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VISUAL CUES AND RATER PERCEPTIONS OF SECOND LANGUAGE COMPREHENSIBILITY, ACCENTEDNESS, AND FLUENCY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2021

Aki Tsunemoto Open the ORCID record for Aki Tsunemoto [Opens in a new window] ,
Rachael Lindberg Open the ORCID record for Rachael Lindberg [Opens in a new window] ,
Pavel Trofimovich Open the ORCID record for Pavel Trofimovich [Opens in a new window]  and
Kim McDonough Open the ORCID record for Kim McDonough [Opens in a new window]
Aki Tsunemoto*
Affiliation:
Concordia University
Rachael Lindberg
Affiliation:
Concordia University
Pavel Trofimovich
Affiliation:
Concordia University
Kim McDonough
Affiliation:
Concordia University
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Aki Tsunemoto, Department of Education, Concordia University (FG 5.150), 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3G 1M8. E-mail: aki.tsunemoto@concordia.ca
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Abstract

This study examined the role of visual cues (facial expressions and hand gestures) in second language (L2) speech assessment. University students (N = 60) at English-medium universities assessed 2-minute video clips of 20 L2 English speakers (10 Chinese and 10 Spanish speakers) narrating a personal story. They rated the speakers’ comprehensibility, accentedness, and fluency using 1,000-point sliding scales. To manipulate access to visual cues, the raters were assigned to three conditions that presented audio along with (a) the speaker’s static image, (b) a static image of a speaker’s torso with dynamic face, or (c) dynamic torso and face. Results showed that raters with access to the full video tended to perceive the speaker as more comprehensible and significantly less accented compared to those who had access to less visually informative conditions. The findings are discussed in terms of how the integration of visual cues may impact L2 speech assessment.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , July 2022 , pp. 659 - 684
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Open data Open materials
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

We would like to thank the members of our research group (Tzu-Hua Chen, Teng Hsu, YooLae Kim, Chen Liu, Oguzhan Tekin, and Pakize Uludag) for their valuable insights and all the research assistants who helped with data collection and coding: Marie Apaloo, Tzu-Hua Chen, Dalia Elsayed, Sarah Ercoli, Lisa Gonzalez, Xuanji Hu, Chen Liu, Ashley Montgomery, Jie Qiu, Quinton Stotz, Lauren Strachan, Kym Taylor Reid, Oguzhan Tekin, Pakize Uludag, and Roza van Lieshout. Also, we are grateful to Masaki Eguchi and Shungo Suzuki for their help with data analysis, and to the anonymous reviewers and the journal editors of Studies in Second Language Acquisition for their insightful comments and suggestions.

This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) grants 435-2016-1406 (to Pavel Trofimovich and Sara Kennedy) and 435-2019-0754 (to Kim McDonough and Pavel Trofimovich).

The experiment in this article earned Open Materials and Open Data badges for transparent practices. The materials and data are available at https://osf.io/vcb4a/

References

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