Megan Solon
Biographic Data
| ID | 940505 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Megan Solon |
| GIVEN NAMES | Megan |
| FAMILY NAME | Solon |
| SIGNATURE | SOLON M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Indiana University Bloomington |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9347-8227 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 18 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The Sociophonetics of L2 Speech
Sociophonetic variation refers to the systematic relationship between the occurrence of speech sounds and linguistic, geographic, and social characteristics of the speaker and speech context. This entry explores the sociophonetics of L2 speech, discussing what is known about L2 users' adoption of regional phones, learners' acquisition of “nativelike” patterns of phonetic variation, and the relationship between learner identity and aims and L2 pro…
Understanding proficiency assessment practices in SLA research
While much discussion has focused on what researchers do and should do in second language proficiency assessment, less attention has been given to why persistent trends continue. This study investigated second language acquisition (SLA) researchers’ beliefs, reported practices, and decision-making rationales regarding proficiency assessment. Using an online survey, we collected responses from 111 SLA researchers. Findings revealed that while rese…
Understanding proficiency assessment practices in SLA research – Addendum
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Exploring the Relationship Between Preference and Production as Indicators of L2 Sociophonetic Competence
Sociophonetic competence-a component of sociolinguistic and, thus, communicative competence-has been explored in both learner production and perception. Still, little is known about the relationship between learners' ability to account for sociophonetic variability in the input and their likelihood to produce such variation in output. The present study explores 21 learners' preference for a specific sociophonetic variant on an aural preference ta…
New Methods for Tracking Development of Sociophonetic Competence
Beyond language use, an important component of communicative competence is the ability to attend to sociolinguistic variation in the input, which requires knowledge regarding when to expect a particular form over another variant according to linguistic or extralinguistic factors. This study explores the acquisition of sociophonetic competence, employing a novel contextualized preference task with an aural component to examine second language (L2)…
Exploring an Elicited Imitation Task as a Measure of Heritage Language Proficiency
This study examines a 30-item Spanish elicited imitation task (EIT) as a measure of global language proficiency for heritage language (HL) learners of Spanish. Results from Rasch modeling suggest that, while EIT scores demonstrated excellent reliability, the ability of much of the HL sample far exceeded the difficulty of the items. Differential item functioning analysis revealed that several items functioned differently for the present study’s HL…
Pro‐choice/pro‐elección versus pro‐life/pro‐vida
Objective We examine how a sample of English‐ and Spanish‐speaking U.S. adults define the terms pro‐life/pro‐vida and pro‐choice/pro‐elección and explore whether definitions differ by language and/or ethnicity. Methods We asked a sample of 1504 English‐ and Spanish‐speaking U.S. adults to define the terms pro‐choice/pro‐elección and pro‐life/pro‐vida in an open‐ended format. We used content and thematic analysis to examine congruence and discorda…
Knowledge of and Attitudes Toward Roe v. Wade Among US Latinx Adults
This study examines knowledge of and attitudes toward Roe v. Wade among a sample of 779 US Latinx adults. Survey response patterns were examined in relation to generational status and choice of survey language as well as to several demographic variables previously shown to influence abortion attitudes (e.g., age, religiosity, political affiliation). Differences were found in knowledge of Roe v. Wade by generational status and survey language, wit…
Proficiency Reporting Practices in Research on Second Language Acquisition
Given that 10 years have passed since the publication of the most recent synthesis of proficiency assessment standards, the present review revisits proficiency assessment practices in research on second language acquisition (SLA), with the goal of examining whether the way in which scholars measure and report proficiency has changed. Our sample included 500 studies from five major SLA-related journals published between 2012 and 2019. The findings…
The Roles of Working Memory and Oral Language Abilities in Elicited Imitation Performance
While an elicited imitation test (EIT) has been widely used as a measure of oral proficiency in second language acquisition (SLA) research, it is still unclear the extent to which memory capacity impacts EIT performance. In light of this gap, the present study sought to clarify the nature of elicited imitation by examining the relative contributions of language ability and phonological short‐term memory (PSTM) to EIT performance. Seventy‐eight se…
Context of learning and second language development of Spanish vowels
The present study explored development in Spanish vowel production during a short-term study abroad program. The production patterns of a group of learners studying abroad in a 4-week program in the Dominican Republic were compared in terms of overall vowel quality, tendency to diphthongize /e/ and /o/, and vowel duration to those of a similar group of learners studying in the at-home context. Results revealed no significant changes or difference…
The effect of short-term study abroad on second language Spanish phonetic development
This study explores the impact of study abroad (SA) on second language Spanish phonetic development. Twenty-seven English-speaking learners of Spanish, 15 who were participating in a 4-week SA program in the Dominican Republic and 12 who were studying at their home (AH) institution, were recorded 5 weeks apart (at the approximate beginning and end of their respective programs). Recordings were analyzed acoustically, and four groups of segments we…
Comparing Interaction and Use of Space in Traditional and Innovative Classrooms
Despite myriad changes to language teaching methods over time, university-level classroom spaces have largely remained the same—until now. Recent innovations in classroom space design center on technological advances, include movable furniture and coffee-shop style rooms, and are believed to facilitate language learning in several ways. Specifically, compared to traditional classrooms, innovative spaces are designed in the hope of decreasing pre-…
The Emergence of Future Verbal Morphology in Spanish as a Foreign Language
The present study adopts a concept-oriented approach to explore the early stages of acquisition of future-time reference in second language (L2) Spanish. Specifically, it investigates the lexical and grammatical forms employed to express future time and the sequence of emergence of future verbal morphology by beginning and intermediate adult Spanish as a foreign language learners. The participants were 104 native English-speaking learners of Span…
Proficiency Reporting Practices in Research on Second Language Acquisition
Given that 10 years have passed since the publication of the most recent synthesis of proficiency assessment standards, the present review revisits proficiency assessment practices in research on second language acquisition (SLA), with the goal of examining whether the way in which scholars measure and report proficiency has changed. Our sample included 500 studies from five major SLA-related journals published between 2012 and 2019. The findings…
Pro‐choice/pro‐elección versus pro‐life/pro‐vida
Objective We examine how a sample of English‐ and Spanish‐speaking U.S. adults define the terms pro‐life/pro‐vida and pro‐choice/pro‐elección and explore whether definitions differ by language and/or ethnicity. Methods We asked a sample of 1504 English‐ and Spanish‐speaking U.S. adults to define the terms pro‐choice/pro‐elección and pro‐life/pro‐vida in an open‐ended format. We used content and thematic analysis to examine congruence and discorda…
Exploring the Relationship Between Preference and Production as Indicators of L2 Sociophonetic Competence
Sociophonetic competence-a component of sociolinguistic and, thus, communicative competence-has been explored in both learner production and perception. Still, little is known about the relationship between learners' ability to account for sociophonetic variability in the input and their likelihood to produce such variation in output. The present study explores 21 learners' preference for a specific sociophonetic variant on an aural preference ta…
The Emergence of Future Verbal Morphology in Spanish as a Foreign Language
The present study adopts a concept-oriented approach to explore the early stages of acquisition of future-time reference in second language (L2) Spanish. Specifically, it investigates the lexical and grammatical forms employed to express future time and the sequence of emergence of future verbal morphology by beginning and intermediate adult Spanish as a foreign language learners. The participants were 104 native English-speaking learners of Span…
The effect of short-term study abroad on second language Spanish phonetic development
This study explores the impact of study abroad (SA) on second language Spanish phonetic development. Twenty-seven English-speaking learners of Spanish, 15 who were participating in a 4-week SA program in the Dominican Republic and 12 who were studying at their home (AH) institution, were recorded 5 weeks apart (at the approximate beginning and end of their respective programs). Recordings were analyzed acoustically, and four groups of segments we…
Comparing Interaction and Use of Space in Traditional and Innovative Classrooms
Despite myriad changes to language teaching methods over time, university-level classroom spaces have largely remained the same—until now. Recent innovations in classroom space design center on technological advances, include movable furniture and coffee-shop style rooms, and are believed to facilitate language learning in several ways. Specifically, compared to traditional classrooms, innovative spaces are designed in the hope of decreasing pre-…
Context of learning and second language development of Spanish vowels
The present study explored development in Spanish vowel production during a short-term study abroad program. The production patterns of a group of learners studying abroad in a 4-week program in the Dominican Republic were compared in terms of overall vowel quality, tendency to diphthongize /e/ and /o/, and vowel duration to those of a similar group of learners studying in the at-home context. Results revealed no significant changes or difference…
The Roles of Working Memory and Oral Language Abilities in Elicited Imitation Performance
While an elicited imitation test (EIT) has been widely used as a measure of oral proficiency in second language acquisition (SLA) research, it is still unclear the extent to which memory capacity impacts EIT performance. In light of this gap, the present study sought to clarify the nature of elicited imitation by examining the relative contributions of language ability and phonological short‐term memory (PSTM) to EIT performance. Seventy‐eight se…
New Methods for Tracking Development of Sociophonetic Competence
Beyond language use, an important component of communicative competence is the ability to attend to sociolinguistic variation in the input, which requires knowledge regarding when to expect a particular form over another variant according to linguistic or extralinguistic factors. This study explores the acquisition of sociophonetic competence, employing a novel contextualized preference task with an aural component to examine second language (L2)…
Exploring an Elicited Imitation Task as a Measure of Heritage Language Proficiency
This study examines a 30-item Spanish elicited imitation task (EIT) as a measure of global language proficiency for heritage language (HL) learners of Spanish. Results from Rasch modeling suggest that, while EIT scores demonstrated excellent reliability, the ability of much of the HL sample far exceeded the difficulty of the items. Differential item functioning analysis revealed that several items functioned differently for the present study’s HL…
Pro‐choice/pro‐elección versus pro‐life/pro‐vida
Objective We examine how a sample of English‐ and Spanish‐speaking U.S. adults define the terms pro‐life/pro‐vida and pro‐choice/pro‐elección and explore whether definitions differ by language and/or ethnicity. Methods We asked a sample of 1504 English‐ and Spanish‐speaking U.S. adults to define the terms pro‐choice/pro‐elección and pro‐life/pro‐vida in an open‐ended format. We used content and thematic analysis to examine congruence and discorda…
Knowledge of and Attitudes Toward Roe v. Wade Among US Latinx Adults
This study examines knowledge of and attitudes toward Roe v. Wade among a sample of 779 US Latinx adults. Survey response patterns were examined in relation to generational status and choice of survey language as well as to several demographic variables previously shown to influence abortion attitudes (e.g., age, religiosity, political affiliation). Differences were found in knowledge of Roe v. Wade by generational status and survey language, wit…
Proficiency Reporting Practices in Research on Second Language Acquisition
Given that 10 years have passed since the publication of the most recent synthesis of proficiency assessment standards, the present review revisits proficiency assessment practices in research on second language acquisition (SLA), with the goal of examining whether the way in which scholars measure and report proficiency has changed. Our sample included 500 studies from five major SLA-related journals published between 2012 and 2019. The findings…
The Sociophonetics of L2 Speech
Sociophonetic variation refers to the systematic relationship between the occurrence of speech sounds and linguistic, geographic, and social characteristics of the speaker and speech context. This entry explores the sociophonetics of L2 speech, discussing what is known about L2 users' adoption of regional phones, learners' acquisition of “nativelike” patterns of phonetic variation, and the relationship between learner identity and aims and L2 pro…
Understanding proficiency assessment practices in SLA research
While much discussion has focused on what researchers do and should do in second language proficiency assessment, less attention has been given to why persistent trends continue. This study investigated second language acquisition (SLA) researchers’ beliefs, reported practices, and decision-making rationales regarding proficiency assessment. Using an online survey, we collected responses from 111 SLA researchers. Findings revealed that while rese…
Understanding proficiency assessment practices in SLA research – Addendum
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Exploring the Relationship Between Preference and Production as Indicators of L2 Sociophonetic Competence
Sociophonetic competence-a component of sociolinguistic and, thus, communicative competence-has been explored in both learner production and perception. Still, little is known about the relationship between learners' ability to account for sociophonetic variability in the input and their likelihood to produce such variation in output. The present study explores 21 learners' preference for a specific sociophonetic variant on an aural preference ta…
Psychology (12 works) · Linguistics (8 works) · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning (6 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Language proficiency (5 works) · Mathematics education (5 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (4 works) · Phonetics and Phonology Research (4 works) · Art (3 works) · Cognitive psychology (3 works)