The Handbook ofSpanish SecondLanguage Acquisition

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The Handbook of Spanish Second Language AcquisitionEdited by Kimberly L. Geeslin

The Handbook ofSpanish SecondLanguage Acquisition

Edited by

Kimberly L. Geeslin

This edition first published 2014© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataThe handbook of Spanish second language acquisition / Edited by Kimberly L. Geeslin.

pages cmIncludes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-0-470-67443-7 (cloth)

1. Spanish philology – Study and teaching. 2. Spanish language – Study and teaching.3. Second language acquisition – Handbooks, manuals, etc. 4. Education, Bilingual.I. Geeslin, Kimberly L., editor of compilation.

PC4021.H36 2014460.71 – dc23

2013018413

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: © Cristina VankoCover design by Workhaus

Set in 10/12pt Palatino by Laserwords Private Limited, Chennai, India

1 2014

Table of Contents

List of Figures viiList of Tables ixNotes on Contributors xiAcknowledgments xvii

Introduction 1

Part I Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to the Study of SecondLanguage Spanish 9

1 Corpus-based Research in Second Language Spanish 11Amaya Mendikoetxea

2 Functional Approaches to Second Language Spanish 30Eve Zyzik

3 Generative Approaches to Spanish Second Language Acquisition 46Jason Rothman and Diego Pascual y Cabo

4 Psycholinguistic Approaches to Second Language Spanish 64Margaret Gillon Dowens and Manuel Carreiras

5 Variationist Approaches to Second Language Spanish 80Aarnes Gudmestad

6 Cognitive Linguistic Approaches to Second Language Spanish 96Teresa Cadierno and Alberto Hijazo-Gascon

Part II Phonology in Second Language Spanish 111

7 Voice Onset Time in Second Language Spanish 113Mary L. Zampini

8 Speech Perception in Second Language Spanish 130Polina Vasiliev and Paola Escudero

9 Segmental Phonology in Second Language Spanish 146Manuel Dıaz-Campos

10 Suprasegmental Phenomena in Second Language Spanish 166Nicholas Henriksen

vi Table of Contents

Part III Developing Grammars in Second Language Spanish 183

11 Object Pronouns in Second Language Spanish 185Paul A. Malovrh

12 Grammatical Gender in Second Language Spanish 202Irma Alarcon

13 The Acquisition of the Copula Contrast in Second Language Spanish 219Kimberly L. Geeslin

14 Tense and Aspect in Second Language Spanish 235Llorenc Comajoan Colome

15 Subject Pronouns in Second Language Spanish 253Margaret Lubbers Quesada

16 Subjunctive in Second Language Spanish 270Joseph Collentine

17 Word Order in Second Language Spanish 287Cristobal Lozano

18 Meaning in Second Language Spanish 311Roumyana Slabakova

19 Language in Context 331Rachel L. Shively

Part IV Individual and Social Factors in Second Language Spanish 351

20 Ultimate Attainment in Spanish L2 Acquisition 353Silvina Montrul

21 Affective Factors and Second Language Spanish 369Dolly Jesusita Young

22 Study Abroad and Second Language Spanish 386Barbara A. Lafford and Izabela Uscinski

23 Heritage Learners of Spanish 404Kim Potowski

24 Comparing Second Language Learners to Other Populations 423Ana Teresa Perez-Leroux and Danielle Thomas

Part V Acquisition in the Second Language Spanish Classroom 447

25 Acquisition of Grammar by Instructed Learners 449Robert DeKeyser and Goretti Prieto Botana

26 Acquisition of Reading in Second Language Spanish 466Cindy Brantmeier

27 Acquisition of Writing in Second Language Spanish 482Marly Nas and Kees van Esch

28 Exploring Lexical Diversity in Second Language Spanish 498Gabriela Castaneda-Jimenez and Scott Jarvis

29 Teaching Pronunciation in Second Language Spanish 514Gillian Lord and Maria I. Fionda

30 Instructor Characteristics and Classroom-Based SLA of Spanish 530Laura Gurzynski-Weiss

Index 547

List of Figures

Figure 2.1 Form-meaning mappings in Spanish past tense (adapted fromSlabakova and Montrul 2003). 39

Figure 7.1 The classification of Spanish and English stop consonants (adaptedfrom Zampini and Green 2001, 25). 114

Figure 10.1 Idealized schematic representations of nuclear configurationsdiscussed in Simonet (2011) for declaratives: (a) falling (H+L*); (b)rising-falling (L+H*); and (c) straight-falling. Stressed syllables areshaded in gray. 176

Figure 17.1 Production of Verb-Subject order (adapted from Hertel 2003: tables3 and 4) 295

Figure 17.2 Acceptance of SV/VS in global contexts (adapted from Lozano2006b: figures 1, 2, 3, 4). 297

Figure 24.1 Core questions and relevant population comparisons emphasizedin the field of second language and bilingual acquisition. 432

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Clitic forms and functions 34Table 4.1 Examples of sentences containing violations of grammatical gender

and number agreement in one of two sentence positions 71Table 4.2 Examples of gender and number marking in Spanish, English, and

Chinese 72Table 7.1 Spanish stop phonemes 114Table 7.2 Mean perceptual VOT boundary for the /b ∼ p/ contrast (Zampini

1998). A positive value indicates a perceptual boundary in theregion of voicing lag; a negative value indicates a boundary in theprevoiced range 121

Table 9.1 Correlations of aggregate scores with achievement (from Gardner,Tremblay, and Masgoret 1997, 352) 151

Table 9.2 Spanish consonantal sounds 152Table 9.3 American English consonantal sounds 152Table 9.4 Sonority scale (adapted from Carlisle 2001, 4) 156Table 11.1 Overview of object clitic pronouns in Spanish 186Table 13.1 Stages of acquisition in VanPatten (1987) 221Table 13.2 Stages of acquisition from Briscoe (1995) 222Table 14.1 Explanatory variables in the acquisition of L2 tempo-aspectual

morphology 238Table 14.2 Findings from studies of tense and aspect in SLA and corresponding

principles for classroom practice (adapted from Blyth 2005) 246Table 17.1 Alternating and non-alternating verbs 290Table 17.2 Word order alternations with intransitive verbs 294Table 17.3 Acceptance of SV/VS orders (adapted from Lozano 2006a,

Figures 1–4) 296Table 17.4 Mean acceptability rates of wh- extraction (adapted from Figures 3,

4, 5, 7 and 8 in Montrul et al. 2008) 300

x List of Tables

Table 17.5 Summary of left dislocated constituents: Spanish CLLD vs. EnglishCLD 301

Table 17.6 Acceptability of clitic and cliticless CLLD and FF (Slabakova et al.2012: Figures 3 and 4, plus data provided by the authors) 303

Table 18.1 Mapping of sentence strings and meanings in a POS learningsituation 315

Table 18.2 Mapping between forms and meanings in Spanish and Englishaspectual tenses 318

Table 18.3 Mapping between forms and meanings in Spanish and Englishplural NPs in subject position 319

Table 19.1 Research on Spanish ILP in uninstructed settings 333Table 19.2 Research on Spanish ILP in instructed settings 335Table 25.1 Contextual features in Geeslin (2000) 457Table 28.1 Six properties of lexical diversity (Jarvis 2012) 505Table 28.2 Breakdown of participants per level 507Table 28.3 Measures of lexical diversity used in the present study 508Table 28.4 Group means for each of the seven measures of lexical diversity on

the narrative essay 509Table 28.5 Group means for each of the seven measures of lexical diversity on

the argumentative essay 509

Notes on Contributors

Irma Alarcon (PhD, Indiana University) is Associate Professor of Romance Languagesat Wake Forest University. Her primary research field is L2 acquisition of Spanishgender, with secondary interests in TESOL linguistics and heritage language learners.

Cindy Brantmeier (PhD, Indiana University) is Associate Professor of Applied Lin-guistics and Spanish in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures atWashington University. She is Co-Director of the Graduate Certificate in LanguageInstruction, Director of the Undergraduate Minor in Applied Linguistics, and Directorof Teaching Assistant Training.

Teresa Cadierno (PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is Professor of SLAat the University of Southern Denmark. Her research interests include instructed SLA,with a special focus on the acquisition of grammar by L2 learners, L2 input processing,the role of formal instruction in SLA, and applied cognitive linguistics, especially theacquisition and teaching of L2 constructions for the expression of motion events.

Manuel Carreiras (PhD, University of La Laguna, Spain) is the Scientific Director of theBasque Center on Cognition, Brain, and Language, and Ikerbasque Research Professorin San Sebastian, Spain. His current areas of research include reading, bilingualism, andL2 learning. To investigate cognitive processing and neural correlates in these areas, heuses advanced behavioral and neuroimaging tools.

Gabriela Castaneda-Jimenez (MA, Ohio University) was born in Aguascalientes, Mex-ico. In 2002, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship that allowed her to study in the US.Currently, Gaby is a lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at Ohio University. Herinterests include vocabulary acquisition, cross-linguistic influence, teacher education,academic writing, and heritage speakers.

Joseph Collentine (PhD, University of Texas at Austin) is Professor of Spanish andcurrently Chair of the Department of Global Languages and Cultures at Northern

xii Notes on Contributors

Arizona University. His research interests include the acquisition of Spanish moodselection, corpus linguistics, study abroad, and computer-assisted language learning.

Llorenc Comajoan Colome (PhD, Indiana University) is Associate Professor at theUniversity of Vic (Barcelona, Spain), where he teaches in the Department of Philologyand Language and Literature Teaching. He is also a member of the University Centre forSociolinguistics and Communication at the University of Barcelona. He has conductedresearch in SLA, educational sociolinguistics (longitudinal studies on the learning ofSpanish and Catalan), and language teaching (grammar, argumentation).

Robert DeKeyser (PhD, Stanford University) is Professor of Second Language Acquisi-tion at the University of Maryland, College Park. His main research area is the cognitivepsychology of second language acquisition, in particular the role of implicit and explicitknowledge, age effects, and other individual differences. More applied interests includecorrective feedback and the impact of study abroad.

Manuel Dıaz-Campos (PhD, The Ohio State University) is Associate Professor ofHispanic Sociolinguistics at Indiana University. He has published on the L1 acquisitionof sociolinguistic variables, sociolinguistic variation, acquisition of L2 phonology, andtopics in Spanish laboratory phonology. His research appears in notable journals suchas Language in Society, Probus, Lingua, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Spanishin Context, and Hispania, among others. He is the author of The Handbook of HispanicSociolinguistics (2011) and Introduccion a la Sociolinguıstica Hispanica (2013).

Paola Escudero (PhD, Utrecht University) is Senior Research Lecturer at the MARCSInstitute, University of Western Sydney, and Visiting Professor at the Cognitive ScienceCenter Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam. She specializes in multilingual speechcomprehension. Her current research also focuses on auditory and visual perception indiverse populations, including human infants, children, and adults, and zebra finches.

Maria I. Fionda (PhD, University of Florida) is Assistant Professor of Spanish at theUniversity of Mississippi. Her research examines second language online processingand acquisition of morphosyntax, particularly the role of general cognitive abilities inindividual differences in performance. She has co-authored research in variationismand grammaticalization that will appear in Linguistics.

Kimberly L. Geeslin (PhD, University of Arizona) is Professor at Indiana University.Her research focuses on second language Spanish and the intersection of SLA andsociolinguistics. She has published in Studies in Second Language Acquisition, LanguageLearning, Hispania, Spanish in Context, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, Journal ofApplied Linguistics, Linguistics, and Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics.

Margaret Gillon Dowens (PhD, University of La Laguna, Spain) is Associate Professorof Psycholinguistics at the University of Nottingham Ningbo and Director of the Centrefor Research in Applied Linguistics China. Her current areas of research include sentence

Notes on Contributors xiii

processing in late bilinguals and word and character processing in Spanish, English,and Chinese.

Aarnes Gudmestad (PhD, Indiana University) is Assistant Professor in the Departmentof Foreign Languages and Literatures at Virginia Tech. She specializes in SLA andsociolinguistics, and her research explores the intersection of the two fields. Hercurrent projects address issues pertaining to morphosyntactic structures (e.g., thesubjunctive-indicative contrast, subject expression, future-time reference) and includeexaminations of the relationship between native-speaker and second-language variationand interlanguage analyses of the acquisition of variation. She has published articles injournals such as Language Learning, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, and Studies inHispanic and Lusophone Linguistics.

Laura Gurzynski-Weiss (PhD, Georgetown University) is Assistant Professor of His-panic Linguistics in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Indiana University,where she focuses on instructed second language acquisition. Current projects includeinteraction- and task-based classroom research focusing on language instructor individ-ual characteristics and cognition in relation to task variables and corrective feedback.

Nicholas Henriksen (MA, PhD, Indiana University) is Assistant Professor at theUniversity of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He specializes in laboratory phonology and intheoretical issues of intonational structure, sociophonetic variation, and second languagespeech learning. He was previously affiliated with Northern Illinois University and theUniversity of Alabama at Birmingham.

Alberto Hijazo-Gascon (PhD, Universidad de Zaragoza) is a lecturer in the Schoolof Language and Communication Studies at the University of East Anglia (UnitedKingdom). His research focuses on Cognitive Linguistics and SLA, particularly in theareas of Thinking for Speaking in motion event typology (Romance languages and L2Spanish) and conceptual metaphor.

Scott Jarvis (PhD, Indiana University) is Professor in the Department of Linguisticsat Ohio University. His work has focused on cross-linguistic influence and lexicaldiversity, with a special emphasis on methodological problems and solutions. Amonghis better-known works is the book Crosslinguistic Influence in Language and Cognition,co-authored with Aneta Pavlenko and published by Routledge.

Barbara A. Lafford (PhD, Cornell University) is Professor of Spanish in the School ofInternational Letters and Cultures at Arizona State University. She serves as Editor forthe Monograph/Focus Issue Series (Modern Language Journal) and her current researchfocuses on the effect of context on second language acquisition and languages forspecific purposes.

Gillian Lord (PhD, The Pennsylvania State University) is Associate Professor of Spanishand Linguistics at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on second language

xiv Notes on Contributors

sound systems, with an emphasis on merging language theory with pedagogicalpractice. Her recent work has appeared in journals such as Foreign Language Annals,Hispania, and System.

Cristobal Lozano (PhD, Essex University, UK) is a senior lecturer in Applied Lin-guistics at the Universidad de Granada (Spain). He has published on SLA of Span-ish and English syntax, interfaces, and directs the on-going CEDEL2 corpus (Cor-pus Escrito del Espanol como L2) in the WOSLAC research team. Further details at:http://wdb.ugr.es/∼cristoballozano/.

Margaret Lubbers Quesada (PhD, Michigan State University) is Associate Professorof Spanish Linguistics in the Department of Romance Languages at the University ofGeorgia. She has investigated the acquisition of subject pronouns, tense, aspect, andmood, and gustar-type verbs in L2 Spanish and is particularly interested in SLA fromdiscourse-pragmatic and lexical-semantics perspectives.

Paul A. Malovrh (PhD, Indiana University) is Assistant Professor in the Departmentof Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of South Carolina. Workingin functional theories, his research focuses on form-function mapping in interlanguagedevelopment and task effects on L2 performance.

Amaya Mendikoetxea (PhD, University of York, UK) is a senior lecturer in EnglishLinguistics at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain. Her main researchinterest is the grammar of Romance and Germanic languages, especially Spanish andEnglish. She has published widely within the fields of theoretical syntax, descriptivegrammar, and second language acquisition.

Silvina Montrul (PhD, McGill University) is Professor and Head of the Department ofSpanish, Italian, and Portuguese and Professor of Linguistics at the University of Illinoisat Urbana-Champaign. She is founder and Director of the University Language Academyfor Children and Director of the Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism Lab.She is author of The Acquisition of Spanish (Benjamins, 2004), Incomplete Acquisition inBilingualism: Re-examining the Age Factor (Benjamins, 2008), and El bilinguismo en el mundohispanohablante [Bilingualism in the Spanish-speaking World] (Wiley Blackwell, 2013),as well as of numerous articles in journals.

Marly Nas is a senior lecturer with the Department of Romance Languages at RadboudUniversity Nijmegen, the Netherlands. She teaches Spanish writing skills and appliedlinguistics. Her PhD dissertation (forthcoming) focuses on the effects of peer and teacherfeedback on Spanish FL writing development.

Diego Pascual y Cabo is Assistant Professor of Hispanic Linguistics at Texas TechUniversity. His primary research interests lie in the area of formal approaches tosecond language acquisition and heritage speaker bilingualism. Diego’s work, which isapproached from a generative point of view, has appeared in several scholarly journals,proceedings, and edited volumes.

Notes on Contributors xv

Ana Teresa Perez-Leroux (PhD, University of Massachusetts Amherst) is Professor ofSpanish and Linguistics at the University of Toronto. Her research on the first andsecond language acquisition of syntax has appeared in 29 articles and 42 book chapters.She is editor of various volumes and journal issues and a member of the editorial boardof Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.

Kim Potowski (PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is Associate Professorof Hispanic linguistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research focuses onSpanish in the United States, including educational contexts such as two-way immersionschools and heritage speaker programs, and examinations of language, identity, anddialect contact among Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and ‘‘MexiRicans’’ in Chicago.

Goretti Prieto Botana is a graduate student at the University of Maryland and theDirector of the Spanish Writing Center at Franklin and Marshall College. Her researchinterests include grammar-related learnability issues, explicit forms of instruction, andtask-essentialness.

Jason Rothman (PhD, University of California, Los Angeles) is Professor of Multilin-gualism and Language Development at the University of Reading. His research focuseson child and adult language acquisition in monolingual and bi-/multilingual contexts.He is Editor of the journal Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism and of the book seriesIssues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics published by John Benjamins.

Rachel L. Shively (PhD, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities) is Assistant Professorof Spanish and Applied Linguistics at Illinois State University. Her research focuses onsecond language pragmatics and language learning in study abroad.

Roumyana Slabakova (PhD, McGill University) is Chair of Applied Linguistics atthe University of Southampton. She studies how adult learners acquire grammatical,discourse-related, and pragmatic meanings in a second and third/n-th language. Hertextbook on generative second language acquisition will be published by OxfordUniversity Press in 2014.

Danielle Thomas (PhD, University of Toronto) has taught linguistics and Spanish in anumber of undergraduate programs in Canada and the US. She holds a faculty positionin the Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics and is a collaborator in theCognitive Development Lab at York University in Toronto where she examines howage as a cognitive and contextual variable affects linguistic and educational outcomesof different bilingual/multilingual populations.

Izabela Uscinski is a doctoral student in Applied Linguistics at Arizona State University.She is interested in second and foreign language methodology and her current researchfocuses on the influence of teacher’s corrective feedback on the development of academicwriting of ESL students.

xvi Notes on Contributors

Kees Van Esch (PhD, Radboud University Nijmegen) worked at Radboud UniversityNijmegen, the Netherlands, in the areas of didactics, applied linguistics, and languageacquisition of Spanish. He has co-authored several course books for FL Spanish andcoordinated European Projects on learner autonomy and action research in FL teachertraining. He has also published on Spanish reading comprehension and vocabulary.

Polina Vasiliev recently completed her PhD in Hispanic Languages and Literatures atthe University of California, Los Angeles and is currently Visiting Assistant Professorin the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at UCLA. Her main area of researchis second language speech perception, with a particular interest in English-speakinglearners of Spanish and Portuguese.

Dolly Jesusita Young (PhD, University of Texas at Austin) is Professor of Spanish in theDepartment of Modern FL and Literatures at the University of Tennessee and Directorof the First-year Spanish program. Her research interests include language anxiety, SLreading, materials development, and hybrid language programs.

Mary L. Zampini (PhD, Georgetown University) is Associate Professor of Spanish atLe Moyne College in Syracuse, NY. Her research interests include second languageand bilingual speech perception and production, as well as issues of foreign accent andcomprehensibility. She is co-editor of Phonology and Second Language Acquisition (JohnBenjamins 2008).

Eve Zyzik (PhD, University of California, Davis) is Associate Professor in the LanguageProgram at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Her research applies usage-basedand functional theories to investigate the development of linguistic competence amonginstructed L2 learners and heritage speakers of Spanish.

Acknowledgments

Above all, I must acknowledge the hard work of the authors who agreed to contributetheir scholarship to this volume. Each one of them prepared a careful manuscript,responded quickly and constructively to feedback from several reviewers, answeredqueries regarding style and formatting, and did so in a timely manner. Without theirdedication to each of the individual areas of research included here, it would beimpossible to create a volume of this sort. One notes that the volume includes workswritten by internationally recognized scholars and rising stars alike, and each hasapproached this task with a willingness to meet the highest standards of writing andscholarship along the way. It has been a pleasure to work with each of them and I amthankful for the opportunity to become even more familiar with their work through thisproject.

As is true with any editorial project, the quality of the volume rests not only with theauthors but also with the reviewers who gave of their time and expertise to improvethe content, style, and presentation of each chapter. In nearly all cases there were threeindividual reviewers for each chapter and periodically a second-round review was alsoundertaken to ensure that changes met with the standards in the field. Each of thesereviewers deserves my thanks. I list them here in alphabetical order to acknowledgetheir important contribution to this volume:

Mark AmengualIrma AlarconBerit AronssonYuly Asencion-DelaneyDwight AtkinsonMelissa BaraltCatherine BarretteDimaris Barrios-BeltranSara BeaudrieRob BedinghausSilvina Bongiovanni

Harriet Wood BowdenAlan V. BrownJoyce Bruhn de GaravitoMonica CabreraMarıa Cristina CuervoAlejandro CuzaIsabelle DarcyGibran Delgado-DıazLaura DomınguezDorian DoradoMargaret Dowens

Peter EckeTimothy FaceStephen FafulasTanya FloresRebecca FooteDiana FrantzenLorenzo Garcıa-AmayaMariche Garcıa-BayonasJordan GarrettAarnes GudmestadLaura Gurzynski-Weiss

xviii Acknowledgments

Maria Hasler-BarkerNicholas HenriksenTammy HertelTony HoustonChristina IsabelliMichael IversonScott JarvisJill JegerskiTiffany JudyMatthew KanwitJason KillamErin LavinMichael LeeserXiaoshi Li

Shaofeng LiBret LinfordGillian LordCristobal LozanoPaul MalovrhMandy MenkeDiego Pascual y CaboLynn PearsonRosa Marıa Piqueres-GilabertMargaret QuesadaC. Sophia RammellClaire RenaudEva Rodrıguez-GonzalezRebecca Ronquest

Jason RothmanMarcela Ruiz-FunesElena Schoonmaker-GatesNaomi ShinRachel ShivelyCathy StaffordDaniel TightNicole Tracy-VenturaGabriela VokicMelissa WhatleyDaniel WoolseyDolly J. YoungMary ZampiniEve Zyzik

I will be forever grateful to Danielle Descoteaux for our initial chance conversationat AAAL in Chicago and her continued encouragement and guidance throughout theentire proposal and editing process. Her enthusiasm for this project, her expert advicein preparing the content of the volume, and her continued dedication to its success aremost sincerely appreciated. Likewise, Julia Kirk has been a constant source of helpfulinformation, practical solutions, and guidance throughout this process. Her positiveoutlook and attention to detail make her a pleasure to work with. Elizabeth Saucierhas answered questions tirelessly and guided me through the process of preparingand marketing this volume and I am extremely grateful for her assistance. She haseven allowed me to work with Cristina Vanko on the cover design for this book.When Cristina worked on her honors thesis with me on the role of graphic supportin vocabulary acquisition I knew that she was on the verge of an exciting career. Tobe able to incorporate her work into my own has been an absolute privilege. I amgrateful to both Elizabeth and to Cristina for working so hard to make this happen.Fiona Screen, who managed the copy editing, proofreading, and indexing, has workeddiligently to improve the presentation and clarity of this volume and to ensure its timelypublication. It has been a pleasure to work with her and I fully appreciate her attentionto detail, her patience, and her professionalism. There are undoubtedly many people atWiley Blackwell who have been essential to this process but with whom I did not workdirectly. I sincerely appreciate all of their efforts in the preparation of this volume.

As with nearly every project, there is one individual who has had an exceptionallyimportant role in bringing the volume to light – even greater than I initially anticipated.My research assistant, Avizia Yim Long, has dedicated hundreds of hours to every stageof this process. She has read every word of the manuscript and has assisted in everyaspect of the editorial process. Her intelligence, hard work, and positive attitude havehelped move this project forward at even the busiest times. I look forward to everyopportunity I might have to work with her in the future and I am tremendously gratefulfor her invaluable contribution to this volume.

In addition to acknowledging the important professional support I have enjoyedthroughout this project, I must also acknowledge several individuals who have also

Acknowledgments xix

provided the necessary environment and solid home base needed to bring this projectabout. I am especially lucky to have worked for two department chairs during thepast few years, Cathy Larson and Steve Wagschal, both of whom have demonstrated aconstant commitment to fostering research excellence. Their focus on faculty develop-ment and research productivity has created the most positive of work environments.Likewise, my colleague and dear friend, Manuel Dıaz-Campos, has encouraged andeducated me from the proposal stage to submission of the completed volume and I amespecially thankful for his presence, his support, and his wonderful sense of humor. Iam tremendously grateful for the constant support of my parents and my in-laws, whoask questions and even listen to the answers, and provide words of encouragement,both academic and otherwise. Over the years they have done some crazy things – likereading my dissertation, flying across the country to take care of a child (or two!) so Icould attend a conference, and listening to me give talks (even in languages they do notspeak) – and I am fully aware how fortunate I am to have them all in my corner.

In closing, I would like to acknowledge the support of my husband. There are twothemes that we have recently discussed at length. The first is that women in academiaappreciate the constant tension between demands at home and demands at work andit seems that this is simply the nature of being a working mother. I appreciate that heunderstands this, laughs at the chaos with me, and is willing to push me professionallydespite what the consequences may be to our home routine. The second theme is thatone of the most important qualities in a partner is not how they console you in defeat buthow they celebrate your achievements. There is no doubt that I am especially fortunatein this regard.

Introduction

One might argue that the field of second language acquisition is so new that it is onlyin the past fifty years that there has been sufficient empirical research to warrant avolume on the topic. Within the field of Spanish as a second language in particular,this timeframe is even more reduced, with only a limited body of studies on theacquisition of Spanish as a second language in existence as recently as thirty yearsago. This landscape has changed drastically in recent years. Presently, a quick search ofresearch publications on second language Spanish would certainly confirm an explosionof interest and high-quality research. In fact, a survey of the contributing authors tothis volume shows that interest in second language Spanish is a pan-national pursuit,extending well beyond Europe and the Americas to institutions from Asia and Australiaas well. The impetus for the present volume gains strength from the fact that theresearch produced on second language Spanish to date is now numerous enoughand broad enough to allow for generalizations across grammatical structures, learningcontexts, and learner characteristics. Likewise, this body of research meets with themethodological and theoretical standards that allow it to move the field of secondlanguage acquisition in general forward, adding new findings about themes such as therole of the first language in the acquisition of additional languages, the acquisition ofgrammatical structures that involve properties of more than one area of the grammar,the role of individual factors in the acquisition of a second language, as well as manyothers. In sum, this volume demonstrates both the breadth and the depth of recentresearch on the acquisition of Spanish as a second language and provides insights intothe latest developments in the field. Readers already working in the field will finduseful summaries and suggestions for future work. Those who are just beginning or arealready working in allied but distinct fields will find an accessible critical summary ofwhere the field stands today.

The organization of this volume also tells much about the field itself. Firstly, secondlanguage Spanish and the process of acquiring Spanish as a second language havebeen investigated from a variety of research perspectives. The first section (Part I)surveys the theoretical approaches in which the research to date is most numerous and

The Handbook of Spanish Second Language Acquisition, First Edition. Edited by Kimberly L. Geeslin.© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

2 Introduction

most widely read. This section is not exhaustive in the range of theories it covers butserves to demonstrate above all that there are several productive strands of researchon Spanish as a second language currently being undertaken. It is my view that onebenefits from reading outside his or her own theoretical framework and that in manyways these various approaches are complimentary, if not directly compatible. Thecurrent volume includes fields of inquiry such as Variationist approaches (Chapter 5,Aarnes Gudmestad) and Cognitive linguistic approaches (Chapter 6, Teresa Cadiernoand Alberto Hijazo-Gascon), which have seen a recent surge in productivity, as well asmore long-standing approaches such as Generative theoretical approaches (Chapter 3,Jason Rothman and Diego Pascual y Cabo). One notes that the term ‘‘approaches’’is employed rather than ‘‘theories.’’ This choice was made to reflect the fact that thetwo may overlap. For example, the chapter on corpus approaches (Chapter 1, AmayaMendikoetxea) includes work primarily from a Generative theoretical framework,yet this need not be the case, as data gleaned using these methods might also bequite compatible, for example, within a Functional framework (Chapter 2, Eve Zyzik).Likewise, one might use psycholinguistic research methods (Chapter 4, Margaret GillonDowens and Manuel Carreiras) to examine properties of interlanguage grammars undera range of frameworks. One central goal of this first section of the volume is to provide anaccessible summary of the most exciting and most current research conducted througheach of these approaches. These chapters serve to solidify the knowledge of expertsin those fields and to identify common ground across approaches that might lead toproductive collaborations in the future.

The second and third sections of this volume (Parts II and III), focusing on secondlanguage Spanish phonology and other areas of the grammar, respectively, continueto highlight the degree to which research across theoretical approaches can serveto reinforce findings and direct future research. For example, the chapter on subjectexpression in second language Spanish reviews research conducted under Generative,Functional, and Variationist frameworks and provides a critical assessment of howthis body of work as a whole, rather than individual disparate units, has guided ourknowledge of the acquisition of that structure to the present day. As is clear fromthe reviews in each of these chapters, the most fruitful directions for future researchtake into account the full body of research findings on a given structure, rather thanany theoretically limited subset. The reader will note that there are several chapters inPart II devoted to various areas of the second language sound system in Spanish. Itis a very exciting time to be researcher in this field, given that so much of the workin these areas has been conducted within the last decade. One might predict that thisarea will see exponential increases in the depth and breadth of our knowledge as newtechnologies continue to become more widely available and work on second languageSpanish reaches mainstream research on second language phonology. For example,not so long ago, research on speech perception (Chapter 8, Polina Vasiliev and PaolaEscudero) did not often include research on Spanish as a second language, but thisis changing and research on this topic will impact the field at large as we develop abetter understanding of how second language Spanish sounds are perceived and howthis develops over time. It is most certainly the case that a chapter on a topic such assuprasegmental features in second language Spanish (Chapter 10, Nicholas Henriksen)

Introduction 3

would not have been viable as recently as ten years ago. It is my hope that this andother areas of study of the second language sound system in Spanish continue toflourish such that several additional chapters would be necessary in a similar volumeten years from now. For example, our ability to group research on second languagesegments in Spanish (Chapter 9, Manuel Dıaz-Campos), with the exception of studiesof voice onset time (Chapter 7, Mary Zampini), demonstrates that there is quite a bit offuture research that remains. Thus, this section of the volume serves to review existingresearch, connect such studies to examinations on other second languages, and, mostimportantly, identify areas for additional investigations that move the field forward,both in depth and breadth.

The relatively limited research on the acquisition of the Spanish sound systemcontrasts sharply with the wealth of research and the strong research traditions presentin several areas of developing grammars beyond the sound system. In fact, structuressuch as the copula contrast (Chapter 13, Kimberly L. Geeslin) have been the focusof research dating back more than fifty years. Thus, several of the chapters in PartIII provide a brief review of early research so as to contextualize the most recentdevelopments, prior to turning attention to more contemporary work. As with othersections in the volume, the range of topics covered in Part III is not exhaustive.Some might argue – and I would agree – that important structures have been omitted.Nevertheless, the structures included in the present volume were selected becauseof both the depth and the breadth of research available as well as their relevance tocurrent strands of research. For example, research on grammatical gender (Chapter 12,Irma Alarcon) or on the use of object pronouns (Chapter 11 , Paul Malovrh) has along history in the field of second language Spanish, beginning at least as early asAndersen’s (1983, 1984) important research on adolescent learner Anthony’s acquisitionof Spanish grammatical gender during a two-year stay in Puerto Rico, and theirimportance continues to the present day. Likewise, recent research on the subjunctive(Chapter 16, Joseph Collentine) has been especially important for theory-building withinthe Variationist framework just as research on word order (Chapter 17, Cristobal Lozano)has had an important impact on Generative research. At the same time, research in thosetwo areas also lends important insights to other approaches. In contrast, structures thathave been investigated solely within a single theoretical framework, or those that havenot been heavily investigated in the most recent years, may fall outside the scope ofthe current volume. Other structures receiving intense but very recent attention, suchas forms of future-time marking (e.g., Gudmestad and Geeslin 2011; Kanwit and Solon,2012a, 2012b) do not yet have a large enough database to constitute a full chapter,despite their importance in the field in general. These limitations notwithstanding, thestructures reviewed in the chapters in Part III demonstrate that there are a handfulof areas of the grammar that provide excellent test grounds for hypotheses. Theserange from access to universal knowledge, the role of frequency in second languageacquisition, the role of the first language in the acquisition of a second, and so on.The chapter on subject forms (Chapter 15, Margaret Lubbers Quesada) provides anexcellent example of a structure that has been examined from a range of perspectives(Generative, Variationist, Discourse-Pragmatic) and has been used to test hypothesesranging from the role of the first language in second language acquisition to the degree

4 Introduction

to which acquisition of properties that lie at the interface between more than one area ofa grammar can be acquired. In fact, there is such a wealth of interesting research on theinterfaces between areas of the grammar taking place that this section includes researchon morphology, syntax, meaning (Chapter 18, Roumyana Slabakova), and pragmatics(Chapter 19, Rachel Shively) all in a single section in order to ensure the appropriateconnections can be made across areas and chapters. Similarly, current research on tenseand aspect morphology (Chapter 14, Llorenc Comajoan Colome) in second languageSpanish represents a field of research in which investigations of Spanish have joineda highly established body of work on second language English and served to test thegeneralizability of theories regarding the acquisition of temporal and aspectual markingmore generally. In other words, these chapters provide a critical review of researchthat stands to have an impact well beyond the field of second language Spanish.Additionally, they serve to highlight common trends across approaches and to fine-tuneour goals for subsequent studies.

The fourth section of this volume (Part IV) seeks to provide an overview of severalstrands of research that have investigated specific learner populations, specific learningcontexts, and the role that differences across learners may play in the process of acquiringSpanish as a second language. Chapters in this section address important issues suchas the role of age in second language acquisition and, more importantly, the abilityof adult learners to reach native-like competence in a second language (Chapter 20,Silvina Montrul), as well as individual characteristics such as motivation, aptitude, andattitude (Chapter 21, Dolly Jesusita Young). It is widely accepted that these learnercharacteristics have an impact on second language acquisition but these chapters serveto highlight the most recent research developments and identify the areas where morework is in order. Additionally, Part IV contains chapters that explore the role of thelearning context on the acquisition of Spanish as a second language. They providein-depth examinations of the impact of a study abroad experience (Chapter 22, BarbaraLafford and Izabela Uscinski) on developing grammars as well as the role of homelanguage environment (Chapter 23, Kim Potowski) and the differences and similaritiesthat exist between learners with such experience and those without it. Finally, the issuesof learnability and transfer (Chapter 24, Ana Teresa Perez-Leroux and Danielle Thomas)are examined through a comparative perspective in order to tie together research acrossfields of inquiry and contextualize findings on the acquisition of Spanish as a secondlanguage by adult learners. As with other sections in this volume, it will be clear that itis non-controversial that learner characteristics and learning contexts play a role in theacquisition of second language. Nevertheless, it is also apparent that a great deal morecan be learned about how such factors interact with developing grammars and whatadditional factors might merit future investigation. In sum, this too represents an areawhere future research stands to contribute greatly to the field.

The final section in this volume (Part V) contains critical summaries of researchon instructed second language Spanish. To be clear, this is a not a section on foreignlanguage pedagogy and the reader is directed to the many volumes on that topic thatalready exist. Instead, the focus in these chapters is on how certain abilities of learnersof Spanish as a second language develop in the language classroom. For example,the section contains a critical summary of cutting-edge research on second language

Introduction 5

reading (Chapter 26, Cindy Brantmeier), grammar (Chapter 25, Robert DeKeyser andGoretti Prieto Botana), and pronunciation (Chapter 29, Gillian Lord) in a classroomsetting. In each of these chapters, research on how second language learners of Spanishdevelop these abilities is reviewed and areas for future research are identified. In twosuch areas, however, so little research exists on second language Spanish to date thatthe chapters serve a dual function. In addition to summarizing existing work on lexicaldevelopment (Chapter 28, Gabriela Castaneda-Jimenez and Scott Jarvis) and writing(Chapter 27, Marly Nas and Kees Van Esch), respectively, these two chapters includereports of original research conducted by the authors themselves in order to stimulateinterest, provide a model of research to follow, and to demonstrate how the field mightmove forward. In the case of these two chapters, it was necessary to include a reviewof work conducted outside the field of second language Spanish because certain keyissues have simply not yet been covered for second language Spanish. In contrast to theareas of the grammar in Part III, which were selected precisely because of the researchthat already exists, these two areas represent such important areas of research in thefield of second language acquisition in general that to exclude them would furthercontribute to their poor representation in work on second language Spanish. Thus, thereader will find the content in those chapters slightly different, but the overarching goalof identifying paths for future research is consistent throughout. The final chapter inthis section also represents a relatively new strand of research, but one that warrantsconsiderable further attention. The link between the research in the preceding sectionon individual and contextual factors and the acquisition of Spanish in the classroombecomes clear through the review of the variation that results from differences in thecharacteristics of the classroom instructor (Chapter 30, Laura Gurzynski-Weiss). In thissense, we are challenged to move beyond the learner in a vacuum and view the role ofthe instructor – as well as the characteristics of that instructor – as an important facet ofthe learning context. This chapter is included in Part V because research is limited tothe instructed setting, but the reader is encouraged to make connections between thediscussions on learner characteristics and those should be deleted on the characteristicsof the instructor.

In addition to the natural connections that exist within sections of this volume,the work included here also serves to identify areas where certain constraints orchallenges recur across areas of investigation. For example, there is a notable biastoward research on English-speaking learners of Spanish. In nearly every chapter ofthis volume one notes the pressing need for research on learners with different firstlanguage backgrounds in order to explore the degree to which the findings to dateare truly generalizable. On a related note, it is likely that expansion in this directionwill necessarily intersect with work on third and additional language acquisition,given the role of English as an international language. Thus, our understanding ofthe role of knowing additional languages as well as the degree to which our currentunderstanding of second language development in Spanish generalizes to other contextswill continue to grow in the future. Likewise, one notes that issues such as task-basedvariation create a need for additional research that provides sufficient data for findingsto be compared, and perhaps generalized, across elicitation tasks. To date, there issome question as to whether differences in the findings across studies stem from

6 Introduction

differences in the instrumentation or from other characteristics of the learning contextor the learner population. Nevertheless, we see that even within a given theoreticalapproach, multiple elicitation methods are becoming increasingly common and moresophisticated assessments of findings in the context of the elicitation task itself areforthcoming. Furthermore, several authors in this volume rightly trace the movementtoward more precise elicitation methods, more accurate coding of data, and moreappropriate methods of analysis as essential developments in the field. In part, theidentification of these areas of weakness constitutes an important push forward in thisfield, but in all of these areas it is also clear that much research remains. Thus, as a whole,this volume suggests a number of ways in which future research might be strengthened,regardless of the theoretical framework or structure of focus of that study.

Although it is the case that the current volume has served to identify areas where thefield requires further examination, it must be stated that this can only be accomplishedonce a significant body of research on a topic exists. Thus, in concluding these intro-ductory remarks, I would like to highlight to new readers and existing scholars alikethat perhaps the greatest evidence of the strength of the field of second language acqui-sition of Spanish is, in fact, the existence of the research that is critically reviewed andassessed throughout this volume. It is clear from the work included here that the fieldof second language Spanish is growing exponentially, that there are several fruitful andproductive approaches currently being undertaken to expand our knowledge, and thata variety of creative solutions to longstanding problems have been reached in the areasof research design, elicitation methods, and data coding and analysis. What is more,the depth and breadth of such research allows us to move the field of second languageacquisition in general forward, to make connections across grammatical structures andto learn from research conducted under a variety of frameworks. Despite the widerange of suggestions for future research provided by the contributing authors, it shouldbe clear that second language Spanish has profited from multiple approaches and thateach of the suggestions made by the author within the context of their own researchparadigm is valuable and worthy of future attention. It is an exciting time to be workingon Spanish as second language and it is likely that the landscape of research on thetopic will continue to grow, change, and produce insightful findings for many decadesto come.

REFERENCES

Andersen, Roger. 1983. ‘‘Transfer toSomewhere.’’ In Language Transfer inLanguage Learning, edited by Susan Gassand Larry Selinker, 177–201. Cambridge,MA: Newbury House.

Andersen, Roger. 1984. ‘‘What’s Gender GoodFor Anyway.?’’ Second Languages: ACross-Linguistic Perspective, edited by Roger

W. Andersen, 77–99. Cambridge, MA:Newbury House Publishers.

Gudmestad, Aarnes, and Kimberly Geeslin.2011. ‘‘Assessing the Use of Multiple Formsin Variable Contexts: The Relationshipbetween Linguistic Factors and Future-timeReference in Spanish.’’ Studies in Hispanicand Lusophone Linguistics, 4(1): 3–34.

Introduction 7

Kanwit, Matthew, and Megan Solon.Forthcoming. ‘‘The Acquisition of FutureTime Expression by English-speakingLearners of Spanish.’’ Studies in Hispanicand Lusophone Linguistics.

Kanwit, Matthew, and Megan Solon.Forthcoming. ‘‘Acquiring Variation inFuture Time Expression Abroad in

Valencia, Spain and Merida, Mexico.’’ InJesse E. Aaron, Jennifer Cabrelli Amaro,Gillian Lord, and Ana de Prada Perez(Eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 16thHispanic Linguistics Symposium,Somerville, MA: Cascadilla ProceedingsProject.