This paper describes some of the more salient intonational phenomena of Spanish, and reviews several of the most pressing questions that remain to be addressed before a deÞnitive model of the system can be incorporated into a consensus transcription system for the language. The phenomena reviewed include the metrical underpinnings of the tune, and some of the local tone shapes that are anchored at stressed syllables or at phrase edges in several common intonation contours. The description of known facts is couched in the Autosegmental-Metrical model of intonational phonology, as is the review of outstanding questions. The description is used to motivate the preliminary transcription conventions proposed by the Spanish ToBI development group.

Studies in SLA have debated the importance of context of learning in the process of developing linguistic skills in a second language (L2). The present paper examines whether study abroad, as it provides opportunities for authentic L2 context, facilitates the acquisition of Spanish phonology. The corpus of this investigation is composed of speech samples from 46 students of Spanish: 26 studying abroad in Spain and 20 in a regular classroom environment in the United States. The students read a paragraph with 60 target words including segments such as word-initial stops (i.e., [p t k]), 1 intervocalic fricatives (i.e., [Â D ae]), word-final laterals (i.e., [l]), and palatal nasals (i.e., [®]). The findings reveal the following patterns for both regular classroom and study abroad students across time: (a) similar gain in the case of voiced initial stops and word-final laterals, (b) lack of gain in the case of intervocalic fricatives, and (c) high levels of accuracy in the case of the palatal nasal in the pretest. Concerning the external data, the following factor groups predicted phonological gain among all learners: years of formal language instruction, reported use of Spanish before the semester, reported use of Spanish outside the class-

In this paper, we report the results of a study that compared differences in the linguistic gains made by native English-speaking students from the United States who were studying Spanish in one of two different contexts of learning. One was a regular university classroom situation in Colorado; the other was a study abroad program in Alicante, Spain. We examined the gains students made on a number of linguistic dimensions: oral proficiency, oral fluency, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and communication strategies. In addition, we investigated the relationships between these variables and a variety of background factors, including aspects of language learning readiness. As far as we know, this is the first study to examine such a comprehensive array of variables associated with linguistic performance as a function of context of learning. Each of the individual studies that contributed to the full report of this project can be found in a special issue of the journal Studies in Second Language Acquisition edited by Collentine and Freed (2004). When those studies are looked at as a whole, they lead to general interpretations that were not immediately apparent when considering each of the reports separately. In this paper, we review these results, discuss the larger picture that emerges, and speculate on future questions about the effects of the study abroad experience on second language acquisition (see also Freed, Segalowitz & Dewey, 2004, for a related study).

McWhorter challenges the validity of the limited access model for creole formation, noting that “the mainland Spanish colonies put in question a model which is crucial to current creole genesis.” His thesis is that in the Spanish mainland colonies the disproportion between the Black and White populations was enough for the emergence of a creole language. This article focuses on one colony, Venezuela, and argues that Africans there had as much access to Spanish as they did in islands such as Cuba. Based on this fact, the relevant linguistic evidence is analyzed. The most important contribution of this study is the discussion of the Spanish crown's monopolization of the slave trade, which kept the Black/White ratio relatively low in certain Spanish colonies until the end of the 18th century. Until now, this part of the puzzle has been absent in the discussion of the missing Spanish creoles.

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