| Many believe in the positive effects of study abroad (SA) on language learning thinking that those who spend time in the target culture will become more proficient in the L2 than those who stay at home (AH). To some extent this is correct since research has shown that SA participants gain in communicative skills more than their AH counterparts (Freed, 1995). While the potential for SA to affect aspects of oral proficiency is clear, SA has not necessarily been found to predict phonological and morphological adoption. Evidence of such change has been clear at times (i.e., Diaz Campos, 2006; Salgado-Robles, 2011) while not in others (i.e., Collantine, 2004; Diaz Campos, 2006).;This dissertation adds to this conversation, positing that factors such as social networks, motivation, and levels of acculturation, among others, may explain language change during SA. It examines the realizations of four regional features of Madrid Spanish of four pilot study participants who spent a full academic year in Madrid and six full study participants who were there for one semester. Materials included a variety of linguistic tasks, questionnaires and interview questions designed to elicit factors that could explain learner behavior. The pilot participants completed most tasks one time post-SA. The full study participants completed all tasks three times: just before they left for Spain, during the last weeks of their sojourn and three months after their return to the United States. They also provided weekly information on their experiences abroad via diary entries and/or social network logs.;Although some previous research has suggested that SA does not necessarily predict regionalism adoption (i.e., Geeslin & Gudmestad, 2011; Ringer-Hilfinger, 2012), the data presented in this dissertation show that all participants used local features at some point in the process. It will be argued that each participant took their own pathway to get to the linguistic behavior they exhibited by the end of their sojourn but characteristics of their social networks, tied to their attitudes, levels of acculturation, motivations for learning and studying abroad, can be used to explain why some produced regional features and why some did not. |
