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  • Perceptions and utterance fluency in L2 French-preprint

    Rights statement: The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Language Testing, 33 (1), 2015, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2015 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Language Testing page: http://ltj.sagepub.com/ on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/

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How do utterance measures predict raters’ perceptions of fluency in French as a second language?

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

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How do utterance measures predict raters’ perceptions of fluency in French as a second language? / Préfontaine, Yvonne ; Kormos, Judit; Johnson, Daniel Ezra.
In: Language Testing, Vol. 33, No. 1, 01.2016, p. 53-73.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

Harvard

Préfontaine, Y, Kormos, J & Johnson, DE 2016, 'How do utterance measures predict raters’ perceptions of fluency in French as a second language?', Language Testing, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 53-73. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265532215579530

APA

Préfontaine, Y., Kormos, J., & Johnson, D. E. (2016). How do utterance measures predict raters’ perceptions of fluency in French as a second language? Language Testing, 33(1), 53-73. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265532215579530

Vancouver

Préfontaine Y, Kormos J, Johnson DE. How do utterance measures predict raters’ perceptions of fluency in French as a second language? Language Testing. 2016 Jan;33(1):53-73. Epub 2015 Apr 20. doi: 10.1177/0265532215579530

Author

Préfontaine, Yvonne ; Kormos, Judit ; Johnson, Daniel Ezra. / How do utterance measures predict raters’ perceptions of fluency in French as a second language?. In: Language Testing. 2016 ; Vol. 33, No. 1. pp. 53-73.

Bibtex

@article{3352c1e70df3431897a51c4a7b215c85,
title = "How do utterance measures predict raters{\textquoteright} perceptions of fluency in French as a second language?",
abstract = "While the research literature on second language (L2) fluency is replete with descriptions of fluency and its influence with regard to English as an additional language, little is known about what fluency features influence judgments of fluency in L2 French. This study reports the results of an investigation that analyzed the relationship between utterance fluency measures and raters{\textquoteright} perceptions of L2 fluency in French using mixed-effects modeling. Participants were 40 adult learners of French at varying levels of proficiency, studying in a university immersion context. Speech performances were collected on three different types of narrative tasks. Four utterance fluency measures were extracted from each performance. Eleven untrained judges rated the speech performances and we examined which utterance fluency measures are the best predictors of the scores awarded by the raters. The mean length of runs and articulation rate proved to be the most influential factors in raters{\textquoteright} judgments, while the frequency of pauses played a less important role. The length of pauses was positively related to fluency scores indicating a prominent cross-linguistic variation specific to French. The relative importance of the utterance measures in predicting fluency ratings, however, was found to vary across tasks.",
keywords = "second language fluency, psycholinguistics, language assessment, fluency judgments, speech production and perception",
author = "Yvonne Pr{\'e}fontaine and Judit Kormos and Johnson, {Daniel Ezra}",
note = "The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Language Testing, 33 (1), 2015, {\textcopyright} SAGE Publications Ltd, 2015 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Language Testing page: http://ltj.sagepub.com/ on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/ ",
year = "2016",
month = jan,
doi = "10.1177/0265532215579530",
language = "English",
volume = "33",
pages = "53--73",
journal = "Language Testing",
issn = "0265-5322",
publisher = "SAGE Publications Ltd",
number = "1",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - How do utterance measures predict raters’ perceptions of fluency in French as a second language?

AU - Préfontaine, Yvonne

AU - Kormos, Judit

AU - Johnson, Daniel Ezra

N1 - The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Language Testing, 33 (1), 2015, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2015 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Language Testing page: http://ltj.sagepub.com/ on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/

PY - 2016/1

Y1 - 2016/1

N2 - While the research literature on second language (L2) fluency is replete with descriptions of fluency and its influence with regard to English as an additional language, little is known about what fluency features influence judgments of fluency in L2 French. This study reports the results of an investigation that analyzed the relationship between utterance fluency measures and raters’ perceptions of L2 fluency in French using mixed-effects modeling. Participants were 40 adult learners of French at varying levels of proficiency, studying in a university immersion context. Speech performances were collected on three different types of narrative tasks. Four utterance fluency measures were extracted from each performance. Eleven untrained judges rated the speech performances and we examined which utterance fluency measures are the best predictors of the scores awarded by the raters. The mean length of runs and articulation rate proved to be the most influential factors in raters’ judgments, while the frequency of pauses played a less important role. The length of pauses was positively related to fluency scores indicating a prominent cross-linguistic variation specific to French. The relative importance of the utterance measures in predicting fluency ratings, however, was found to vary across tasks.

AB - While the research literature on second language (L2) fluency is replete with descriptions of fluency and its influence with regard to English as an additional language, little is known about what fluency features influence judgments of fluency in L2 French. This study reports the results of an investigation that analyzed the relationship between utterance fluency measures and raters’ perceptions of L2 fluency in French using mixed-effects modeling. Participants were 40 adult learners of French at varying levels of proficiency, studying in a university immersion context. Speech performances were collected on three different types of narrative tasks. Four utterance fluency measures were extracted from each performance. Eleven untrained judges rated the speech performances and we examined which utterance fluency measures are the best predictors of the scores awarded by the raters. The mean length of runs and articulation rate proved to be the most influential factors in raters’ judgments, while the frequency of pauses played a less important role. The length of pauses was positively related to fluency scores indicating a prominent cross-linguistic variation specific to French. The relative importance of the utterance measures in predicting fluency ratings, however, was found to vary across tasks.

KW - second language fluency

KW - psycholinguistics

KW - language assessment

KW - fluency judgments

KW - speech production and perception

U2 - 10.1177/0265532215579530

DO - 10.1177/0265532215579530

M3 - Journal article

VL - 33

SP - 53

EP - 73

JO - Language Testing

JF - Language Testing

SN - 0265-5322

IS - 1

ER -