Language proficiency drives listening-related fatigue in those who communicate in English as their second language
Ronan McGarrigle, Jelena Havelka, Angela de Bruin · 2026
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Description
Ronan McGarrigle, Jelena Havelka, and Angela de Bruin survey second-language listening fatigue in a 2026 paper. People who listen in a second language suffer more in noisy conditions and spend more mental effort, yet the long-term cost was little studied. Their sample held hundreds of second-language English users, split by whether their first language was related to English or not.
Listeners from unrelated first languages reported the most fatigue. Self-rated and tested proficiency both predicted fatigue strongly. Heavy second-language use raised fatigue only when proficiency was low. The group gap was explained by lower proficiency scores, the authors' analysis suggests. They call proficiency the key lever.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Ronan McGarrigle, Jelena Havelka, Angela de Bruin |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 51 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |