L2 Journal: An Open Access Refereed Journal for World Language Educators

This article explores one second language Spanish learner’s development of sociolinguistic perception in Peru involving target language variation and social indexicality in a study abroad context. Specifically, it investigates the perceptual mechanism that evolves in this context and enables L2 learners to interpret dialectal target language forms by linking them with elements of character, group traits, and other social attributes. An analysis of ethnographic data revealed two phases in this development. While the initial phase was characterized by the learner’s formation of contrastive social and linguistic categories and first-order sociolinguistic indices linking ways of speaking to kinds of people, the latter phase involved a rationalization and justification of these links. I claim that this produced an ideological field in which the learner located specific morphosyntactic variants as indexing social qualities like ‘licentiousness’ and ‘ineptitude’ via their association with brichero and cholo social types from the host society. These findings implicate language ideologies as the fundamental perceptual mechanism that enables L2 learners to interpret the social meaning of TL practices. This case study recommends critical pedagogies and innovative curricula to bolster L2 learners’ development of sociolinguistic competence during study abroad.