Academic Editors: Vera Regan and Kristen Kennedy Terry Received: 31 May 2024 Revised: 1 November 2024 Accepted: 10 December 2024 Published: 28 March 2025 Citation: Solon, M., & Kanwit, M. (2025). Exploring the Relationship Between Preference and Production as Indicators of L2 Sociophonetic Competence. Languages, 10(4), 65. https://doi.org/10.3390/ languages10040065 Copyright: © 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/). languages Article Exploring the Relationship Between Preference and Production as Indicators of L2 Sociophonetic Competence Megan Solon 1, * and Matthew Kanwit 2 1 Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA 2 Department of Linguistics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA; mkanwit@pitt.edu * Correspondence: msolon@iu.edu Abstract: Sociophonetic competence—a component of sociolinguistic and, thus, commu- nicative 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 task and the same learners’ patterns of production of the variant in semi- spontaneous speech. The sociolinguistic variable considered is Spanish intervocalic /d/, variably realized as approximant [ð] or deleted based on numerous (extra)linguistic factors, including the speaker’s gender, the vowel that precedes /d/, and the grammatical category and lexical frequency of the word containing /d/. Results reveal that preference for and production of a deleted variant increased with learner proficiency. Moreover, regardless of proficiency, learners generally selected deleted /d/ more than they produced it, suggesting that sociophonetic awareness precedes reliable production. Learners’ production of a deleted variant was influenced by the preceding vowel, the grammatical category of the word containing /d/, and the word’s lexical frequency, and sensitivity to these predictors was especially observed as proficiency increased. Learners produced the deleted variant more after /o/, in adjectives and nouns, and in frequent words. Keywords: sociolinguistic variation; second language acquisition; sociophonetic competence; /d/ deletion; task effects 1. Introduction Sociolinguistic competence encompasses, among other things, knowledge about lin- guistic forms whose use varies systematically according to linguistic, geographic, social, and contextual factors. Such knowledge contributes to language users’ ability to interpret social cues embedded in linguistic messages and to deploy their own linguistic resources to manage social relationships (e.g., Geeslin & Long, 2014). The present study focuses on sociophonetic variation—that is, sociolinguistic variation at the level of the sound. A grow- ing body of research has documented second language (L2) learners’ ability to produce sociophonetic variation as well as their ability to perceive it (as detailed in next section); nevertheless, few studies have explored the relationship between such perception and production. Understanding how perception or interpretation of such variation is related to learners’ productive patterns is important for understanding the process of developing sociophonetic competence more broadly. This project explores the relationship between learners’ ability to account for sociophonetic variation in the input and their likelihood of producing such variation in their own speech. Languages 2025, 10, 65 https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10040065