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Article published In:
Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education
Vol. 8:1 (2023) ► pp.115–141

Lexical development of Spanish heritage and L2 learners in a study abroad setting

| University of California, Santa Barbara
| University of Wyoming

This study investigates the effects of an immersion experience on the lexical development of Spanish heritage language learners (HLLs) and second language learners (L2Ls) abroad. Data were collected from 21 Spanish HLLs and 33 L2Ls who spent a semester abroad. Lexical development was assessed based on written narratives collected before and after the semester. The narratives were analyzed to determine the impact of study abroad on three measures of lexical development: density, diversity, and sophistication. Lexical sophistication was assessed based on Spanish frequency data from the Corpus del Español (Davies, 2006) using the log-transformed frequency count. Results indicate a significant increase over time in lexical density for HLLs but not L2Ls, and a significant decrease in lexical sophistication for both groups. Findings are discussed in light of previous research on study abroad and the analysis of lexical development.

Keywords: Spanish as a heritage language, heritage language learners, Spanish L2, lexical development
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Lexical development and the impact of SA
    • 2.1Previous research on HLLs’ lexical proficiency
    • 2.2Lexical development in SA contexts
  • 3.Measuring lexical proficiency
    • 3.1Lexical development terminology and measures in corpora studies
    • 3.2Words, lemmas, and word families
    • 3.3Band-based versus count-based frequencies
  • 4.Rationale for the study and research questions
  • 5.Methods
    • 5.1Participants and setting
    • 5.2Data collection procedure, processing, and analysis
  • 6.Results
    • 6.1Lexical diversity
    • 6.2Lexical density
    • 6.3Lexical sophistication
  • 7.Discussion
  • 8.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 March 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sar.21012.mar
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