Spirantization amongst Early and Late Sequential Spanish-English Bilinguals

Within PSU Spanish courses students are expected to correct and enhance their pronunciation. In order to do so, students are taught to apply phonological based rules from standardized Spanish, regardless of students’ linguistic background. The purpose of this study is to explore one of the phonological rules taught, spirantization, and its occurrence within U.S. early sequential Spanish-English (ESSE) bilingual and late sequential (LSSE) bilingual speech. ESSE bilinguals are participants who were raised as Spanish and English native speakers in the U.S.; whereas LSSE bilinguals are participants who were raised in a Spanish speaking country but learned English in the U.S. in their adulthood. The specific question of this study is whether or not ESSE bilinguals produce spirantization in a different manner compared to LSSE bilinguals? Both groups of participants read sentences out loud that were audio recorded and analyzed through spectrograms for the production patterns of spirantization. The hypothesis is that there will be a difference between the groups in spirantization patterns, with LSSE bilinguals producing more spirantization than ESSE bilinguals. If a difference in spirant use is found between dialects, recommendations for future instruction should be to demonstrate how bilingualism can influence pronunciations within Spanish dialects