USING TASK PRACTICE TO REDUCE SOCIAL INFLUENCES ON LISTENER EVALUATIONS OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACCENT AND COMPREHENSIBILITY

ABSTRACT This study examined whether task practice can reduce social influences (operationalized in terms of positive or negative social priming) on listener-based evaluations of second language (L2) speech. Seventy English–French bilingual listeners evaluated audio-recorded picture narratives made by 40 French speakers of L2 English for accent and comprehensibility. Before rating the narratives, 40 listeners engaged in task practice by completing the same speech production task as the L2 speakers in English (20) or French (20) and then experienced a social priming intervention (10 negative, 10 positive per group). An additional 30 baseline listeners evaluated the same narratives without engaging in any task practice and with either negative (10), positive (10), or no social priming (10) imposed. English task practice mitigated social influences on listener assessments of both accent and comprehensibility, but only under negative priming. Engaging listeners in task practice, particularly in their stronger language, can reduce social influences on listener-based assessments of L2 speech.