Fluency, prosody, and gesture

Journal of Second Language Pronunciation, vol. 12, pp. 271–297

Abstract

Abstract This article reviews previous literature on the concepts of fluency and prosody to examine how these two concepts interact in both foreign language (L2) learners’ productions and native speaker (L1) perceptions of L2 speech. First, it presents a comprehensive overview of prosodic features of speech that play a role in L2 production (utterance fluency). Next, it explores the relationship between perceived fluency and other perception measures known to be influenced by prosodic accuracy, such as accentedness, comprehensibility, and intelligibility. Finally, it examines the influence of embodied visual information (e.g., hand, arm, and head gestures or facial expressions) on the production and perception of prosody and fluency in the L2. As such, it contributes to our understanding of the interplay between fluency and prosodic accuracy in both spoken and multimodal communication, and informs L2 learners and teachers on the potential benefits of embodiment for L2 prosody and fluency.

Authors 1

1. Lieke van Maastricht corresponding Aachen

   Leiden University · Saarland University

   Affiliation as printed

   Leiden University

   Saarland University