Is L2 pronunciation affected by increased task complexity in pronunciation-unfocused speaking tasks?

Abstract

Grounded on the Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson, 2011), this studyexamines the effects of task complexity on L2 pronunciation accuracyand global pronunciation measures in pronunciation-unfocused tasks,and assesses the relationship between acoustic and listener-basedpronunciation measures. Eighty-two Catalan/Spanish learners of Englishperformed simple and complex versions of a problem-solving monologicspeaking task, for which the oral stops /p, t, k/ and vowel contrasts /i:/-/ɪ/ and /æ/-/ʌ/ were embedded in the lexical items used to perform thetask. Pronunciation accuracy was gauged through acousticmeasurements of laryngeal timing (voice onset time) and vowelcontrastiveness and nativelikeness (Mahalanobis distances), and nativespeakers’ ratings of comprehensibility and accentedness. Resultsrevealed detrimental effects of increased task complexity on theproductions of oral stops and speech comprehensibility andaccentedness; however, no consistent task complexity effects werefound on vowel accuracy. The analysis also revealed an associationbetween segmental accuracy and global dimensions of L2 speech.