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

Abstract

This study explored the effects of task and listeners’ linguistic background on judgments of accentedness and comprehensibility in second language (L2) French. Forty Spanish speakers of L2 French recorded a picture narrative and answered an interview question. These audio samples were assessed by native French listeners with (n = 10) and without (n = 10) knowledge of L2 Spanish using 1,000‐point sliding scales to evaluate accentedness and comprehensibility, as well as nine linguistic variables targeting pronunciation, fluency, lexis, grammar, and discourse. In the picture narrative task (cognitively less complex), accentedness could be distinguished from comprehensibility at the level of the linguistic dimensions associated with each construct. While accentedness was related to pronunciation and fluency (consonant and vowel errors, intonation, speech rate), comprehensibility was additionally linked to lexis (accuracy, richness), grammar (accuracy, complexity), and discourse richness. However, in the interview task (cognitively more complex), both accentedness and comprehensibility had similar linguistic profiles, associated with all nine linguistic variables. Listeners’ experience with L2 Spanish had little impact on listener ratings of accentedness or comprehensibility in both tasks. Findings are discussed in relation to L2 instruction and the role of task complexity in targeting various dimensions of L2 accentedness and comprehensibility.

Developing and validating a methodology for crowdsourcing L2 speech ratings in Amazon Mechanical Turk

“…It could be that this variable actually encodes other experiential factors, if, for example, higher levels of education are correlated with more international experience, more frequent interactions with L2 speakers, or exposure to a wider variety of L1 dialects. This account would be compatible with Bergeron and Trofimovich's (2017) assertion that experience with accented speech may help listeners process it more readily, leading to more positive evaluations.…”

Expanding the scope of L2 intelligibility research

“…In other words, the constructs were designed to capture speakers' ability to make themselves understood to a group of listeners with whom they might reasonably interact on a daily basis in their personal and professional lives. Since Munro and Derwing's original work, the constructs have taken on a life of their own and have been applied to different varieties of English (Kang et al, 2018) and different L2s, including German (O'Brien, 2014), French (Bergeron & Trofimovich, 2017), Spanish (Nagle, 2018), and Japanese (Saito & Akiyama, 2016), though most of the L2other-than-English work has focused on comprehensibility and accentedness. Given how far the constructs have travelled, it seems like the right time to reflect upon any necessary adaptations that might need to take place in order to conduct intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness research in a learning and teaching context that is in many ways radically different from the context in which the constructs were initially defined and measured.…”

“…Since that study, second language (L2) speech research has experienced a theoretical and methodological renaissance centered on the three constructs. For instance, over the past few years, a significant body of scholarship has emerged on the linguistic correlates of comprehensibility and accentedness across multiple speaking tasks (Crowther et al, 2018) and target languages (e.g., Bergeron & Trofimovich, 2017;O'Brien, 2014). Yet, most of this work has concentrated on L2…”

“…For instance, in the 1995 study, only 28% of listeners showed significant correlations between phonemic errors and intelligibility, versus 44% and 78% for comprehensibility and accentedness, and there were fewer significant correlations across the board in the 1997 study. Subsequent work examining a greater variety of linguistic predictors has shown that pronunciation and lexicogrammatical features contribute to listener judgments in L2 English (e.g., Crowther et al, 2016;, German (O'Brien, 2014), French (Bergeron & Trofimovich, 2017), and Japanese (Saito & Akiyama, 2017), but these studies have focused exclusively on comprehensibility and accentedness.…”

Nonlinguistic Factors that Affect the Degree of Foreign Accent in Second Language Mandarin

“…In a review of research on L2 Chinese acquisition, Zhao (2011: 568) addressed the need "to explore problems in L2 Chinese acquisition within the framework of SLA research in general." Similarly, Bergeron and Trofimovich (2017) also called for researchers to "extend their current work to L2s other than English". The present study therefore intends to address this gap, by exploring foreign accent in L2 Mandarin.…”