Study Abroad in Central Spain: The Development of Regional Phonological Features

Abstract: This study investigated the development of two regional pronunciation features by 25 Spanish major or minors from a variety of universities in the United States who studied abroad for one semester in central Spain. Data were collected at the beginning, middle, and end of the semester using three tasks that ranged from reading a formal passage aloud to informal spontaneous speech. All tasks elicited the interdental and the uvular fricative, both salient phonological features of Castilian Spanish. Several linguistic and extralinguistic factors may account for the increase in use of the features throughout the semester by a small percentage of students.Key words: L2 phonology, L2 accent, regional features, second language acquisition, study abroadLearners of a second language must gain increasingly native-like control not only of vocabulary and grammar, but also of pronunciation if they are to achieve high levels of oral proficiency. However, "accent, as an essential aspect of our identity, can be the site of resistance when we do not wish to yield our established sense of self, or it can be the gateway to integration into another culture" (Moyer, 2013, p. 62). This is especially true in a study abroad context when learners interact with locals outside of the classroom. The extent to which learners choose to integrate into the target culture by speaking like locals may be due to a variety of factors. "Second language users, particularly those living in the target-language country, are under considerable pressure to fit in, yet their ability to acquire a native-like accent hinges on a complex interplay of internal and external factors" (Moyer, 2013, p. 19). These external factors, relevant to the current study, include both the quality and quantity of contact in the target language. Fitting in can take various forms, one of which may be through the use of regional features. At the same time, second language learners may distance themselves from the target culture and may purposely not use these features (Lybeck, 2002): "[l]earners may also resist using certain variants if they perceive that doing so creates a L2 identity that is not viable" (Hansen Edwards, 2008, p. 260). Learners' goals regarding the identity that they wish to portray as a target language user may result in greater or lesser use of certain variants. The current study exam- ined why learners varied in their develop- ment of two regional features-the interdental fricative [u] and the uvular fric- ative [x]-during a one-semester study abroad experience in Spain by comparing students who more frequently produced the features with students who rarely pro- duced the features.BackgroundRegional FeaturesWhile research on the acquisition of variable features1 by learners of Spanish does not have a rich history, Larsen-Freeman (2009) has stressed that "[d]ifferences and variation need to move to the center of lan- guage acquisition research" (p. 585), and this line of research has grown tremendous- ly in the past decade, primarily in terms of production but also in the perception of variable features (Geeslin, 2011).Perception-based studies have found differing degrees of development of regional features. For example, in their study of learners' perception of geographically in- dexed phonological variants by adult learn- ers of Spanish studying abroad, Rasmussen and Zampini (2010) found increased per- ception among learners of the Andalusian Spanish phonological features synalepha and /s/-weakening, but not [u]. Schmidt (2009) also found increased comprehension of Dominican Spanish, which included /s/- weakening, intervocalic /d/ weakening, lambdacism, and /n/-velarization.A growing number of studies have fo- cused on the production of geographically indexed phonological regional features by learners of Spanish studying abroad (Geeslin, 2011; Geeslin, Garcia-Amaya, Has- ler-Barker, Henriksen, & Killam, 2010; Hen- riksen, Geeslin, & Willis, 2010; Knouse, 2013; Reynolds-Case, 2013; Ringer-Hilfinger, 2012; Salgado-Robles, 2011; Willis, Geeslin, & Henriksen, 2009; this is not an exhaustive list of studies). …