Chapter 7
What does advanced L2 pronunciation look like?
Evidence from the ultimate attainment of Spanish
consonants
This study investigates ultimate attainment in
second language (L2) Spanish pronunciation by examining the
production of L2 Spanish stops, approximants, and rhotics by first
language (L1) speakers of American English who immigrated to central
Spain and have lived there for a large portion of their lives. As a
group, the learners’ pronunciations were much closer to the native
speaker norms than those of less advanced learners in previous
studies, yet no learner achieved native-like pronunciation for any
of the consonant groups. Nonetheless, the results of the present
study show that advanced learners are characterized by considerable
development beyond the pronunciation of less advanced learners and
that they do acquire some native-like aspects in their
pronunciation.
Article outline
- Previous studies
- Method
- Results
- Group results and discussion
- VOT of stop consonants
- Spriantization of voiced stop consonants
-
Articulation of rhotics
- Individual results and discussion
- Discussion and conclusion
-
Acknowledgements
-
Notes
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References