L2 Learners’ Assessments of Accentedness, Fluency, and Comprehensibility of Native and Nonnative German Speech

Abstract

In early stages of classroom language learning, many adult second language (L2) learners communicate primarily with one another, yet we know little about which speech stream characteristics learners tune into or the extent to which they understand this lingua franca communication. In the current study, 25 native English speakers learning German as a L2 with varying levels of German proficiency rated German speech produced by native speakers and fellow learners of German along three continua: accentedness, fluency, and comprehensibility. An examination of speech stream (i.e., phonological, fluency based, and lexical/grammatical) characteristics along with partial correlations indicates both that the raters distinguished among the three concepts but that they conflated the term fluency with proficiency. Self‐reported proficiency in German and linguistic training were the best predictors of the ratings assigned.

Linguistic correlates of comprehensibility in second language Japanese speech

“…Building on previous studies concerning L2 learners of English (Derwing & Munro, 2015;Isaacs & Trofimovich, 2012;Saito et al, 2015Saito et al, , 2017, McBride (2015) and German (O'Brien, 2014), the findings presented here led us to postulate a tentative hypothesis on the underlying mechanisms of L2 comprehensibility assessment. Overall, comprehensibility is a unique index of how much progress L2 learners have made towards acquiring the communicatively adequate level of competence with multiple pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary and grammar elements which affect successful L2 communication.…”

“…To our knowledge, two empirical studies to date have examined phonological, temporal, lexical and grammatical correlates of L2 German (O'Brien, 2014) and Spanish (McBride, 2015) comprehensibility. In O'Brien's study, native speakers of English learning L2 German were recruited to judge the overall comprehensibility of L2 German speech.…”

Linguistic Dimensions of Accentedness and Comprehensibility: Exploring Task and Listener Effects in Second Language French

“…However, because little research has been carried out in languages other than English, one question that remains unclear is whether the linguistic correlates of comprehensibility, as distinct from those underlying accentedness, also differ for L2s other than English. In a rare study targeting L2 German, O'Brien () investigated the association between the linguistic categories of phonology, fluency, lexis, and grammar and the constructs of accentedness and comprehensibility for learners of L2 German as evaluated by L2 German listeners. In that study, comprehensibility and accentedness were predicted by a broad range of largely overlapping measures, suggesting that at least where L2 listeners are concerned, the linguistic independence of accentedness from comprehensibility may be less robust than previously thought.…”

Non-Native Raters and Native Speech: Other Perspective for the Research on Comprehensibility of Second Language Input

“…All the distractors are intentionally presented as supra-segmental features of speech by using prosody and rhythm characteristics of a north dialect. Supra-segmental features are commonly an obstacle for comprehensibility tasks [15]. Along with these tasks, other 14 measures were administered to the same participants and they were told that they were completing a battery of tests to assess language proficiency and cognitive differences among immigrant groups.…”