Motivated by predictions of the theory of Input Processing, this study adds to previous research on second language (L2) Spanish pronunciation learning by investigating the impact of two distinct types of pronunciation assignments on first language (L1) English L2 Spanish students’ improvement in pronunciation of the vowels /e, o/. Two sections of a Spanish conversation class (n = 28) received identical instruction in Spanish articulatory phonetics over the course of one semester. One section (n = 15) completed a production-based pronunciation assignment five times throughout the semester in addition to this instruction. In this assignment, students recorded themselves and received feedback from the instructor. The other section (n = 13) completed a perception-based pronunciation assignment designed to force students to attend to English and Spanish phonetic differences five times throughout the semester. This assignment required students to listen to non-native Spanish speakers speaking in Spanish and to provide feedback on their pronunciation. Findings suggest that when students are forced to attend to differences in L1 and L2 articulatory phonetics, they are likely to improve their own pronunciation more than when they only receive articulatory phonetic instruction or when they complete assignments that do not require strict attention to L1 and L2 phonetic differences, such as speaking and receiving feedback.

While heritage speakers of Spanish have been shown to differ from monolingual speakers along many morphosyntactic lines, comparatively few studies in heritage linguistics have focused on phonology. To test whether the knowledge of English phonotactics would influence SpanishEnglish heritage speaker syllabification patterns in Spanish, 29 heritage and 29 monolingual speakers of Spanish completed a paper-and-pencil syllabification task in which they divided 80 Spanish words into syllables. Stimuli were controlled for comparisons between Spanish and English phonotactic constraints. Specific attention was placed on the syllabification of vocalic sequences as diphthongs or hiatus. Based on the distribution of diphthongs in English, and the findings of cognate effects in a similar study by Zárate-Sández (2011), heritage speakers were predicted to break diphthongs into hiatus more often in cognates than noncognates, more often when the English translation of a cognate presented hiatus, more in rising diphthongs than in falling diphthongs, and more often when a rising diphthong contained a palatal rather than velar glide. These effects were all present in heritage speaker results. No significant effects were found for monolingual controls. These findings offer new data to the understudied field of heritage phonology and to the ongoing discussion of dominant language transfer effects.

While heritage speakers of Spanish have been shown to differ from monolingual speakers along many morphosyntactic lines, comparatively few studies in heritage linguistics have focused on phonology. To test whether the knowledge of English phonotactics would influence Spanish-English heritage speaker syllabification patterns in Spanish, 29 heritage and 29 monolingual speakers of Spanish completed a paper-and-pencil syllabification task in which they divided 80 Spanish words into syllables. Stimuli were controlled for comparisons between Spanish and English phonotactic constraints. Specific attention was placed on the syllabification of vocalic sequences as diphthongs or hiatus. Based on the distribution of diphthongs in English, and the findings of cognate effects in a similar study by Zárate-Sández (2011), heritage speakers were predicted to break diphthongs into hiatus more often in cognates than noncognates, more often when the English translation of a cognate presented hiatus, more in rising diphthongs than in falling diphthongs, and more often when a rising diphthong contained a palatal rather than velar glide. These effects were all present in heritage speaker results. No significant effects were found for monolingual controls. These findings offer new data to the understudied field of heritage phonology and to the ongoing discussion of dominant language transfer effects.