The Acquisition of Spanish in Understudied Language Pairings ed. by Tiffany Judy and Silvia Perpiñán (review)

The Acquisition of Spanish in Understudied Language Pairings is a unique opportunity for researchers and graduate students of Spanish second language acquisition (SLA) to compare studies regarding morphosyntactic, pragmatic, and/or lexical acquisition of this language with languages that may not have been considered previously (like, for instance, Turkish and Swedish) on the belief that they were too distinct from Spanish for any comparison to be made. This crosslinguistic focus proves valuable as the reader can apply basic SLA knowledge to a broader field of study. Studies in this book include research conducted with subjects from children to adults, allowing people with varied interests in first language (L1) and second language (L2) acquisition to appreciate the material. The twelve studies are divided into three parts: 1) Spanish as the L2 in a bilingual society; 2) Spanish as an L2 in a non-bilingual society; and 3) Spanish as an L2 in an instructional context.

The four studies on Spanish acquisition in a bilingual society concentrate on comparing Spanish with either native languages of the Americas or languages in the Iberian Peninsula. The first study treats functional features in Quechua-Spanish bilingualism, looking at new feature-morphology mapping of L1 Quechua L2 Spanish speakers. The second study regards verbal agreement for L2 Spanish speakers of Nahuatl, deciding whether age of acquisition was a factor. The third study in this section considers coda production in spontaneous speech among bilingual Spanish and Basque children between the ages of 1;09 and 2;01. The fourth study is on locative and existential constructions in L2 Spanish of Catalan native speakers, determining whether the copula “to be” works the same way in both languages.

The second series of studies regarding Spanish acquisition in a non-bilingual society compares Spanish SLA with that of European and Middle Eastern languages. The first study in this section focuses on Spanish acquisition in bilinguals (Spanish-German, Spanish-French) and trilinguals (Spanish-Catalan-German) to determine which aspects reflect possible influences from other languages including delays and overgeneralizations. The second study deals with subject-related discourse properties of L1 speakers of Farsi acquiring L2 Spanish, concentrating on referential subject pronouns. The third study discusses Spanish subject pronoun acquisition for L1 speakers of Moroccan Arabic, analyzing three variables: null vs. overt subjects, subject vs. object, and main-subordinate vs. subordinate-main. The fourth study’s focus is motion event construal in Swedish speakers of L2 Spanish, specifically motion endpoints and manner of motion.

The final set of studies, Spanish as an L2 in an instructional context, will appeal to students who have already been trained in basic SLA theory as well as researchers who could use any or all of these four studies in their current courses. The first piece studies object drop in L2 Spanish for L1 speakers of English, Chinese, European Portuguese, or Brazilian Portuguese, noting L1 influences on L2 processes. The second piece explores differential object marking (DOM) in L2 Spanish by L1 Turkish speakers, seeking whether DOM can be acquired early for these L2 learners. The third chapter discusses copula selection in adjectival constructions for L2 learners of L1 Dutch speakers, seeking to discover patterns of difficulty. The final chapter investigates typological proximity in the Spanish non-native French speakers, targeting parametric options and feature combinations.

This book offers readers new perspectives on Spanish SLA that complement previous studies over the past twenty years, diverging for the most part from the typical books on L2 Spanish acquisition of L1 English speakers. Its interdisciplinary nature allows students and researchers alike to consider future projects with faculty of all kinds of language departments as well as cultural programs including Latin American Studies. The myriad authors who contributed to this work are to be commended for taking what some may consider a bold approach to SLA in untapped ways. Any student or researcher interested in integrated research should strongly contemplate...