San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia
Imagine that you hear the sentence I drink my coffee with cream and… Most people would be very accurate at predicting that the next word would be sugar. The fact that people can sometimes anticipate what comes next in the speech signal has been proposed as a mental operation—prediction—to facilitate comprehension. If listeners anticipate information, they can process it faster. Studies have found a literacy effect on predictive abilities but have not consistently controlled for socioeconomic (SES), a variable related to language development.
I take the lab to the field to investigate the role of literacy on predictive processing during spoken language comprehension in low-SES adults from an underrepresented Afro-Hispanic community, San Basilio de Palenque, located to the south of Cartagena, Colombia.
New Mexico Spanish-English Bilingual Corpus
For the last couple of years, I've been working on a project that looks closely at how Spanish-English bilinguals from New Mexico mix their languages fluidly within the same sentence or discourse--a practice known as codeswitching. To analyze real-life examples of their codeswitching, we've been using the New Mexico Spanish-English Bilingual (NMSEB) corpus, which compiles natural and spontaneous conversations through sociolinguistic interviews.
Learn more:
Torres Cacoullos, R. & Vélez Avilés, J. (2023). Mixing adjectives: A variable equivalence hypothesis for bilingual word order conflicts. https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.22038.tor
San Juan, Puerto Rico
In countries where the dominant language aligns with speakers' first language, the process of acquiring a second language (L2) can sometimes present unique challenges. Understanding how young learners navigate the complexities of L2 language acquisition in an environment where it is not the primary mode of communication is crucial. With this in mind, our research team took the lab to the field---a school setting---to collect data on children and adolescents who were learning English as an L2 in an immersion setting in Puerto Rico, where the dominant language is Spanish.
Have you ever heard a Puerto Rican saying Tengo que il a trabajal? Do you say bochinche or chisme to refer to gossip? Do you say The dishes need to be washed or The dishes need washed? These are all examples of phonetic, lexical, and syntactic variation. Language variation is a field of linguistics that explores how language is used across different social groups, regions, and contexts. Researchers in this field analyze how factors such as geography, social status, age, gender, and ethnicity influence language use, leading to variations in pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. Through methods like sociolinguistic interviews, corpus analysis, and participant observation, we uncover patterns and trends in language variation and change.
In a study on Puerto Rican Spanish, I analyze the variable marking of dative constructions (e.g., Ø eso yo le estaba dando share vs. a eso yo le estaba dando share 'I was sharing that') and uncover the linguistic factors influencing the absence of the dative marker a.
Learn more:
Vélez Avilés, J. (in press). Los puertorriqueños se les está cayendo la “a”: Variably marked datives in Puerto Rican Spanish. Spanish in Context. Access draft here.
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Do you sometimes start a sentence in English y terminas en español? If you switch back and forth between your languages, you're probably a codeswitcher (aka a person who uses two or more languages within the same utterance). This is a common practice among bilingual speakers that requires proficient knowledge of the languages.
Puerto Rico's linguistic landscape, with Spanish and English coexisting since 1898, presents a unique setting for studying language mixing. Initially, many Puerto Ricans resisted English, viewing it as a threat to their Hispanic identity. However, recent studies indicate a shift towards comfortable bilingualism among islanders, mirroring patterns seen in Puerto Ricans in the US. This reflects an evolving Puerto Rican identity that now embraces bilingualism.
Learn more:
Guzzardo Tamargo, R.E. & Vélez Avilés, J. (2017). La alternancia de códigos en Puerto Rico: Preferencias y actitudes. https://doi.org/10.1353/crb.2017.0003
Guzzardo Tamargo, R.E., Loureiro-Rodríguez, V., Acar, E.F., & Vélez Avilés, J. (2019). Attitudes in progress: Puerto Rican youth's opinions on monolingual and code-switched language varieties. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2018.1515951