L2 Spanish Research Articles

Individual differences in foreign language attrition: a 6-month longitudinal investigation after a study abroad

ABSTRACT While recent laboratory studies suggest that the use of competing languages is a driving force in foreign language (FL) attrition (i.e. forgetting), research on “real” attriters has failed to demonstrate such a relationship. We addressed this issue in a large-scale longitudinal study, following German students throughout a study abroad in Spain and their first six months back in Germany. Monthly, percentage-based frequency of use measures enabled a fine-grained description of language use. L3 Spanish forgetting rates were indeed predicted by the quantity and quality of Spanish use, and correlated negatively with L1 German and positively with L2 English letter fluency. Attrition rates were furthermore influenced by prior Spanish proficiency, but not by motivation to maintain Spanish or non-verbal long-term memory capacity. Overall, this study highlights the importance of language use for FL retention and sheds light on the complex interplay between language use and other determinants of attrition.

Prosodic Marking of Object Focus in L2 Spanish

Abstract L + H* is used for corrective focus both in American English and Peninsular Spanish, but its phonetic implementation may still differ. Furthermore, features such as longer duration or relative F0 differences correlate as well with the realization of corrective focus in both languages. For L2 speakers, the acquisition of these form-meaning associations may be constrained by patterns of transfer from the L1, universal tendencies such as the use of default intonational patterns, or development of the L2 grammar. We analyzed four acoustic features (i.e., peak alignment, pitch scaling, relative F0, and duration) as manifested in informational and corrective object focus statements elicited from 10 native Spanish speakers and 10 English-speaking learners of Spanish through a question-and-answer pairs task. Our findings reveal that while learners of Spanish can adjust the phonetic implementation of focal accents towards the target (e.g., producing earlier peaks and longer stressed vowels), L1 English features (e.g., wider pitch scaling and smaller relative F0 differences) are also manifested in their production. We discuss these findings in connection with Mennen, Ineke. 2015. Beyond segments: Towards a L2 intonation learning theory. In Elisabeth Delais-Roussarie, Mathieu Avanzi & Sophie Herment (eds.), Prosody and languages in contact, 171–188. Berlin: Springer. L2 Intonation Learning theory as well as previous studies in an effort to improve understanding of the constraining factors in the development of L2 intonational grammars.

Creaky Voice and Prosodic Boundaries in Spanish: An Acoustic Study

Abstract This study investigates vocalic creak in connection to the demarcation of prosodic boundaries in Spanish. Data from a picture task from 10 native Spanish speakers from diverse dialects was examined word-medially and word-finally. A total of 800 vowels were analyzed acoustically to determine if they involved creak; duration of creak relative to vowel duration was also recorded. The role of prosodic context, vowel quality and gender were examined. Our results show that creak is one of the cues that signals the end of prosodic constituents, particularly at higher prosodic levels: it averages 64% of realizations word-finally, but only 4% medially; and it is more pervasive in higher prosodic domains. Creak is more likely in males than females (80 vs. 53%), and vowel quality has no effect on creak word-finally, although word-medially /a/ is more frequently creaked than other vowels. We discuss the implications of our results in comparison with previous studies on creaky voice in Spanish and English, in particular Garellek, Marc & Patricia Keating. 2015. Phrase-final creak: Articulation, acoustics, and distribution. In Paper presented at the 89th meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Portland, Oregon, 8–11 January, which report a higher rate of creak for Mexican Spanish females compared to males utterance-finally, and Kim, Ji Young. 2017. Voice quality transfer in the production of Spanish heritage speakers and English L2 learners of Spanish. Silvia Perpiñán. In David Heap, Itziri Moreno-Villamar & Adriana Soto-Corominas (eds.), Selected papers from the 44th linguistic symposium on romance languages (LSRL), 191–207. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, which found creaky voice utterance-finally in L2 Spanish and heritage Spanish speakers, but not in L1 Spanish participants.

La adquisición de las combinaciones en español L3: El desarrollo en contextos multilingües

There has been little research on the acquisition of Spanish collocation, particularly concerning collocation combinations in a multilingual context. Therefore, this corpus-based study attempted to provide new insights for learning Spanish collocation. The research questions are: (1) What are the usage and error tendencies in acquiring Spanish combinations by learners of L3 Spanish? (2) How do the contrasts between L3 Spanish and the learners’ prior languages (L1 Chinese and L2 English) play a role in acquiring L3 Spanish collocation? The results showed a developmental sequence moving from N-Adj, V-N, to Adj-N combinations. Furthermore, the results of the qualitative analysis suggested that most errors were associated with the learners’ L1 (Chinese) and L2 (English). On the other hand, lexical errors might be attributed to the formal similarity between L2 English and L3 Spanish and the meaning transfer between Chinese (L1) and English (L2). Finally, the analysis suggested the similarity among the three languages in form, and the connections among the linguistic features played an essential role in learning L3 Spanish combinations.

Using instructor judgment, learner corpora, and DIF to develop a placement test for Spanish L2 and heritage learners

This study details the development of a local test designed to place university Spanish students ( n = 719) into one of the four different course levels and to distinguish between traditional L2 learners and early bilinguals on the basis of their linguistic knowledge, regardless of the variety of Spanish they were exposed to. Early bilinguals include two groups—heritage learners (HLs), who were exposed to Spanish in their homes and communities growing up, and early L2 learners with extensive Spanish exposure, often through dual immersion education, who are increasingly enrolling in university Spanish courses and tend to pattern with HLs. Expert instructor judgment and learner corpora contributed to item development, and 12 of 15 written multiple-choice test items targeting early-acquired vocabulary had differential item functioning (DIF) according to the Mantel–Haenszel procedure, favoring HLs. Recursive partitioning revealed that vocabulary score correctly identified 597/603 (99%) of L2 learners as such, and the six HLs whose vocabulary scores incorrectly identified them as L2 learners were in the lowest placement groups. Vocabulary scores also correctly identified 100% of the early L2 learners in the sample ( n = 7) as having a heritage profile. Implications for the local context and for placement testing in general are provided.

Voice onset time (VOT) of L3 Spanish /ptk/ by multilingual heritage speakers of Ukrainian and Polish

This study provides an acoustic analysis of voice onset time (VOT) of voiceless stops /ptk/ in Spanish, produced by heritage speakers (HSs) of Ukrainian and of Polish who are English-dominant and beginner or intermediate learners of Spanish as a third language (L3). Given that both Ukrainian and Polish, like Spanish and unlike English, are characterized by short-lag VOT, data were collected from six Ukrainian HSs and 11 Polish HSs in their heritage language (HL), in English, and in Spanish to compare potential effects of the HL on L3 VOT production. VOT was analyzed in three task types. The goals were: 1) to determine whether VOT values produced in Spanish by Ukrainian and Polish HSs are more reflective of VOTs in the HL or in English, and 2) to determine the effect of task type on VOT. Data show that Ukrainian and Polish HSs’ VOTs in Spanish are shorter than those of L2 Spanish learners whose L1 is English, indicating a HL rather than dominant language influence on L3 VOT. Results suggest that the most crucial factors in L3 phonological acquisition are: 1) structural similarity between HL and L3, and 2) L3 proficiency (not language dominance). VOT was also affected by task type: like L1 Spanish speakers, VOT of Ukrainian HSs increases as task formality increases. This paper fills research gaps in HL and L3 phonetics/phonology as to the effects of a HL on the acquisition of subsequent sound systems in adulthood.

The Role of Task Complexity and Dominant Articulatory Routines in the Acquisition of L3 Spanish

Many studies in L3 phonetics and phonology have found that language dominance plays an influential role in determining the source of transfer. However, any effect of language dominance is likely dependent on many factors, including task complexity. As complexity increases, learners should be increasingly likely to rely on the more automatic articulatory routines from their dominant language. We tested this hypothesis by examining the production patterns of L1 Mandarin–L2 English–L3 Spanish speakers acquiring the Spanish tap and trill, performing a less complex word-reading task and a more complex sentence reading task. The results of the former were reported in a previous study, revealing that the speakers transferred the L2 English [ɹ] and [ɾ] to some extent when acquiring the Spanish rhotics. We hypothesized that such transfer would be less prevalent in the same speakers performing the sentence reading task. The results revealed some support for the hypothesis. Transfer of L2 [ɾ] decreased in the sentence reading task, as did transfer of L2 [ɾ] (in trill productions). L2 [ɹ] substitutes did not vary with task. The results highlight that transfer from previous languages is partially dependent on task. Future work should establish when and to what extent language dominance influences the source of transfer.

“Are There Any Mexicans Listening?” Stancetaking and Language Ideologies in a Spanish L2 Classroom

AbstractThis study investigated classroom interaction through the framework of stancetaking (Du Bois, 2007) to understand how Spanish second language (L2) learners positioned themselves when participating in communicative language learning activities. Data came from transcribed audio and video recordings of three 90‐minute lessons in one intermediate‐level U.S. high school Spanish class. We examined how the students indexed epistemic stances toward their grammar explanations, and affective and evaluative stances toward the Spanish language and native (L1) Spanish speakers during peer interaction. Despite the burgeoning Spanish‐speaking community near where the data were collected, L2 learners’ linguistic practices indexed stances of expertise regarding their knowledge of Spanish grammar and vocabulary rather than their potential to meaningfully interact with the people who lived and worked in their community. In addition, some indexed negative affective and evaluative stances toward L1 Spanish speakers. Findings signal the need to examine how target‐language speakers are positioned in classroom practices.

Consequences of the comparative fallacy for the acquisition of grammatical aspect in Spanish

Abstract This paper tackles the usefulness of comparing L2 learners against native speakers in empirical SLA studies focusing on grammatical aspect. Adapting the view that interlanguage grammars should be analysed in their own right instead of as a deficient form of the target, we show that expressing perspectivity (fulfilled by grammatical aspect markers) methodologically complicates the analyses of Grammaticality Judgment Tasks in aspect studies. For Spanish past tenses, we show that especially with items constructed as allegedly ungrammatical natives behave heterogeneously. This casts doubt on the question whether these data can be used as a baseline against which learners’ data could be compared. By analysing the interlanguage separately (not only in comparison to the controls), our findings among German learners of L2 Spanish suggest the use of the forms depends essentially on temporal markers which can be related to both their L1 lacking grammatical aspect and the pedagogical input. Crucially, though the interlanguage does not match the target (i.e., past tenses do not necessarily correlate with aspectuality), the systems are not chaotic but follow well-defined rules.

Conversation and transcription activities with synchronous video computer-mediated communication: A classroom investigation

As much second language (L2) teaching and learning continues to move online, teachers are increasingly seeking out creative ways to integrate synchronous video computer-mediated communication (SVCMC) technologies such as Zoom and Skype with other types of activities. The current study investigates this issue by exploring pedagogical activities used in a university's existing L2 Spanish program, as it instituted a requirement for its L2 learners to engage in SVCMC conversations. In the study, learners (N = 35) first engaged in SVCMC conversations with L1 Spanish speakers using TalkAbroad. Then learners completed a transcription activity in which they reflected on their conversations. Using a cognitive-interactionist approach, we investigate the L2 learning potential of these activities by examining: the types of focus on form that occurred in learners' SVCMC sessions; the correspondence between the SVCMC interactions and learners' transcriptions; and the relationship between students' interactions, their focus on form, and their transcriptions, when compared with students' self-reported noticing and learning of linguistic items. Findings suggest that SVCMC can provide opportunities for various types of focus on form that might promote L2 development. Transcription can also lead to self-reported noticing of L2 linguistic features.

Native Language and Second Language Convergence and Second Language Instruction Shape Speech-Language Performance in Adult Learners.

We examined native language (L1) and second language (L2) convergence of underlying skills in adult L2 learners as well as the contribution of instructional L2 level on L2 attainment across speech motor, lexical, and narrative levels. Thirty-four adult Spanish L2 learners who had completed at least 1 year of college Spanish participated in this preliminary study. Learners were tested at the speech motor, lexical, and narrative levels in their L1 (English) and L2 (Spanish). L1-L2 convergence was indexed by associative links between corresponding L1 and L2 skills. In regression analyses, the level of Spanish instruction at the time of the study was also considered as a predictor of L2 attainment across speech motor, lexical, and narrative levels. L1-L2 convergence was identified for some speech motor skills (distance, maximum speed) and for lexical skills but was limited for other speech motor skills (duration, spatiotemporal index) and for narrative measures. Furthermore, lexical and narrative measures, but not speech motor measures, showed improvements with Spanish (L2) instruction. L1-L2 convergence and instructional level are predictors of L2 performance in adult language learners. These factors play somewhat different roles across speech motor, lexical, and narrative levels, warranting further "all-system" research across processing and proficiency levels.

L2 Spanish vocabulary teaching in US universities: Instructors’ beliefs and reported practices

Studies on teachers’ beliefs about vocabulary learning and teaching have focused, so far, on English as a second language (L2), or foreign language (FL), in different contexts but little attention has been given to other L2s and FLs. In this study, 15 Spanish L2 instructors at large universities were interviewed in order to better understand where they stand when it comes to (1) the importance they give to vocabulary, as compared to grammar, in their classes, (2) how they decide which words to teach, and (3) how they assess students’ word knowledge. These interviews were subsequently analysed following Grounded Theory. Most instructors declared favoring grammar over vocabulary in their courses because the former is seen as more challenging and useful than the latter and because institutional practices and materials also present such a preference. When it comes to vocabulary selection, most of them declared feeling insecure in their decisions due to lack of access to useful resources and to vocabulary goals not being stated clearly anywhere in the syllabi. This lack of clarity when it comes to vocabulary learning goals also results in doubts about the usefulness of even evaluating word learning at all and an overreliance on informal assessments.

Oral Reflection Tasks: Advanced Spanish L2 Learner Insights on Emergency Remote Teaching Assessment Practices in a Higher Education Context

This paper reports on a small-scale study that is the first to explore Advanced Spanish L2 learners’ personal awareness of their language and culture learning through e-assessment tasks in an Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) context, mediated by five task-specific, individual spoken reflections. The value of reflection in education, particularly for L2 writing and distance learning, has been explored in different modalities, e.g., individual spoken reflection and group spoken reflection. Building on previous research, this study explores a group of advanced Spanish L2 learners (n = 25) reflecting on five multi-modal e-assessments through individually assessed oral audio-recorded post-assessment reflection tasks (n = 125). A thematic content analysis applied to transcriptions yields findings from a pedagogical perspective on language learning, completing assessments and personal affective responses. The learners’ candid and explicit orientations towards various types of multimodal language-learning e-assessment tasks offer instructors information on learners’ awareness of classroom-based assessment tasks being enablers for individual learning goals.

Does Medium – Teletandem vs Face-to-Face Make a Difference in Advanced L2 Spanish Learner’s Oral Fluency?

SLA researchers have advocated for the incorporation of Teletandem (a sub-strand of tele-collaboration) as an autonomous, collaborative, and virtual foreign language environment (see BENEDETTI, CONSOLO; VIEIRA-ABRAHÃO, 2010; TELLES, 2009) aimed to promote L2 communication and intercultural competence in L2 settings, and as an alternative to traditional Face-to-Face (FTF) exposure commonly used in L2 classrooms. While the majority of previous studies on Teletandem for L2 learning have mainly examined its benefits, focusing on the different approaches used by learners in this medium and proposing strategies on how to implement its context in higher education language programs (see CANDIDO, 2010; CAVALARI, 2010), a critical overview of Teletandem research reveals a paucity of empirically supported evidence for the benefits of Teletandem on L2 development. Specifically, no empirical comparisons have been conducted between this medium and traditional face-to-face (FTF) instruction in the L2 classroom. This paper addresses this issue and reports on an empirical investigation of the benefits of this medium when compared to FTF exposure in relation to L2 fluency.

Does um, the medium, uh, matter? Measuring Fluency through filled pauses in Face-to-Face and Teletandem communicative groups

The frequency of hesitational phenomena, such as Filled Pauses (FP) are inversely correlated to the perceived fluency of L2 learners (e.g., DERWING; ROSSITER; MUNRO; THOMSON, 2004; LENNON, 1990; ULLAKONOJA, 2008). The current study investigated the production of these FPs by 66 naive Spanish L2 learners with an L1 of English in two types of oral tasks and compared their frequency in regard to task type and whether they participated in Face-to-Face or Telecollaboration (Teletandem) communicative dyads. Results indicate that while the medium of the tasks did not impact fluency, the task type did.

The Distribution of Subjects in L2 Spanish by Greek Learners.

Our study examines the expression and position of subjects in L2 acquisition, two phenomena that are studied within the framework of the Interface Hypothesis (IH). The first version of the IH predicts that interface properties involving syntax and another cognitive domain may not be fully acquirable in a second language (Sorace and Filiaci, 2006; also Sorace, 2011). The second version of the IH predicts that formal properties involving the syntax-semantics interface are unproblematic to acquire in L2 grammars compared to the vulnerable properties integrating syntax with the higher level of pragmatics (Tsimpli and Sorace, 2006). We test these IH versions in L2 Spanish as acquired by L1 Greek speakers, a language combination understudied in the literature. Both languages share the null subject parameter, but still the IHs predict incomplete command at the syntax-pragmatics interface. Two acceptability judgment tasks were designed for Spanish: the first task tested null/overt subjects in referential contexts and the second task tested preverbal/postverbal subjects in informational contexts. Participants were L1 Greek intermediate and advanced learners of Spanish and native speakers of Spanish (15 subjects in each group). In the first task, both experimental groups showed target-like distribution of null/overt subjects in most non-contrastive and contrastive contexts, except for the advanced group in unambiguous referential contexts. In the second task, the respective groups accepted felicitous preverbal subjects with unergative verbs, but diverged from native-like distribution of postverbal subjects with unaccusative verbs in neutral contexts. The L2 groups showed a high preference for unfelicitous preverbal subjects with both intransitive verbs in informational contexts, contrary to the subject inversion patterns of the control group. The results obtained were not consistent with the IH predictions, and other factors such as the type of subject, verb class and context played a role in L2 performance.

Spanish L2 Chinese Learners' Awareness of Morpho-Syntactic Structures in the Reading Comprehension of Splittable Compounds.

Reading comprehension is never considered a simple task in linguists’ views as it requires a full set of linguistic knowledge, such as word decoding, understanding syntactic and morphological structures, and deriving proper meanings from these structures in a given context. Bearing the simple view of reading, the primary goal of this study is to explore whether the split presentation of Chinese splittable compounds influences the recognition of the compounds in second language (L2) Chinese reading comprehension, and how the reading skills, i.e., word decoding and linguistic comprehension, cooperate to complete this reading comprehension task. Splittable compounds (SCs) in Chinese are typically verbs composed of two constituents with limited separability. The separable property of SCs and their vague morpho-syntactic status are supposed to cause difficulties for L2 Chinese learners in recognizing the compounds. Especially for those whose native language manifests lexical integrity, the split presentation of the compounds may invite the L2 Chinese readers to process them with a mechanism different from that for their non-split forms. To the best of our knowledge, the efforts on investigating this issue are insufficient. In this study, 27 Spanish speaking L2 Chinese learners were invited to complete tasks including reading and interpreting 6 selected SCs in the split and non-split forms, rating their familiarities with each SC and reporting the syntactic category of the SCs based on their existing linguistic knowledge. The results, showed that the split presentation of SCs did cause challenges for L2 Chinese learners in recognizing the compounds in the reading process, regardless of their Chinese proficiencies. The L2 Chinese participants performed significantly worse in recognizing split SCs in salient Verb-Object structures than recognizing those in unsalient Verb-Object structures. These findings underscore the importance of linguistic comprehension in L2 Chinese in-text word reading comprehension and suggest words as the basic processing units.

Task anxiety, cognition and performance on oral tasks in L2 Spanish

ABSTRACT This article investigates the three-way interface between foreign language anxiety (FLA), cognition and performance in Spanish L2 oral tasks, and examines qualitatively the construct of task anxiety (TA) in relation to its three interconnected facets: affective, cognitive and behavioral. 51 low-proficiency university learners of L2 Spanish performed two narrative tasks manipulated in their cognitive demands. Results revealed TA negatively affected certain functions of learners’ L2 cognition, especially at the attentional level and in word retrieval, highlighting the important role of L2 self-esteem in oral production tasks. This study advocates for a pedagogical approach that implements both curricular and individual aspects from a task-based language teaching perspective. It further emphasizes the importance of raising awareness of the interrelated emotional, cognitive and performance dimensions of the L2 learner, and how these may manifest in TA during oral task performance.

Misunderstandings in Answering Negative Interrogatives in L2 Spanish by Chinese Learners: Pragmatic Interference, Classification and Analysis

The production of an L2/LE could be considerably influenced not only by the linguistic aspects (phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics) of the learner’s L1, but also the pragmatic knowledge. The answering patterns of negative interrogations of Spanish differ from several Asian languages such as Chinese Mandarin, which could cause pragmatic interference for native Chinese who learn Spanish as L2/LE. This study is aimed to compare the answering patterns in two languages and to analyze the potential pragmatic interference from Chinese L1 to Spanish L2/LE from pragmatic perspectives. According to our analysis, the Spanish answering pattern prioritizes the minimum cognitive processing effort, which could be described best by Sperber & Wilson’s relevance theory, while the Chinese answering pattern prioritizes agreement maximization and conflict avoidance in conformity with Leech’s politeness maxims. We classified the misunderstanding in Chinese learners’ L2 Spanish was caused by different answering patterns between L1 and L2 according to Hinnenkamp’s criteria and Oliviera’s guidelines. This type of misunderstanding was classified as type M3 which might disturb the conversation flow, cause negative impressions and require new specifying conversation. Further didactic-orientated analysis indicates that this misunderstanding is culturally related and could have been avoided with appropriate explications.

Native Dialect Influence Detection (NDID) differentiating between Mexican and Peninsular L1 Spanish in L2 English

The current investigation addresses a vital lacuna in forensic author-ship studies, and more concretely, in Native Language Influence Detection (NLID)research: narrowing down a speaker’s native dialect instead of only their nativelanguage (L1), which might not be enough when carrying out sociolinguistic pro-filing tasks. Native Dialect Influence Detection (NDID), the focus of our study,can thus greatly aid at the investigative level. We approach this topic by pro-viding a comprehensive analysis of linguistic features that serve to identify twonon-contact dialects of L1 Spanish (i.e., Mexican and Peninsular varieties) whendealing with data written in L2 English, which come from Tripadvisor. Our mainaim is to investigate if an author’s L2 features can point to their L1 native di-alect, rather than only to their native language. Findings point to L1 dialectaltransfer of punctuation signs, adjectives of affect, and intensifiers: these linguisticfeatures, even when expressed in an L2, show a culturally bound use. Addition-ally, we implemented an automatic classifier that achieved an accuracy of 69% incategorizing test data, using only linguistic features that have explanatory powerand can aid linguistic theory. This is key for explainability in the forensic con-text, which Native Language Identification (NLI) studies tend to neglect (Kingston2019). Results show that L1 Spanish dialects can be differentiated by analyzing L2English text, pointing to NDID as a fertile approach for narrowing down candidateL1 dialects of a language when analyzing L2 data.