Additional info in speaker variety (p. 5 and 15)

[jvcasillas]

Reviewer comment:

The authors now include a lot more details on the listener and speaker dialectal variability and familiarity, but I still feel that this factor is not well integrated into the manuscript. Here my specific suggestions: The effect of “speaker variety” on perception accuracy is one of the three research questions of the study, but it is not mentioned in various places in the manuscript where authors summarize their goals. For instance, in p.5, l.5-13 (“we investigated the interplay [...] in L2 Spanish”) the authors include RQ1 and RQ2, but not RQ3. Or in p. 14, l. 815, where the authors state that they aim at extending previous research by considering empathy in L2 sentence processing, but they do not mention the speaker variability/listener familiarity effect.

@juanjgarridop could you look into adding a bit more info (perhaps a sentence or two) on speaker variety to p. 5 (lines 5-13) and p. 15 (line 815)?

[jvcasillas]

@juanjgarridop when organizing this it will probably be easiest if you use this proof for reference:

https://github.com/RAP-group/empathy_intonation_perc/blob/main/docs/manuscript/submissions/proofs/20221111.pdf

[juanjgarridop]

p. 5 (lines 5-13): Previous paragraph: The present study contributes to these lines of research by examining how individual differences in pragmatic skills affect the development of intonation during sentence comprehension. Specifically, we investigated the interplay between language proficiency and an individual pragmatic skill (empathy) when learning an L2. We focused on the role of empathy in the development of L2 prosody by analyzing the perception of intonation in questions and statements in L2 Spanish.

Edited paragraph: The present study contributes to these lines of research by examining how individual differences in pragmatic skills affect the development of intonation during sentence comprehension. Specifically, we investigated the interplay between language proficiency, an individual pragmatic skill (empathy), and speaker variety when learning an L2. We focused on the role of empathy in the development of L2 prosody by analyzing the perception of intonation in questions and statements in L2 Spanish. In addition, we examined whether speaker's dialectal variation in intonation affected how L2 learners of Spanish perceived questions and statements by including utterances of eight different varieties of Spanish.

p15. (lines 8-15): Previous paragraph: This project presents a conceptual replication of Brandl et al. (2020) in that we employ a similar experimental paradigm using similar stimuli in order to analyze the relationship between proficiency and L2 perception of intonation. We extend this research by taking into account pragmatic skill, specifically empathy, in L2 sentence processing. Importantly, this research builds on recent studies looking at the role of individual pragmatic skills in language comprehension and extends them to the field of SLA.

Edited paragraph: This project presents a conceptual replication of Brandl et al. (2020) in that we employ a similar experimental paradigm using similar stimuli in order to analyze the relationship between proficiency and L2 perception of intonation. We extend this research by taking into account individual differences in pragmatic skill, specifically empathy, and the role of speaker variety (i.e., dialectal variations in intonation) in L2 sentence processing. Importantly, this research builds on recent studies looking at the role of individual pragmatic skills in language comprehension and extends them to the field of SLA.

@jvcasillas are these edits enough? or do we need something else?

[jvcasillas]

I think this should be enough. I've just finished everything else. I will link the to letter to the editor in a bit so that everybody can take a look. We should be able to send this off (hopefully for the last time) by sunday. 👍🏼