Perceiving Intonational Cues in aForeign Language: Perception of Sentence Type in Two Dialects of Spanish

Research interest in segmental second language (L2) phonology has grown substantially since the initial strides of Flege and his colleagues in the 1980s (e.g., Flege, 1981, 1987, 1995; Flege & Hillenbrand, 1984), and has recently produced a number of full length books and edited volumes (e.g., Bohn & Munro, 2007; Hanson Edwards & Zampini, 2008; Major, 2001). Meanwhile, recent years have seen an explosion of research on intonational phonology in both English and Spanish. However, very few studies have considered the intonation of second or foreign language learners (see Henriksen, Geeslin & Willis, 2010; Nibert, 2005 for notable exceptions in L2 Spanish intonation). In fact, according to Major (2001), “there is a dearth of SLA research in tone and intonation” (p. 17). There may be several reasons why this intriguing area of second language acquisition has been largely unexplored. For example, the development of methodological and theoretical approaches to suprasegmental phonology has historically lagged behind segmental phonology. Even with recent advances, the application of traditional intonational phonology methodology to the study of second language learners may not be appropriate considering studies in second language acquisition (SLA) often prefer interactive conversational activities, as opposed to the controlled laboratory approach typically employed in intonational phonology. The study of the L2 intonation of Spanish may be particularly challenging. It could be argued that the Spanish intonational system presents a moving target for adult learners. Dialectical variation in Spanish intonation has long been supposed and has recently been documented in a systematic way (e.g., Prieto & Roseano, 2010; Sosa, 1999). Therefore, perhaps the greatest challenge facing the L2 Spanish researcher is that it can be extremely difficult to confidently identify the intonational target of a given L2 Spanish learner. It would not be atypical for a learner in the United States to receive input from several varieties of Spanish which present drastically different intonational systems (Argentine, Caribbean, Castilian, and Mexican, for example). Despite its challenges, early studies on L2 intonation have begun to lay the groundwork necessary for its systematic study. Nibert (2005) found that both intermediate and advanced learners were able to perceive intonational phrasing patterns (phrase accents) when sentence level syntax was simple, but that only advanced learners were able to approach native-like perceptions of phrasing with more complex syntax. It could therefore be argued that this relatively high achievement in intonational perception of phrasing with simple syntax is related to the relative closeness of the Spanish and English systems. It should be noted that the participants in Nibert’s study listened exclusively to speakers of Peninsular Spanish which is similar to American English in its use of intermediate phrases and intonation phrases (Beckman & Pierrehumbert, 1986; Nibert, 1999, 2000; Pierrehumbert & Beckman, 1988). However, the fact that the advanced learners were also able to perceive intonational phrasing with complex syntax suggests that only the advanced learners had become relatively accurate when an element was introduced that is not characteristic of their first language. Nibert demonstrated