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Speaking is a skill under time pressure. As nicely illustrated in de Jong (2014), when people participate in a conversation in a second language (L2), L2 speakers might very well follow the gist of the conversation and know what they want to say. However, by the time they have figured out how to use the appropriate words, structures, and sounds, the conversation may have often already changed topics. Compared to their first language (L1), people typically not only have less knowledge of their second language but also are considerably less fluent using the L2 knowledge they have (Segalowitz, 2010). Along with accuracy and complexity, fluency constitutes a crucial aspect of understanding L2 performance and proficiency (e.g., Bosker, Pinget, Quené, Sanders, & de Jong, 2013; Cucchiarini, Strik, & Boves, 2002; Housen, Kuiken, & Vedder, 2012; Iwashita, Brown, McNamara, & O’Hagan, 2008; Skehan, 1998). In particular, Iwashita et al. (2008) showed that fluency had a stronger impact on distinguishing overall levels of L2 speaking proficiency than any other linguistic features of spoken L2 production such as grammatical accuracy and complexity, vocabulary, or pronunciation.
Although the importance of fluency in L2 acquisition and education has been acknowledged by both researchers and practitioners, how to define the term has been an issue in the field partly due to its polysemous nature. Lennon (1990) points out that there are mainly two different ways the term is used. In the broad sense, it refers to global speaking proficiency, whereas in the narrow sense it relates to how easily and smoothly speech is delivered. According to Segalowitz (2010), even this narrow sense of fluency is a multidimensional construct and a distinction should be made among the three dimensions of fluency—utterance, cognitive, and perceived fluency. Utterance fluency refers to the temporal, pausing, and repair characteristics of utterances. Cognitive fluency is about the speaker’s capacity to utilize the underlying cognitive processes responsible for fluent speech production. In contrast, perceived fluency has to do with how listeners make inferences about the speaker’s cognitive fluency based on their utterances.
The purpose of the current study is to investigate the underlying mechanism of L2 utterance fluency and to understand what makes L2 speakers fluent. Based on the Segalowitz’s (2010, 2016) framework of...