Which segmental features matter for successful L2 comprehensibility? Revisiting and generalizing the pedagogical value of the functional load principle

Suzukida, Yui; Saito, Kazuya

doi:10.1177/1362168819858246

Cited by 52 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…To date, a number of empirical studies have extensively investigated how phonological information affects L2 comprehensibility judgments. For example, raters have been shown to pay selective attention to features such as segmental contrasts with high functional load (e.g., /ɹ/ vs. /l/ but not /s/ vs. /θ/; Munro & Derwing, ; Suzukida & Saito, ), prosodic accuracy (e.g., Isaacs & Trofimovich, ; Kang et al., ), and temporal fluency (Suzuki & Kormos, ). The amount of phonological influence on these judgments has also varied in accordance with nonlinguistic variables such as task demands (e.g., Crowther et al., ) and listeners’ familiarity with foreign‐accented speech (e.g., Ludwig & Mora, ).…”

Section: Background Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Multi‐ or Single‐Word Units? The Role of Collocation Use in Comprehensible and Contextually Appropriate Second Language Speech

Saito

2020

Language Learning

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The current study examined the degree to which collocation use (i.e., meaningful co-occurrences of multiple words) is related to first language (L1) raters' intuitive judgments of second language (L2) speech. Speech samples from a picture description task performed by 85 Japanese learners of English with varied L2 proficiency profiles were transcribed for 10 L1 raters to access for global comprehensibility (the extent to which speech can be easily understood) and lexical appropriateness (the extent to which words are used adequately and naturally in context). The samples were then submitted to a range of lexical measures tapping into the collocation (frequency, association), depth (abstractness), and breadth aspects (frequency, range) of L2 vocabulary use. Results of the statistical analyses showed that the raters' comprehensibility and lexical appropriateness scores were strongly determined by the L2 speakers' use of lowfrequency combinations containing infrequent, abstract, and complex words (i.e., mutual information).

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Section: Background Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Multi‐ or Single‐Word Units? The Role of Collocation Use in Comprehensible and Contextually Appropriate Second Language Speech

Saito

2020

Language Learning

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“…Finally, the relative weight of certain segments in communication between L1 and L2 speakers may also be of consideration in this respect. As shown for English by Suzukida and Saito (2019), the Functional Load principle (as applied to L2 pronunciation teaching by Brown, 1988) can be used as a tool to determine which segments are crucial for successful understanding in L1-L2 communication.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Gesture to Facilitate L2 Phoneme Acquisition: The Importance of Gesture and Phoneme Complexity

Hoetjes

Maastricht

2020

Front. Psychol.

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Most language learners have difficulties acquiring the phonemes of a second language (L2). Unfortunately, they are often judged on their L2 pronunciation, and segmental inaccuracies contribute to miscommunication. Therefore, we aim to determine how to facilitate phoneme acquisition. Given the close relationship between speech and co-speech gesture, previous work unsurprisingly reports that gestures can benefit language acquisition, e.g., in (L2) word learning. However, gesture studies on L2 phoneme acquisition present contradictory results, implying that both specific properties of gestures and phonemes used in training, and their combination, may be relevant. We investigated the effect of phoneme and gesture complexity on L2 phoneme acquisition. In a production study, Dutch natives received instruction on the pronunciation of two Spanish phonemes, /u/ and /θ/. Both are typically difficult to produce for Dutch natives because their orthographic representation differs between both languages. Moreover, /θ/ is considered more complex than /u/, since the Dutch phoneme inventory contains /u/ but not /θ/. The instruction participants received contained Spanish examples presented either via audio-only, audio-visually without gesture, audio-visually with a simple, pointing gesture, or audio-visually with a more complex, iconic gesture representing the relevant speech articulator(s). Preceding and following training, participants read aloud Spanish sentences containing the target phonemes. In a perception study, Spanish natives rated the target words from the production study on accentedness and comprehensibility. Our results show that combining gesture and speech in L2 phoneme training can lead to significant improvement in L2 phoneme production, but both gesture and phoneme complexity affect successful learning: Significant learning only occurred for the less complex phoneme /u/ after seeing the more complex iconic gesture, whereas for the more complex phoneme /θ/, seeing the more complex gesture actually hindered acquisition. The perception results confirm the production findings and show that items containing /θ/ produced after receiving training with a less complex pointing gesture are considered less foreign-accented and more easily comprehensible as compared to the same items after audio-only training. This shows that gesture can facilitate task performance in L2 phonology acquisition, yet complexity affects whether certain gestures work better for certain phonemes than others.

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“…Functional load is a measure of the likelihood that two sounds will be confused by listeners. There is compelling evidence that errors in higher functional load segmental features are associated with greater loss of comprehensibility, which in Section 2 above is part of the Intelligibility Principle Suzukida & Saito, 2019).…”

Section: Nativeness Intelligibility and Their Implications For Pronumentioning

confidence: 98%

Revisiting the Intelligibility and Nativeness Principles

Levis

2020

JSLP

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Levis (2005) named two conflicting approaches to pronunciation teaching, the Nativeness Principle and the Intelligibility Principle. This paper revisits those two principles to argue for the superiority of the Intelligibility Principle in regard to where pronunciation fits within the wider field of language teaching, in how it effectively addresses teaching goals, in how it best addresses all contexts of L2 pronunciation learning, and in how it recognizes the reality of social consequences of pronunciation differences. In contrast, the Nativeness Principle, despite its long pedigree and many defenders, falls short by advocating native pronunciation for L2 learners, which is both unlikely to be achieved and unnecessary for effective communication in the L2.

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Which segmental features matter for successful L2 comprehensibility? Revisiting and generalizing the pedagogical value of the functional load principle

Cited by 52 publications

References 73 publications

Multi‐ or Single‐Word Units? The Role of Collocation Use in Comprehensible and Contextually Appropriate Second Language Speech

Multi‐ or Single‐Word Units? The Role of Collocation Use in Comprehensible and Contextually Appropriate Second Language Speech

Using Gesture to Facilitate L2 Phoneme Acquisition: The Importance of Gesture and Phoneme Complexity

Revisiting the Intelligibility and Nativeness Principles

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