Fluency in Native and Nonnative English Speech

Abstract

This book takes a new and holistic approach to fluency in English speech and differentiates between productive, perceptive, and nonverbal fluency. The in-depth corpus-based description of productive fluency points out major differences of how fluency is established in native and nonnative speech. It also reveals areas in which even highly advanced learners of English still deviate strongly from the native target norm and in which they have already approximated to it. Based on these findings, selected learners are subjected to native speakers' ratings of seven perceptive fluency variables in order to test which variables are most responsible for a perception of oral proficiency on the sides of the listeners. Finally, language-pedagogical implications derived from these findings for the improvement of fluency in learner language are presented. This book is conceptually and methodologically relevant for corpus-linguistics, learner corpus research and foreign language teaching and learning.

Establishing the fluency gap between native and non-native-speech

“…However, it needs to be noted that the correlation is not very strong, suggesting the relationship between speech rate in L1 and L2 is not very strong either. As it was already observed, the available research studies have shown that speech rate is among those temporal measures of fluency which consistently correlate positively across L1 and L2 data (see the discussion of De Jong, 2009, 2013and Derwing et al, 2009, which is confirmed by our research findings.…”

“…The author himself and his colleagues applied it in their 'Ealing project' series of studies investigating the effect of task-design on taskperformance (Foster, 2001;Foster & Skehan, 1996, 2013Skehan & Foster 1997, 2012. More recently, the speed/breakdown/repair fluency distinction inspired a number of accounts following the CAF (complexity, accuracy, fluency) paradigm (Housen, Kuiken, & Vedder, 2012).…”

“…However, he also notes that, despite some overlap in pause patterns, overall, L2 speech is marked by a higher incidence of pauses and other hesitation phenomena. De Jong et al (2009, 2013 use automated speech analysis to investigate the relationship between L1 and L2 spoken performance. In their first study, De Jong et al (2009) note significant L1-L2 correlations for speech rate (r=.27, measured in syllables per second), length of pauses within and between utterances/number of filled pauses/words per second (from r=.52 to r.=.76) and phonation time (r=.64), but not for the number of silent pauses.…”

“…Götz (2013), in her book-length investigation of fluency in native and nonnative speech, uses the term 'productive fluency' which she equates with automaticity of speech production (p. 13). She further suggests that productive fluency is achieved through a range of processing strategies which include, among others, hesitations and disfluencies observable in a person's speech.…”

“…Along with accuracy and complexity of learner language (Ellis & Barkhuizen, 2005), speech fluency has merited considerable research attention and emerged recently as a one of the most reliable indicators of L2 proficiency and progress (Brandt & Götz, 2011;Bosker, Pinget, Quene, Sanders, & De Jong, 2013;Cucchiarrini, Strik, & Boves, 2000, 2002De Jong, Steinel, Florijn, Schonen, & Hulstijn, 2009, 2012Götz, 2013;Hilton, 2008;Osborne, 2007, Pinget, Bosker, Quene, & De Jong, 2014. Defined as observable, real-time speech behaviour, oral fluency is described and measured in terms of a set of temporal variables related to the speed of speaking, time filled with speech vs silence and the occurrence of hesitation and repair phenomena.…”