Cover not available
Article published In:
25 years of Intelligibility, Comprehensibility and Accentedness
Edited by John M. Levis, Tracey M. Derwing and Murray J. Munro
[Journal of Second Language Pronunciation 6:3] 2020
► pp. 329–351

Expanding the scope of L2 intelligibility research

Intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness in L2 Spanish

ORCID logo | Iowa State University
ORCID logo | University of Pittsburgh

This study investigated relationships among intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness in the speech of L2 learners of Spanish who completed a prompted response speaking task. Thirty native Spanish listeners from Spain were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk to transcribe and rate extracted utterances, which were also coded for grammatical and phonemic errors, and speaking rate. Descriptively, although most utterances were intelligible, their comprehensibility and accentedness varied substantially. Mixed-effects modeling showed that comprehensibility was significantly associated with intelligibility whereas accentedness was not. Additionally, phonemic and grammatical errors were significant predictors of intelligibility and comprehensibility, but only phonemic errors were significantly related to accentedness. Overall, phonemic errors displayed a stronger negative association with the listener-based dimensions than grammatical errors. These findings suggest that English-speaking learners of Spanish are not as uniformly intelligible and comprehensible as FL instructors might believe and shed light on relationships among speech constructs in an L2 other than English.

Keywords: intelligibility, comprehensibility, accentedness, L2 Spanish
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Participants
      • 3.1.1Speakers
      • 3.1.2Listeners
    • 3.2Materials
    • 3.3Procedure
    • 3.4Analysis
      • 3.4.1Data coding
      • 3.4.2Mixed-Effect Models
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Relationships among intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness
    • 4.2Phonemic and grammatical errors
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Intelligibility, Comprehensibility, and Accentedness
    • 5.2Phonemic and grammatical errors
    • 5.3Other factors
    • 5.4Adapting listener-based constructs to a new research context
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 7 July 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jslp.20009.nag
References (37)
ACTFL
(2018) Enrollments in languages other than English in United States institutions of higher education, summer 2016 and fall 2016: Preliminary report. [URL]
American Community Survey
(2015) Detailed languages spoken at home and ability to speak English for the population 5 years and over: 2009–2013. [URL]
American Councils for International Education
(2017) The National K-12 Foreign Language Enrollment Survey Report. [URL]
Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S.
(2014) _lme4: Linear mixed-effects models using Eigen and S4_. R package version 1.1.-7. CRAN.R-project.org/package=lme4Google Scholar
Bergeron, A., & Trofimovich, P.
(2017) Linguistic dimensions of accentedness and comprehensibility: Exploring task and listener effects in second language French. Foreign Language Annals, 501, 547–566. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crowther, D., Trofimovich, P., & Isaacs, T.
(2016) Linguistic dimensions of second language accent and comprehensibility. Journal of Second Language Pronunciation, 21, 160–182. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crowther, D., Trofimovich, P., Isaacs, T., & Saito, K.
(2018) Linguistic dimensions of L2 accentedness and comprehensibility vary across speaking tasks. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 401, 443–457. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Jong, N. H., & Bosker, H. R.
(2013) Choosing a threshold for silent pauses to measure second language fluency. Paper presented at DiSS, Stockholm.
Derwing, T. M., & Munro, M. J.
(1997) Accent, intelligibility, and comprehensibility: Evidence from four L1s. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 191, 1–16. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2013) The development of L2 oral language skills in two L1 groups: A 7-year study. Language Learning, 63(2), 163–185. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Foote, J. A., & Trofimovich, P.
(2018) Is it because of my language background? A study of language background influence on comprehensibility judgments. Canadian Modern Language Review, 741, 253–278. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fuertes, J. N., Gottdiener, W. H., Martin, H., Gilbert, T. C., & Giles, H.
(2012) A metaanalysis of the effects of speakers’ accents on interpersonal evaluations. European Journal of Social Psychology, 421, 120–133. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
George, A.
(2017) Effects of listener and speaker characteristics on foreign accent in L2 Spanish. JSMULA, 51, 127–148.Google Scholar
Huensch, A.
(2019) Pronunciation in foreign language classrooms: Instructors’ training, classroom practices, and beliefs. Language Teaching Research, 231, 745–764. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Isaacs, T., & Trofimovich, P.
(2012) Deconstructing comprehensibility: Identifying the linguistic influences on listeners’ L2 comprehensibility ratings. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 341, 475–505. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kang, O., Thomson, R. I., & Moran, M.
(2018) Empirical approaches to measuring the intelligibility of different varieties of English in predicting listener comprehension: Measuring intelligibility in varieties of English. Language Learning, 681, 115–146. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, S., & Trofimovich, P.
(2008) Intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness of L2 speech: The role of listener experience and semantic context. Canadian Modern Language Review, 641, 459–489. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kissling, E. M.
(2013) Teaching pronunciation: Is explicit phonetics instruction beneficial for FL learners? The Modern Language Journal, 97(3), 720–744. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levis, J. M.
(2005) Changing contexts and shifting paradigms in pronunciation teaching. TESOL Quarterly 391, 369–377. [URL]
Lord, G.
(2005) (How) can we teach foreign language pronunciation? On the effects of a Spanish phonetics course. Hispania, 881, 557–567. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2008) Podcasting communities and second language pronunciation. Foreign Language Annals, 411, 365–379. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marsden, E., Mackey, A., & Plonsky, L.
(2016) The IRIS Repository: Advancing research practice and methodology. In A. Mackey & E. Marsden (Eds.), Advancing methodology and practice: The IRIS repository of instruments for research into second languages (pp. 1–21). Routledge.Google Scholar
McBride, K.
(2015) Which features of Spanish learners’ pronunciation most impact listener evaluations? Hispania, 981, 14–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Munro, M. J., & Derwing, T. M.
(2001) Modeling perceptions of the accentedness and comprehensibility of L2 speech: The role of speaking rate. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 231, 451–468. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1995) Foreign accent, comprehensibility, and intelligibility in the speech of second language learners. Language Learning, 451, 73–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Munro, M. J., Derwing, T. M., & Morton, S. L.
(2006) The mutual intelligibility of L2 speech. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 281, 111–131. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nagle, C.
(2018) Motivation, comprehensibility, and accentedness in L2 Spanish: Investigating motivation as a time-varying predictor of pronunciation development. The Modern Language Journal, 1021, 199–217. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2019) Developing and validating a methodology for crowdsourcing L2 speech ratings in Amazon Mechanical Turk. Journal of Second Language Pronunciation, 5(2), 294–323. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nagle, C., Sachs, R., & Zárate-Sández, G.
(2018) Exploring the intersection between teachers’ beliefs and research findings in pronunciation instruction. The Modern Language Journal, 102(3), 512–532. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
O’Brien, M. G.
(2014) L2 learners’ assessments of accentedness, fluency, and comprehensibility of native and nonnative German speech: L2 learner assessments. Language Learning, 641, 715–748. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
R Core Team
(2019) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. [URL]
Ruivivar, J., & Collins, L.
(2018) Nonnative accent and the perceived grammaticality of spoken grammar forms. Journal of Second Language Pronunciation, 5(2), 269–293. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Saito, K., & Akiyama, Y.
(2017) Linguistic correlates of comprehensibility in second language Japanese speech. Journal of Second Language Pronunciation, 31, 199–217. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Saito, K., Trofimovich, P., & Isaacs, T.
(2017) Using listener judgments to investigate linguistic influences on L2 comprehensibility and accentedness: A validation and generalization study. Applied Linguistics, 381, 439–462. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schairer, K. E.
(1992) Native speaker reaction to non-native speech. The Modern Language Journal, 761, 309–319. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schoonmaker-Gates, E.
(2015) On voice-onset time as a cue to foreign accent in Spanish: Native and nonnative perceptions. Hispania, 981, 779–791. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trofimovich, P., & Isaacs, T.
(2012) Disentangling accent from comprehensibility. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 151, 905–916. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (22)

Cited by 22 other publications

Borgia, Kathleen
2024. La compréhensibilité en français Lx : effort et contribution des locuteurs L1. La Revue de l’AQEFLS 36:1 DOI logo
Kim, Kathy Minhye, Xiaoyi Liu, Daniel R. Isbell & Xiaobin Chen
2024. A comparison of Lab- and Web-based elicited imitation: Insights from explicit-implicit L2 grammar knowledge and L2 proficiency. Studies in Second Language Acquisition ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Thomson, Ron I., Tracey M. Derwing & Murray J. Munro
2024. How long can naturalistic L2 pronunciation learning continue in adults? A 10-year study. Language Awareness 33:2 ► pp. 201 ff. DOI logo
Huensch, Amanda & Charlie Nagle
2023. Revisiting the moderating effect of speaker proficiency on the relationships among intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness in L2 Spanish. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 45:2 ► pp. 571 ff. DOI logo
Martin, Ines A. & Lieselotte Sippel
2023. Long-term effects of peer and teacher feedback on L2 pronunciation. Journal of Second Language Pronunciation 9:1 ► pp. 20 ff. DOI logo
Nagle, Charlie & Phil Hiver
2023. Optimizing second language pronunciation instruction: Replications of Martin and Sippel (2021), Olson and Offerman (2021), and Thomson (2012). Language Teaching ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Nagle, Charlie, Pavel Trofimovich, Oguzhan Tekin & Kim McDonough
2023. Framing second language comprehensibility: Do interlocutors’ ratings predict their perceived communicative experience?. Applied Psycholinguistics 44:1 ► pp. 131 ff. DOI logo
Nagle, Charlie L., Amanda Huensch & Germán Zárate–Sández
2023. Exploring phonetic predictors of intelligibility, comprehensibility, and foreign accent in L2 Spanish speech. The Modern Language Journal 107:1 ► pp. 202 ff. DOI logo
Verbeke, Gil & Ellen Simon
2023. Listening to accents: Comprehensibility, accentedness and intelligibility of native and non-native English speech. Lingua 292 ► pp. 103572 ff. DOI logo
Herrero de Haro, Alfredo & Manuel Delicado Cantero
2022. Longitudinal study of Spanish vowel acquisition by Australian students. Language Teaching Research ► pp. 136216882211401 ff. DOI logo
McDonough, Kim, Pavel Trofimovich, Oguzhan Tekin & Masatoshi Sato
2022. Exploring linguistic stereotyping of international students at a Canadian university. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Nagai, Julia & Edwin K. Everhart
2022. Oral English Proficiency Tests, Interpretive Labor, and the Neoliberal University. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 32:3 ► pp. 543 ff. DOI logo
Nagle, Charles L., Pavel Trofimovich, Mary Grantham O’Brien & Sara Kennedy
2022. BEYOND LINGUISTIC FEATURES. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 44:1 ► pp. 255 ff. DOI logo
NAGLE, CHARLIE L., PAVEL TROFIMOVICH, MARY GRANTHAM O'BRIEN & SARA KENNEDY
2022. Comprehensible to Whom? Examining Rater, Speaker, and Interlocutor Perspectives on Comprehensibility in an Interactive Context. The Modern Language Journal 106:4 ► pp. 675 ff. DOI logo
Neal, Robert
2022. How do L1 Chinese raters process the L2 Chinese speech signal at the sentence level with respect to accentedness, comprehensibility and intelligibility?. Chinese as a Second Language Research 11:2 ► pp. 233 ff. DOI logo
Peng, Z. Ellen, Sebastian Waz, Emily Buss, Yi Shen, Virginia Richards, Hari Bharadwaj, G. Christopher Stecker, Jordan A. Beim, Adam K. Bosen, Meredith D. Braza, Anna C. Diedesch, Claire M. Dorey, Andrew R. Dykstra, Frederick J Gallun, Raymond L. Goldsworthy, Lincoln Gray, Eric C. Hoover, Antje Ihlefeld, Thomas Koelewijn, Judy G. Kopun, Juraj Mesik, Daniel E. Shub & Jonathan H. Venezia
2022. FORUM: Remote testing for psychological and physiological acoustics. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 151:5 ► pp. 3116 ff. DOI logo
Souza, Hanna Kivistö de & William Gottardi
2022. HOW WELL CAN ASR TECHNOLOGY UNDERSTAND FOREIGN-ACCENTED SPEECH?. Trabalhos em Linguística Aplicada 61:3 ► pp. 764 ff. DOI logo
Staggs, Cecelia, Melissa Baese-Berk & Charlie Nagle
2022. The Influence of Social Information on Speech Intelligibility within the Spanish Heritage Community. Languages 7:3 ► pp. 231 ff. DOI logo
Uchihara, Takumi
2022. Is it possible to measure word-level comprehensibility and accentedness as independent constructs of pronunciation knowledge?. Research Methods in Applied Linguistics 1:2 ► pp. 100011 ff. DOI logo
Wiener, Seth, Zhe Gao, Xiaomeng Li & Zhiyi Wu
2022. Acquisition of non-sibilant anterior English fricatives by adult second language learners. Journal of Second Language Pronunciation 8:1 ► pp. 68 ff. DOI logo
Munro, Murray J.
2021. On the Difficulty of Defining “Difficult” in Second-Language Vowel Acquisition. Frontiers in Communication 6 DOI logo
Nagle, Charles L. & Ivana Rehman
2021. DOING L2 SPEECH RESEARCH ONLINE: WHY AND HOW TO COLLECT ONLINE RATINGS DATA. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 43:4 ► pp. 916 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.