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Study Abroad and the Second Language Acquisition of Sociolinguistic Variation in Spanish
Edited by Sara L. Zahler, Avizia Y. Long and Bret Linford
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 37] 2023
► pp. 20–53

Chapter 1
Relationship between external factors and development of regional variation (vosotros vs. ustedes) by L2 learners of Spanish in Spain

 | The City University of New York
 | The University of Calgary
This chapter focuses on the impact of three key programmatic features – program type, housing condition, and program length – on the development of a geographically variable feature, the second-person plural forms of address (i.e., vosotros/ustedes distinction) by second language learners of Spanish studying abroad in Madrid, Spain. Additionally, we compare the use of both vosotros and ustedes to a local Madrileño speaker baseline. To measure the use of vosotros and ustedes, the participants completed an oral discourse completion task. While the results of the study point to an increase in vosotros production among all participants, the students enrolled in a service-learning program, living with a host family, and participating in a long-term program significantly increased their use of vosotros.
Keywords: Spanish, vosotros vs. ustedes, service-learning, housing type, program length
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Background
    • The acquisition of sociolinguistic variation in the SA context
    • Dialectal feature under investigation
    • The sociolinguistic impact of service-learning abroad on L2 learners of Spanish
    • Morphosyntactic development during ISL
    • The sociolinguistic impact of housing type on L2 learners of Spanish
    • The sociolinguistic impact of program length on L2 learners of Spanish
    • Research questions
  • Method
    • Participants
    • Program type
    • Instruments and procedures
    • Analysis
  • Results and discussion
    • Summary statistics and main analysis
    • Discussion
  • Conclusions
    • Study contributions
    • Limitations and future directions
    • Final remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 June 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.37.01sal
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