Speaking anxiety and task complexity effects on second language speech.

Abstract

The association between speaking anxiety and L2 speech production, including L2 pronunciation, remains largely under-researched, especially in relation to task complexity. The present study investigates the effect of task complexity on speaking anxiety and their impact on specific dimensions of L2 speech production: speaking fluency (speed, breakdown, and repair) and accuracy (grammar, lexis and pronunciation); and global assessments of L2 speaking performance: accentedness and comprehensibility. Forty-two Spanish learners of English performed simple and complex versions of a monologic oral narrative task. The results indicated that task complexity affected learners’ anxiety levels and was detrimental to their L2 speaking fluency, pronunciation accuracy, and accentedness. Moreover, higher self-perceived anxiety was associated with lower breakdown fluency and less lexico-grammatical accuracy. Last, once the contributions of L2 proficiency and working memory were controlled for, anxiety accounted for a significant 13%–15% of variance in breakdown fluency.