What influences the comprehensibility of L2 writers' opinion texts by L2 readers? Interactions between textual characteristics and readers’ profiles

Abstract

This study explored how L2 readers perceive the comprehensibility (i.e., ease of understanding) of L2 opinion texts in terms of reader profiles and text characteristics. We investigated how 100 Japanese learners of L2 English evaluated the comprehensibility of 16 variants of two opinion essays, which differed in lexico-grammatical accuracy, coherence, and rhetorical organization (inductive vs. deductive structure). To delve into the evaluators' backgrounds, exploratory factor analysis was conducted with a view to streamlining background variables. These variables were then compared through a t-test of two groups of readers identified by cluster analysis based on their degree of leniency or strictness. We further identified the influence of specific linguistic features on their evaluations by conducting linear mixed-effects analyses. Our findings reveal that: (1) Some L2 readers were significantly stricter than the L1 readers, whereas others were more lenient; (2) The lenient readers typically began learning English earlier, used it more extensively outside academic settings, and engaged more frequently in online communication compared to their stricter counterparts; and (3) Though disrupted sequences of ideas (coherence errors) were universally detrimental to comprehensibility, lexico-grammatical errors significantly impacted only the strict readers, not the lenient ones.