<b>The role of working memory capacity in the development of L2 speech production</b><br>DOI:10.5007/2175-8026.2011n60p075

Weissheimer, Janaina · 2011 · Crossref

DOI: 10.5007/2175-8026.2011n60p075

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Summary

This study investigates the relationship between working memory capacity and the development of second language (L2) speech production over time. Motivated by the theoretical view that working memory acts as a cognitive constraint on L2 acquisition, the research addresses whether working memory capacity changes during L2 development and how it influences specific aspects of speech, such as fluency, accuracy, complexity, and lexical density. The author tests the hypothesis that working memory scores vary across testing phases and that these variations predict L2 speech development differently for individuals with high versus low working memory spans. The study employed a longitudinal, quantitative design involving 45 intermediate-level undergraduate students at the Universidade Federal da Bahia, divided into lower-span and higher-span groups based on initial working memory scores. Data were collected in two phases separated by a twelve-week interval. Participants completed an adaptation of Daneman’s (1991) Speaking Span Test to measure working memory capacity and a speech generation task involving picture-cued narratives to assess L2 production. Speech samples were analyzed for seven variables: speech rate (pruned and unpruned), silent pauses, error rates, error-free clauses, subordinate clauses per minute (complexity), and weighted lexical density. A control group was also used to rule out practice effects. The results indicated that both lower- and higher-span participants improved in L2 speech production measures, including fluency, accuracy, and complexity. However, only lower-span participants showed a statistically significant increase in working memory scores between the two phases; higher-span participants’ working memory scores remained stable. Regarding speech development, higher-span individuals demonstrated significant gains in syntactic complexity, while lower-span individuals showed significant gains in weighted lexical density. The study found no significant practice effects in the control group, confirming that changes were due to development rather than test familiarity. The findings suggest that working memory capacity is not a static trait in L2 acquisition but interacts with proficiency levels. The author interprets the results through the "attention-view" of working memory, proposing that lower-span individuals improved due to better domain-specific strategies and attentional control, whereas higher-span individuals were already efficient in attentional control, leaving less room for measurable improvement in span scores. The Speaking Span Test appears to be a predictor of L2 speech development, specifically forecasting complexity gains for high-span learners and lexical density gains for low-span learners. This implies that working memory influences L2 development differently depending on the learner’s initial cognitive capacity, with high-span learners leveraging resources for syntactic elaboration and low-span learners focusing on lexical variety.

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• working memory