Acquisition of perfect in English in an immersion context by Spanish speakers from Puerto Rico

• Autor(a) principal: Rebouças, Érica Silva
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Martins, Adriana Leitão, Nespoli, Juliana Barros
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Scripta
• Texto Completo: http://periodicos.pucminas.br/index.php/scripta/article/view/30482
• topic: Perfect aspect; Bilingualism; L2 acquisiton; Puerto Rico; Aspecto perfect; bilinguísmo; aquisição de L2; Porto Rico

This work sought to investigate the acquisition of the realizations of universal perfect and existential perfect associated with the present tense by Puerto Rican Spanish speakers acquiring English as L2 in an immersion context. The perfect aspect, when associated with the present tense, refers to a situation that began or occurred in the past and continues or has relevance in the present. Puerto Rican speakers can have Spanish and English as L1, being considered bilingual. However, they can also acquire English as L2 after this period in an immersion context and, depending on the domain and context of exposure, be considered functional bilinguals. The hypothesis adopted was that functional bilingual speakers who have the most uninterrupted contact time with the English language perform in that language closer to that presented by native Puerto Rican speakers of English and Spanish, according to mapping by Rebouças, Martins and Nespoli (2022). To achieve the goals, a case study was carried out with 4 speakers from the application of decision and elicited production tests in English. The results revealed the use of present perfect continuous, present perfect, simple present, and present continuous in conveying universal perfect, and simple past and present perfect (with or without auxiliary) in conveying existential perfect. The hypothesis was refuted because the bilinguals studied with more time of contact with English did not select/produce to be (present) + predicative in conveying existential perfect - a form verified in Rebouças, Martins and Nespoli (2022).