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Elicited imitation tasks (EITs) have been proposed and examined as a practical measure of second language (L2) proficiency. This study aimed to provide an updated and comprehensive view of the relationship between EITs and other proficiency measures. Toward that end, 46 reports were retrieved contributing 60 independent effect sizes (Pearson’s r) that were weighted and averaged. Several EIT features were also examined as potential moderators. The results portray EIT as a generally consistent measure of L2 proficiency (r = .66). Among other moderators, EIT stimuli length was positively associated with stronger correlations. Overall, the findings provide support for the use of EITs as a means to greater consistency and practicality in measuring L2 proficiency. In our Discussion section, we highlight the need for more transparent reporting and provide empirically grounded recommendations for EIT design and for further research into EIT development.

This study examines the impact of spoken data collection techniques and language background on falling, level, and rising tones. Elicited data from a Discourse Completion Task (DCT), structured speech from a collaborative oral assessment task, and naturalistic speech from a comprehensive corpus of inner-circle and Hong Kong English were analyzed for Discourse Intonation features, resulting in 2756 tone choices by 184 speakers. Multinomial logistic regression indicates that structured speech by L2 English learners and naturalistic speech by both inner circle and Hong Kong English speakers exhibited similar tone choice patterns. However, DCT responses by L2 English learners contained significantly fewer level tones and more rising tones. Qualitative analyses suggest that contrary to naturalistic studies, L2 learners use rising tones to focus their attention on the speaker during a request. L1 users, on the other hand, used a variety of tone choices that focus on language and mitigate directness. Overall, these results add further evidence that DCTs do not elicit speech that generalizes to naturalistic discourse. Structured tasks in which two L2 speakers interact mirror the rates of the inner circle and Hong Kong English speakers detected in this study.

English has become an international language (EIL) as speakers around the world use it as a universal means of communication. Accordingly, scholars have investigated different aspects of EIL affecting communicative success. Speech scholars have been interested in speech constructs like accentedness, comprehensibility, and acceptability (e.g., Kang et al., 2023). On the other hand, pragmatic researchers have examined lexico-grammatical features of EIL that contribute to first language (L1) English listeners’ perceptions of appropriateness in speech acts (e.g., Taguchi, 2006). However, little is known about: a) how appropriateness is perceived by users of EIL of diverse L1s and b) how those appropriateness perceptions are related to lexico-grammatical and phonological features. Therefore, the present study had 184 listeners (L1 = English, Spanish, Chinese, and Indian languages) evaluate 40 speech acts performed by 20 speakers (L1 English and Chinese, 50% each) in terms of appropriateness on a 9-point numerical scale. Results from linear mixed-effects regressions suggested that: a) listener L1 did not contribute to listener ratings and b) speakers’ rhythm and lexico-grammatical features (i.e., use of different pragmatic strategies) significantly contributed to listener appropriateness ratings. The findings provide empirical evidence to support the phonology-pragmatics link in appropriateness perceptions and offer implications regarding the operationalization of English interactional appropriateness.

Elicited imitation tasks (EITs) have been proposed and examined as a practical measure of second language (L2) proficiency. This study aimed to provide an updated and comprehensive view of the relationship between EITs and other proficiency measures. Toward that end, 46 reports were retrieved contributing 60 independent effect sizes (Pearson’s r ) that were weighted and averaged. Several EIT features were also examined as potential moderators. The results portray EIT as a generally consistent measure of L2 proficiency ( r = .66). Among other moderators, EIT stimuli length was positively associated with stronger correlations. Overall, the findings provide support for the use of EITs as a means to greater consistency and practicality in measuring L2 proficiency. In our Discussion section, we highlight the need for more transparent reporting and provide empirically grounded recommendations for EIT design and for further research into EIT development.

Much language attitude research has demonstrated that people make biased judgements based on speakers’ language choice and accent. However, the influence of occupational context on listeners’ perceptions of accented English is largely unknown. This verbal guise study examined the extent to which academic contexts and workforce-related professional contexts affect listeners’ judgements of accented speech. Results revealed that simulated contexts made a significant difference in listeners’ perceptual judgements, with speakers perceived as significantly more comprehensible and acceptable in service-occupational roles than in academic contexts. These findings suggest that listeners’ speech judgements can be heavily influenced by speakers’ situational contexts. The study also provides evidence in support of the fluency principle, showing that listeners may evaluate accented speech more negatively if it requires more processing effort. The findings inform the domains of linguistic stereotyping and listeners’ attitudes towards accented speech.

Despite the importance that learners must place on using prosody appropriately in EIL interaction, pragmatic functions of prosody have been largely disregarded in teaching materials and classroom instruction (Nikolić, 2018). Moreover, with a recent change in classroom paradigms instigated by the global development of educational technologies and reinforced by the recent pandemic, there is an increased need for pragmatic instruction that can be delivered to learners digitally and remotely (Taguchi, 2011b). Although distance learning has played an important role in English teaching and learning long before the pandemic, its impact is even more meaningful today, when English learners all over the world are still experiencing difficulties related to in-person instructional access. The current mixed-methods quasi-experimental dissertation study investigated the extent to which English learners’ interaction skills can improve as a result of contextualized prosody instruction on a web-based platform. Seventy-four English learners from China were randomly assigned to a two-week program that consisted of explicit pragma-prosodic instruction as well as perception- and production-based exercises. Learners’ use of prosody in requests before and after instruction was recorded through video-based role plays, analyzed acoustically, and evaluated for appropriateness, accentedness, and comprehensibility by 20 trained raters. In order to provide a complete picture of instructional effectiveness, the study accounted for variation in learners’ aptitude for acquiring prosodic properties of English by measuring their working memory, musical sensitivity, and auditory processing skills.The study results demonstrated significant changes in learners’ use of pragma-prosodic features of interaction after the training; however, these changes did not have an effect on listeners’ appropriateness perceptions, highlighting the complex nature of this construct that requires further clarification. At the same time, a significant albeit weak relationship was detected among listeners’ perceptions of accentedness, comprehensibility, and appropriateness. Finally, the results revealed that learners’ musical sensitivity, working memory as well as tone choice and prominence discrimination ability affected the success of the training in improving their use of pragma-prosodic features from the acoustic perspective. These findings provide important guidance for designing digitally mediated contextualized prosody instruction and help to better understand the role of learners’ aptitude in its effectiveness.