Contributions of Linguistic Features to the Perception of Comprehensibility and Accentedness in L2 Chinese Read Speech

In this study, we examined the contributions of various linguistic features in L2 Chinese read speech to the comprehensibility and accentedness ratings by native Chinese judges. By transcribing the segment errors, tone errors, prosody errors, lexicon errors and grammar errors in the reading passage produced by intermediate and advanced learners of Chinese, we were able to tease apart different roles of these various errors in the perception of L2 comprehensibility and accentedness. The data from the reading passage shows that tone error is the most robust predictor of L2 Chinese comprehensibility and accentedness which are strongly correlated with each other as well. While this study seems to support Yang's (2016) speculation that the strong correlation between accentedness and comprehensibility is the product of mediating tone errors, it is expected that spontaneous speech should be used in future studies in order to further investigate the effects of lexicon and grammar, and that the distinctions of phonemic errors and phonetic deviations should be made in data analysis.