Lorenzo García-Amaya

I work at the intersection of the fields of Second Language Acquisition and Psycholinguistics. My research focuses on the development of fluency and cognitive abilities by second language learners and how cognitive processing abilities affect second language speech development. I am currently investigating the relationship between cognitive abilities (lexical access, lexical retrieval, and attention control) and fluency, and how different learning contexts contribute to the development of these abilities. My most recent publications examine issues such as fluency, topic effect, and the relationship between clause type and filled pauses in the second language speech of learners who have and have not participated in abroad learning experiences. From a theoretical standpoint, I consider the applicability of Leveltian models of speech production for understanding the developmental nature of second language acquisition, especially at the level of lexical access. At Michigan, I have begun to develop a model of second language cognition that incorporates the notions of language experience and inhibition and that recognizes second language learning as a complex, adaptive process. I also collaborate with colleagues at Michigan (Andries Coetzee of Linguistics & Nicholas Henriksen of RLL) on sociophonetic research across varieties of monolingual and bilingual speech communities in the Spanish-speaking world.

Selected Recent Publications

García-Amaya, Lorenzo. (in press). A longitudinal study of filled pauses and silent pauses in second language speech.  In R. Lickley et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Disfluency in Spontaneous Speech. Edinburgh, United Kingdom.

Coetzee, Andries, Lorenzo García-Amaya, Nicholas Henriksen, & Daan Wissing. (in press). Bilingual speech rhythm: Spanish-Afrikaans in Patagonia. In J. Stuart-Smith et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 18^th international conference of phonetic sciences. Glasgow, United Kingdom.

Henriksen, Nicholas, Meghan E. Armstrong, & Lorenzo García-Amaya. (in press). The intonational meaning of polar questions in Manchego Spanish spontaneous speech. In M. Armstrong, N. Henriksen, & M. Vanrell (Eds.), Interdisciplinary approaches to intonational grammar in Ibero-Romance. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Abelló-Contesse, Christián & Lorenzo García-Amaya. (2012). Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen. The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. Wiley Publishing.

Recent Courses Taught

Spanish 487: Theories of Second Language Acquisition
Spanish 487: The Acquisition of Spanish in a Study Abroad Setting
Spanish 413: Methods of Teaching Spanish
Spanish 298: Introduction to Spanish Linguistics

Research Areas(s)

• Second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, study abroad, context of learning, second language variation, child variation, Jerezano Andalusian Spanish

Affiliation(s)

• Romance Languages & Literatures