The aim of the present paper is to provide an overview of the so-called "Spanglish" phenomenon and its linguistic repertoires (code-switching utterances). We propose that it is necessary to link all different forms of analysis in order to verify hypotheses regarding the relationship among social, linguistic, and cognitive processes behind…

The current debate in second language acquisition and heritage language learning is no longer about whether communicative language teaching should include a focus on form, but rather "how" and "when" this is most effective. The proposals for Spanish for heritage language learners (HLLs) courses show a marked preference for an integrated approach…

The Aymara of the Andes use absolute (cardinal) frames of reference for describing the relative position of ordinary objects. However, rather than encoding them in available absolute lexemes, they do it in lexemes that are intrinsic to the body: "nayra" ("front") and "qhipa" ("back"), denoting east and west,…

A handful of recent incidents hints at an ideological struggle over the use of the English word "fag(got)" and the Spanish word "maricon" in public discourse. This article examines the discursive and ideological struggle over the terms through the comparison of two cases in which Spanish/English bilingual Latinos in the U. S. use what might be…

This study seeks to examine variations in patterns of interactivity as they are displayed in the ongoing discourse construction of high and low self-efficacy learners of Spanish in the context of computer-mediated-communication. The paper specifically focuses on the analysis of synchronous text chats of six university students of Spanish at…

Purpose: Cross-linguistic cognates are words that share form and meaning in two languages (e.g., "helicopter-helicoptero"); translation equivalents are words that share meaning but not form (e.g., "house-casa"). Research consistently demonstrates a performance speed and/or accuracy advantage for processing cognates versus noncognates in bilingual…

The present study investigates voice onset times (VOTs) to determine if cognates enhance the cross-language phonetic influences in the speech production of a range of Spanish-English bilinguals: Spanish heritage speakers, English heritage speakers, advanced L2 Spanish learners, and advanced L2 English learners. To answer this question, lexical…

The aim of this study was to compare the prosodic profiles of English- and Spanish-speaking children with Williams syndrome (WS), examining cross-linguistic differences. Two groups of children with WS, English and Spanish, of similar chronological and nonverbal mental age, were compared on performance in expressive and receptive prosodic tasks…

During the last years there has been an increasing interest in examining the brain responses to word order variations. In one ERP study conducted in Spanish, Casado, Martin-Loeches, Munoz, and Fernandez-Frias (2005) had participants read Spanish transitive sentences with either an SVO (subject-verb-object) or an OVS order. The word order of a…

Elementary writing instruction is often limited, mainly focused on personal narratives. Informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics, this article reports on the writing of grade 3-5 bilingual children in a variety of genres. Analysis of their use of first, second, and third person provides insight into their understanding of genre and audience.…

The present study investigated the effects of training on the perception of Spanish stress, an important feature in the Spanish verbal morphology system. Participants were two intact classes of native English speakers enrolled in a six-week session of second-semester Spanish, as well as native English and native Spanish control groups. During the…

Purpose: The authors assessed adult selective auditory attention to determine effects of (a) differences between the vocal/speaking characteristics of different mixed-gender pairs of masking talkers and (b) the rhythmic structure of the language of the competing speech. Method: Reception thresholds for English sentences were measured for 50…

This study explored native English speakers' interpretations of second-language Spanish sentences featuring an animate subject and an ambitransitive verb (e.g., "Escuchan bien los ninos" "The children listen well"). First- (N=37), third- (N=39), and fifth-semester (N=23) participants heard eight subject-verb (SV) and eight verb-subject (VS)…

Vowels with extreme articulatory-acoustic properties act as natural referents. Infant perceptual asymmetries point to an underlying bias favoring these referent vowels. However, as language experience is gathered, distributional frequency of speech sounds could modify this initial bias. The perception of the /i/-/e/ contrast was explored in 144…

This paper investigates Spanish dyslexic spelling abilities: specifically, the influence of syllabic linguistic structure (simple vs consonant cluster) on children's spelling performance. Consonant clusters are phonologically complex structures, so it was anticipated that there would be lower spelling performance for these syllabic structures than…