Second-Language Fluency and Person Perception in China and the United States

Abstract

The hypothesis that fluency of non-native speakers would affect how they were perceived by native speakers was examined. Speech samples were first collected from non-native speakers of Chinese and from non-native speakers of English. Each language sample was then rated for fluency, after which 110 native Chinese speakers and 114 native American English speakers rated the non-native speakers of the respective languages on seven personality scales. A multivariate analysis showed that more fluent non-native speakers of either language were perceived more positively by native speaking raters than less fluent speakers. Ratings were influenced by the order in which raters heard speakers. This was manifested by a main effect for order among American raters, and an interaction effect with fluency for both groups. The fluency of initially heard speakers appeared to establish a standard against which subsequently heard speakers were judged. These findings were observed using personality descriptors which have similar connotative and denotative meaning across the two languages, allowing comparability of results. Although findings were very similar for both groups, increases in fluency affected ratings more uniformly for Chinese than for American raters. Implications for contextual influences on person perception and social cognition are discussed.