Framing second language comprehensibility: Do interlocutors’ ratings predict their perceived communicative experience?

Abstract

Comprehensibility has risen to the forefront of second language (L2) speech research. To date, research has focused on identifying the linguistic, behavioral, and affective correlates of comprehensibility, how it develops over time, and how it evolves over the course of an interaction. In all these approaches, comprehensibility is the dependent measure, but comprehensibility can also be construed as a predictor of other communicative outcomes. In this study, we examined the extent to which comprehensibility predicted interlocutors’ overall impression of their interaction. We analyzed data from 90 paired interactions encompassing three communicative tasks. Interactive partners were L2 English speakers who did not share the same native language. After each task, they provided self- and partner-ratings of comprehensibility, collaboration, and anxiety, and at the end of the interaction, they provided exit ratings of their overall experience in the interaction, communication success, and comfort interacting with their partner. We fit mixed-effects models to the self- and partner-ratings to investigate if those ratings changed over time, and we used the results to derive model-estimated predictors to be incorporated into regression models of the exit ratings. Only the self-ratings, including self-comprehensibility, were significantly associated with the exit ratings, suggesting a speaker-centric view of L2 interaction.