Cover not available
Part of
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. 321–349

Chapter 11
Learning context and the development of second language Spanish

Past-time perfective marking at home and abroad

 | University at Albany, SUNY
 | School for International Training
This study examines the variation between the preterit and present perfect among 43 learners studying abroad in Chile and Spain. We compared their results to those of 105 Spanish learners in the at-home university context to determine whether our learners approached regional norms or if they followed an acquisitional pathway common to English-speaking learners of Spanish. Twenty-three native speakers from Chile, Spain, and the at-home context also completed the study. Results indicate that both study abroad groups developed similarly to each other and to the at-home learners. These findings suggest that, for variable past-time perfective marking, rather than approaching regional norms, students who participate in study abroad move along a developmental trajectory common to English-speaking learners of Spanish.
Keywords: acquisition, learning context, sociolinguistic variation, perfective
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Background
    • Native Spanish perfective marking
    • Second language Spanish perfective marking
  • The current study
  • Method
    • Participants and learning context
      • Second language learners
      • Native speakers
      • Tasks
      • Analysis
  • Results
    • Distribution of forms
    • Regression analysis
      • Native speakers
      • Study abroad learners
      • At-home learners
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 June 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.37.11zah
References (32)
References
Andersen, R. (1991). Development sequences: The emergence of aspect marking in second language acquisition. In T. Huebner & C. Ferguson (Eds.), Crosscurrents in second language acquisition and linguistic theory (pp. 305–323). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cadierno, T. (2000). The acquisition of Spanish grammatical aspect by Danish advanced language learners. Spanish Applied Linguistics, 4, 1–53.Google Scholar
Camps, J. (2002). Aspectual distinctions in Spanish as a foreign language: The early stages of oral production. IRAL, 40, 179–210. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gass, S. M., Spinner, P., & Behney, J. (2018). (Eds). Salience in second language acquisition. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Geeslin, K., Fafulas, S., & Kanwit, M. (2013). Acquiring geographically-variable norms of use: The case of the present perfect in Mexico and Spain. In C. Howe, S. E. Blackwell, & M. Lubbers Quesada (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 15th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (pp. 205–220). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Geeslin, K., García-Amaya, L. J., Hasler-Barker, M., Henriksen, N. C., & Killam, J. (2012). The L2 acquisition of variable perfective past time reference in Spanish in an overseas immersion setting. In K. Geeslin & M. Díaz-Campos (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 14th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (pp. 197–213). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Geeslin, K., & Gudmestad, A. (2010). An exploration of the range and frequency of occurrence of forms in potentially variable structures in second-language Spanish. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 32, 433–463. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
George, A. (2014). Study abroad in Central Spain: The development of regional phonological features. Foreign Language Annals, 47, 97–114. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Henderson, C. (2010). El pretérito perfecto compuesto del español de Chile, Paraguay y Uruguay: aspectos semánticos y discursivos. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Stockholm University, Stockholm.
(2017). Summary and sequential scanning in the compound and simple past of Chilean and Uruguayan dialects of Spanish. In F. Marc & G. Pierre-Don (Eds.) Cahiers Chronos. Aorists and perfects: Synchronic and diachronic perspectives (pp. 79–109). Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill – Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Howe, C. (2006). Cross-dialectal features of the Spanish present perfect: A typological analysis of form and function (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Ohio State University, Columbus.
Howe, C., & Schwenter, S. (2003). Present perfect for preterite across Spanish dialects. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 9, 61–75.Google Scholar
(2008). Variable constraints on past reference in dialects of Spanish. In M. Westmoreland & J. A. Thomas (Eds)., Selected proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics (pp. 100–108). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Kanwit, M., Geeslin, K., & Fafulas, S. (2015). Study abroad and the SLA of variable structures: A look at the present perfect, the copula contrast, and the present progressive in Mexico and Spain. Probus, 27, 307–348. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kanwit, M., & Solon, M. (2013). Acquiring variation in future-time expression abroad in Valencia, Spain and Merida, Mexico. In J. Cabrelli Amaro, G. Lord, A. de Prada Pérez, & J. E. Aaron (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 16th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (pp. 206–221). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proccedings Project.Google Scholar
Linford, B. (2016). The second-language development of dialect-specific morphosyntactic variation in Spanish during study abroad (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Indiana University, Bloomington.
Liskin-Gasparro, J. (2000). The use of tense-aspect morphology in Spanish oral narratives: Exploring the perceptions of advanced learners. Hispania, 83, 830–844. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
López-Ortega, N. (2000). Tense, aspect, and narrative structure in Spanish as a second language. Hispania, 83, 488–502. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lubbers Quesada, M. (2006). L2 acquisition of temporal reference in Spanish and the interaction of adverbials, morphology and clause structure. In N. Sagarra & A. J. Toribio (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 9th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (pp. 157–168). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
(2013). The primacy of morphology in the acquisition of tense and aspect in L2 Spanish narrative structure. In C. Howe, S. E. Blackwell, & M. Lubbers Quesada (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 15th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (pp. 62–77). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
McAlister, I. (2019). A comparative study of the acquisition of the Spanish present perfect by L1 speakers of Portuguese and L1 speakers of English. Paper presented at the 2019 Hispanic Linguistics Symposium held October 24th-26th, 2019 at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Montrul, S., & Slabakova, R. (2002). The L2 acquisition of morphosyntactic and semantic properties of the aspectual tenses preterit and imperfect. In A. T. Perez-Leroux & J. Liceras (Eds.), The acquisition of Spanish morphosyntax. The L1/L2 connection (pp. 131–149). Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rodríguez Louro, C. (2009). Perfect evolution and change: A sociolinguistic study of Preterit and Present Perfect usage in contemporary and earlier Argentina (Unbpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Melbourne, Australia.
Salaberry, R. (2000). The development of past tense morphology in L2 Spanish. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
(2011). Assessing the effect of lexical aspect and grounding on the acquisition of L2 Spanish past tense morphology among L1 English speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14, 184–202. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Salgado-Robles, F. (2011). The acquisition of sociolinguistic variation by learners of Spanish in a study abroad context (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Florida.
Schwenter, S., & Torres Cacoullos, R. (2008). Defaults and indeterminacy in temporal grammaticalization: The ‘perfect’ road to perfective. Language Variation and Change, 20, 1–39. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Squartini, M., & Bertinetto, P. M. (2000). The simple and compound past in Romance languages. In D. Östen (Ed.), Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe (pp. 403–439). Berlin: DeGruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Terán, V. (2020). The acquisition of variable past-time expression in L2 Spanish: Combining concept-oriented, form-oriented and variationist research traditions within functional (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Terán, V., & Kanwit, M. (2018). Variable past-time expression across multiple tasks in Tucumán, Argentina. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada, 31, 605–637. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Whatley, M. (2013). The acquisition of past tense variation by L2 learners of Spanish in an abroad context. In J. Cabrelli Amaro, G. Lord, A. de Prada Pérez, & J. E. Aaron (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 16th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (pp. 190–205). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar