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Bilingualism and aspiration

Coda /s/ reduction on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua
  • Whitney Chappell
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Spanish Language and Sociolinguistic Analysis
This chapter is in the book Spanish Language and Sociolinguistic Analysis

Abstract

Spanish has become increasingly prevalent in Bilwi, a Nicaraguan town on the northern Atlantic Coast, where many L1-Miskitu locals are now Spanish-dominant. As the community shifts towards Spanish, I investigate whether these L2-Spanish speakers are producing advanced rates of coda /s/ reduction like monolingual Nicaraguan Spanish speakers. In a comparison of the Miskitu’s reduction rates with Spanish monolinguals, I find that Miskitu speakers who learned Spanish later in life do reduce coda /s/ but diverge from monolingual reduction rates preconsonantally. I contend that salience and perceptibility can account for this difference. While monolinguals reduce /s/ the most in cue-impoverished environments, the L2-Spanish speakers reduce /s/ more where they hear the reductions the best: in cue-rich, prevocalic environments.

Abstract

Spanish has become increasingly prevalent in Bilwi, a Nicaraguan town on the northern Atlantic Coast, where many L1-Miskitu locals are now Spanish-dominant. As the community shifts towards Spanish, I investigate whether these L2-Spanish speakers are producing advanced rates of coda /s/ reduction like monolingual Nicaraguan Spanish speakers. In a comparison of the Miskitu’s reduction rates with Spanish monolinguals, I find that Miskitu speakers who learned Spanish later in life do reduce coda /s/ but diverge from monolingual reduction rates preconsonantally. I contend that salience and perceptibility can account for this difference. While monolinguals reduce /s/ the most in cue-impoverished environments, the L2-Spanish speakers reduce /s/ more where they hear the reductions the best: in cue-rich, prevocalic environments.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Acknowledgments ix
  4. Introduction xi
  5. Part I. Cutting-edge Methodologies in Sociolinguistics
  6. Quantitative analysis in language variation and change 3
  7. Combining population genetics (DNA) with historical linguistics 33
  8. Part II. Bilingualism
  9. Los Angeles Vernacular Spanish 91
  10. On the tenacity of Andean Spanish 109
  11. Spanish and Valencian in contact 135
  12. Part III. Language Acquisition
  13. Children’s Spanish subject pronoun expression 157
  14. The role of social networks in the acquisition of a dialectal features during study abroad 177
  15. Lexical frequency and subject expression in native and non-native Spanish 197
  16. Part IV. Phonological Variation
  17. On glottal stops in Yucatan Spanish 219
  18. Vowel raising and social networks in Michoacán 241
  19. Bilingualism and aspiration 261
  20. Part V. Morpho-Syntactic Variation
  21. Spanish and Portuguese parallels 285
  22. The tuteo of Rocha, Uruguay 305
  23. A corpus-based sociolinguistic study of contact-induced changes in subject placement in the Spanish of New York City bilinguals 323
  24. Part VI. Lexical Variation
  25. Social factors in semantic change 345
  26. Attitudes towards lexical Arabisms in sixteenth-century Spanish texts 363
  27. “Trabajar es en español, en ladino es lavorar” 381
  28. Index 401
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.8.11cha

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Acknowledgments ix
  4. Introduction xi
  5. Part I. Cutting-edge Methodologies in Sociolinguistics
  6. Quantitative analysis in language variation and change 3
  7. Combining population genetics (DNA) with historical linguistics 33
  8. Part II. Bilingualism
  9. Los Angeles Vernacular Spanish 91
  10. On the tenacity of Andean Spanish 109
  11. Spanish and Valencian in contact 135
  12. Part III. Language Acquisition
  13. Children’s Spanish subject pronoun expression 157
  14. The role of social networks in the acquisition of a dialectal features during study abroad 177
  15. Lexical frequency and subject expression in native and non-native Spanish 197
  16. Part IV. Phonological Variation
  17. On glottal stops in Yucatan Spanish 219
  18. Vowel raising and social networks in Michoacán 241
  19. Bilingualism and aspiration 261
  20. Part V. Morpho-Syntactic Variation
  21. Spanish and Portuguese parallels 285
  22. The tuteo of Rocha, Uruguay 305
  23. A corpus-based sociolinguistic study of contact-induced changes in subject placement in the Spanish of New York City bilinguals 323
  24. Part VI. Lexical Variation
  25. Social factors in semantic change 345
  26. Attitudes towards lexical Arabisms in sixteenth-century Spanish texts 363
  27. “Trabajar es en español, en ladino es lavorar” 381
  28. Index 401
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