The Social Environment of Second Language Listening: Does Status Play a Role in Comprehension?

Research in second language (L2) listening has focused on the factors involved in the process of listening and how variation in these factors affects comprehension. However, most of the research in listening has focused on the psycholinguistic dimension of listening. As a consequence, there has been very little research on the sociolinguistic dimension of listening, particularly status relationships. This article examines what is meant by the term “status” within the social relationship and gives a short synopsis of the research done so far on L2 listening factors. It is argued that because it has been shown that (a) the social relationship has an effect on language behavior, (b) the social relationship has an effect on conversational interaction, and (c) conversational interaction has an effect on listening comprehension, the social relationships in an interaction may have an effect on listening comprehension. Implications for theory building and the language classroom are suggested.