Chapter published in:
Contemporary Trends in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics: Selected papers from the Hispanic Linguistic Symposium 2015
Edited by Jonathan E. MacDonald
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 15] 2018
► pp. 213–236

Chapter 10
Acquisition of articulatory control or language-specific coarticulatory patterns?

Evidence from the production of laterals in second-language Spanish

| University at Albany, SUNY
The present study examines the acquisition of coarticulatory patterns in Spanish as a second language (L2). Through an acoustic analysis of the production of /l/ preceded by a front vowel and by a back vowel by a large cross-sectional sample of English-speaking learners of Spanish (n = 85) and a comparison of L2 Spanish patterns to those in L1 Spanish (n = 20 speakers) and in L1 English, evidence is provided that, similar to the acquisition of other phonetic detail, acquisition of coarticulation proceeds from more L1-like patterns in early stages of learning toward more targetlike coarticulatory patterns in later stages. Additionally, acquisition of coarticulation does not seem to be tied to overall segmental acquisition.
Keywords: L2 phonology/phonetics, second language acquisition, coarticulation
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Background
    • 1.1Coarticulation
    • 1.2Coarticulation and the lateral
    • 1.3Coarticulation in second languages
  • 2.Research questions and hypotheses
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Data elicitation
    • 3.3Acoustic analyses
    • 3.4Statistical analyses
  • 4.Results
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 February 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.15.11sol
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