In this dissertation, I explore the sociolinguistic perception of stylistic variation by native Spanish speakers and second language learners of Spanish. Within the field of Hispanic sociolinguistics and there is growing interest in studying the social information that listeners extract from language variation that speakers employ (e.g., Chappell,…

The role of children's verbal repetition of parents' utterances on vocabulary growth has been well documented (Masur, 1999). Nevertheless, few studies have analyzed adults' and children's spontaneous verbal repetition around the second birthday distinguishing between the types of repetition. We analyzed longitudinally Spanish-speaking parent-child…

The present study expands the literature on the Foreign Language Effect by investigating differences in moral judgment for 280 English-Spanish late bilinguals when processing the button and bridge moral scenarios of the canonical trolley dilemma (Thomson, 1985) in an online questionnaire in either a native (NL), foreign (FL), or code-switched (CS)…

The present study examined the effect of a pedagogical intervention about humorous verbal irony in Spanish with a mixed group of 40 second language (L2) and heritage speakers of Spanish. Unlike previous studies that have considered only irony comprehension, this project incorporated both comprehension and production of irony into instruction and…

The ability to think about nonpresent time is a crucial aspect of human cognition. Both the past and future imply a temporal displacement of an event outside the "now." They also intrinsically differ: The past refers to inalterable events; the future to alterable events, to possible worlds. Are the past and future processed similarly or…

The analysis of a community's linguistic landscape has proven to be an excellent tool not only in portraying, but also in evaluating and interpreting what languages are used in a single place (and what languages seem to be invisible), what the vitality of any of these languages is, and the relative influence that each linguistic variety within…

The ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview--computer (OPIc) employs a self-assessment instrument to determine the nature of the speaking prompts to which the test taker will respond and, thus the difficulty of the test. Grounded in research demonstrating varying levels of accuracy in self-assessment among language learners, this study examines the…

In this article, the author offers recommendations for pedagogical practice based on the assessment results of uppercase letter-name knowledge among Spanish-speaking preschool children from low-income backgrounds.

The successful acquisition of a heritage language (HL) has been the focus of much of the research on early bi-, tri- and multilingualism in the last years, since it is this language which is generally delimited within the family environment and finds less continuity outside this context once the multilingual child starts socialising in the…

This systematic review aims to explore how task complexity and task sequencing affect the complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) of second language performance. Through an analysis of studies conducted between 2012 and 2021, this review investigates the characteristics of the studies, operationalisation of task complexity, measurements of CAF,…

Codeswitching is a common feature of bilingual language practices, yet its impact on word learning is poorly understood. Critically, processing costs associated with codeswitching may extend to learning. Moreover, verbs tend to be more difficult to learn than nouns, and the challenges of learning verbs could compound with processing costs…

This paper provides fresh insights on how PIs (Polarity Items) in non-veridical contexts (questions and conditionals) are represented in the grammar of multilingual learners of Catalan at different stages of development. It explores how this non-native grammatical system interacts with other previously acquired systems of negation and the implicit…

The far-reaching impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Latinx communities is well-documented. This population has higher rates of COVID-19 infection and death compared with non-Latinx White Americans mainly due to long-standing problems related to Social Determinants of Health. Communication about issues such as health threats and safety measures are…

Accompanying the recent rise in cautious popularity surrounding Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen-AI), some language educators are exploring innovative linguistic interactions with Gen-AI. Seeking to add a literature approximation to such criticism, this article explores two activities that feature Gen-AI in undergraduate literature courses.…

Self-development is vital for enhancing language teaching ability (LTA), a key component of instructional effectiveness. While prior research on LTA self-development has emphasised the roles of teacher cognition and emotion, less attention has been paid to teachers' linguistic repertoires. Yet, language teachers may draw on diverse linguistic…