Second Language Research

Task-based pronunciation teaching studies have shown that the cognitive complexity of a task affects different aspects of second language (L2) speech, such as vowel accuracy and comprehensibility. However, its impact on L2 speech rhythm is still under-researched, especially in spontaneous pronunciation-unfocused tasks. In this study, we first investigated how task complexity influences L2 speech rhythm, and we then explored how L2 speech rhythm metrics might predict global pronunciation proficiency (comprehensibility and accentedness). Eighty-two Spanish/Catalan bilingual learners of English and a control group of eight native speakers (NSs) completed a simple and a complex version of an adapted monologic decision-making task. Oral production data were analysed using well-established rhythm metrics (%V, VarcoV, nPVI-V, and VarcoC), novel distance measures (Euclidean and Mahalanobis distance scores) and ratings from 13 English NSs. Results showed differential task complexity effects on L2 speech rhythm depending on the rhythm metrics and distance measures considered. Additionally, the %V rhythm metric and the Mahalanobis distance measure accounted for a modest amount of variance in both comprehensibility and accentedness scores, with Mahalanobis distances having a more reliable predicting power. The outcomes of this study point to the importance of further examining the role of task complexity in L2 speech rhythm in spontaneous speech and to what extent L2 speech rhythm is related to global measures of L2 pronunciation proficiency. These findings also highlight the need for identifying which rhythm metrics are more suitable to depict L2 speech elicited through different methods, particularly spontaneous speech.

Mandarin sortal classifiers simultaneously encode semantic and grammatical form class cues. Building on a second language (L2) study of Grüter et al. we used the same visual world eye-tracking experiment, designed to examine the relative use of the two cues, testing Mandarin heritage speakers (HSs) living in an English-speaking environment. Given the importance of understanding individual differences, the present study also examined if/how individual HSs may systematically differ as a function of experience with Mandarin. As a group, HSs – like the first language (L1) group in Grüter et al.’s study – showed a clear reliance on the grammatical form class cue. Nevertheless, individual HSs with Mandarin schooling and with more Mandarin social exposure/use showed more reliance on semantics, the L2 pattern observed in Grüter et al. We discuss why this latter pattern might have obtained (formal and informal literacy), while highlighting the value of individual difference approaches to understanding HS processing.

This article discusses inflected infinitives in adult first language (L1) Brazilian speakers whose second language (L2) is Spanish. We focus on adjunct clauses headed with para in cases involving same and different subjects in the matrix and the embedded clause. These languages differ in that Brazilian Portuguese, but not Spanish, allows for inflected infinitives, and we provide evidence that these bilinguals are using innovative forms, i.e. inflected infinitives in their L2. We examine our findings under a lens of L1 transfer, L1 pre-emption, and the difficulty posed by the subset–superset relationship between the L1 and the L2. Additionally, we propose that Brazilian Portuguese-speaking L2 learners of Spanish at an initial stage of L2 acquisition encounter challenges abandoning L1 strategies and apply the tense projection’s features in the inflected infinitives of their L1 into the verb forms of their L2. We further propose that those L2 learners with greater vocabulary knowledge succeed in abandoning the L1 strategies that are unavailable in the L2, in contrast to those with a more limited vocabulary knowledge.

Previous studies have demonstrated the existence of non-native gemination in the speech of native (L1) Italian learners of a second language (L2), corresponding to double letters. We present the results of a bimodal truncated word-matching experiment testing phonological expectations for 30 L1 Italian learners of L2 French, and 30 L1 French control speakers. Manipulated consonantal durations affected responses and response times for learners, but not for native speakers: stimuli with lengthened consonants corresponding to single-letter spelling resulted in lower accuracy and higher response times; stimuli with short consonants corresponding to double-letter spelling resulted in high accuracy, but response times increased. We argue that exposure to native French in the classroom and during stays abroad has promoted the development of fuzzy L2 phonological representations, so that learners correctly process words spelled with double letters but cannot turn off their perceptual sensitivity to consonant duration, which remains modulated by orthography.

The present study investigates how English learners of Spanish compute gender agreement in Spanish–English asymmetrical switches (i.e. el key vs. la key ‘the.masc/fem key’). Twenty-six English learners of Spanish at intermediate-to-advanced second language (L2) proficiency completed a forced-choice elicitation task involving two codeswitching environments: Spanish determiner–English noun switches (Task 1) and English–Spanish switched copula constructions (Task 2). English nouns occurring in these codeswitching environments are controlled for semantic gender in the case of human nouns and for the grammatical gender of the Spanish translation equivalent in the case of inanimate nouns. The study also explores whether L2 proficiency and codeswitching experience influence L2 learners’ gender decisions in codeswitching. Gender agreement was almost categorical with human nouns whereby female nouns are feminine and male nouns are masculine. A mixed-effects logistic regression analysis further revealed that participants were more likely to apply masculine gender to inanimate nouns in both tasks, while the majority of the participants performed below chance with feminine gender. We stress the importance of separating animate from inanimate nouns in experimental L2 research. We argue that L2 learners’ preference for masculine gender in codeswitching is a reflex of a probabilistic default gender driven by the L2 grammar, rather than evidence for the retrieval of the grammatical gender of the translation equivalent.

The Attrition via Acquisition (AvA) model unifies acquisition and attrition by proposing that intake to the inference engine can come from the first language (L1) or the second language (L2). What this model does not specify, however, is the specific psycholinguistic mechanisms that can lead to attrition nor how partial representation may come about. This study expands the AvA model by incorporating activation as a key mechanism and precursor to attrition, and tests the proposal with cross-linguistic priming in bilinguals. We present data from two studies of Finnish and Estonian/English in a community of long-term L1 Finnish emigrants in USA, Canada, Australia, and Estonia. The target condition were the alternation between the marked and unmarked form of the accusative, and marked accusative and partitive, since these two morphemes have been previously documented to suffer attrition in contact with English. Although results did not indicate cross-linguistic priming from either English or Estonian into Finnish, there was evidence of within-language priming in the English–Finnish bilinguals. These findings support the incorporation of activation into the model, but also suggest that the source of attrition for morphology in particular might not come from the L2.

In the past decades, complex dynamic systems theory (CDST) has been used as an important framework for studying second language development. CDST is a metatheory of change and focuses on processes. Even though it has been broadly accepted as an inspiring dimension of research in psychology, sociology and second language development, some scholars have raised questions about the methodologies used, the interpretation of the data, and the nature of its claims. Specifically, Pallotti questioned whether CDST generates testable hypotheses, and criticized its position towards reductionism and generalizability, based on philosophical argumentations. The present article evaluates the issues addressed, reviews the work that has already been done, and looks ahead at future CDST applications to research in second language development, by exploring recent methodological developments in the field.