Tempo, information rate, and communicative efficiency in L2 speech
Ann R. Bradlow · ExLing Conferences · 2022
This presentation seeks links between speech tempo, information transmission rate, and communicative efficiency in conversations involving L2 participants. First, we show that L2 speech tempo is influenced by both “state” and “trait” characteristics. Specifically, while L2 speech is invariably slower than L1 speech (L1 vs. L2 “state”), within bilingual individuals L1 rate is a significant predictor of L2 rate (individual “trait”). Next, we show that the slower rate of L2 speech (fewer syllables/second) is compounded by lower L2 information density (more syllables/text), yielding a very low L2 information transmission rate (fewer bits of information transmitted/second). Finally, we show variation in conversation-based cooperative task completion time depending on the degree of language background overlap between task participants. Together, these studies provide a scaffold for eventually linking acoustic-level temporal variation to discourse-level communicative efficiency in L2 speech communication.