A considerable body of research has investigated the influence of linguistic variables on comprehensibility and accentedness in L2 speech. However, studies overwhelmingly feature L2 English, with other L2s largely ignored. This study investigated linguistic influences on accentedness and comprehensibility in L2 Korean. 198 L2 Korean speakers with varied proficiency levels and L1 backgrounds participated in the study, as did 82 L1 Korean listeners from South Korea. The speakers completed a monologic speaking task, and their speech samples were coded for phonological, lexical, grammatical, and fluency variables. Speakers’ comprehensibility was higher than accentedness, but the correlation between the two was extremely strong (r = .90). Regression models using linguistic variables to predict comprehensibility and accentedness yielded R2 values of .71 and .65, respectively. Most linguistic variables had similar influences on comprehensibility and accentedness, with some notable exceptions: intonational phrasing errors and lexical diversity only predicted comprehensibility.
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