Fluency across modes: an exploratory study of L1 and L2 spoken and written fluency




Mutta, Maarit; Peltonen, Pauliina; Laine, Päivi; Lintunen, Pekka

PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH

2025

International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching

International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching

1

30

0019-042X

1613-4141

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2024-0187

https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2024-0187



The article presents an exploratory cross-modal analysis of fluency profiles in spoken and written first (L1, Finnish) and second (L2, English) language production of the same language users. Our data come from two research projects, from which we identified 11 university students participating in both. The spoken tasks consisted of monologue picture description (analysed with Praat), and the written tasks were short argumentative essays (collected and analysed with keystroke logging software GGXLog). Based on commonly used measures to capture different aspects of spoken and written fluency, we used a set of 14 measures (seven for speech fluency, seven for writing fluency) to examine fluency across modes comprehensively. Four profiles were identified from the data: (1) fast and productive, (2) fast, (3) slow and productive, and (4) slow and reflective. Six speakers had the same profile in the L1 and L2, and seven writers had the same profile in the L1 and L2. Only one participant had the same profile in the L1 and L2 speaking and writing. The results suggest that the cross-modal differences are greater than the differences between languages. The modalities are inherently different, which is also reflected in individual variation between the modalities.



Funding source: Research Council of Finland

Award Identifier / Grant number: 331903

Funding source: Koneen Säätiö

Award Identifier / Grant number: 202102802


Last updated on 2025-19-02 at 12:25