The network as a process. On the role of the speaker in the construction of semantic networks in Spanish L1 and L2

En esta investigación se analiza la adquisición de la competencia pragmática en el español L2 en una muestra de aprendices de L1 portugués, a través de dos actos de habla recíprocos: el ofrecimiento y la petición. Tras examinar la expresión de estos actos en dos muestras independientes de hablantes nativos de español castellano y de portugués europeo, se ha procedido al estudio contrastivo de la interlengua de 70 estudiantes portugueses de español como lengua extranjera (ELE) de niveles A2 y B2. Los datos obtenidos nos han permitido identificar las variaciones entre los dos niveles en el desarrollo comunicativo de los aprendices de ELE, comprobar las diferencias que existen entre el español L1 y L2, revisar las estrategias lingüísticas y pragmáticas que transfieren de la lengua nativa a la lengua meta y analizar los recursos que utilizan en el español L2 para la expresión de estos dos actos de habla.

Author(s): Burns, Katharine E. | Abstract: The United States is one of the world’s most populous Hispanophone countries, with over 35 million Spanish-speakers. In addition, Spanish is the most widely taught foreign language in the United States, with more students enrolled in Spanish at the higher-education level than in all other modern languages combined. How, then, is the United States’ status as a top Spanish-speaking country reflected in the treatment of sociolinguistic variation in Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL) curricula at the university level? This case study of a large, public university in the Southwest, which is home to an SFL program among the largest in the country, explores that question using a two-tiered approach. First, an analysis is conducted to examine the ideological underpinnings of how varieties of U.S. Spanish are presented in beginner and intermediate SFL textbooks used at the university. Second, focus groups of SFL instructors are conducted to gain insight into their beliefs and practices regarding language variety in the classroom. The study finds evidence of a systematic reinforcement of standard language ideology in the university’s beginner and intermediate SFL curriculum, with little attention paid to regional varieties of Spanish and, at times, an explicit de-legitimization of U.S. Spanish varieties in particular.

This study investigates a teacher’s L1 use during focus-on-form episodes (FFEs). FFEs assist L2 learning by bringing learners’ attention to language. We studied the language used in FFEs in a Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) classroom to better understand the pedagogical purposes of L1 use in the classroom. We video-recorded 12 hours of an intermediate-high SFL classroom with an L1 English teacher at a US university. The audio data was segmented into FFEs and then coded (English L1, Spanish L2, mix) to reflect the language used in each of the teacher’s utterances. We also identified the linguistic areas (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation) targeted in the FFEs. Chi-square and descriptive statistics were used to understand the relationship between the teacher’s language and the linguistic areas. Lastly, using the same data set, we conducted a qualitative analysis in order to depict the situations in which the teacher employed the L1 and L2. There was a significant relationship between the teacher’s language and the FFEs’ linguistic areas. Specifically, the L1 and L2 were used equally when FFEs concerned vocabulary and grammar. However, when FFEs concerned semantics, frequent code-switching occurred. The qualitative data illustrate that the language choice may depend on the interactional patterns and the complexity of the linguistic structure.

Si les sigles FLE (Français Langue Etrangère) et ELE (Espagnol Langue Etrangère) font dorénavant partie du vocabulaire universitaire aussi bien en France qu’en Espagne, sait-on vraiment leur signification ? Il s’agira de réviser dans ce travail la notion de champ propre au FLE et à l’ELE en didactique et de montrer qu’il est très difficile de définir avec précision la succession chronologique des méthodologies en présence pour une langue en particulier, étant donné que certaines d’entre elles ont cohabité avant de s’imposer aux précédentes et d’autres n’ont même pas eu le temps de s’établir ni même de se développer. Les évolutions didactiques du FLE en Espagne et de l’ELE en France en sont un exemple. Il est donc important de les évoquer sommairement pour mieux comprendre les méthodologies qui prédominent actuellement et qui sont semblables de part et d’autre des Pyrénées. Pourtant, si le point de départ est le même (méthodologie traditionnelle) et le point d’arrivée aussi (perspective actionnelle), l’évolution didactique du FLE en Espagne et de l’ELE en France diffère considérablement, d’où l’intérêt de rendre compte des similitudes et divergences dans ce travail.

This chapter deals with the definition of collocation in books used for the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language (SFL). Different definitions of this concept are revised, and its characteristics are deeply discussed in order to distinguish them from free combinations and compounds. Throughout history, the semantic approach has prevailed over the statistic approach. On the one hand, not every recurring combination forms A collocation, and only certain kinds of combinations are considered collocations, as has been pointed out in the two typologies proposed by Corpas (1996) and Koike (2001). On the other hand, the idea of arbitrariness of collocations should be replaced by the concept of lexical selection. This concept determines which lexical classes select predicates, as was done in the Redes dictionary. Keywords: collocations; compounds; dictionaries; Teaching of Spanish as a Foreign Languages

The objective of the present work, which focuses on the teaching and learning of Spanish vocabulary, is to present the lexical availability of Slovene students of Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) in the semantic category “daily activities”. The quantitative and qualitative differences and similarities of lexical availability output in this semantic category, as obtained by two groups of informants of different levels of SFL, are compared: 100 high school students (approximate level B1) and 100 university students (approximate level B2 +). The results obtained from this sample are compared with those of a study carried out by Sánchez-Saus Laserna (2011), which presents a sample of 322 SFL informants of different mother tongues in the same semantic category. This category, which is not one of those traditionally used in the studies of lexical availability, has been chosen since the lack of other grammatical categories than nouns is one of the main problems that has been attributed to the studies of lexical availability, which makes it impossible to closely reflect the vocabulary that SFL students know. Likewise, it is intended to check if the associations correspond to the grammatical category of the stimulus (in this case the verbs), since other semantic categories are indicated by the nouns. We intend to check the validity of the following hypotheses: 1) The production of lexical availability of high school students with less knowledge (B1) of Spanish is lower than that of university students (B2 +). 2) There is a qualitative similarity between the results of the two groups of Slovene SFL students. 3) For the most part, the associations correspond to the same grammatical category indicated by the cue words of the semantic category; in this case the verbs. 4) There is quantitative and qualitative similarity between the results of the present study and those of Sánchez-Saus Laserna (2011).

L2 Spanish pragmatics instruction of a number of pragmatic targets has been studied in various learning contexts (e.g., foreign language classrooms, study abroad settings, courses for heritage language speakers, L2 Spanish for professional purposes). This chapter focuses on such teaching in the Spanish language classroom for students mostly at beginner and intermediate levels of proficiency. First, research-based interventional studies and pedagogical initiatives framed in speech act theory, conversation analysis, politeness theory, and genre analysis are examined from a socio-cognitive L2 acquisition perspective. Second, current issues for the implementation of a pragmatics pedagogy in Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) classrooms are discussed with a focus on the particular challenges of that learning context. Third, future directions for the integration of the teaching of L2 Spanish pragmatics to existing curricula are offered in order to advance the development of L2 Spanish learners’ pragmatic language ability.

The current investigation Project constitutes the design of an evaluation grid for reading comprehension of Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL). This instrument was applied to evaluate the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) Guadalingo. The proposal is presented for the master’s degree in applied linguistics of Spanish as a foreign language from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Herein, the problematic facts surrounding the use of VLE inside an educational environment are described. These aspects correspond to social and economic facts and their limitations in developing virtual platforms are discussed. Moreover, VLE lacks of pedagogical quality and skills development is presented. Afterward, the investigation’s problem question allows querying which educational evaluation criteria arise from the design of an instrument for selecting and improving a VLE focused on reading comprehension in SFL. To answer this question, evaluative research’s postulates are reviewed. Thereby, an evaluation grid is designed and applied to the VLE Guadalingo through a webpage named AVAluemos. This instrument follows six general criteria: VLE’s design and aesthetic, pedagogical conditions with reference to reading comprehension of SFL, user roles, operating features, and SFL reading comprehension development and assessment. The results allow the investigators to validate the virtual instrument AVAluemos as an appropriate tool to gain precise information about Guadalingo’s suitability. Furthermore, several criteria were applied to obtain guidance for its selection and improvement.

The present chapter presents an overview of incidental vocabulary learning in the foreign language (FL). Incidental acquisition of vocabulary is a common phenomenon, especially in the L1, where most of the words are acquired incidentally as the by-product of other communicative, that is, meaning-oriented activities such as reading or essay writing. In the FL, incidental vocabulary acquisition, with a meaning-oriented focus, also plays an outstanding role. Different theoretical strands have dealt with the issue of incidental vocabulary learning trying to account for how words are acquired as the result of communicative activities. Myriad studies have explored the effectiveness of these meaning-oriented activities in incidental vocabulary acquisition. Here, a review of these studies will precede an account of activities and examples. What characterizes incidental vocabulary acquisition is that the focus during acquisition is on meaning and not on (word) form; thus, vocabulary is incorporated as the result of accomplishing another communicative activity. Finally, we will provide with some illustrative activities for incidental learning of vocabulary in L2 Spanish. We will show how Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL) teachers can make the most of their classes by using specific communicative activities that can contribute to increasing the lexical repertoire of the students.

This study highlights the importance of understanding the forms of voseo in Chile in learners of Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) through reflection on the pragmatic use of the language. This understanding is not easy because of the evolutional nature of voseo, and the diversity of functions of this phenomenon. The study aims to compare the pragmatic judgments on the Chilean voseo between natives and learners of SFL, which was carried out based on the didactic potential that implies understanding the voseo uses. A questionnaire allowed us to observe choices related to the acceptance of the voseo in different situations, considering pragmatic variables among Chileans and SFL learners. After comparing the responses of both groups of participants, a disparity was observed in the acceptance levels of native and non-native speakers, though also a tendency to be cautious with voseo among learners who had spent more time in Chile. At the same time, there was a correlation in judgments regarding voseo as a phenomenon that can show both closeness (verbal) and contempt (pronominal)

This paper aims to conduct a comparative study of two glossary compilations between two programs of Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL) teaching in China, through statistical analysis and a survey of familiarity with cognates among ELE students in China. Specifically, we investigate: (1) the lexical difference between two SFL teaching systems: one nationalized in China and the other at the international level (CEFR); (2) the awareness of bilingual cognates for Spanish learners in China. The results indicate that: (1) the vocabulary list nationalized in China has more high frequency words than that of CEFR; (2) in L3 Spanish learners, the survey did not find an awareness of cognate, but rather an high-frequency effect in the lexicon. This study serves to emphasize the status of cognates for research and teaching in SFL, as well as to provide a reference for future lexical studies of SFL both in China and internationally.

Listening materials are commonly developed so students show their understanding of a specific oral discourse. Oral interactions provided in textbooks are resources in which different interactional practices are involved, repair practices being one of these. This article seeks to explore, first, the types of repair practices found in Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL) textbook listening interactions and, second, the relationship between repairs and other characteristics of the interactions to determine to what extent SFL listening practices are appropriate resources to show examples of repair work and to develop the students’ Interactional Competence. Following a Conversation Analysis perspective, 109 repairs in 504 SFL audiotaped listening materials from 18 textbooks are analysed. The results show that repairs are not a common practice in listening materials, other-initiated self-repairs being the most common type of repair work. A disparity is also observed in establishing repair through listening materials depending on the textbook. Some of them include self-repairs together with other interactional features, such as overlapped turns, articulated pauses or response tokens, while other textbooks rarely present any repair work. These findings improve our understanding of the degree of authenticity of listening materials, which might help students develop their interactional competence.

An increasing number of studies have shown the potential associations between corpus work and second language acquisition and teaching. Some research, for example, explores the effect of data-driven learning (DDL, Johns 1991) in the context of foreign language learning. Up till now, however, empirical quantitative studies on the topic have been limited, especially with respect to foreign languages other than English. In order to bridge this gap, a quasi-experimental longitudinal design was used in the present study to examine whether there is a statistically significant difference between the DDL approach to vocabulary learning and more traditional learning methods (e.g., dictionary approach) in the context of Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) by Chinese students. The study further gauged students’ attitude towards DDL activities. The results of two post-tests revealed that the DDL group of students significantly outperformed the group of students following a traditional learning method. Furthermore, a questionnaire assessment collected from the experimental group showed that the respondents generally favored DDL and adopted a positive attitude towards its future application to Spanish learning.

The Spanish subjunctive has been the focus of much SLA research, largely because it poses difficulties for learners of Spanish whose L1 is English (e.g., Collentine, 1993; Stokes & Krashen, 1990; Terrell et al., 1987). Investigating the same feature in heritage learners of Spanish can provide more information about their linguistic development and also has the potential to inform our knowledge of the acquisition of the subjunctive in traditional FL learners. The present study investigates whether heritage learners recognize grammatical and ungrammatical modal choice in volitional constructions. These constructions have been selected because this use of the subjunctive does not vary by a speaker’s dialect or by belief about the idea being expressed. Furthermore, given that theories of language attrition posit that the structures that are acquired earliest are the last to be lost (e.g., De Bot & Weltens, 1991) and that Spanish monolingual children acquire the subjunctive in volitional constructions first (Blake, 1980; 1983), heritage learners who have experienced some language attrition may still have knowledge of this feature. To investigate the effect that language attrition or incomplete acquisition may have on this knowledge, I also compared the SHL learners in the sample who were early bilinguals in English (those born in the United States or who immigrated before age 6) with those who were late bilingual (those who immigrated between ages 6 and 13). Students enrolled in Spanish for Heritage Learners (SHL) and Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL) courses at three universities in the Northeast completed grammaticality judgment (GJ) and editing tasks, which contained examples of correct and incorrect mood choices, as well as distracter items. The GJ task also required participants to explain their judgments. The results indicate that SHL learners outperform their SFL peers on recognizing correct mood selection. No significant differences were found between early and late bilinguals. SHL and SFL learners tended to correct utterances that they had rejected of judged neutrally but gave different types of reasons

This study explores which features of Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) pronunciation most impact raters’ evaluations. Native Spanish speakers (NSSs) from regions with different pronunciation norms were polled: 147 evaluators from northern Mexico and 99 evaluators from central Argentina. These evaluations were contrasted with ratings from non-native SFL instructors. Evaluators rated speech samples in terms of comprehensibility and pleasantness, and identified the specific features of the learners’ pronunciation that they found either acceptable or unsatisfactory. For all groups, negative personal attributes were associated with less accurate pronunciation. Significant quantitative differences were found in groups’ ratings, with the non-native raters falling between the two groups of NSSs. The different groups of NSS raters were largely in agreement in terms of the specific pronunciation features that they identified as important, however. Compared to non-native raters, the NSSs focused more on suprasegmentals and global voice qualities. Phonemes that appear to have the greatest impact on listeners’ evaluations are identified, and teaching implications are discussed.