TOWARD A DYNAMIC VIEW OF SECOND LANGUAGE COMPREHENSIBILITY

This study took a dynamic approach to second language (L2) comprehensibility, examining how listeners construct comprehensibility profiles for L2 Spanish speakers during the listening task and what features enhance or diminish comprehensibility. Listeners were 24 native Spanish speakers who evaluate...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inStudies in second language acquisition Vol. 41; no. 4; pp. 647 - 672
Main Authors Nagle, Charles, Trofimovich, Pavel, Bergeron, Annie
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.09.2019
Subjects
Audio Equipment
College Students
Comprehension
Computer Software
Correlation
English (Second Language)
English Teachers
Evaluators
Grammar
Individual Differences
Intelligibility
Language Teachers
Linguistics
Listening
Listening Comprehension
Native Speakers
Outcome Measures
Profiles
Psychological Studies
Rating Scales
Ratings & rankings
Recall (Psychology)
Research Article
Second Language Instruction
Second Language Learning
Second Languages
Social sciences
Software
Spanish
Spanish as a second language
Spanish Speaking
Speech
Speech Communication
Student Evaluation
Task Analysis
Video Technology
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Summary:This study took a dynamic approach to second language (L2) comprehensibility, examining how listeners construct comprehensibility profiles for L2 Spanish speakers during the listening task and what features enhance or diminish comprehensibility. Listeners were 24 native Spanish speakers who evaluated 2–5 minute audio clips recorded by three university-level L2 Spanish speakers responding to two prompts. Listeners rated comprehensibility dynamically, using Idiodynamic Software to upgrade or downgrade comprehensibility over the course of the listening task. Dynamic ratings for one audio clip were video-captured for stimulated recall, and listeners were interviewed to understand which aspects of L2 speech were associated with enhanced versus diminished comprehensibility. Results indicated that clips that were downgraded more often received lower global ratings but upgrading was not associated with higher ratings. Certain problematic features and individual episodes caused listeners’ impressions to converge, though substantial individual variation among listeners was evident.
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ISSN:0272-2631
1470-1545
DOI:10.1017/S0272263119000044