Combating linguicide through pronunciation and voice reclamation: shadowing as an identity practice

This study investigates voice reclamation as a countermeasure to linguicidal processes that erode speakers’ confidence in their phonological identity. Using a mixed-methods quasi-experimental design, we examined how a shadowing-based intervention, embedded in sociophonetic awareness workshops, shaped the interplay between pronunciation, identity, and agency among 120 undergraduate English majors in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Quantitative data included a Voice Confidence Scale (VCS) and acoustic analysis of speech rate, pitch range, and pausing patterns; qualitative evidence was drawn from reflective voice diaries and semi-structured interviews.

Voice confidence increased significantly in both cohorts (a mean gain of approximately 30%), accompanied by modest, non-significant prosodic shifts that participants framed as more intentional pausing and individualized pitch adjustment. The findings suggest that shadowing, when reframed within a Voice Reclamation Framework rather than a native-speaker imitation paradigm, can reposition the learner’s voice as a site of self-recognition and cultural negotiation. The study contributes to applied linguistics, sociophonetics, and World Englishes research by showing how embodied voice practices may support identity ownership and contest deficit-based narratives in global English, while acknowledging that acoustic change over a four-week intervention remained limited.

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. Faculty of Arts- English Language Department and Literature, Delta University for Science and Technology, Al Mansurah, Egypt University of Ha‘il, Ha‘il, Saudi Arabia English Department, Suez University, Suez, Egypt Correspondence to Dina Zanaty or Bunder Alshammari. The authors declare no competing interests.

This study was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards and regulations of the Delta University for Science and Technology Research Ethics Committee and the University of Hail Research Ethics Committee, applicable institutional and national requirements in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and the Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. Ethical approval was granted by the Delta University for Science and Technology Research Ethics Committee (Approval No. DU-REC-128625) and the University of Hail Research Ethics Committee (Approval No.

Local ethical approval was therefore obtained in both countries where the research was conducted. All participants were adults (≥18 years). Written informed consent was obtained before participation, including consent for audio recording and de-identified analysis.

Participation was voluntary, did not affect course grades, and could be withdrawn at any time without penalty. Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material.