Investigating the relationship between L2 proficiency and Miranda rights comprehension: a partial replication of Pavlenko et al. (2019)

This is a partial replication of Pavlenko et al. (2019), who demonstrated that non-native speakers of English generally fail to comprehend a common version of the Miranda warning. The present study investigates whether this finding can be replicated with a different population of non-native speakers and a different measure of Miranda comprehension. Participants’ language proficiency and Miranda comprehension were tested with a standard elicited imitation test (see Akbary et al., 2023) that included embedded Miranda warning sentences. The results largely confirmed the findings of Pavlenko et al. while also suggesting that Miranda comprehension may be somewhat higher among the immigrant population in this study than in the population examined by Pavlenko et al. The results also showed a more predictable relationship between English proficiency and Miranda comprehension than was found by Pavlenko et al. We relate these findings to best practices in the assessment of Miranda comprehension by expert witnesses.