The Effect of Exposure to Phonological Variation On Perceptual Categorization and Lexical Access in Second Language Spanish: The Case of /S/-Aspiration In Western Andalusian Spanish

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the acquisition of a dialect-specific phonological variant by American English-speaking L2 learners of Spanish who study abroad for one semester in the target dialect region compared to L2 learners who remain at their home university in the traditional language classroom context (‘At-home’ learners) without exposure to the target variant. The perception of aspirated-/s/ in Western Andalusian Spanish, which is unique in its phonetic articulation and is subject to social and stylistic variation, is examined. In this investigation, 33 native speakers of Spanish from Seville, Spain, 10 native speakers of Spanish from regions in which /s/ is not aspirated, 48 L2 learners of Spanish in the study abroad context, and 25 learners of Spanish in the traditional classroom context completed a forced-choice identification task, a lexical decision task, background questionnaires, a grammar test, and a word familiarity questionnaire. Analysis of the patterns of identification and lexical decision related to /s/-aspiration revealed: (1) effects of condition (i.e., the aspirated condition was significantly more difficult for L2 learners than other control conditions), (2) effects of exposure to /s/-aspiration for the L2 groups on the accuracy of identification and lexical decision (i.e., study abroad groups made gains while the at-home group did not), (3) effects of exposure to /s/-aspiration on lexical decision response time (i.e., study abroad learners responded faster to /s/-aspiration over time while at-home learners did not), (4) and some effects of the amount and types of target language use by the L2 learners abroad for the identification task. However, extralinguistic factors such as contact with native speakers and target language use during the semester abroad did not show consistent effects across tasks, which is argued to be a methodological issue. Implications for the study of the effects of extralinguistic factors on linguistic gains during study abroad are discussed. Differences were also found between the two native speaker groups, primarily for the /s/-aspiration condition, indicating dialectal differences in L1 speech perception. This dissertation shows that immersion during study abroad leads to perceptual gains related to a dialect-specific phonological variant, but that traditional research methods for investigating individual differences among study abroad learners must be revised.