Support for cross-cultural communication
The project L2 COMMUNICATION (Fostering cross-cultural communication: Identifying the linguistic factors that promote comprehensibility in academic and workplace settings) adopted a comprehensive approach to identifying the aspects of second language (L2) speech most important for successful cross-cultural communication. The fields of L2 assessment and pronunciation were jointly researched and the findings disseminated to various stakeholder groups within academia and beyond, including to the media. Funding enabled the development and launch of the Second Language Speech Lab at the University of Bristol, a state-of-the-art research facility designed to optimise the collection and analysis of high-quality L2 speech samples. The Lab is a locus of research activities conducted in conjunction with Bristol's Centre for Assessment and Evaluation Research in Education, which facilitates community building and assessment literacy training through seminars, outreach and capacity-building activities. Together with spearheading dedicated graduate-level courses on teaching and assessing fluency and pronunciation in Bristol, the University is at the forefront of research and training in this area. Collaborative work resulted in the development of an empirically derived L2 comprehensibility scale to guide teachers' identification of the linguistic features most necessary for learners to speak comprehensible English in different educational settings. The original three-level global comprehensibility scale was the subject of extensive piloting throughout the course of the project. Other activities included peer review for Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) research grants, invited talks, workshops and plenaries at international conferences and higher education institutions, securing a contract for a co-edited volume on pronunciation assessment, and serving in an advisory capacity on external projects centred on assessing L2 speech. Overall, research findings confirmed that comprehensibility entails a wider range of linguistic domains than previously thought. Pronunciation and lexicogrammatical dimensions differentially contribute to comprehensibility ratings as a function of first-language background and task complexity. Project research addressed the pressing social-educational challenge of reducing language barriers. Findings will help improve the oral communication skills of newcomers and in this way also facilitate their social integration.