Investigating the Importance of Phonetics & Phonology in Second Language Acquisition

Palo Pinillos Chávez is a fourth year Ph.D. student in Hispanic Linguistics in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Her research focuses on phonetics and phonology, second language acquisition and language contact, and language and healthcare. She first became interested in linguistics as an undergraduate student in Lima, Peru. “I took several classes in college and just fell in love with the field. It was interesting to me because we use linguistics all the time in our daily interactions, yet rarely realize it.”

Her undergraduate research focused on language contact between Spanish and indigenous languages of the Peruvian Amazon. “I wanted to explore a field that hadn’t been extensively studied yet. I was specifically interested in the Peruvian Amazon because of my Amazonian ancestry.” Palo studied Spanish language contact with two different Amazonian languages, Shipibo and Matsés. As she began investigating the influence of Spanish language contact within these communities, Palo was careful to keep the indigenous perspective present in her research. “Analyzing a language or a dialect can often feel invasive. I truly wanted to learn from these communities, and I wanted my research to serve as tool that could benefit them in the future,” she explains.

During her time as a Ph.D. student at OSU, Palo has shifted her focus towards the impact of language in healthcare, as well as second language acquisition. Her research in healthcare combines Hispanic linguistics with migration and Latinx studies to understand the impact of non-native accents in healthcare communications. “Going to the doctor can be an overwhelming situation for many non-native English speakers. It can be very complicated and language has a complex context in this setting.” She examines how patients feel their care is affected when their doctor communicates with them in Spanish. Furthermore, she explores whether the pronunciation of the doctor’s Spanish influences the patients’ perception of their care.

In one of her studies, Palo recorded native and non-native Spanish speakers reading a dialogue on the topic of healthcare; and then played those recordings to a participant-group of Latin Americans who had not grown up in the United States. The participants were asked to determine whether the speaker was a native Spanish speaker. They then answered questions about their perceptions of the speaker, such as, “Do you think this person is trustworthy?” and “Do you think this person is knowledgeable about medicine?” Palo’s study found that the majority of the participants were able to easily distinguish between the native and non-native Spanish speakers, due to their differences in pronunciation. Specifically, in the case of the non-native Spanish-speakers, participants viewed them more positively if they had good pronunciation.

Palo’s interest in second language acquisition and language contact ties in with research on language and healthcare. She believes that more emphasis should be placed on phonetics and phonology in second language education. “People often think that if they have a solid vocabulary and good grammar in a second language, then that’s enough. But what happens if doctors can build stronger connections with their Spanish-speaking patients by improving their pronunciation of the language?” Palo would like to see more emphasis placed on phonetics and phonology in language classes, specifically those geared toward professionals in a given field (such as business or medicine).

Palo is involved in two additional projects within the department. She is collaborating with Dr. Glenn Martínez on his project, “Social vulnerability, sociolinguistic environment, and access to COVID-19 information among Spanish-speakers in Columbus, Ohio.” The project addresses the racial and ethnic health disparities in Columbus in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, she is working with Dr. Martínez and SPPO senior lecturer, Dr. Elena Foulis, on an additional project, “Documenting of Latina/os/x in Ohio stories during COVID-19 through performed storytelling.” They will collect oral histories of Latina/os/x during COVID-19 in Ohio and make them public on a digital platform. The stories will also be performed live (or virtually), in order to model best practices for transformational community engagement through storytelling.

The Department of Spanish and Portuguese would like to congratulate Palo on all of her hard work and the success of her research! To learn more about Palo’s research, as well as her projects with Dr. Glenn Martinez and Dr. Elena Foulis, please visit the links below.