BOOK OF ABSTRACTS - EUROSLA

quality of some of their vowels converges – they become more like each
other - suggesting that they have developed an accent which is, at least as far
as vowel quality is concerned, a characteristic of the group. The phonetic
features shared by the group members are considered in relation to the
phonetic features of their own pronunciation of their L1, Swedish, and to
those of GA and RP, two varieties to which the students have been
extensively exposed. However, most of the English the students are exposed
to is produced by their peers. It has been documented that learners who share
an L1 are likely to influence each other in their pronunciation (e.g. Jenkins
2002) and the notion of the importance of pronunciation for group identity
lies behind much classic and current sociolinguistic research. This study is a
description of some of the changes that these speakers make in their
pronunciation as they become a speech community in their second language,
English.
Jenkins, Jennifer, (2002). A sociolinguistically based, empirically researched
pronunciation syllabus for English as an International Language. Applied
Linguistics (2002) 23 (1): 83-103.
Accuracy and complexity in second language speech: Do specific
measures make the difference?
Nel de Jong 1 and Petra Poelmans 2
1 2
Free University Amsterdam, Fontys University of Applied Sciences
This talk reports on a new analysis of data from a previous study (De Jong &
Vercellotti, 2011). In that study we examined the fluency, accuracy, and
complexity of second language speech elicited by five picture story prompts
with similar narrative structure and storyline complexity in order to obtain
normative data for future studies. Participants were 23 high-intermediate
ESL speakers with various language backgrounds (n=25; age M = 25.8
years). Unexpectedly, we observed differences between the prompts in terms
of fluency but not accuracy and complexity. The fluency differences might
be explained by the greater inference required to understand some of the
transitions between the pictures. Therefore, it is likely that there should be
differences between the stories in terms of accuracy and especially
complexity as well. The fact that no differences were found may have been
due to the global nature of the measures: error-free clauses, error-free AS
units, clauses per AS unit, and words per AS unit (cf. Robinson et al., 2009).
The present study addresses two questions. First, do more specific
measures of accuracy and complexity reveal differences between stories?
Second, do the group data overshadow individual differences: although there
might not be significant overall differences between prompts, there could be
differences at the level of the individual speaker. To answer these questions,
we analyzed more specific measures of accuracy and complexity that were
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