Megan Solon

• PhD
• Lecturer at Indiana University Bloomington

Sociophonetic competence—a component of sociolinguistic and, thus, communicative competence—has been explored in both learner production and perception. Still, little is known about the relationship between learners’ ability to account for sociophonetic variability in the input and their likelihood to produce such variation in output. The present s...

This exploratory study examines rhotic production by Caribbean Spanish speakers in the US to empirically investigate (1) claims of categorical employment of the typically variable lateralization rule and (2) whether lateralized rhotics maintain acoustic features that distinguish underlying liquid phonemes. Thirty college-aged Spanish-English biling...

This introduction provides an overview of the state of research on and knowledge about the use of elicited imitation in applied linguistics research, highlighting gaps in our current understanding of this tool. It then introduces the eight articles that comprise the special issue.

Usage-based theories provide helpful frameworks and tools for the study of language in its various contexts of interaction. This chapter explores the application of these approaches to the study of second language (L2) acquisition. It begins with an overview of usage-based approaches, paying special attention to the way they capture information abo...

Empirical research has reported differential effects of proficiency level on acquisition in the study-abroad (SA) context. We tested whether pre-SA proficiency influences learners’ acquisition of variable structures during SA, analyzing Spanish future-time expression, a structure conveyed through multiple forms with distributions that differ region...

This mixed-methods study examines the role of rating modality (aural vs. written) and rater characteristics (language background, linguistics training) on outcomes on a Spanish elicited imitation task (EIT) and provides insight into rater cognition during the scoring process. Thirty Spanish- English bilingual raters were divided into two conditions...

Communicative competence is an essential language skill, the ability to adjust language use according to specific contexts and to employ knowledge and strategies for successful communication. This unique text offers a multidisciplinary, critical, state-of-the-art research overview for this skill in second language learners. Expert contributors fro...

This concluding chapter provides a brief review of the history of the construct of communicative competence as well as of the volume’s component chapters. This chapter then synthesizes the contents of the volume, focusing on four overarching takeaway messages: the utility of communicative competence for (re)framing longstanding questions, the preva...

The present chapter provides a historical overview of the notion of communicative competence, including a detailed account of early publications in the field of second language acquisition that argued for the importance of the construct and debated what it should include. The chapter explains important constructs in the study of communicative compe...

Objective We examine how a sample of English- and Spanish-speaking U.S. adults define the terms pro-life/pro-vida and pro-choice/pro-elección and explore whether definitions differ by language and/or ethnicity. Methods We asked a sample of 1504 English- and Spanish-speaking U.S. adults to define the terms pro-choice/pro-elección and pro-life/pro-v...

This study examines knowledge of and attitudes toward Roe v. Wade among a sample of 779 US Latinx adults. Survey response patterns were examined in relation to generational status and choice of survey language as well as to several demographic variables previously shown to influence abortion attitudes (e.g., age, religiosity, political affiliation)...

Beyond language use, an important component of communicative competence is the ability to attend to sociolinguistic variation in the input, which requires knowledge regarding when to expect a particular form over another variant according to linguistic or extralinguistic factors. This study explores the acquisition of sociophonetic competence, empl...

This study examines a 30-item Spanish elicited imitation task (EIT) as a measure of global language proficiency for heritage language (HL) learners of Spanish. Results from Rasch modeling suggest that, while EIT scores demonstrated excellent reliability, the ability of much of the HL sample far exceeded the difficulty of the items. Differential ite...

Given that 10 years have passed since the publication of the most recent synthesis of proficiency assessment standards, the present review revisits proficiency assessment practices in research on second language acquisition (SLA), with the goal of examining whether the way in which scholars measure and report proficiency has changed. Our sample inc...

Given the notable increase in participation in short-term (e.g., eight weeks or less) study abroad, especially in the US, recent empirical work on the role of context in second language (L2) learning has sought to investigate the impact of a short-term stay abroad on language development. The present study examined English-speaking learners’ syntac...

While an elicited imitation test (EIT) has been widely used as a measure of oral proficiency in second language acquisition (SLA) research, it is still unclear the extent to which memory capacity impacts EIT performance. In light of this gap, the present study sought to clarify the nature of elicited imitation by examining the relative contribution...

Elicited imitation tasks (EITs) have been shown to be a valid, reliable, and practical method for establishing second-language (L2) oral proficiency across a variety of languages. Nevertheless, research that has validated existing EITs has most often explored a narrow range of learner proficiencies or has examined how well the EIT distinguishes bet...

This study investigates the acquisition of nativelike variation in the production of Spanish /d/ by English-speaking learners. Specifically, we examine the production of /d/ in word-internal intervocalic position in the speech of 13 highly advanced nonnative speakers (NNSs) and 13 native speakers (NSs) of Spanish in digitally-recorded sociolinguist...

Within the field of second-language (L2) phonetics, development in the production of a L2 phone is often conceived of as the modification of specific phonetic properties to approximate native-speaker norms. This approach permits precise accounts of L2 sound learning but can also lead to a narrow view of L2 phonetic acquisition. To illustrate this p...

The Cambridge Handbook of Spanish Linguistics - edited by Kimberly L. Geeslin August 2018

The present study explored development in Spanish vowel production during a short-term study abroad program. The production patterns of a group of learners studying abroad in a 4-week program in the Dominican Republic were compared in terms of overall vowel quality, tendency to diphthongize /e/ and /o/, and vowel duration to those of a similar grou...

Language proficiency is a key variable in investigating a second language (L2) phenomenon of interest. Despite its important role in research, recent reviews (Hulstijn, 2013; Tremblay, 2011) suggest that proficiency is typically inadequately or under-measured in second language acquisition (SLA) research. While a great number of standardized tests...

For millions of individuals all over the world, speaking in a second language is a daily activity. It is therefore important that research in applied linguistics should contribute empirically to the study of second language spoken interaction. The aim of this volume is to make such a contribution by providing research-based insights into current ap...

Contemporary Trends in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics offers a panorama of current research into multiple varieties of Spanish from several different regions (Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain, Costa Rica, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Honduras), Catalan, Brazilian Portuguese, as well as varieties in contact with English and Purépecha. The first part of t...

This book presents a set of compelling essays collectively making a persuasive case for why a usage-based perspective on language is fast becoming a leading theoretical framework for investigating second language (L2) learning and the foundation for effective, innovative, engaging pedagogy. Drawing on 20 years of research in psychology, psycholingu...

Expanding Individual Difference Research in the Interaction Approach: Investigating learners, instructors, and other interlocutors demonstrates why investigating the individual differences of all interlocutors with whom learners interact – including peer and heritage learners, instructors, researchers, and native speakers – is critical to understan...

TBLT AND L2 PRONUNCIATION - Laura Gurzynski-Weiss, Avizia Yim Long, Megan Solon

This study tests the theoretical predictions regarding effects of increasing task complexity (Robinson, 2001a, 2001b, 2007, 2010; Robinson & Gilabert, 2007) for second language (L2) pronunciation. Specifically, we examine whether more complex tasks (a) lead to greater incidence of pronunciation-focused language-related episodes (LREs) and (b) posit...

This study explores the second language (L2) acquisition of a segment that exists in learners’ first language (L1) and in their L2 but that differs in its phonetic realization and allophonic patterning in the two languages. Specifically, this research tracks development in one aspect of the production of the alveolar lateral /l/ in the L2 Spanish o...

This book explores the current state of Spanish sociolinguistics and its contribution to theories of language variation and change, from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. It offers original analyses on a variety of topics across a wide spectrum of linguistic subfields from different formal, experimental, and corpus-based standpoints. The...

The present study explores methodological issues related to the growing need to understand the role of lexical frequency (LF) in patterns of language acquisition and use. One specific methodological challenge is determining which measures of LF are appropriate for the study of L2 learners-namely, how do we identify the appropriate comparison for L2...

This study explores the impact of study abroad (SA) on second language Spanish phonetic development. Twenty-seven English-speaking learners of Spanish, 15 who were participating in a 4-week SA program in the Dominican Republic and 12 who were studying at their home (AH) institution, were recorded 5 weeks apart (at the approximate beginning and end...

Despite myriad changes to language teaching methods over time, university-level classroom spaces have largely remained the same-until now. Recent innovations in classroom space design center on technological advances, include movable furniture and coffee-shop style rooms, and are believed to facilitate language learning in several ways. Specificall...

The present study adopts a concept-oriented approach to explore the early stages of acquisition of future-time reference in second language (L2) Spanish. Specifically, it investigates the lexical and grammatical forms employed to express future time and the sequence of emergence of future verbal morphology by beginning and intermediate adult Spanis...