A growing body of work exploring transnational interaction has brought to light the importance of awareness of multilingualism in research contexts, yet little consideration has been given to researchers working in a later learned language (LX) or the process of investigating linguistically diverse communities. This research takes place within a…

Word Analysis is an approach to teach second language (L2) students about cultural perspectives which are understood collectively as the ideas, values, beliefs, and experiences many native speakers have regarding cultural domains within their own cultures. Word Analysis is anchored on the relationships between language and communication, and…

'Translanguaging' has become the most popular term in discussions about how to use learners' languages as resources for target language teaching/learning, but it has also become ambiguous because it is being developed in proposals adopting different perspectives on multilingualism. The first aim of this article is to offer an overview of the two…

Little is known about how monolingual ideologies and their effects manifest in online contexts as compared to offline contexts. We conducted a corpus-assisted discourse study to investigate this, with a focus on Twitter representations of Spanish as a heritage language in the USA. We analysed two corpora (one English and one Spanish--over 30…

Catalonia is an interesting site for language ideology research for several reasons. It is a multilingual and multicultural territory, where both Catalan and Spanish enjoy the status of co-official language. Adding to this, over the course of the last two decades there has been a growing movement that has called for the independence of Catalonia…

The aim of this commentary is to discuss and promote discussion on some linguistic and pedagogical issues around the use of gender inclusive language, particularly the -e morpheme in plural forms, in Spanish. Its speakers are experiencing and becoming aware of language change in real time concerning the use of morphosyntactic choices that seek…

This sociophonetic study examines affricate variation through a continuous lens using diachronic data from Caracas Spanish. We investigate the relationship between frication and occlusion period duration in affricate segments across two steps. First, we present a phonetic characterization of the dependent variable and its variants. Second, we…

This paper analyzes data from Native American students' attainment in a first-semester Spanish language course at an indigenous-serving institution before, during, and after the pandemic. The gap between Native American and non-Native American students increased during the first post-pandemic semester to the point that just one out of 11 Native…

This article examines the ways Latino/a bilingual teacher candidates (TCs) talk about their own and others' language practices and the ways this talk reflects and reproduces racialized notions of bilingualism. Drawing on data from a one-year critical ethnography at a Hispanic-serving institution in Southwest Texas, this article demonstrates that…

Although recent research suggests that gains are made in the acquisition of dialectal features during study abroad, the few studies that have been conducted on this topic in Spanish-speaking contexts have focused primarily on features characteristic of Spain. This article examines the L2 acquisition of phonological features characteristic of…

This study examines the second language (L2) development of variable /s/-weakening in the spontaneous speech of L2 learners of Spanish who studied abroad in either Dominican Republic, where /s/-weakening is widespread, or central Spain, where /s/-weakening is much less common. Learners' realizations of /s/ were coded impressionistically and…

Learners must develop the ability to vary language according to linguistic and situational factors to produce context-appropriate utterances. Likewise, interpreting the additional meaning conveyed through language variation is essential for successful communication. Nevertheless, research on the interpretation of the variable copulas in Spanish is…

In my research I examine the linguistic practices of Moroccans in Spain, many of whom speak Moroccan Arabic as well as Modern Standard Arabic, Tamazight, French, English and Spanish at varying levels of proficiency. As part of my research, I conducted a 10-month linguistic ethnography. I was able to rely on my native English and near-native…

This study takes a mixed-methods approach to explore the influence of emotion-laden (positive vs. negative vs. neutral) texts and words on vocabulary learning for Spanish heritage and foreign language learners. Participants (N = 121) were tasked with learning emotion-laden pseudowords embedded in three emotion-laden texts centered around themes of…

The search for a more comprehensive and conscious curriculum for Spanish heritage language learners and Spanish native speakers (SHL/SNS) is a task that many educators are making a priority due to the diversity in the classroom. This paper focuses on presenting the theoretical framework and approaches that have facilitated SHL/SNS instruction in…