AntConc-generated Keywords in Abstract Booklets EPIP7 EPIP8 AntConc Keywords 37 abstracts AntConc Keywords 46 abstracts in # of abstracts in # of abstracts CLIL 0 gesture 0 FLA (FL anxiety) 0 pointing 0 foreign (+ accent; accentedness ) 0 multilingual 1 multilingual 0 shadowing 1 gesture 1 strategy 1 MOOC 1 syllable 1 nativeness 1 rising 1 pointing 1 ….. shadowing 1 feedback 10(22%) strategy 1 sound s (n., pl.) 11(24%) syllable 1 second (+ language) 11 ….. phonological 11 EFL 10 (27%) accent 11 phonetic 10 teacher 12(26%) phonological 10 comprehensibility 12 accent 12 (32%) intelligibility 13(28%) instruction 12 foreign (+ language/s) 14(30%) participants 12 phonetic 14 production 12 target 16(35%) target 12 acquisition 17(37%) teachers (pl.) 12 teachers (pl.) 17 learning 16 (43%) perception 18(39%) n ative 19 (51%) EFL 18 learners (pl.) 20 (54%) production 18 teaching 20 training 20(43%) pronunciation 27 (73%) instruction 20 English 32 (86%) participants 20 learning 22(48%) native 22 teaching 22 learners (pl.) 33(72%) pronunciation 36(78%) English 38(83%) Humánez-Berral, Henderson & Kirkova-Naskova Looking back, moving forward viii Finally, it is worth drawing attention to the diversity of languages, varieties and contexts explored at the two conferences, as revealed by proper nous and adjectives (Table 2). Table 2 Occurrences of Proper Nouns and Adjectives (e.g., for Languages, Varieties, Contexts) in Abstract Booklets EPIP7 EPIP8 Search term # of occurrences in # of abstracts # of occurrences in # of abstracts Amazigh 0 0 1 1 American 4 4 11 7 Arabic 1 1 1 1 Austrian 0 0 2 1 British 1 1 9 7 Catalan 2 2 10 8 Chinese 2 2 0 0 Croatia 0 * 1 1 Czech 15 4 9 3 Danish 0 0 4 1 Dutch 0 0 14 1 Ecuador 1 1 0 0 Finnish 3 2 0 0 French 23 8 6 3 German 2 1 0 0 Haussa 0 0 1 1 Hungarian 0 0 5 1 Indian 5 1 0 0 Italian 2 2 0 0 Japanese 0 0 2 2 Macedonian 1 1 3 2 Norwegian 1 1 0 0 Pakistan 1 1 0 0 Philippine 1 1 0 0 Polish 3 2 20 6 Romanian 0 0 1 1 RP 1 1 1 1 Sindhi 1 1 0 0 Spain 0 0 8 5 Spanish 4 4 49 23 Swedish 1 1 0 0 Ukrainian 0 0 1 1 Urdu 1 1 0 0 Vietnamese 0 0 1 1 Notes: *= Two abstract authors were working in Croatia but they did not mention a specific language in their abstract. Humánez-Berral, Henderson & Kirkova-Naskova Looking back, moving forward ix First, the greatest number of mentions in the abstracts for EPIP7 held in Grenoble were for French (8) and Czech (4), whereas for EPIP8 organised in Santander they were for Spanish (23) and Spain (5), Catalan (8), Polish (6), and 7 mentions each for British and American English. This underscores the importance of EPIP being hosted in different countries where local researchers and teachers can most easily participate. Second, a mention of a language or country in a sole abstract was frequent (21), including for example Arabic, Austrian, Danish, Haussa, Indian, Macedonian, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese. This belies the diversity of learners and contexts, clearly showing how EPIP8 attracted colleagues from a more diverse set of contexts, or working with learners from a wider range of backgrounds. To conclude, this bit of ‘book-keeping’ can reveal our credits and debits, and may open our eyes to trends we should track, to areas worth more of our attention. In future EPIPs, how will gesture and MOOCs fare, prime examples of a low/no-tech and a high-tech approach to pronunciation learning and instruction? Will use of the term LX spread? Will the interest in orthographic effects increase or decrease? Will interest in FLA, multilingualism and shadowing expand? When will the wave crest for comprehensibility and intelligibility? In just six months, EPIP9 will be held at the University of Manchester, England: will participants based there seize the opportunity to share their work? What colours and flavours reflecting their interests and context-specific preoccupations will they bring to the discussion? Reassuringly, this glance at the abstracts confirms that instruction, learners, learning, and teachers remain at the heart of the EPIP remit. The rest of this introduction briefly summarises the contributions in these proceedings, which reflect a multifaceted view of current research into English pronunciation, drawing on a range of national contexts, learner groups, methodological approaches, and pedagogical goals. Listed in alphabetical order by author, they cover a wide spectrum of work conducted in both traditional classroom settings and digital learning environments. Although the proceedings are not divided thematically, certain recurring threads emerge, offering insight into how pronunciation is being taught, learned, and studied across contexts. The contributions primarily represent European educational contexts, with studies conducted in Poland (Bryła-Cruz), North Macedonia (Duckinoska), Hungary (Gyurka), Spain (Martin-Rubió; Pietraszek), Austria (Richter; White-Hautzinger et al.) and Denmark (Holm Rasmussen). One study draws on data from Vietnam (Rupp & Henderson). The participants in these studies vary substantially in linguistic background, educational experience, and research involvement. A large portion of the studies examined university students enrolled in English-related degree programs, often completing tasks designed to improve or evaluate their pronunciation skills (Martin-Rubió; Pietraszek; White-Hautzinger et al.). Several contributions focused on pre-service or in-service teachers of English, with research exploring their pedagogical habits, training backgrounds, and self-perceived readiness to teach pronunciation (Gyurka; Richter). One study analysed secondary school learners, specifically focusing on their role as test-takers in high-stakes national assessments (BryłaCruz). Another examined autonomous learners engaging with pronunciation content in an online learning environment, using large-scale, user-generated data from a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) (Rupp & Henderson). The methodological approaches adopted across the studies are equally diverse. Quantitative research designs predominate, in studies incorporating acoustic measurements, pre and post instructional recordings, and intelligibility ratings (Pietraszek; Holm Rasmussen; White-Hautzinger et al.). These methods allow researchers to assess changes in learner production or identify key challenges in segmental contrasts. Questionnaires and survey instruments are employed to elicit perspectives from teachers and student teachers on their instructional practices and beliefs (Gyurka; Richter). Mixed-methods designs enable deeper insight into learners’ perceptual judgments and reflective practices. For instance, Duckinoska Humánez-Berral, Henderson & Kirkova-Naskova Looking back, moving forward x combined perception data with qualitative learner explanations to understand reactions to native speech, while Martin-Rubió invited learners to reflect on the fluency, prosody, and segmental accuracy of their own speech after completing contrasting speaking tasks. Rupp and Henderson performed a qualitative analysis of learner comments collected from MOOC participants, offering insight into which pronunciation features learners spontaneously noticed and valued. Lastly, Pennington provided a comprehensive conceptual overview of existing research, highlighting design limitations and recommending directions for future empirical work. The central theme of many contributions is the role and effectiveness of explicit pronunciation instruction (EPI). Several studies examined how such instruction affects learner outcomes or is represented in educational practice. White-Hautzinger et al. demonstrated measurable improvements in learners’ segmental production following a semester of structured instruction. Pennington, taking a broader perspective, reviewed the evidence for perception and production-oriented approaches to EPI, arguing for greater contextual variety and methodological rigour in pronunciation research. The studies by Richter and Gyurka identified gaps in teacher education ‒ future educators lacking either targeted training or the confidence to integrate pronunciation into their classroom practice. Several contributions focused on specific pronunciation features crucial for learner intelligibility or perception. Studies addressed common difficulties with connected speech processes, such as linking, elision, and intrusion, and how these affect listening comprehension and perceptions of naturalness (Duckinoska; Bryła-Cruz). Others examined segmental contrasts, such as the KIT–FLEECE vowel distinction (Pietraszek) and the /s – z/ fricative pair (Holm Rasmussen), drawing links between perceptual training and learner production accuracy. Martin-Rubió explored the role of fluency and prosody in learner performance on spontaneous versus scripted tasks, while Rupp and Henderson found that MOOC participants frequently commented on suprasegmental features like stress and rhythm, highlighting their perceptual salience even without explicit instruction. Collectively, these chapters reinforce the importance of addressing both segmental and suprasegmental dimensions in pronunciation pedagogy. Taken together, the studies in these proceedings underscore the richness and complexity of pronunciation research today. They contribute insights that are relevant to both researchers and practitioners. Whether examining classroom interventions, teacher beliefs, learner perceptions, or large-scale assessment contexts, these contributions provide a foundation for ongoing inquiry and pedagogical development in the field of English pronunciation. To conclude, we have done our utmost to honour the authors who have trusted us with their work, and to respect the reviewers who generously gave of their time to make double-blind peer review possible. If we want to continue to share our work widely and without fees, if we seek to resist the predominant market mentality, it is crucial that we support Open Science as an alternative model. As gatekeepers, it is our responsibility to be both fair and rigorous in ensuring the quality of published work. The entire field can benefit from this. References Anthony, L. (2022). AntConc (Version 4.2.0) [Computer Software]. Dewaele, J.-M. (2017). Why the dichotomy ‘L1 versus LX user’ is better than ‘native versus non-native speaker. Applied Linguistics, amw055. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amw055 Henderson, A. & Kirkova-Naskova, A. (2023). Introduction: Extending the reach of English pronunciation issues and practices. In A. Henderson & A. Kirkova-Naskova (Eds.), Humánez-Berral, Henderson & Kirkova-Naskova Looking back, moving forward xi Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on English Pronunciation: Issues and Practices (pp. iii–vii). Université Grenoble-Alpes. https://hal.science/hal-04181493 Thomas, N., & Osment, C. (2020). Building on Dewaele’s (2018) L1 versus LX dichotomy : The Language-Usage-Identity State Model. Applied Linguistics, 41(6), 1005-1010. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amz010 Appendix 1 Occurrences of AntConc-generated Keywords in Abstract Booklets Notes: *=foreign language anxiety; **= foreign+ accent; accentedness; ***= foreign+ language/s; ****=second+language AntConc Keywords EPIP7 (=37 abstracts) EPIP8 (=46 abstracts) AntConc Keywords EPIP7 (=37 abstracts) EPIP8 (=46 abstracts) # of occurrences in # of abstracts # of occurrences in # of abstracts # of occurrences in # of abstracts # of occurrences in # of abstracts accents (pl.) 15 3 29 5 nativeness 1 1 3 3 accented 8 3 4 3 orthographic 8 2 4 3 accentedness 17 5 15 5 participants 28 12 48 20 acquisition 13 7 18 17 perception 10 7 61 18 anxiety 6 2 18 4 perceptions (pl.) 6 4 7 4 awareness 8 7 10 9 phonetic 15 10 34 14 CLIL 0 0 31 4 pointing 2 1 0 0 comprehensibility 19 9 27 12 production 25 12 51 18 contrast (sg.) 5 3 7 4 proficiency 8 6 11 9 contrasts (pl.) 9 6 11 4 pronunciation 136 27 219 36 English 124 32 198 38 prosody 17 6 10 2 error 3 3 3 3 rising 6 6 1 1 errors (pl.) 9 6 6 6 school 5 4 10 9 feedback 12 5 22 10 second**** 11 9 13 11 FLA* 0 0 11 2 shadowing 1 1 7 1 foreign** 0 0 2 2 sound (sg.) 5 4 8 6 foreign*** 4 3 18 14 sounds (pl.) 9 7 19 11 gesture 3 1 0 0 strategies (pl.) 4 2 8 4 input 14 7 4 3 strategy 3 1 1 1 instruction 21 12 40 20 stress 23 9 12 5 intelligibility 19 8 35 13 syllable 2 1 1 1 intonation 4 3 13 7 syllables (pl.) 6 3 3 3 learner 12 8 7 5 target 20 12 25 16 learners (pl.) 98 20 100 33 teacher 13 5 25 12 learning 41 16 51 22 teachers (pl.) 52 12 63 17 listener 4 3 14 5 teaching 39 20 79 22 listeners (pl.) 18 7 16 9 training 20 9 65 20 MOOC 10 1 12 2 transcription 9 4 14 5 multilingual 0 0 1 1 vowel 22 8 27 9 native 47 19 53 22 vowels (pl.) 14 7 16 7 nativelike 0 0 2 2 Humánez-Berral, Henderson & Kirkova-Naskova Looking back, moving forward xii About the authors Pedro Humánez-Berral is a PhD student and researcher at the University of Cantabria (Spain). He earned bachelor’s degrees in English Studies and in Translation and Interpreting. His research explores affective variables in the acquisition of L2 English pronunciation among young learners, with a particular focus on CLIL and non-CLIL educational contexts. He has taught English for Specific Purposes courses for engineering programs, as well as courses on English pronunciation and foreign language acquisition within degrees in Primary and Early Childhood Education. Email: [email protected] Alice Henderson is a Full Professor at Grenoble-Alpes University, France, where she teaches English for Specific Purposes to science, technology and engineering students. She taught English phonetics and phonology to English majors for 24 years at another French university and has been involved in teacher training in France, Norway, Poland, and Spain. In 2009 she initiated the bi-annual international conference English Pronunciation: Issues & Practices (EPIP). She is currently the assistant director of the LIDILEM research group and has published internationally on English pronunciation learning and teaching, the perception of foreignaccented speech, and English Medium Instruction (EMI). Email: [email protected] Anastazija Kirkova-Naskova is a Full Professor in English Phonetics and Phonology and English Morphology in the Department of English Language and Literature, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, North Macedonia. She also teaches research methodology (MA/PhD level). Her research interests include English pronunciation teaching and learning, foreign-accented speech, speech perception, pronunciation learning strategies, and teacher cognition. Together with Alice Henderson and Jonás Fouz-González, she co-edited English pronunciation instruction: Research-based insights. She is the co-editor with Alice Henderson of the Proceedings of the International Conference on English Pronunciation: Issues and Practices – EPIP7 (https://hal.science/EPIP/page/index). She is a member of the editorial board of The Journal of Contemporary Philology. Email: [email protected]m.edu.mk