Variability in speaking rate of native and non-native speakers

Abstract

The bulk of the work on non-native speech has focused on average differences between L1 and L2 speakers. However there is growing evidence that variability also plays an important role in distinguishing L1 from L2 speech. While some studies have demonstrated greater variability for non-native than native speech (e.g., Baese-Berk & Morrill, 2015; Wade et al., 2007), others have demonstrated that under some circumstances non-native speech maybe lessvariable and that variability in non-native speech may shift as a function of many factors, including task (Baese-Berk & Morrill, to appear; Baese-Berk, Morrill, & Bradlow, 2016) and L1-L2 pairing (Vaughn, Baese-Berk, & Idemaru, to appear). In this study, we ask how variability manifests in L1 and L2 speech by speakers from a variety of language backgrounds. Specifically, we ask whether a speaker whose L1 speaking rate is highly variable is also highly variable in their L2. We also ask whether variability in speaking rate in L1 or L2 differs as a function of task (e.g., read vs. spontaneous speech) and complexity of the task (e.g., more or less complicated reading passages). The results of this study will inform our understanding of the myriad complex factors that influence non-native speech.