¡Ya pué[h]! Perception of coda-/s/ weakening among L2 and heritage speakers in coastal Ecuador

Abstract

EN This investigation lies at the intersection of second language acquisition (SLA), sociophonetic variation, and speech perception.Specifically, it investigates the perception of coda /s/-aspiration (producing disco as [dih.ko]), a dialectal feature characteristic of Guayaquileño (coastal Ecuadorian) Spanish, among 14 young-adult English speakers who travel to Ecuador. The study investigates the participants' ability to perceive an aspirated variant as a legitimate /s/ over time as they are further exposed to the local variety. It also explores the linguistic and extralinguistic factors that play a role in the perception of the variable such as phonological context of /s/, proficiency level, and individual differences in experience with /s/-weakening dialects. Results suggest that most learners are able to acquire new mappings within their interlanguage phonological system. However, results vary according to proficiency, phonological context of /s/, and at the individual level. The results also suggest that gains in sociolinguistic competence can be seen in terms of perception (as opposed to only in learner production), which underscores the necessity to include perceptual studies in future research in variationist SLA.

Do Learners Connect Sociophonetic Variation With Regional and Social Characteristics?

“…Our results complement recent studies on SA and coda /s/ perception in Spanish, which have shown that, during a sojourn, learners became significantly more accurate at identifying [h] than they were prearrival (Escalante, 2018) and that learners who had studied in /s/-weakening regions were significantly more effective at identifying [h] as a production of /s/ than those had studied in /s/-conserving zones (Schmidt, 2018). The success of our advanced learners who had studied abroad in /s/-weakening regions, in conjunction with that of the phonetics group, lends credence to the hypothesis that learners who had first been instructed on language variation (e.g., sociophonetics, pragmatics) may benefit more from a sojourn abroad (Cohen & Shively, 2007; Lord, 2010; Shively, 2011).…”

“…Before learners can link phonetic variation with social meaning, they must first learn to associate different variants with a single variable, and three recent studies explored how learners perceive the variants of coda /s/ (Del Saz, 2019; Escalante, 2018; Schmidt, 2018). These studies usually appeal to some combination of the aforementioned PAM-L2, SLM, and L2LP models.…”

“…These studies usually appeal to some combination of the aforementioned PAM-L2, SLM, and L2LP models. In the first of these recent perceptual studies, Escalante (2018) analyzed 14 learners’ perception of aspirated /s/ in the context of a volunteer experience in Ecuador. All target stimuli were aspirated nonce words produced by a Cuban speaker.…”

“…Next, Schmidt (2018) analyzed perceptual identification of bisyllabic nonce words produced by a man from Caracas or a woman from Buenos Aires. Unlike Escalante (2018), Schmidt used stimuli of both aspirated and alveolar /s/, asking the two speakers to produce both formal (i.e., as if approximating a newscaster) and informal (i.e., as if speaking with loved ones) styles. Five learner levels were analyzed, ranging from second semester to the graduate level, with learners generally improving at identifying [h] as a variant of /s/ across levels.…”

“…This sociolinguistic competence, in addition to strategies for successful communication (i.e., strategic competence) and the more straightforward grammatical competence targeted in traditional classrooms, contributes to communicative competence (Canale & Swain, 1980; Tarone, 2007). This work has predominantly focused on development within variable areas of learner grammars (i.e., morphosyntactic variability), although the L2 perception of sociophonetic variation is of increasing attention to researchers (e.g., Del Saz, 2019; Escalante, 2018; Geeslin & Schmidt, 2018; Schmidt, 2018; Schoonmaker-Gates, 2017).…”