Non-Native Raters and Native Speech: Other Perspective for the Research on Comprehensibility of Second Language Input

This study examines how specific variables such as age, first language, nationality, school grade and
socioeconomic status (SES) affect the comprehensibility of second language (L2) speech in 92 second/non-native
language learners. Comprehensibility refers to the degree of speech understanding. Fluency, rhythm, grammatical
features and word stressing are concurrent factors for the listening comprehension (and the listener comprehensibility )
mainly in L2 context. Research evidence focused the quality and differences of speech samples produced by the L2
learners and the comprehensibility rated by native speakers. In reverse scenario there is less evidence on the judgment
of L2 learners for speech samples produced by native speakers. In this study we analysed if the comprehensibility ability
of 92 young Portuguese L2 learners differ in the following conditions: age, nationality, home language, school grade,
proficiency and socioeconomic status. Speech (one text) was recorded by a native speaker and was judged by L2
speakers using 1-5 Likert scale for comprehension difficulty. Main results showed that neither age nor home language
had influence for comprehensibility, but socioeconomic, nationality and grades accounted for statistical differences
between the groups tested. Also, data suggested that phonetic features are more likely important for the beginner in
second language learning compared to the semantic features of speech that heavily depend on vocabulary domain.