linguistic follies

[Christopher Thomas]

Re:
"It is also hard work for even the best non-native speakers to understand other 
non-native versions of English, whereas it is no great strain for the British 
or Irish to decipher the various accents."

I don't know why or how this can be claimed. Time and again, it is the native 
speaker who fails to understand or be understood by non-native speakers. NNS 
are at least aware of the difficulties involved in communication that NS are 
oblivious to. Is there any "good" research to definitively support either 
position?
 
Christopher Thomas
Educational Linguistics (Ph.D. candidate)
Graduate School of Education
University of Pennsylvania
Webpage: http://dolphin.upenn.edu/~chthomas