The Effects of Native Language on Requirements Quality

[Context and motivation] More and more often software development projects involve participants of diverse nationalities and languages. Thus, software companies tend to use English as their business language. Moreover, to better prepare for future jobs, students consciously choose university courses in English. [Question/problem] As a result there is an increasing number of software engineers who are working or studying in a language which is not their native language. The question arises whether native language has an effect on the quality of natural language requirements. [Principal ideas/results] From the analysis of the requirements formulated by 44 participants of our empirical study, it follows that native language may have a negative effect on requirements quality, e.g., ambiguity, variability, and grammar issues. Furthermore, different native languages might drive to different quality issues. [Contribution] In order to prevent quality issues, our findings might be used by educators to adjust their materials to cater to different language groups, while practitioners might use them to improve their requirements review process.