Does Teaching Your Native Language Abroad Increase L1 Attrition of Speech? The Case of Spaniards in the United Kingdom

Robert Mayr,David Sánchez,Ineke Mennen

doi:10.3390/languages5040041

Robert Mayr, David Sánchez + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/languages5040041

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Abstract

The present study examines the perceived L1 accent of two groups of native Spaniards in the United Kingdom, Spanish teachers, and non-teachers, alongside monolingual controls in Spain. While the bilingual groups were carefully matched on a range of background variables, the teachers used Spanish significantly more at work where they constantly need to co-activate it alongside English. This allowed us to test the relative effect of reduced L1 use and dual language activation in first language attrition directly. To obtain global accentedness ratings, monolingual native Spanish listeners living in Spain participated in an online perception experiment in which they rated short speech samples extracted from a picture-based narrative produced by each speaker in terms of their perceived nativeness, and indicated which features they associated with non-nativeness. The results revealed significantly greater foreign-accent ratings for teachers than non-teachers and monolinguals, but no difference between the latter two. Non-native speech was associated with a range of segmental and suprasegmental features. These results suggest that language teachers who teach their L1 in an L2-speaking environment may be particularly prone to L1 attrition since they need to co-activate both their languages in professional settings and are regularly exposed to non-native speech from L2 learners.

Highlights

A growing body of research on speech development in early and late bilinguals has documented changes occurring in a speaker’s first language (L1) pronunciation that affect areas, such as vowels, consonants, and intonation patterns (e.g., (de Leeuw 2019; Fowler et al 2008; Mayr et al 2019; Mennen 2004; Nodari et al 2019))
The present study aims to contribute to this issue by examining the perceived L1 accent of two groups of native Spanish speakers in the United Kingdom: (1) Spanish language teachers, who use their L1 regularly in professional settings and frequently need to switch between Spanish and English, and (2) non-teachers, who virtually never use the L1 in the workplace, with the two groups exhibiting similar use of the L1 in social situations
The results suggest that being immersed in an L2-speaking environment can be advantageous for L2 speech learning, but reduced L1 use may increase the likelihood of L1 attrition

Summary

Introduction

A growing body of research on speech development in early and late bilinguals has documented changes occurring in a speaker’s first language (L1) pronunciation that affect areas, such as vowels, consonants, and intonation patterns (e.g., (de Leeuw 2019; Fowler et al 2008; Mayr et al 2019; Mennen 2004; Nodari et al 2019)). They may occur over time in proficient L2 learners who are long-term residents in an L2-speaking environment (e.g., (de Leeuw et al 2018a; Dmitrieva 2019; Mayr et al 2012; Ulbrich and Ordin 2014)).

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