Cover not available
Part of
Lifespan Acquisition and Language Change: Historical sociolinguistic perspectives
Edited by Israel Sanz-Sánchez
[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics 14] 2024
► pp. 64–83

Chapter 3
The second language acquisition of variation in adulthood and language change

| Indiana University
| Indiana University
ORCID logo | University of Mississippi
ORCID logo | Indiana University

Research on the second language acquisition of sociolinguistic variation is grounded in an understanding of sociohistorical linguistics. The patterns attested in language change provide a foundation for understanding the language of second language learners. This chapter provides an overview of research on adult L2 sociolinguistics and shines a light on studies that demonstrate how linguists might bridge the gap between the fields of historical linguistics and second language acquisition (e.g., Giacalone Ramat (1995) for L2 Italian, Donaldson (2017) for L2 French and Geeslin (2002) for L2 Spanish). Moving from studies that explicitly explore this connection, the chapter identifies other findings in L2 research that bridge this gap, and offers suggestions for future inquiry at the intersection of these two fields.

Keywords: adult SLA, language change, L2 development, interdisciplinary linguistics, sociolinguistic variation, sociolinguistic methods, L2 Spanish, L2 French, L2 Italian
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Sociolinguistics in adult second language
  • 2.Trends in research on adult second language variation
  • 3.Connections between SLA language variation and language change
  • 4.SLA and the historical sociolinguistics of language change: Challenges and opportunities
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 April 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.14.03gee
References
Adamson, Douglas & Vera Regan
1991 The acquisition of community speech norms by Asian immigrants learning English as a second language: A preliminary study. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 13. 1–22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ashby, William
1976 The loss of negative morpheme, ne, in Parisian French. Lingua 39. 119–137. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1981 The loss of negative particle ne in French: A syntactic change in progress. Language 57(3). 674–687. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Auer, Anita, Catharina Peersman, Simon Pickl, Gijsbert Rutten & Rik Vosters
2015 Historical sociolinguistics: the field and its future. Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics 1(1). 1–12. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen
2000 Tense and aspect in second language acquisition: Form, meaning, and use. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Berdan, Robert
1996 Disentangling language acquisition from language variation. In Robert Bayley & Dennis R. Preston (eds.), Second language acquisition and linguistic variation, 203–244. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins & William Pagliuca
1994 The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Caetano, Ana Carolina Alves & Silvia Rodrigues Vieira
2021 Análise variacionista da ordem dos clíticos pronominais no português de Moçambique. Revista Diadorim 23. 171–202. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Canagarajah, Suresh
2011 Translanguaging in the classroom: Emerging issues for research and pedagogy. Applied Linguistics Review 2. 1–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cazden, Courtney B., Herlinda Cancino, Ellen Rosansky & John Schumann
1975 Second language acquisition sequences in children, adolescents and adults. Final Report. National Institute of Education.Google Scholar
Cedergren, Henrietta J. & David Sankoff
1974 Variable rules: Performance as a statistical reflection of competence. Language 50(2). 333–355. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clements, J. Clancy
2009 The linguistic legacy of Spanish and Portuguese: Colonial expansion and language change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2018 Speech communities, language varieties, and typology: What does acquisition have to do with it? Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 33(2). 413–414. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Creese, Angela & Adrian Blackledge
2010 Translanguaging in the bilingual classroom: A pedagogy for learning and teaching? The Modern Language Journal 94(1). 103–115. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dewaele, Jean-Marc, Thomas Bak & Lourdes Ortega
2022 Why the mythical “native speaker” has mud on its face. In Nikolay Slavkov, Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer & Nadja Kerschhofer-Puhalo (eds.), The changing face of the “native speaker”: Perspectives from multilingualism and globalization, 23–43. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Donaldson, Bryan
2017 Negation in near-native French: Variation and sociolinguistic competence. Language Learning 67. 141–170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2022 Connecting language change with second language acquisition. In Kimberly Geeslin (ed.), The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition and sociolinguistics, 174–185. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dörnyei, Zoltán
2005 The psychology of the language learner: Individual differences in second language acquisition. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Evans-Sago, Travis
2018 A case study of three Chinese-Spanish varieties: Tense-aspect morphology in instructed and non-instructed language use. Journal of Ibero-Romance Creoles 8. 4–37.Google Scholar
Fafulas, Stephen
(ed.) 2020 Amazonian Spanish: Language contact and evolution. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2021 Variation of the simple present and present progressive: Peruvian Spanish, ‘Pear Story,’ and language contact, oh my!. In Manuel Díaz-Campos (ed.), The Routledge handbook of variationist approaches to Spanish, 328–344. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fafulas, Stephen & Miguel Rodríguez-Mondoñedo
Forthcoming. Spanish in contact with Peruvian Amazonian languages. To appear in Leonardo Cerno, Hans-Jörg Döhla, Miguel Gutiérrez Maté, Robert Hesselbach & Joachim Steffen eds. Handbook of contact varieties of Spanish and Spanish-lexified contact varieties Berlin De Gruyter Mouton
Falk, Johan
1979 Ser y estar con atributos adjetivales: Anotaciones sobre el empleo de la cópula en catalán y en castellano. Uppsala: Uppsala University PhD dissertation.
Fischer, Susann & Vega Vilanova, Jorge
2018 Contact-induced change in Judeo-Spanish. In Harm den Boer, Anna Lena Menny, Carsten Wilke, David M. Bunis, Ivana Vučina Simović & Corinna Deppner (eds.), Caminos de leche y miel. Jubilee volume in Honor of Michael Studemund-Halévy. Volume 2, 135–153. Barcelona: Tirocinio.Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, Colleen
2017 Understanding language vitality and reclamation as resilience: A framework for language endangerment and ‘loss’ (Commentary on Mufwene). Language 93(4). 281–298. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gardner, Robert & Peter MacIntyre
1991 An instrumental motivation in language study: Who says it isn’t effective? Studies in Second Language Acquisition 13. 57–72. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Geeslin, Kimberly
2002 The acquisition of Spanish copula choice and its relationship to language change. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 24(3). 419–450. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2003 A comparison of copula choice: Native Spanish speakers and advanced learners. Language Learning 53(4). 703–764. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 The acquisition of variation in second language Spanish: How to identify and catch a moving target. In Manuel Díaz-Campos (ed.), The handbook of Hispanic sociolinguistics, 303–319. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2018 Variable structures and sociolinguistic variation. In Paul Malovrh & Alessandro Benati (eds.), The handbook of advanced proficiency in second language acquisition, 547–565. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(ed.) 2022 The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition and sociolinguistics. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Geeslin, Kimberly & Travis Evans-Sago
2020 Bilingualism, second language acquisition, and language contact. In Stephen Fafulas (ed.), Amazonian Spanish: Language contact and evolution, 35–56. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Geeslin, Kimberly & Stephen Fafulas
2022 Linguistic variation and second language Spanish: A study of progressive and habitual marking by English-speaking learners. In Robert Bayley, Dennis Preston & Xiaoshi Li (eds.), Variation in second and heritage languages: Crosslinguistic perspectives, 159–198. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giacalone Ramat, Anna
1995 Iconicity in grammaticalization processes. In Raffaele Simone (ed.), Iconicity in language, 119–139. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 Typological universals and second language acquisition. In Sergio Scalise, Elisabetta Magni & Antonietta Bisetto (eds.), Universals of language today. Studies in natural language and linguistic theory, vol. 76, 253–272. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Givón, Talmy
1976 Topic, pronoun, and grammatical agreement. In Charles Li (ed.), Subject and topic, 149–188. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph
1991 Typology/universals and second language acquisition. In Thom Huebner & Charles Ferguson (eds.), Cross currents in second language acquisition and linguistic theories, 37–43. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gutiérrez, Manuel
1992 The extension of estar: A linguistic change in progress in the Spanish of Morelia, Mexico. Hispanic Linguistics 5(1–2). 109–141.Google Scholar
Hansen Edwards, Jette
2011 Deletion of /t, d/ and the acquisition of linguistic variation by second language learners of English. Language Learning 61(4). 1256–1301. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holmquist, Jonathan
2012 Frequency rates and constraints on subject personal pronoun expression: Findings from the Puerto Rican highlands. Language Variation and Change 24. 203–220. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kanwit, Matthew & Kimberly Geeslin
2018 Exploring lexical effects in second language interpretation: The case of mood in Spanish adverbial clauses. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 40(3). 579–603. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kanwit, Matthew, Vanessa Elias & Rebecca Clay
2018 Acquiring intensifier variation abroad: Exploring muy and bien in Spain and Mexico. Foreign Language Annals 51(2). 455–471. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kanwit, Matthew & Kimberly Geeslin
2020 Sociolinguistic competence and interpreting variable structures in a second language: A study of the copula contrast in native and second-language Spanish. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 42(4). 775–799. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Klein, Flora
1980 A quantitative study of syntactic and pragmatic indications of change in the Spanish of bilinguals in the U.S. In William Labov (ed.), Locating language in time and space, 69–82. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Klein, Wolfgang & Clive Perdue
1997 The basic variety (or: Couldn’t natural languages be much simpler?). Second Language Research 13(4). 301–347. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, William
1966 The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
1994 Principles of linguistic change. Volume one: Internal factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Levon, Erez & Sue Fox
2014 Social salience and the sociolinguistic monitor: A case study of ING and TH-fronting in Britain. Journal of English Linguistics 42(3). 185–217. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Li, Xiaoshi
2010 Sociolinguistic variation in the speech of learners of Chinese as a second language. Language Learning 60(2). 366–408. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 Variation in subject pronominal expression in L2 Chinese. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 36(1). 39–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lipski, John
2015 Is “Spanglish” the third language of the South? In Michael Picone & Catherine Evans Davies (eds.), New perspectives on language variety in the South: Historical and contemporary approaches, 657–677. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Mougeon, Raymond, Terry Nadasdi & Katherine Rehner
2010 The sociolinguistic competence of immersion students. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nevalainen, Terttu & Helena Raumolin-Brunberg
2012 Historical sociolinguistics: Origins, motivations, and paradigms. In Juan Manuel Hernández-Campoy & José Camilo Conde-Silvestre (eds.), The handbook of historical sociolinguistics, 22–40. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norton, Bonny
2011 Identity. In James Simpson (ed.), The Routledge handbook of applied linguistics, 318–330. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ortiz-López, Luis
2000 Extensión de estar en contextos de ser en el español de Puerto Rico: ¿Evolución interna o contacto de lenguas? Boletín de la Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española, 98–118.Google Scholar
Otheguy, Ricardo, Ofelia García & Wallis Reid
2015 Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review 6(3). 281–307. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pew Research Center
2022 U.S. Hispanic population continued its geographic spread in the 2010s. [URL] (April 15, 2022.)
Preston, Dennis
1989 Sociolinguistics and second language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Raish, Michael
2015 The acquisition of an Egyptian phonological variant by US students in Cairo. Foreign Language Annals 48(2). 267–283. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rehner, Katherine, Raymond Mougeon & Terry Nadasdi
2003 The learning of sociolinguistic variation by advanced FSL learners: The case of nous versus on in immersion French. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 25(1). 127–156. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, Lauren, Bret Linford & Stephen Fafulas
2022 Regional variation. In Kimberly Geeslin (ed.), The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition and sociolinguistics. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Selinker, Larry
1972 Interlanguage. International Review of Applied Linguistics 10. 209–232. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shirai, Yasuhiro & Roger W. Andersen
1995 The acquisition of tense-aspect morphology: A prototype account. Language 71(4). 743–762. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silva-Corvalán, Carmen
1986 Bilingualism and language change: The extension of estar in Los Angeles Spanish. Language 62(3). 587–608. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1994 Language contact and change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sorace, Antonella & Ludovica Serratrice
2009 Internal and external interfaces in bilingual language development: beyond structural overlap. International Journal of Bilingualism 13(2). 193–210. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tarone, Elaine
2006 Interlanguage. In Keith Brown (ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. 2nd edition, 747–751. Boston: Elsevier. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thomas, Erik
(ed.) 2019 Mexican American English: Substrate influence and the birth of an ethnolect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trudgill, Peter
2011 Sociolinguistic typology: Social determinants of linguistic complexity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
VanPatten, Bill
2004 Processing instruction: Theory, research, and commentary. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Winford, Donald
2020 The New Spanishes in the context of contact linguistics: Toward a unified approach. In Luis Ortiz López, Rosa Guzzardo Tamargo & Melvin González-Rivera (eds.), Hispanic contact linguistics: Theoretical, methodological and empirical perspectives, 11–41. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wolfram, Walt, Phillip Carter & Becky Moriello
2004 Emerging Hispanic English: New dialect formation in the American South. Journal of Sociolinguistics 8(3). 339–358. DOI logoGoogle Scholar