Language and Speech最新文献

Contact-Induced Grammaticalization in Turkish Sign Language: From Mouthings to Grammatical Markers. 接触诱发的土耳其手语语法化：从口型到语法标记。

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2026-10-20 DOI: 10.1177/00238309261496903

Bahtiyar Makaroğlu

{"title":"Contact-Induced Grammaticalization in Turkish Sign Language: From Mouthings to Grammatical Markers.","authors":"Bahtiyar Makaroğlu","doi":"10.1177/00238309261496903","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00238309261496903","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates the contact-induced grammaticalization of the Turkish existential mouthing /var/ (\"there is\") in Turkish Sign Language, proposing a novel Cross-Modal Contact Route for grammaticalization. Based on 1,024 attested existential/possessive constructions identified within a corpus of 101,908 tokens from 58 signers, we analyze the distribution of variants along a unidirectional reduction cline (/var/ > /va/ > biting lips, bl). Generalized estimating equations and multinomial logistic regression analyses reveal a robust apparent time effect: while older signers retain the full spoken mouthing, younger signers predominantly use the biting lips-a visual remnant of the initial labiodental fricative [v]-indicating a change from below. Significantly, the structural autonomy of the emergent gesture is supported by 118 tokens-produced exclusively by signers aged 45 or younger (16-45)-where the bl marker attaches to non-existential hosts (e.g., group, pocket) and pronominal signs, functioning as an independent clitic for existence and possession. These findings problematize the rigid theoretical distinction between mouthings and mouth gestures, demonstrating that spoken lexical items can be scavenged, eroded, and nativized into the visual grammar of a sign language, effectively expanding current models of grammaticalization.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"238309261496903"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149229365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

The Role of Syllable Duration in the Perception and Imitation of Checked Versus Unchecked Tones in Taiwanese Southern Min. 音节时长在台湾南部闽南语对调的感知与模仿中的作用。

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2026-10-17 DOI: 10.1177/00238309261493124

Wei Zhang, Yu-An Lu, Morgan Sonderegger, Meghan Clayards

{"title":"The Role of Syllable Duration in the Perception and Imitation of Checked Versus Unchecked Tones in Taiwanese Southern Min.","authors":"Wei Zhang, Yu-An Lu, Morgan Sonderegger, Meghan Clayards","doi":"10.1177/00238309261493124","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00238309261493124","url":null,"abstract":"The imitation of phonetic features is often mediated by phonological contrasts, with a stronger mediation effect for critical cues. However, it remains unclear whether syllable duration, which has been only examined as a noncritical cue in previous research, is mediated in the same way as other features when it is critical to the imitated contrast. In this study, we conducted two experiments. In Experiment 1, we investigated the role of syllable duration in the perception of the checked versus unchecked tonal contrasts in Taiwanese Southern Min (TSM). Results showed that syllable duration is a critical cue for distinguishing the checked versus unchecked tones of the mid register but not for those of the high register. Therefore, in Experiment 2, we examined how syllable duration is imitated along the checked versus unchecked tonal contrast in the mid register. Results showed that, unlike other features such as voice onset time (VOT) and fundamental frequency (F0), the imitation of syllable duration is minimally mediated by the phonological contrast, even when it serves as a critical cue. This finding suggests that syllable duration has a unique property that allows it to bypass phonological mediation and adds to our knowledge of phonetic imitation being feature-specific rather than feature-general.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"238309261493124"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149217261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

German Vowel Contrast Discrimination by Turkish-German Bilingual Preschool Children: Effects of Age, Language Status, and Type of Bilingualism. 土德双语学龄前儿童德语元音对比辨析：年龄、语言地位和双语类型的影响

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2026-10-14 DOI: 10.1177/00238309261485878

Anna Roth, Angela Grimm, Isabelle Darcy

{"title":"German Vowel Contrast Discrimination by Turkish-German Bilingual Preschool Children: Effects of Age, Language Status, and Type of Bilingualism.","authors":"Anna Roth, Angela Grimm, Isabelle Darcy","doi":"10.1177/00238309261485878","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00238309261485878","url":null,"abstract":"Although bilingual vowel perception has received great interest in the past, surprisingly few studies have focused on preschool children. To shed light on this understudied age group, the present study investigated 5- to 7-year-old Turkish-German bilingual children (n = 24), age-matched monolingual German-speaking children (n = 26), and German-speaking adults (n = 10), using an oddity task. The study pursues two major goals: first, we aimed to extend findings for Turkish-German bilingual school children (aged 9-12 years) to a younger group, and second, we explored potential differences related to age of onset (AoO) of German within the bilingual children (AoO of German <4 years; simultaneous bilingual children: n = 12, both languages from birth onwards; successive bilingual children: n = 12, AoO ~3;0-3;5 years). The materials included the four German vowel contrasts [ɑː]~[iː], [eː]~[ɛ], [iː]~[ɪ], and [iː]~[eː]. We predicted differences due to age (adults vs. children), language status (monolingual vs. bilingual), and vowel contrast. Furthermore, we explored potential differences by type of bilingualism (simultaneous vs. successive). The results of the Bayesian linear mixed-effects model reveal very strong evidence for age differences (adults vs. children), inconclusive evidence regarding language status (monolingual vs. bilingual), and weak evidence for the absence of differences by type of bilingualism (simultaneous vs. successive). Our results demonstrate that adult-like performance may not be expected in monolingual preschool children when explicit L1 vowel perception tasks are used. In contrast to some previous studies reporting monolingual-bilingual differences for certain vowel contrasts, the evidence for differences in vowel discrimination abilities between monolingual and bilingual preschool children in the present study remains inconclusive.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"238309261485878"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149185966","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Social Priming in L1 Japanese Speech Perception. 社会启动效应对母语日语语音感知的影响

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2026-10-12 DOI: 10.1177/00238309261489761

Naho Orita

{"title":"Social Priming in L1 Japanese Speech Perception.","authors":"Naho Orita","doi":"10.1177/00238309261489761","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00238309261489761","url":null,"abstract":"Research on social priming in speech perception has focused on Western contexts and typically examined aggregate effects rather than temporal dynamics. To address these gaps, we investigated how social primes modulate L1 Japanese speech perception over time using a visual matched-guise transcription-in-noise task. University students in the Tokyo area transcribed native Japanese sentences while viewing one of four visual primes: an East Asian face, a Southeast Asian face, a Black face, or an East Asian face with a Chinese name. Results revealed nonlinear learning trajectories, with accuracy improving rapidly in early trials before gradually plateauing. Across the full session, learning rates did not differ significantly across prime conditions, although a sensitivity analysis indicated that condition differences in improvement smaller than roughly 15 percentage points could not have been reliably detected. An exploratory split-half analysis revealed that learning rates differed across conditions during the first 20 trials, with the Black prime yielding the steepest early improvement. These differences had disappeared by Trials 21 to 40, and overall trajectory shapes did not robustly differ across conditions. This pattern is consistent with the account that, in L1 speech perception, socio-phonetic information carried in the acoustic signal overrides listeners' initial expectations about the speaker's social group membership derived from the visual prime and generates the testable hypothesis that social information primarily influences the initial phase of exposure, a phase that aggregate measures systematically miss.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"238309261489761"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149170220","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Speech Rhythm Perception in Japanese: Evidence From Sensorimotor Synchronisation With Connected Speech. 日语语音节奏感知：来自连接语音的感觉运动同步的证据。

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2026-10-08 DOI: 10.1177/00238309261493920

Tamara V Rathcke, Haruo Kubozono, Chia-Yuan Lin

{"title":"Speech Rhythm Perception in Japanese: Evidence From Sensorimotor Synchronisation With Connected Speech.","authors":"Tamara V Rathcke, Haruo Kubozono, Chia-Yuan Lin","doi":"10.1177/00238309261493920","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00238309261493920","url":null,"abstract":"The rhythm of Japanese has often been described as mora-timed, a characterisation that overlooks the richer prosodic hierarchy extending from the mora to the syllable, metrical foot and prosodic word. The present study examines rhythm perception in Japanese using a recently developed sensorimotor synchronisation technique. Forty native speakers of Tokyo Japanese participated in the experiment, synchronising in time with the beat of looped sentences spoken in their native variety. Analysing frequency, accuracy and stability of synchronisation, the study showed that the mora affected the perception of speech rhythm only indirectly, by shaping the structure of bimoraic metrical feet. The results suggest two core rhythmic domains in Japanese - the metrical foot and the prosodic word - whose initial elements attract rhythmic attention. This indicates a perceptual preference for a trochaic rhythm. The presence of a pitch accent enhanced synchronisation patterns observed within the domain of metrical feet, which signifies accentual rather than purely tonal perception of pitch accent. Given that the existence of a bimoraic foot unit in Japanese has been proposed based on a range of morphophonological phenomena, the present study is among the first to provide empirical evidence in support of the psychological reality of bimoraic metrical feet for Japanese listeners. We discuss these findings as evidence of a system of rhythmic constraints that is primarily edge-sensitive, with head-sensitivity playing a secondary role.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"238309261493920"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149139222","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Global Accentedness Across Bilingual Trajectories in Russian-Hebrew Bilinguals: The Role of Age of Onset of Bilingualism. 俄语-希伯来语双语者的全球口音轨迹：双语开始年龄的作用。

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2026-09-28 DOI: 10.1177/00238309261488035

Irina Rubinstein, Sid Gordon, Natalia Meir

{"title":"Global Accentedness Across Bilingual Trajectories in Russian-Hebrew Bilinguals: The Role of Age of Onset of Bilingualism.","authors":"Irina Rubinstein, Sid Gordon, Natalia Meir","doi":"10.1177/00238309261488035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00238309261488035","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines the role of age of onset of bilingualism (AOB) in shaping global accentedness in Russian among Russian-Hebrew bilinguals. All bilingual participants acquired Russian from birth but differed in the age at which they were first exposed to Hebrew, the societal language, forming three groups: BL-Early (Hebrew exposure before age 5; heritage-language speakers), BL-Late (Hebrew exposure between ages 5 and 13), and IMMControl (Hebrew exposure after age 13). These groups were compared with a monolingual Russian control group (MonoControl). Global accentedness, defined as listeners' overall perception of pronunciation differences based on segmental and suprasegmental cues, was assessed in Study 1 through ratings of speech samples by 20 monolingual Russian listeners. Results revealed persistent global accentedness across the bilingual groups, with differences associated with AOB, sustained Russian exposure, and Russian proficiency. Although earlier Hebrew exposure was associated with greater global accentedness at the group level, sustained Russian exposure and proficiency emerged as the strongest predictors of individual differences. In Study 2, qualitative interviews identified specific features underlying listeners' judgments, including rising intonation, inconsistent palatalization, and non-native fricatives and affricates. Together, these findings suggest that bilingual experience shapes Russian phonetic and phonological outcomes over the long term and that AOB onset establishes distinct bilingual trajectories, while sustained heritage-language exposure and proficiency more directly account for individual differences in perceived global accentedness.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"238309261488035"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149070587","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Accentedness and Comprehensibility in Second Language Cantonese: An Investigation of Mandarin Learners' Read Speech. 第二语言广东话的重音性与可理解性：对普通话学习者阅读言语的调查。

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2026-09-24 DOI: 10.1177/00238309261480025

Ziwen Pan, Yike Yang, Yue Zou, Dong Han

{"title":"Accentedness and Comprehensibility in Second Language Cantonese: An Investigation of Mandarin Learners' Read Speech.","authors":"Ziwen Pan, Yike Yang, Yue Zou, Dong Han","doi":"10.1177/00238309261480025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00238309261480025","url":null,"abstract":"Research on accentedness and comprehensibility has largely focused on nontonal target languages, leaving it unclear whether established predictors of these two constructs apply to tonal languages with complex tone systems, such as Cantonese. We investigated 40 Mandarin-speaking learners' read speech in second language (L2) Cantonese by combining native listener ratings with 58 candidate predictors encompassing acoustic, sociolinguistic, and auditory sensitivity measures in a single analytic framework. Generalized additive mixed models were used to capture potential nonlinear relationships between predictors and ratings. Results indicate that accentedness and comprehensibility were strongly correlated (r = .79), indicating substantial but not complete perceptual overlap. Greater rhythmic variability (VarcoΔV) was associated with higher ratings across both constructs, whereas higher pause frequency predicted lower ratings. With regard to accentedness, additional predictors included longer residence in Hong Kong, target-like formant values for certain vowels, and native-like tonal patterns. By contrast, comprehensibility was linked to more extensive use of Cantonese, more positive language attitudes toward Mandarin, earlier age of acquisition, stronger sensitivity to amplitude rise time (a measure of auditory temporal processing), and a few vowel- and tone-related measures. These findings extend the accentedness-comprehensibility literature to a typologically distinct tonal language and suggest that the relative contributions of acoustic, sociolinguistic, and auditory sensitivity factors to listener judgments may vary across linguistic contexts, underscoring the need to broaden current models of L2 speech learning beyond predominantly English-based evidence.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"238309261480025"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149041741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Stress-Induced Lengthening Outside Stressed Syllable Nucleus in Finnic and Tlapanec: A Challenge for Theory and Typology. 芬兰语和特拉帕涅克语重音音节核外的应力诱导延长：对理论和类型学的挑战。

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2026-09-21 DOI: 10.1177/00238309261473922

Natalia Kuznetsova, Oscar Cornelio Tiburcio, Hiroto Uchihara

{"title":"Stress-Induced Lengthening Outside Stressed Syllable Nucleus in Finnic and Tlapanec: A Challenge for Theory and Typology.","authors":"Natalia Kuznetsova, Oscar Cornelio Tiburcio, Hiroto Uchihara","doi":"10.1177/00238309261473922","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00238309261473922","url":null,"abstract":"The study addresses rare stress-induced lengthening outside the stressed syllable nucleus, especially in segments not adjacent to a stressed vowel. After a brief typological survey, we analyse two cases: post-stressed short vowel lengthening and consonantal gemination retention in Soikkola Ingrian and other Finnic languages (Uralic), as well as lengthening of pre-stressed short vowels and of consonants at stressed syllable onsets in Tlapanec varieties (Otomanguean). First, we evaluate phonological evidence for the presence of foot stress and word stress in each language, arguing that the lengthening results from stress rather than from a long vowel and that it occurs outside the stressed syllable rhyme. Second, we report a comparative phonetic study on Ayutla Tlapanec and Soikkola Ingrian. The findings indicate that short vowels and consonants lengthened under stress are longer than other short vowels and consonants in the analysed structures, mainly disyllabic and trisyllabic words. We also find that the Ayutla Tlapanec consonant lengthening is more phonetically evident than vowel lengthening and that it does not display stress-induced polysyllabic shortening effects in trisyllables compared to disyllables, unlike the vowel lengthening. Our results suggest that the theory and typology of lexical stress should regard a maximally trisyllabic window as the default potential stress-bearing unit.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"238309261473922"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149012997","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Production-Comprehension Asymmetry in the Processing of Multiple Adjuncts in Korean and its Psycholinguistic Implications. 韩国语多个辅词加工中的生产-理解不对称及其心理语言学意义。

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2026-09-17 DOI: 10.1177/00238309261477344

Yunju Nam, Soojeong Kim, Hyenyeong Chung, Upyong Hong

{"title":"Production-Comprehension Asymmetry in the Processing of Multiple Adjuncts in Korean and its Psycholinguistic Implications.","authors":"Yunju Nam, Soojeong Kim, Hyenyeong Chung, Upyong Hong","doi":"10.1177/00238309261477344","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00238309261477344","url":null,"abstract":"This study examined word-order preferences in Korean sentences containing temporal and locative adjuncts, focusing on the interplay between \"TIME-before-PLACE (TbP)\" and \"LONG-before-SHORT (LbS)\" preferences. While LbS is well established for Korean argument structures, its role in adjunct processing remained unclear. Experiment 1 investigated production via sentence elicitation with constituents of varying lengths. Results revealed a robust TbP preference (85%) dominating over LbS: 68% of sentences maintained TbP order even when locative adjuncts were lengthened-contrasting sharply with the 33% canonical ordering observed for lengthened arguments in prior research. This suggests that adjunct ordering is governed by semantic-structural principles rather than dependency minimization. Experiment 2 employed eye-tracking during reading. Neither TbP nor LbS independently affected reading times. However, a significant interaction emerged across go-past time, second-pass reading time, and total reading time. Processing difficulty increased when a longer constituent preceded a shorter one only under PLACE-before-TIME order; when TbP was maintained, SHORT-before-LONG (SbL) was preferred over LbS. Processing costs were greatest when both factors were simultaneously violated (Short PLACE-Long TIME condition). These findings demonstrate a clear production-comprehension asymmetry. In production, TbP dominance reflects semantic-structural organization prioritizing temporal framing before spatial specification. In comprehension, sensitivity emerges from the joint operation of two adjunct-specific principles: temporal adjuncts, as event-external discourse anchors, are processed most efficiently when sentence-initial, while locative adjuncts, as event-internal quasi-arguments, benefit from verb-proximal positioning. This contrasts with argument processing, where both modalities show consistent LbS preferences, revealing qualitative differences between argument and adjunct processing mechanisms.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"238309261477344"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148992457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Investigating the Comprehensibility Paradigm: Key Fluency Predictors in L1 English Speakers' Evaluations of Japanese Speakers' L2 English. 可理解性范式的研究：母语英语使用者评价日语使用者第二语言英语的关键流畅性预测因子。

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2026-09-17 DOI: 10.1177/00238309261477379

Dion Clingwall, Gavin Brooks, Jon Clenton

{"title":"Investigating the Comprehensibility Paradigm: Key Fluency Predictors in L1 English Speakers' Evaluations of Japanese Speakers' L2 English.","authors":"Dion Clingwall, Gavin Brooks, Jon Clenton","doi":"10.1177/00238309261477379","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00238309261477379","url":null,"abstract":"The present study investigates the relationship between first language (L1) and second language (L2) oral fluency and their association with comprehensibility in lower-intermediate Japanese learners of English, examining which L2 fluency features are most closely associated with L1 English listeners' comprehensibility ratings after accounting for individual differences in L1 fluency. Thirty participants completed parallel speaking tasks in their L1 (Japanese) and L2 (English), and speech samples were analysed for eight established utterance fluency measures encompassing speed, breakdown, and repair fluency. Inexperienced L1 English listeners rated comprehensibility, the perceived ease or difficulty of understanding a speech sample, on a 1,000-point continuous scale. Bootstrapped Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator regression and dominance analysis identified filled pause ratio, silent pauses within clauses, and articulation rate as the strongest L2 predictors of comprehensibility, together explaining nearly half the variance in listener ratings. Correlational analyses revealed moderate cross-linguistic links for pausing (r = .46-.51) and repair behaviours (r = .63-.80), suggesting that certain fluency traits, particularly repair behaviours, show cross-linguistic consistency. However, when both L1 and L2 fluency measures were included in regression models, only L2 features remained significant predictors, suggesting that listener judgements are shaped primarily by L2-specific speech behaviours rather than L1 speaking styles. These findings clarify the relationship between language-general and language-specific fluency traits, indicating that comprehensibility is most strongly linked to how fluently learners speak in the L2 itself, and illustrate the value of regularised regression techniques for identifying core fluency predictors in small-sample research.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"238309261477379"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148992385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0