Publications

Carando, A., Minnillo, S., Fernández-Mira, P., Davidson, S., Sagae, K., & Sánchez-Gutiérrez, C. (2023). Writing Development in Spanish as a Second and Heritage Language: A Corpus Study on Complexity. Journal of Spanish Language Teaching, 10(1), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/23247797.2023.2201989.

Abstract:

Few studies have analyzed the writing features of second language (L2) alongside heritage language (HL) learners of Spanish. Focusing on the development of writing complexity, we collected data from students at the beginning and at the end of a composition sequence. Comparing the groups at the outset revealed HL students’ greater mood complexity. After 14 weeks, both groups improved in tense complexity, mean essay length, and lexical sophistication. Our findings suggest that, given sufficient time, both HL and L2 students can progress in similar ways in at least some measures of linguistic complexity. Nevertheless, they might gain from instruction that facilitates new and diverse vocabulary, and the construction of longer sentences. L2 students specifically would benefit from greater emphasis on the subjunctive. Our study supports the claim that achieving writing complexity takes time and comes in stages, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of L2 and HL writing development.

Minnillo, S., Sánchez-Gutiérrez, C., Carando, A., Davidson, S., Fernández Mira, P., & Sagae, K. (2022). Preterit-imperfect acquisition in L2 Spanish writing: Moving beyond lexical aspect. Research in Corpus Linguistics, 10(1), 156-184. https://doi.org/10.32714/ricl.10.01.08

Abstract:

While research on second language (L2) tense-aspect acquisition has flourished, most studies have focused on lexical aspect as an explanatory variable (Bardovi-Harlig and Comajoan-Colomé 2020). However, the role of the features of first language (L1) production in L2 Spanish preterit-imperfect acquisition has never been tested before. Prior research has found that the frequency and distinctiveness of verb forms in corpora of L1 English production predict L2 English learners’ tense-aspect production (Wulff et al. 2009). The present study aims to replicate these findings and test the predictions of hypotheses of L2 tense-aspect acquisition in another group of learners: English-dominant, instructed Spanish learners. Analyses were performed on longitudinal data from the Corpus of Written Spanish of L2 and Heritage Speakers (COWS-L2H; Yamada et al. 2020) and cross-sectional data from the Corpus Escrito del Español L2 (CEDEL2; Lozano 2021). Results indicate that L1 verb frequency and distinctiveness predict learners’ emergent use of the preterit and the imperfect.

You can find the R code I used to analyze the data in this article here

You can find the link to the pdf of this article below: