Gatekeepers of the Standard? Exploring Teacher Cognition and Ideological Conflict Toward Non-Native Accents in the ELF Era
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Keywords:
EFL speaking, gendered participation, learner investment, pesantren education, sociocultural mediation, tutor questioningAbstract
This study investigates the pragmatic-ideological rupture within the Indonesian English Language Teaching (ELT) landscape, where the functional necessity of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) contradicts a persistent ideological lag toward native-speakerism. Employing a single-case study design at a private university in East Java, the research triangulates perspectives from English pronunciation teachers (n=5), undergraduate students (n=90), and the general public (n=5). Data were collected through Likert-scale questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and a stimulated recall protocol featuring AI-generated non-native accent stimuli. Findings reveal a profound listener-speaker dissonance. While participants affectively value linguistic diversity in others, students harbor deep accent anxiety and a somatic burden regarding their own regional identities (e.g., the medok stigma). Cognitively, although the nativeness principle is intellectually rejected in favor of intelligibility, a prestige bias persists among students who view local accents as lacking symbolic capital. Teachers and the general public demonstrate affective resilience by viewing accents as indicators of professional authority and identity. The study finds that digital media and professional demands encourage flexibility but do not remove the drive for perfection. The researchers call for a shift from eliminating accents to supporting them, recommending a pedagogy based on Critical Language Awareness to empower multilingual voices in today's global environment.
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