The varieties of English have led to the paradigm of Global Englishes, which describes the ideologies of English as a lingua franca (ELF) and World Englishes (differential uses of English internationally) in diverse sociolinguistic contexts. Global Englishes literature complicates intelligibility and comprehensibility since it tends to problematize “native norms” as the only benchmarks for successful lingua franca use. Intelligibility and comprehensibility studies have recently been concerned with the interaction between non-native speakers using English as a second language for communication. Thus, this paper critically evaluates research on intelligibility and comprehensibility of second language (L2) English speakers. It is observed that various speaker, listener, and contextual factors may affect intelligibility and comprehensibility. Based on the influencing factors, this paper also makes several recommendations for how intelligibility and comprehensibility can be improved. It is suggested that further research is needed for L2 instruction that may be promising for improving intelligibility and comprehensibility
