The acquisition of the subjunctive in Spanish as a second language

Abstract

The study examines how a group of speakers of Spanish as a second language perceived the learnability of the subjunctive in Spanish. A group of twelve adults participated in the study. As a group, the majority had acquired Spanish initially through study in New Zealand and through intensive language training in Spanish-speaking countries, and later through using the language in a Spanish-speaking country. In order to gauge their present competence with the subjunctive, the participants were asked to judge the acceptability of sentences containing mood selection (subjunctive versus indicative) in subordinate clauses in a range of linguistic contexts. Secondly, they were asked to complete a gap-filling task focusing on the use of the subjunctive, and thirdly to participate in a group discussion about a current event with a native speaker of Spanish. The results of the grammatical judgement test and the gap-filling task were then compared to some of the responses to a questionnaire that asked about their perceptions of the subjunctive in English and Spanish and their years of experience of Spanish in Spanish-speaking countries. The results confirmed the difficulty that second language learners have with the subjunctive in Spanish. Possible antecedents were negative expectations, the early development of avoidance strategies, and pedagogical approaches that do not pay sufficient attention to semantic issues in mood selection. The subjunctive has an important function in Spanish, providing richness and distinctiveness to the language. If learners of Spanish are able to realise the multiplicity of usage and depth that the subjunctive gives to the Spanish language, they will come to appreciate it in their grammatical systems.