Results

The main research issue addressed was an attempt to quantify the effect on speaking rate of using an L2 in the oral presentation situation. Using English instead of their native language meant that all speakers had shorter run lengths and slower rates of speech. On average, using English slowed the speakers down by 23%. When using a second language, the participants in this study, though they were speaking about material they themselves had prepared and were fluent speakers of English, show the degree to which operating in a second language affects the cognitive processes underlying speech production.

The transcripts reveal that a number of the speakers did not know how to express some concepts in Swedish, indicating that they had not thought through their presentations before coming to be recording. This discrepancy between the two presentation situations is mirrored in real-life: speakers who must work in a second language are likely to practice ahead of time to make sure that they have command of the vocabulary and expressions they must use to communicate. If these speakers had been better prepared for their L1 presentations, even larger differences between L1 and L2 would have been found, so these methodological imperfections should not negatively impact the validity of the results.

This study might dispel any illusions that L2 speakers can manage to deliver the same amount of information despite their slower rate of speech in an L2. When time was not controlled, there were some differences in information content, but they were not large, indicating that the speakers were proficient in English and well-prepared for their task. When time was kept constant, however, the slower speaking rate meant that information was left out. The study has used the idea unit as a unit of measurement adequate to establish quantifiable differences in content. However, there are other differences between the presentations that would be trickier to measure. One of these might be the use of metaphor or the frequency of adjectives, aspects that add important detail for the listeners. Another phenomenon revealed by the study is that of domain loss in the first language. Though several speakers at times had to search for terminology in Swedish, one speaker, S7, was at such a loss to explain an American road race in Swedish that the information content of his L1 presentation suffered.