Cover not available
Part of
Variation in Second and Heritage Languages: Crosslinguistic perspectives
Edited by Robert Bayley, Dennis R. Preston and Xiaoshi Li
[Studies in Language Variation 28] 2022
► pp. 1–14

Chapter 1
Variation and second language acquisition

Recent developments and future directions

ORCID logo | University of Kentucky
ORCID logo | University of California, Davis
ORCID logo | University of Wyoming

In addition to introducing the main themes of this volume, the chapter provides a brief overview of recent developments in variationist studies of second language acquisition (SLA), including work on perception. We suggest that the type of work included in this volume, which focuses on a range of features in diverse target languages in a wide variety of social contexts, contributes to broadening the scope of both SLA research and sociolinguistics more generally. While the importance of the social context for SLA has sometimes been dismissed, the studies included here offer abundant evidence that such contexts must be considered if we are to fully understand how learners may achieve not only the ability to use language correctly, but also appropriately.

Keywords: variation, social context, second languages, heritage languages, sociolinguistic competence
Article outline
  • Introduction
    • 1.More (and more) languages and more (and more) varieties
    • 2.Perception
    • 3.New ways to count things up
  • Broadening the scope of second language acquisition
  • Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 14 July 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.28.01pre
References
Adamson. H. Douglas
1988 Variation theory and second language acquisition. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Baker, Wendy & Lauren C. Smith
2010 The impact of L2 dialect on learning French vowels: Native English speakers learning Quebecois and European French. Canadian Modern Language Review 66. 711–738. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bayley, Robert
2013 The quantitative paradigm. In J. K. Chambers & Natalie Schilling (Eds.), The handbook of language variation and change, 2nd edn., 85–107. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bayley, Robert & Chelsea Escalante
2022 Variationist approaches to second language acquisition. In Kimberly L. Geeslin (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition and sociolinguistics. 3-16, New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bayley, Robert & Dennis R. Preston
(eds) 1996 Second language acquisition and linguistic variation. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bigelow, Martha & Elaine Tarone
2004 The role of literacy level in second language acquisition: Doesn’t who we study determine what we know? TESOL Quarterly 38. 689–700. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary
2001 The whiteness of nerds: Superstandard English and racial markedness. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 11(1). 84–100. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Campbell-Kibler, Kathryn
2009 The nature of sociolinguistic perception. Language Variation and Change 21. 135–156. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chappell, Whitney
2019 The sociophonetic perception of heritage Spanish speakers in the United States: Reactions to labiodentalized <v> in the speech of late immigrant and U.S.-born voices. In Whitney Chappell (ed.), Recent advances in the study of Spanish sociophonetic perception, 240–264. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chappell, Whitney & Matthew Kanwit
2021 Do learners connect sociophonetic variation with regional and social characteristics? The case of L2 perception of Spanish aspiration. Studies in Second Language Acquisition. Published online before print: [URL]. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chin, William Y.
2010 Linguistic profiling in education: How accent bias denies equal educational opportunity to students of color. Scholar 12. 355–443.Google Scholar
Chu, Jing, Chunsheng Yang & Guofa Liu
2019 Analysis of second language acquisition (SLA): Speech perception model and the perception of second language prosody. Revista de Cercetare si Interventie Sociala 64. 334–351. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Corder, S. Pit
1967 The significance of learners’ errors. International Review of Applied Linguistics 5. 161–170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Davydova, Julia, Agniezska Ewa Tytus & Erik Schleef
2017 Acquisition of sociolinguistic awareness by German learners of English: A study in perceptions of quotative be like. Linguistics 55(4). 783–812. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dickerson, Lonna J.
1974 Internal and external patterning of phonological variability in the speech of Japanese learners of English: Toward a theory of second language acquisition. Urbana-Champaign, IL: University of Illinois dissertation.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope
2018 Meaning and linguistic variation: The third wave in sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Escalante, Chelsea
2018a The acquisition of a sociolinguistic variable while volunteering abroad: S-weakening among heritage‑ and L2 learners in coastal Ecuador. Davis, CA: University of California, Davis dissertation.Google Scholar
2018b ¡Ya pué[h]! Perception of coda -/s/ weakening among L2 and heritage speakers in coastal Ecuador. EuroAmerican Journal of Applied Linguistics and Languages 5. 1–26. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Escudero, Paola & Paul Boersma
2004 Bridging the gap between L2 speech perception Research and phonological theory. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 26: 551–585. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gardiner, Shayna & Naomi Nagy
2017 Stable variation vs. language change and the factors that constrain them. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 23(2). Selected papers from New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV 45). [URL]Google Scholar
Gass, Susan M., Carolyn Madden, Dennis R. Preston, & Larry Selinker
(Eds) 1989 Variation in second language acquisition (Vol. 1: Discourse & Pragmatics. Vol. 2: Psycholinguistic issues). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Lynn M.
1987 Standard English: The only target for nonnative speakers of English? TESOL Quarterly 21(3). 417-436Google Scholar
Greenwald, A. G., D. E. McGhee, & J. L. K Schwartz
1998 Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74. 1464–1480. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Henrich, Joseph, Steven J. Heine, & Ara Norenzayan
2010 The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33(2). 61–83. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Daniel E.
2009 Getting off the Goldvarb standard: Introducing Rbrul for mixed-effects variable rule analysis. Language and Linguistics Compass 3. 359–383. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kennedy Terry, Kristen
2017 Contact, context, and collocation: The emergence of sociostylistic variation in L2 French learners during study abroad. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 39. 553–578. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Knouse, Stephanie M.
2013 The acquisition of dialectal phonemes in a study abroad context: The case of the Castilian theta. Foreign Language Annals 45. 512–542. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krashen, Stephen
1987 Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Lambert, Wallace, Richard Hodgson, Robert Gardner, & Samuel Fillenbaum
1960 Evaluational reactions to spoken languages. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 60. 44–51. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Li, Xiaoshi
2010 Sociolinguistic variation in the speech of learners of Chinese as a second language. Language Learning 60. 1–42. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Long, Michael
1998 Breaking the siege. University of Hawai’i Working Papers in ESL 17. 79–129.Google Scholar
Mougeon, Raymond, Terry Nadasdi, & Katherine Rehner
2010 The sociolinguistic competence of immersion students. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nagy, Naomi
2018 Linguistic attitudes and contact effects in Toronto’s heritage languages: A variationist sociolinguistic investigation. International Journal of Bilingualism 22(4). 429–446. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Park, Mihi & Rebecca L. Starr
2019 The acquisition of L3 variation among early bilinguals: The role of L2 experience, home language and linguistic factors. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 10. 657–689. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Podesva, Rob
2006 Phonetic detail in sociolinguistic variation: Its linguistic significance and role in the construction of social meaning. Stanford, CA: Stanford University dissertation.Google Scholar
Preston, Dennis R.
1989 Sociolinguistics and second language acquisition. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Purnell, Thomas, William Idsardi & John Baugh
1999 Perceptual and phonetic experiments on American English dialect identification. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 18(1). 10–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
R Core Team
2020 R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. [URL]
Raish, Michael
2015 The acquisition of an Egyptian phonological variant by U.S. students in Cairo. Foreign Language Annals 48 2). 267–283. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rickford, John R. & Russell J. Rickford
2000 Spoken soul: The story of Black English. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Ringer-Hilfinger, Kathryn
2012 Learner acquisition of dialect variation in a study abroad context: The case of the Spanish [θ]. Foreign Language Annals 45. 430–446. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, Lauren. B.
2011 Acquisition of dialectal variation in a second language: L2 perception of Spanish /s/. Bloomington: Indiana University dissertation.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Lauren B.
2018 L2 development of perceptual categorization of dialectal sounds: A study in Spanish. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 40(4). 857–882. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smith, Laura C. & Wendy Baker
2011 L2 dialect acquisition of German vowels: The case of northern German and Austrian dialects. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 47. 120–132. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stanford, James & Dennis R. Preston
(eds.) 2009 Variation in indigenous minority languages. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tarone, Elaine
1988 Variation in interlanguage. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Makalela, Leketi
2023. Merging English Home Language and First Additional Language curricula: Implications for future quality assurance practices. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 41:1 ► pp. 76 ff. DOI logo
Regan, Vera
2023. L1 and L2 Language Attitudes: Polish and Italian Migrants in France and Ireland. Languages 8:1 ► pp. 19 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 1 may 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.