Acquisition Of Spanish Research Articles

Influence of Native Language Vocabulary and Topic Knowledge on Foreign Language Vocabulary Learning in Health Care Providers

Adults attending short, language for specific purpose courses may have expertise not utilized in general foreign language courses. The present study investigates two factors that may influence the acquisition of medical Spanish vocabulary in such persons: native English vocabulary size and topic knowledge. Forty-four health care workers attended 12 hr of medical Spanish instruction. Prior to instruction, the Nelson–Denny Vocabulary Test, a Medical Spanish vocabulary test, and an English Medical Terminology Test (an indicator of topic knowledge) were administered. The Medical Spanish Vocabulary Test was readministered at posttest. Individually, both English medical terminology knowledge and English vocabulary size were significant predictors of medical Spanish vocabulary acquisition, but English medical terminology knowledge explained most of the variance in medical Spanish vocabulary acquisition. The results are discussed in terms of the impact of expert memory organization on the ability to learn new labels in a second language. A curricular shift toward content-centered vocabulary in language for specific purpose courses may be advantageous for some groups of foreign language learners.

Bilingual Myth-Busters Series Language Confusion in Bilingual Children

This article is the first in a series that will attempt to deconstruct myths about bilingualism. Language confusion is the popularly held belief (or myth) that children are incapable of becoming bi...

Age of acquisition interactions in bilingual lexical access: A study of the weaker language of L2 learners and heritage speakers

Global age of acquisition of L1 and L2 in individual speakers has been investigated as a deterministic factor in nativelikeness of grammatical knowledge and lexical processing. The age of acquisition of individual words has also been shown to affect both native and nonnative lexical access. Given the centrality of the lexicon to language acquisition and use, this study investigated which of these variables is most relevant and how these two variables may potentially interact during lexical access of the less dominant language in bilinguals. A group of English-speaking late L2 learners of Spanish and a group of early bilingual speakers who were exposed to Spanish as an L1 at home and learned English in childhood (heritage speakers) completed a lexical decision task in Spanish and an English–Spanish translation decision task. The performance of the two groups, which vary on global age of acquisition of Spanish, but not on language dominance, was compared. The results indicated no differences in the overall accuracy of lexical access according to global age of acquisition of L1 and L2, though the L2 learners responded more quickly than the heritage speakers in both tasks. The results differed within each participant group depending on word age of acquisition, with heritage speakers showing a speed and accuracy advantage for words learned early in L1 Spanish and L2 learners showing an advantage for words learned early in L2 Spanish. Based on these findings, it is argued that it is the language experience along with word age of acquisition that determines lexical processing of the weaker language, whether in L1 or L2.

Spanish Acquisition Begets Enhanced Service (S.A.B.E.S.): A Beginning-Level Medical Spanish Curriculum

OPEN ACCESSDecember 7, 2011Spanish Acquisition Begets Enhanced Service (S.A.B.E.S.): A Beginning-Level Medical Spanish Curriculum Annelise Lorelei Dawson, BA, Brianna Patti, BA Annelise Lorelei Dawson, BA University of Colorado School of Medicine Google Scholar More articles by this author , Brianna Patti, BA University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine Google Scholar More articles by this author https://doi.org/10.15766/mep_2374-8265.9057 SectionsAbout ToolsDownload Citations ShareFacebookTwitterEmail AbstractAs the Hispanic and Latino population in the United States grows, the demand for Spanish-speaking medical providers rises. Medical trainees have increasingly recognized this need; student interest in Spanish-language education during medical school has grown, especially at institutions serving a large Spanish-speaking patient demographic. This 24-week beginning-level medical Spanish curriculum outlines a student-run, multifaceted, experience-based curriculum model intended to provide first- and second-year medical students with a rapidly acquired, functional command of the Spanish language applicable to a clinical setting. The enclosed curriculum contains a comprehensive instructor's guide, a comprehensive beginning-level student textbook, a series of interactive practice cases, and answer keys to the practice exercises and quizzes contained within the textbook. The instructor's guide provides a step-by-step manual outlining the development of a medical Spanish course, complete lesson plans spanning the 24-week course duration, and strategies for modifying the course to meet the needs of various institutions and learner groups. To our knowledge, this curriculum is unique in that it is student-run and utilizes an interactive, multifaceted teaching approach. The curriculum has been successfully implemented at the University of Colorado Denver, the results of which were presented at the Association of American Medical Colleges' Western Group on Student Affairs and Western Group on Educational Affairs annual meetings. Educational Objectives By utilizing this resource, educators will be able to: Maintain a functional, clinical focus to allow students to immediately apply their knowledge in a clinical setting.Utilize a multifaceted, interactive curricular approach to foster effective instruction that caters to many learning styles.Provide students with the basic grammar framework necessary to empower them to engage in self-directed learning after completion of the course. Sign up for the latest publications from MedEdPORTAL Add your email below FILES INCLUDEDReferencesRelatedDetails FILES INCLUDED Included in this publication: SABES Instructor's Guide.pdf SABES Beginning Level Student Textbook.pdf SABES Practice Cases.pdf SABES Practice Exercises Answer Key.pdf SABES Quizzes Answer Key.pdf To view all publication components, extract (i.e., unzip) them from the downloaded .zip file. Download editor’s noteThis publication may contain technology or a display format that is no longer in use. CitationDawson AL, Patti B. Spanish Acquisition Begets Enhanced Service (S.A.B.E.S.): A Beginning-Level Medical Spanish Curriculum. MedEdPORTAL. 2011;7:9057. https://doi.org/10.15766/mep_2374-8265.9057 Copyright & Permissions© 2011 Dawson and Patti. This is an open-access publication distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike license.KeywordsSpanish LanguageHealth Equity ResearchStudent-RunCurriculum Disclosures None to report. Funding/Support None to report. Prior Presentations Sterne AL, Patti BN. Spanish acquisition begets enhanced service (S.A.B.E.S.): a new approach to medical Spanish language education for novice Spanish students. Poster presented at: AAMC Western Group on Educational Affairs (WGEA) Annual Conference; April 2010; Davis, CA. Sterne AL,∗ Patti BN. Spanish acquisition begets enhanced service (S.A.B.E.S.): a new approach to medical Spanish language education for novice Spanish students. Poster presented at: AAMC Western Group on Student Affairs (WGSA) National Spring Meeting; April 2010; Austin, TX. ∗Last name changed from Sterne to Dawson in July 2010. Loading ...

On the role of children’s deterministic learning in the ‘no-overt-subject’ stage in the L1 acquisition of Spanish

Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (2013), pp. 375-388

L1 transfer in the acquisition of manner and path in Spanish by native speakers of English

In this article the authors argue that L1 transfer from English is not only important in the early stages of L2 acquisition of Spanish, but remains influential in later stages if there is not enough positive evidence for the learners to progress in their development (Lefebvre, White, & Jourdan, 2006). The findings are based on analyses of path and manner of movement in stories told by British students of Spanish ( N = 68) of three different proficiency levels. Verbs that conflate motion and path, on the one hand, are mastered early, possibly because the existence of Latinate path verbs, such as enter and ascend in English, facilitate their early acquisition by British learners of Spanish. Contrary to the findings of Cadierno (2004) and Cadierno and Ruiz (2006), the encoding of manner, in particular in boundary crossing contexts, seems to pose enormous difficulties, even among students who had been abroad on a placement in a Spanish-speaking country prior to the data collection. An analysis of the frequency of manner verbs in Spanish corpora shows that one of the key reasons why students struggle with manner is that manner verbs are so infrequent in Spanish. The authors claim that scarce positive evidence in the language exposed to and little or no negative evidence are responsible for the long-lasting effect of transfer on the expression of manner.

Assessing Differences and Similarities between Instructed Heritage Language Learners and L2 Learners in Their Knowledge of Spanish Tense-Aspect and Mood (TAM) Morphology

The acquisition of the aspectual difference between the preterit and imperfect in the past tense and the acquisition of the contrast between subjunctive and indicative mood are classic problem areas in second language (L2) acquisition of Spanish by English-speaking learners (Collentine, 1995, 1998, 2003; Salaberry, 1999; Slabakova & Montrul, 2002; Terrell, Baycroft & Perrone, 1987). Similarly, Spanish heritage speakers in the U.S exhibit simplification of the preterit/imperfect contrast and incomplete acquisition/attrition of subjunctive morphology (Merino, 1983; Montrul, 2002, 2007; Potowski, Jegerski & Morgan-Short, 2009; Silva-Corvalán, 1994). This raises the question of whether the linguistic knowledge of a developing L2 learner is similar to incomplete L1 acquisition in heritage language (HL) learners. Because heritage speakers are exposed to the heritage language from infancy whereas L2 learners begin exposure much later, Au et al. (2002, 2008) have claimed that heritage speakers are linguistically superior to L2 learners only in phonology but not in morphosyntax. The present study reexamines this claim by focusing on the interpretation of tense, aspect and mood (TAM) morphology in 60 instructed HL learners and 60 L2 learners ranging from low to advanced proficiency in Spanish. Results of four written tasks showed differences between the groups both in tense and aspect and in mood morphology, depending on proficiency levels. Implications of these findings for heritage language instruction are discussed.

Inducción de constituyentes sintácticos en español con técnicas de clustering y filtrado por información mutua

Argument from the Poverty of Stimulus (APS) is the great epistemological debate arena between simbolic and statistical paradigms in computational linguistics. Since 2000, several works inside statistical paradigm have been published, attacking APS as they present some unsupervised general-purpose algorithm for language acquisition. Among the most important contributions, Clark’s Ph.D. thesis (2001) appeals to diverse statistical techniques in order to come up with an unsupervised general-purpose algorithm for inducing language and, more precisely, a complete Context-Free Grammar (CFG) for English. Clark (2001) works with several induction techniques for each linguistic phenomenon modelized: morphology from Hidden Markovian Models (HMM), POS-tagging from clustering, etc. Particularly, in this current paper we are interested in the induction of syntax constituency, given a POS-tagged corpus, as a previous step towards the whole process of inducing a complete CFG. In his own thesis, the author admits that more crosslinguistic evidence is needed, so as to support the psycholinguistic plausibility of an approach such as his. Currently, there is no work that have proposed to prove Clark ’s approach in very inflected languages with free-order constituents like Spanish. Thus, our work is intended to contribute with that crosslinguistic evidence, analyzing the feasibilty of the application of Clark ’s algorithm for inducing constituency on Spanish. Clark (2001) entails the application of K-means clustering to group sequences of morpho-syntactic labels, according to their distributional information. Then, there is a stage of filtering out the clusters, through a mutual-information-based criterion between the symbols that co-occur immediately before and after the sequences. This criterion prevents from the typical bias in sparsed corpora, and in turn, succeeds in distinguishing the co-ocurrence of adyacent symbols above the threshold of default entropy for short-distance (Li 1990). Our implementation has been tested on a prototypical corpus, obtaining interesting results. We have verified recall=74%, precision=58% and F-measure=65% for this prototypical stage. These results encourage us to continue with our long-term research, the goal of developing an algorithm for complete acquisition of Spanish.

Intervocalic Tap and Trill Production in the Acquisition of Spanish as a Second Language

Intervocalic Tap and Trill Production in the Acquisition of Spanish as a Second Language

Beyond “Naturalistic”: On the Role of Task Characteristics and the Importance of Multiple Elicitation Methods

Abstract The exploration of the role of naturally-occurring data in studies of second language acquisition begins by assessing the ways in which the term “naturalistic” may apply to second languages. Instead of classifying tasks and the data they elicit as natural or unnatural, this paper presents a view of tasks that is multidimensional, rather than oppositional, and highlights some of the features of tasks that appear to pose significant differences in the data they elicit. Following this review, three cases from the study of the second language acquisition of Spanish are presented. Each case demonstrates how data differ across tasks and builds support for the position that there is no single ideal method for eliciting data. Instead, these cases show that multiple means of elicitation are necessary to fully understand the acquisition of a given construct, with each elicitation task providing unique and essential information about learner language.

A Corpus‐Based Analysis of the Discourse Functions of Ser/Estar + Adjective in Three Levels of Spanish as FL Learners

Research on the acquisition of Spanish's two copulas, ser and estar, provides an understanding of the interaction among syntax, semantics, pragmatics, morphology, and vocabulary during development (e.g., Geeslin, 2003a, 2003b; Gunterman, 1992; Ryan & Lafford, 1992). Recent research suggests that linguistic features in the surrounding discourse influence learners’ copula choice. We present a corpus-based analysis of the lexico-grammatical features co-occurring with copula + adjective usage among foreign-language learners of Spanish at three levels of instruction. Findings revealed the following: (a) both ser + adjective and estar + adjective occur at all levels where little linguistic complexity typically occurs; (b) ser + adjective appears in descriptive and evaluative discourse; and (c) estar + adjective is present in narrations, descriptions, and hypothetical discourse.

<i>The acquisition of Spanish: Morphosyntactic development in monolingual and bilingual L1 acquisition and adult L2 acquisition</i> (review)

Reviewed by: The acquisition of Spanish: Morphosyntactic development in monolingual and bilingual L1 acquisition and adult L2 acquisition Mihaela Pirvulescu Silvina A. Montrul. 2004. The acquisition of Spanish: Morphosyntactic development in monolingual and bilingual L1 acquisition and adult L2 acquisition. In the series Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 37. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Pp. xv + 411. US$63.00 (softcover). In this book, the acquisition of Spanish is viewed from three perspectives: monolingual first language (L1) acquisition, bilingual acquisition by children, and adult second language (L2) acquisition. The focus is on the structural aspects of language acquisition, namely morphology, syntax, and some aspects of lexical semantics. The goal of this book, written within the generative framework, is to support the hypothesis that Universal Grammar guides and constrains all instances of language acquisition. Spanish data is used throughout the book to support the Continuity Hypothesis in all instances of language acquisition. The book is organized into six chapters, each focusing on a specific grammatical theme: morphosyntax of the noun phrase (Chapter 2), morphosyntax of the verb phrase (Chapter 3), the pronominal domain (Chapter 4), the complementizer domain (Chapter 5), and lexical aspects of verb meaning (Chapter 6). The introduction gives an overview of the basic assumptions within the generative theory of language acquisition as well as a guide to basic research questions in the various types of acquisition (L1, bilingual, and L2). Each chapter begins with a review of the relevant Spanish constructions and the associated theoretical assumptions. Studies undertaken on each topic are then discussed in detail and the results reproduced in table form. A good number of examples are provided and where necessary the experimental procedures are explained at length. The empirical base comes from various studies and comprises naturalistic as well as experimental data. Different hypotheses are critically discussed and compared. Chapter 1, “Theoretical foundations”, introduces the basic concepts of Universal Grammar and the general approach to the acquisition of language that it implies. The main theoretical questions that arise for L1, bilingual, and L2 acquisition are presented in turn and they are contrasted with alternative positions that frame the debate: Continuity versus Non-continuity in L1 acquisition; the initial state in bilingual development within the Initial Unitary System versus the Language Differentiation Hypothesis; full, partial or no access to UG and the role of L1 in L2 acquisition. A brief overview of the general characteristics of Spanish grammar is given at the end of this chapter. Chapter 2, “Morphosyntax of the noun phrase”, discusses some aspects of the development of the DP category such as initial representation of the determiners, gender and number agreement, and noun-drop. Using studies comparing German, Spanish, and Basque, the chapter concludes that the determiner category is acquired early on both by Spanish children and by adult L2 learners. Chapter 3, “Morphosyntax of the verb phrase”, focuses on the acquisition of finiteness, tense, aspect, and mood. Comparative data is used to show that verbal inflections emerge early in Spanish children, favouring the Continuity Hypothesis in L1 and bilingual acquisition. A comparative discussion of Spanish, Basque, and English supports the observation that root infinitives are not a uniform phenomenon across languages. The author draws on evidence from [End Page 182] all types of acquisition in order to establish that functional categories expressing tense, aspect, and agreement are present in early grammars and that L2 learners are capable of acquiring them. Chapter 4, “Subject and object pronouns”, presents the main issues surrounding the acquisition of pronouns: null subjects and objects, clitic doubling, and binding. Data show that subject and object pronouns appear early on and that children become quickly aware of the pragmatic distribution of null and overt subjects. The chapter contains a detailed discussion of the acquisition of Principle B of the binding theory as well as a comparison among different Spanish dialects concerning the development of pronouns and their interpretation. In the section on bilingual and L2 development, a variety of languages are investigated, including French, English, Basque, Korean, Cantonese, Danish, and Swedish. Chapter 5, “Topics, questions, embedding, and movement”, discusses the development of the CP structure with evidence from imperatives, subject-verb inversion in questions and wh-movement. The data comes...

A retrospective study of phonetic inventory complexity in acquisition of Spanish: Implications for phonological universals

This study evaluates 39 different phonetic inventories of 16 Spanish‐speaking children (ages 0;11 to 5;1) in terms of hierarchical complexity. Phonetic featural differences are considered in order to evaluate the proposed implicational hierarchy of Dinnsen et al.'s phonetic inventory typology for English. The children's phonetic inventories are examined independently and in relation to one another. Five hierarchical complexity levels are proposed, similar to those of English and other languages, although with some language‐specific differences. These findings have implications for theoretical assumptions about the universality of phonetic inventory development, and for remediation of Spanish‐speaking children with phonological impairments.

English and Spanish Acquisition by Hispanic Second Graders in Developmental Bilingual Programs

The authors studied a longitudinal English intervention in a 70/30 (Spanish/ English) developmental bilingual education (DBE) program ( n = 302) and compared this model with a typical-practice, 80/20, late-exit transitional bilingual education program ( n = 187) in terms of students' language and literacy acquisition from kindergarten to second grade in an urban school district in southeastern Texas. The findings revealed significant differences ( p values < .05) in favor of DBE students on (a) English measures of oral language, preliteracy skills, and reading fluency and comprehension (effect sizes of .12 to .71) and (b) Spanish measures of letter name and sound, preliteracy skills, and reading comprehension (effect sizes of .19 to .38). It was concluded that quality English instruction that incorporates direct and focused instruction, context-embedded vocabulary learning, and ongoing professional training in DBE programs is much needed to promote bilingualism and biliteracy.

SELECTED PROCEEDINGS OF THE 7th CONFERENCE ON THE ACQUISITION OF SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE AS FIRST AND SECOND LANGUAGES

SELECTED PROCEEDINGS OF THE 7th CONFERENCE ON THE ACQUISITION OF SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE AS FIRST AND SECOND LANGUAGES. Carol A. Klee and Timothy L. Face (Eds.) . Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press, 2006. Pp. vi + 194. $220.00 cloth. The papers included in this volume were presented at the 7th Conference on the Acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese as First and Second Languages (hosted jointly with the 8th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium) in October 2004. Although the title would imply a mixture of papers on first language (L1) and second language (L2) topics from both Spanish and Portuguese languages, the overwhelming majority pertain to Spanish SLA. None of the 15 papers focus on Portuguese acquisition, and only one study specifically discusses L1 acquisition of Spanish morphology.

The Structure of Branching Onsets and Rising Diphthongs: Evidence from the Acquisition of French and Spanish

Consonant-glide-vowel (CGV) sequences are represented differently across languages. In some languages, the CG sequence is represented as a branching onset; in other languages, the GV sequence is represented as a rising diphthong. Given variable syllabification across languages, this study examines how young children represent CGV sequences. In particular, we evaluate Rose's (2000) proposal, based on French acquisition data, that CGV sequences are initially represented as rising diphthongs. To do this, we examined children's acquisition of CGV sequences in cross-sectional data from 14 French-speaking children (aged 1;10–2;10 years) and longitudinal data from five Spanish-speaking children (aged 1;3–3;0 years). Across several different measures (order of acquisition, style of acquisition, positional faithfulness, error patterns), children's production of rising diphthongs and branching onsets patterned similarly. The results suggest that at least for these children, CGV sequences are represented as branching onsets during the early stages of acquisition.

The Spanish acquisition of King Charles I's art collection: The letters of Alonso de Cardenas, 1649-51

The letters of Alonso de Cardenas, the Spanish diplomatic representative in London from the 1630s to the 1650s, offer an unrivalled account of the everyday activities involved in the Commonwealth sale of King Charles I's art collection from 1649 to Cardenas's diplomatic expulsion from England in 1655. Previously published in the original Spanish, this article provides the first complete English translation of Cardenas's letters during this period. It also offers an account of Cardenas's dealings with the republican authorities and private dealers and situates the Spanish diplomat as central to the development of an English art market under the Commonwealth.

Diary of an Edu-Tourist in Costa Rica: An Autoethnographical Account of Learning Spanish

This article presents an autoethnographical account of my foray into Spanish immersion education in Costa Rica as a professor of multilingual education at a university in Canada. This language-learning journey was inspired by curiosity about the growing trend for Internet marketing of second-language learning as a form of tourism, which I label edu-tourism. I map the course of my edu-tourism experience, contemplating second-language learning in a local context, describing professionalism in private language teaching institutes, comparing pedagogical practice across various Spanish-as-a-second-language teachers, and documenting my experiential sociopragmatic acquisition of textbook Spanish.

Growth of the Spanish Multinational in Latin America During the 1990s

ABSTRACT During the 1990s, Spain changed from a net recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI) to one of the most important investors in Latin America. Fieldwork in this article identifies trends and directions of Spanish acquisitions, with an emphasis on the 1990 to 2001 period. An overview of the emergence of the Spanish MNC is followed by a statistical analysis of its competitive (i.e., ownership) advantage as measured by the relative strength of market size, wage differentials and cultural affinity. This analysis helps in explaining the link between strategic decisions of Spanish MNCs and their choice of geography and industrial sector. The empirical analysis finds Spanish MNCs responded to privatisation opportunities to gain access to specific foreign markets rather than to attempt to create global export platforms. RESUMEN. Durante los años 90, España se transformó de un país recipiente neto de las inversiones extranjeras directas (IFD) en uno de los más importantes inversores en América Latina. En este artíiAculo, el trabajo de campo identificó las tendencias y orientaciones de las adquisiciones españolas, enfatizando especialmente el período 1990 a 2001. Una perspectiva general de la emergencia de la Empresa Multinacional española también ofrece un análisis estadístico de su ventaja competitiva (Ej.: propiedad) medida por una fuerza relativa del tamaño del mercado, diferenciales en los sueldos y afinidad cultural. Este análisis ayuda a explicar el eslabón que existe entre la toma de decisiones estratégicas de las Empresas Multinacionales españolas y su decisión cuanto a la posición geográfica y sector industrial de su interés. El hallazgo del análisis empírico muestra que, para ganar acceso a los mercados extranjeros específicos, las empresas multinacionales españnTolas responden a las oportunidades de privatización en vez de tratar de crear plataformas de exportación globales. RESUMO. Durante a década de 1990, a Espanha mudou de receptora líquida de investimentos estrangeiros diretos para um dos investidores mais importantes na América Latina. O trabalho de campo neste artigo identifica tendências e direções das aquisições espanholas, com ênfase no período de 1990 a 2001. Uma visão geral da emergência das multinacionais espanholas é seguida por uma análise estatística de sua vantagem competitiva (ou seja, de propriedade) medida pela força relativa do tamanho do mercado, diferenciais de salário e afinidade cultural. Esta análise ajuda a explicar o vínculo entre as decisões estratégicas das multinacionais espanholas e sua opção de geografia e setor industrial. A análise empírica constata que as multinacionais espanholas respondera a oportunidades de privatizaşão para ganhar acesso a mercados estrangeiros específicos, em vez de tentar criar plataformas de exportação globais.

Consequences of Integration Heterogeneity in Mergers and Acquisitions

In this paper, we analyze the heterogeneity of acquisition integration processes. Starting with the integration types laid down by Haspeslagh and Jemison (1991), we describe integration processes in terms of their integration level and their integration style. We analyze the postacquisition consequences of integration choice in terms of organizational management analysis, employee turnover, and communication and socialization problems. In a sample of 74 Spanish acquisitions, we demonstrate that management choices about integration level and integration style explain the more relevant consequences of the integration process. They have different consequences in terms of organizational management analysis, employee retention, and communication and socialization.