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Selective benefits of study abroad for L2 learners’ on-line sensitivity to subjunctive mood in Spanish

 | Wake Forest University
ORCiD logo with link | University of Richmond
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
The present study investigates the effects of study abroad (SA) immersion on second language (L2) learners’ on-line processing of lexically-selected mood morphology in Spanish. Twenty-five participants completed self-paced reading (SPR) tasks at the beginning and end of a fifteen-week SA program in Spain. To assess potential effects of morphological regularity on learners’ processing of mood, the SPR tasks included both irregular verbs, which were expected to be more salient for learners, as well as regular verbs, which were expected to be less salient and therefore more difficult to process. In the first session, learners did not exhibit sensitivity to mood with either irregular verbs or regular verbs. In the second session, however, learners displayed a clear sensitivity to mood — but only with irregular verbs. This novel finding suggests that the benefits of SA immersion for non-native morphosyntactic processing may be greater in certain, more noticeable subsets of the L2 verbal lexicon.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Subjunctive mood in Spanish
    • 2.1Selection of Subjunctive Mood
    • 2.2Subjunctive mood forms: Regular and irregular
  • 3.Acquisition of subjunctive mood in L2 Spanish
    • 3.1Regularity
    • 3.2Study abroad
    • 3.3L2 processing of mood
  • 4.L2 Processing in the study abroad context
  • 5.Research questions and hypotheses
  • 6.Methodology
    • 6.1Participants and the study abroad program
    • 6.2Procedure
    • 6.3Self-paced reading task
    • 6.4Data trimming and statistical analyses
  • 7.Results
    • 7.1L1 control group self-paced reading results
    • 7.2L2 learners’ self-paced reading results
  • 8.Discussion
  • Notes
  • References
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