Is It because of My Language Background? A Study of Language Background Influence on Comprehensibility Judgments

This study examines the role of listeners’ native language (L1) background in judgments of comprehensibility (ease of understanding) for speakers from same and different L1 backgrounds, to determine the extent of a shared second language (L2) comprehensibility benefit. Forty L2 English speakers from Mandarin, French, Hindi, and English backgrounds (10 per group) listened to speech samples from 30 L2 English speakers from Mandarin, French, and Hindi backgrounds (10 per group). Listeners first evaluated each speaker’s comprehensibility and provided verbal reports indicating their reasons for each rating. To estimate pronunciation influences on comprehensibility, listeners then rated each speaker for four speech measures (segmental and word stress errors, intonation, speech rate). Results revealed that different speech measures were associated with comprehensibility ratings for different listener–speaker groups, and that a match in L1 background accounted for additional unique variance in comprehensibility r...