Do proficiency and study-abroad experience affect speech act production? Analysis of appropriateness, accuracy, and fluency

This cross-sectional study examined the effect of general proficiency and study-abroad experience in production of speech acts among learners of L2 English. Participants were 25 native speakers of English and 64 Japanese college students of English divided into three groups. Group 1 (n = 22) had lower proficiency and no study-abroad experience. Group 2 (n = 20) and Group 3 (n = 22) had higher proficiency than Group 1 but differed in their study-abroad experience. Group 2 had no study-abroad experience, but Group 3 had a minimum of one-year study-abroad experience in an English-speaking country. They completed a pragmatic speaking test (PST) measuring their ability to produce two speech acts: requests and opinions. Speech acts were examined for appropriateness, grammaticality, planning time, and speech rate. Results revealed a significant effect of proficiency on appropriateness, grammaticality and speech rate, but study-abroad experience had no effect on these variables. There was no significant group difference on planning time.