Collaborative communities in the acquisition of second language speech (Gillian Lord)
This collaborative project paired students at two universities (University of Florida, University of Wisconsin-Madison) taking an upper level Spanish phonetics class to share oral recordings and engage in constructive criticism. Previous work (Lord 2008) has shown this kind of collaboration to be beneficial but has not tested it with a control group, a limitation remedied by the current data set. Attitudes, reactions, and acoustic analysis of the collaborative and non-collaborative groups will be compared.

The Typological Proximity Model: A Look at the L3 initial State (Jason Rothman)
This project examines the role of typology and psychotypology as a formal predictor for multilingual morphosyntactic transfer. Building on previous work by Rothman and Cabrelli Amaro (2010) and Rothman (in press), this project tests the predicts of the Typological Proximity Model, which challenges the claims of the Cumulative Enhancement Model (Flynn et al. 2004) and the L2 status factor (2007) by examining L3 transfer in groups of learners using a language-pairing mirrored methodology across several grammatical domains.

Twitter as a tool to promote reflective language teachers (Gillian Lord)
Over 80 new TAs around the US and Canada “tweeted” their experiences as instructors over the course of a semester. They shared their reactions and reflections in this brief but intensely social environment. Content analysis of the tweets is underway to reveal how these instructors created community and social presence through this medium, and what implications such community may have for language classes.

The Interface Hypothesis and L1 Attrition (Jason Rothman and Michael Iverson)
This longitudinal case study combines spontaneous production data, elicited production and psycholinguistic empirical tests from a Spanish native (Chilean) speaker of L2 Brazilian Portuguese living in Brazil for the past twenty years. Data is also collected from his Spanish heritage learner children via the same methodologies. We focus on Spanish structures within the narrow syntax, juxtaposed against syntax-pragmatic interface structures to test the predictions for L1 attrition theories. The data from his children are used to explore the relationship between L1 attrition and the input this generation of speakers provided from heritage language acquisition from which we suggest modifications to the global term “incomplete acquisition”.

Acquisition of second language sound patterns (Gillian Lord)
A series of online modules teaching pronunciation to intermediate language learners was incorporated into classes (while some classes received no treatment) to determine if it is possible to make linguistic/phonological gains at this level. Prior analysis of global ratings revealed no difference between groups; however, acoustic analysis is underway to investigate any more subtle differences between those who receive pronunciation training and those who do not.

Emerging Linguistic Varieties, Heritage Language Acquisition and “Incomplete Acquisition” Outcomes (Jason Rothman, Marcela Goeta-Cazzoli, Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes and Martha Young-Scholten)
This collaborative project seeks to map the morphosyntax of contact-varieties of Spanish in the US and the UK to serve as a corpus against which norms and normative assesments for heritage speaker Spanish competence can be measured. It also seeks to address questions related to non-pathological attrition and the notion of the steady state as well as providing a more fine- grained analysis of incomplete acquisition outcomes.

Willingness to communicate and the acquisition of fluency during study abroad (Melanie D'Amico, Gillian Lord)
Melanie D’Amico’s dissertation studies the effects of short-term intensive language study both in study abroad and at-home contexts on oral fluency and Willingness to Communicate in the second language.  Following Sociocultural theory of second language acquisition, she hypothesizes that learners who participate in intensive study abroad programs will demonstrate larger gains in both fluency and a willingness to use Spanish due to their greater exposure and interaction with native speakers and native language artifacts. 

The L1 acquisition of Brazilian and European Portuguese: Implications for Linguistic Theories (Ines Duarte, Acrisio Pires, Jason Rothman, Ana Lúcia Santos)
This collaborative project examines the acquisition of monolingual Brazilian and European Portuguese, specifically targeting structures (syntactic and syntactic-semantic ones) where there is a mismatch between the standard dialect of BP and colloquial Portuguese varieties (e.g. inflected infinitives, the clitic system and the like) and no mismatch for these same properties in European Portuguese. Ultimately, we seek to show how experimental acquisition research supports diachronic linguistic proposals and also what the role of literacy is in the grammatical competence of educated adults.

Acquisition of dialectal speech characteristics during an immersion experience (Francisco Salgado, Gillian Lord)
The dissertation project of Francisco Salgado, this study aims to quantitatively and qualitatively analyze acquisition of and variation in the morphosyntactic characteristics of the Andalusian dialect of Spain. The corpus consists of sociolinguistic interviews carried out with several students studying abroad in Spain for a semester and a year, as well as with native Spanish speakers from the region.

DP Syntax and Semantics in L2 Spanish and L2/L3 Portuguese (Jason Rothman, Tiffany Judy, Michael Iverson)
This collaborative project looks at the acquisition of the syntax and semantics of non-native Spanish and Portuguese (gender and number morphology, adjectival placement, N-drop and the semantics of Bare nominals and DPs) by various groups of L1 learners (English, German, Italian and French).

Phrasal intonation of heritage speakers of Spanish in New Mexico (Valerie Trujillo, Gillian Lord)
Valerie Trujillo’s dissertation investigates the phrasal intonation of heritage speakers of Spanish in New Mexico to compare it to, and place it in context with, the intonation of monolingual speakers of English and Spanish.  This study analyzes the speech of English-dominant heritage speakers to determine if there is convergence and, if so, to describe the nature of this convergence.

The Phonological Permeability Hypothesis (PPH): L3 Influence on L2 Phonological Systems (Jennifer Cabrelli and Jason Rothman)
This project is Jennifer Cabrelli’s dissertation project. Charting the influence of L3 Portuguese phonological transfer from the L3 initial state through one year of immersion of successful L2 Spanish (and vice versa), we propose the PPH which claims that L3 transfer effects on the L2 (when the L2 is acquired in adulthood) provide indirect, but robust evidence that corroborates a critical/sensitive period for the phonological component.

Subject-to-Subject Raising in HS Spanish and English and L1 Spanish Attrition (Diego Pascual Cabo, Gonzalo Campos, Ana de Prada Pérez and Jason Rothman)
In Spanish, the raising verb parecer “to seem/appear” requires that the experiencer be doubled through a dative clitic. While the presence of this clitic is evident in the input, a related restriction is not: the dative clitic of parecer cannot co-occur with subject-to-subject raising as in *Juan me parece saber todo (Torrego, 1996). This same construction, however, is permitted in English as seen in the translation John appears to me to know everything. Following Ausín and Depiante (2000), the contrast is explained by the different featural specification of embedded T: in English, embedded T is defective (Tdef), specified as [-finite, -tense] assigning no Case. Conversely, embedded T in Spanish is not defective, and thus assigns case to Juan. As a result, movement of Juan across the experiencer me (“to me”) constitutes a violation of Relativized Minimality in Spanish only. This study investigates the competence of both Spanish and English in HSs in the US as well as L1 attriter native speakers of Spanish who have moved to the US for the featural configuration of embedded T.

Pragmatic Features at the L2 Syntax-Discourse Interface (Roumyana Slabakova, Gonzalo Campos, Paula Kempchinsky, Tania Leal Mendez and Jason Rothman)
A recent version of the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace & Serratrice, 2009) proposes a principled distinction between internal interfaces (e.g. between narrow syntax and phonology, morphology, semantics), and external ones. Indeed, external interfaces such as the syntax/discourse interface are a major source of difficulty (Belleti, Bennati & Sorace, 2007). While there is a general consensus for developmental delays, ultimate attainment findings are to date inconclusive (Rothman, 2009; Valenzuela, 2005, 2006; Ivanov, 2009). This experimental study looks further into processes at this interface, teasing apart acquisition of syntactic, semantic and discourse knowledge by examining the acquisition of Clitic Left Dislocation (CLLD) and Clitic Right Dislocation (CRLD). We adopt López (2009) who offers a new theoretical model of syntax-information structure interaction, proposing a pragmatic computation module that assembles sentences into Discourse Representation Structures in parallel to the syntactic computation. The crucial information structure notions are discourse anaphor and contrast, encoded by the features [±a(naphor)] and [±c(ontrast)] which in combination account for the conditions and effects of dislocation and fronting. In CLLD or Clitic Right Dislocation the feature [+a] is operative: clitics double an overt argument with an obligatory link to an antecedent. A constituent which moves to the left periphery is marked [+c]: it presents a contrast (ex. 3 vs. 4). Table 1 presents the constructions and their features. CLLD and CRLD constitute good domains to examine contrastively since they are felicitous in slightly different discourse contexts due to differing constraints on the anaphor-antecedent relationship (Villalba, 2000). CLRD requires a relationship of identity, while the anaphor-antecedent relationship in CLLD is much freer: it can be subset, superset, part/whole . Keeping in mind all these constraints, the learning tasks for English natives acquiring L2 Spanish involve: 1) syntactic knowledge of clitics; 2) discourse appropriateness of the clitic-doubled dislocations; 3) semantic constraints on the antecedent-dislocate relationship.

Variation in copula choice: an Analysis of Advanced Second Language Learners (Dorian Dorado, Gillian Lord)
Dorian Dorado’s dissertation, this project investigates copula choice (ser/estar) in Spanish among advanced second language learners. The study aims to explore sociolinguistic variables that are involved in the acquisition and use of variable structures, such as copula choice, including contact with L2 outside of the classroom.

When L2 syntax is target-like and target-deviant at the same time: L1 preemption again! (Jason Rothman and Michael Iverson)
In this paper, we examine the L2 acquisition of non-phonetically realized objects in Spanish by highly advanced native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Accusative objects in both Spanish and BP can be omitted, but their underlying syntax and language specific distributions are distinct. In Spanish, specific topicalized DPs must be doubled by a clitic, while non-specific DPs may not (1a-b). Moreover, only non-specific direct objects can be dropped (2a-b). Object drop in Spanish is subject to subjacency restrictions (Campos, 1986) showing that the dropped objects are not pro but rather a variable/topic operator in spec of CP which must agree with [-definite, -specific] features in the D head of the object (Franco, 1993; Sánchez, 2004). Conversely, the true null objects of BP are an instance of pro as evidenced by their free omission in strong islands. Specificity is not relevant in BP: both specific and non-specific objects can be topicalized without a clitic, and both may be dropped (e.g. Schwenter, 2006). BP L2 learners of Spanish have to acquire agreement between the operator and the D head as well as acquire the specificity constraint to converge on the Spanish grammar. However, for their L2 grammar to truly be on target, they will also need to preempt their L1 licensing of pro in accusative object position, which is not guaranteed by acquiring the Spanish syntax alone (see Trahey and White 1992).