Many college students set out on Study Abroad Programs to other countries in which the variant of the foreign language spoken in the region differs from the variant to which learners have been exposed. This study explores the perception of L2 Western Andalusian Spanish aspiration of word-final /s/ by L1 American English listeners, in relation to their length of exposure to the L2 in quiet conditions and to their competence level in the L2 in noisy conditions. Results indicate that perception drops in adverse conditions, particularly for listeners in their intermediate stages of learning. Proficient listeners’ perception also suffers with respect to native listeners’ performance at lower signal-to-noise ratios. For all listeners, native and nonnative, standard features are best identified, whether in quiet or noise.

The present study addresses the occurrence of affrication in clusters other than /st/ in Western Andalusian Spanish, by means of production and perception tasks comprising /st/, /kt/, and /pt/. Our findings reveal incomplete neutralization in production, given that /kt/ presented a higher closure ratio and a lower VOT ratio than /pt/ and /st/. In perception, the three clusters were similarly labeled according to a pattern: /st/ > /kt/ > /pt/. Certain parameters such as closure and VOT ratios and center of gravity seemed to have an influence on perception. These results indicate that neutralization may be complete in perception and incomplete in production.

Previous studies show that L2 segments are easier to acquire than suprasegments. In an EFL context, the L1 influence seems to be minimized as learners gain L2 experience. Our study explores the effect of L1 transfer from Spanish and L2 experience in English on the production of vowels and nuclear accent, by comparing acoustically the productions of elementary and advanced learners of EFL in Chile. Results indicate improvement with higher L2 experience, although still far from native speakers. Concerning vowels, certain problems with tongue advancement and height persist at advanced levels, with overreliance on intensity to produce tense vowels. Regarding nuclear accents, correct nucleus placement improves with experience, and productions start to reflect the acoustic correlates of one English variety, still with a tendency to over rely on duration to mark the nucleus. Further research is warranted, such as on rhythm and fluency, to have a more holistic understanding of the effects of L1 transfer and L2 experience on L2 English.

El reconocimiento del habla ante la variedad de una lengua: la africada dento-alveolar andaluzaSpeech recognition faced with a language variety: Andalusian dento-alveolar affricate