Spanish Words Research Articles

The role of emotional prototypicality in Chinese emotion word recognition: evidence from implicit and explicit emotion tasks

Abstract Emotional prototypicality (EmoPro) quantifies the extent to which an emotion-label word represents emotion concepts. While previous research demonstrated faster recognition for high EmoPro words than low EmoPro words in Spanish, the modulation of EmoPro on emotion word recognition in other languages and its dependence on task demands remain unclear. This study employed both the lexical decision task (Experiment 1) and the valence judgment task (Experiment 2) to investigate the EmoPro effect among Chinese speakers. The results not only confirmed the role of EmoPro in Chinese emotion word recognition, supporting the prototype theory of emotion concepts, but also highlighted that the EmoPro effect was more pronounced in the valence judgment task (an explicit emotion task) than in the lexical decision task (an implicit emotion task). This suggests that EmoPro is associated with the ease of accessing emotion concepts and serves as an affective-semantic variable.

Hearing What You Can't See: Influence of Face Masks on Speech Perception and Eye Movement by Adults With Hearing Loss.

The aim of the study was to analyze how face masks influence speech perception and time spent looking at the speaker's mouth and eyes by adults with and without hearing loss. Twenty participants with hearing loss and 20 without were asked to repeat Spanish words presented in various conditions, including different types of face masks (no mask, transparent window mask, and opaque mask FFP2) and presentation modes (audiovisual, video only, and audio only). Recognition accuracy and the percentage of time looking at the speaker's eyes and mouth (dwell time) were measured. In the audiovisual condition, participants with hearing loss had significantly better word recognition scores when the speaker wore no mask compared to when they wore an opaque face mask. However, there were no differences between the transparent mask and no mask conditions. For those with typical hearing, the type of face mask did not affect speech recognition. Audiovisual presentation consistently improved speech recognition for participants with hearing loss across all face mask conditions, but for those with typical hearing, it only improved compared to video-only mode. These participants demonstrated a ceiling effect in audiovisual and audio-only modes. Regarding eye movement patterns, participants spent less time looking at the speaker's mouth and more time at the eyes when the speaker wore an opaque mask compared to no mask or a transparent mask. The use of transparent face masks (ClearMask-type model) is recommended in contexts where face masks are still used (hospitals) to prevent the hindering effect of opaque masks (FFP2-type model) in speech perception among people with hearing loss, provided that any fogging of the window of the transparent mask is controlled by wiping it off as needed and the light is in front of the speaker to minimize shadows.

La Gente de Agua: Intersectional Metaphors of Identity and Resistance

Berre: “Nombre, pinche Americana, no sabe!” And I didn’t know, because it had taken a long time not to be mad at not being able to pronounce words properly or using my translanguaging skills to create words in Spanish. Playing with cousins in Mexico was fun but challenging. They weren’t always the kindest or showed compassion. It was I who was living in the U.S. after all. The expectation was not to speak Spanglish. The idea that Spanish should be pure and learned properly kept being yelled at me when I didn’t understand the double-meanings and certain humor.

Hemophilia. Methods of diagnosis and treatment

Hemophilia is an X-linked recessive inherited disorder. The main clinical manifestation is hemorrhage, the extent of which depends on the level of coagulation factor VIII or IX in the plasma, generally secondary to deep trauma, such as joints, muscles and the central nervous system. Objective: To present a clear and practical bibliographic review of hemophilia, addressing general aspects of pathophysiology, diagnosis and management, as well as new therapeutic alternatives under development for its treatment. Methods: The databases PubMed, Scopus, ScienceDirect and Scielo were searched using key words in Spanish and English. Twenty articles were selected as a basis for the construction of this review, but 5 were not used because their publication date was more than 5 years old. Results: A literature review was developed that included basic and practical concepts of hemophilia treatment methods and approaches. Conclusions: Hemophilia is a life-threatening disease that affects patients' quality of life, so developing an appropriate diagnosis and treatment is a challenge.

Standing beyond Dasein

Abstract This article argues that twentieth-century philosophy of liberation in Latin America should be considered a rhetorical movement just as much as a philosophical one because it exhibits two basic rhetorical tendencies: the prioritization of the concrete over the abstract and the foregrounding of figurative language. To illustrate these rhetorical tendencies, it documents how the twentieth-century cultural anthropologist and philosopher Rodolfo Kusch uses the Spanish words ser and estar to reengineer Heidegger’s concept of Dasein.

Lengua de Signos Española (LSE) y léxico especializado de las peluquerías. Análisis y propuestas de mejora

This work aims to share the process developed to determine the lexical availability in lexicographic materials of Spanish Sign Language (LSE) for 47 concepts within a specialized field of knowledge: hairdressing. Sign languages, such as LSE in our case, encounter the ongoing necessity, akin to oral languages, of devising novel lexical entities for those concepts devoid of them. To accomplish this, languages have lexical creation mechanisms. Once the search, analysis and discussion process designed for this study was completed, it is determined that LSE dictionaries do not include a Sign for 71.1 % of the concepts examined. Nonetheless, as a result of this study, we present an audiovisual material that captures, in LSE, the 47 Spanish words examined. This outcome owes its realization to the collective endeavor of hairdressing professionals, Deaf individuals, LSE interpreters, and hearing individuals endowed with profound understanding of LSE and the procedures entailed in creating novel Signs. Consequently, it is demonstrated that LSE is a living and rich language capable of addressing any communication needs, regardless of the specialization of the field.

The other in the novel “Monkey Boy” by Francisco Goldman

This article discusses the “identity” theme in the novel “Monkey Boy” by Francisco Goldman; the author has an unconventional approach to the image creation as he considers the identity to be a complicated multidimensional phenomenon. The research is aimed at exploration of the hybrid-type identity in the novel. There are some issues connected with the analysis of that kind of character. The first aspect is to understand whether there is the core part of identity; the next point is to clarify the process of accepting identity and the last aspect is to enumerate the factors that influence the self-identification process. The character of that identity-type can never be included into the group of Ours; he hasn’t got the feeling of “being at home”, that’s why the protagonist searches for the place of residence, which would not be connected to his national and ethnic roots. The author shows the hybrid identity through the language as there are Spanish words and phrases in the American-English text. The non-linear narration helps the readers to observe the stages of self-identification, to analyze the traumatic memories and the process of getting over these experiences. The protagonist accepts different elements of his identity by interacting with the Other when he gets to know things and asks the Other questions; as a result, he develops his own way of self-identification and finds solutions to his internal problematic issues. The research of the auto-images and hetero-images is controversial since the character simultaneously belongs to both communities.

Normoacusia y discriminación verbal en entornos sonoros reales

IntroductionHuman beings are constantly exposed to complex acoustic environments every day, which even pose challenges for individuals with normal hearing. Speech perception relies not only on fixed elements within the acoustic wave but is also influenced by various factors. These factors include speech intensity, environmental noise, the presence of other speakers, individual specific characteristics, spatial separatios of sound sources, ambient reverberation, and audiovisual cues. The objective of this study is twofold: to determine the auditory capacity of normal hearing individuals to discriminate spoken words in real-life acoustic conditions and perform a phonetic analysis of misunderstood spoken words. Materials and methodsThis is a descriptive observational cross-sectional study involving 20 normal hearing individuals. Verbal audiometry was conducted in an open-field environment, with sounds masked by simulated real-word acoustic environment at various sound intensity levels. To enhance sound emission, 2D visual images related to the sounds were displayed on a television. We analyzed the percentage of correct answers and performed a phonetic analysis of misunderstood spanish bisyllabic words in each environment. Results14 women (70%) and 6 men (30%), with an average age of 26±5,4 years and a mean airway hearing threshold in the right ear of 10,56±3,52dB SPL and in the left ear of 10,12±2,49dB SPL. The percentage of verbal discrimination in the ‘Ocean’ sound environment was 97,2±5,04%, ‘Restaurant’ was 94±4,58%, and ‘Traffic’ was 86,2±9,94% (p=0,000). Regarding the phonetic analysis, the allophones that exhibited statistically significant differences were as follows: [o] (p=0,002) within the group of vocalic phonemes, [n] (p=0,000) of voiced nasal consonants, [ɾ] (p=0,0016) of voiced fricatives, [b] (p=0,000) and [g] (p=0,045) of voiced stops. ConclusionsThe dynamic properties of the acoustic environment can impact the ability of a normal hearing individual to extract information from a voice signal. Our study demonstrates that this ability decreases when the voice signal is masked by one or more simultaneous interfering voices, as observed in a ‘Restaurant’ environment, and when it is masked by a continuous and intense noise environment such as ‘Traffic’. Regarding the phonetic analysis, when the sound environment was composed of continuous-low frequency noise, we found that nasal consonants were particularly challenging to identify. Furthermore, in situations with distracting verbal signals, vowels and vibrating consonants exhibited the worst intelligibility.

Normal hearing and verbal discrimination in real sounds environments

IntroductionHuman beings are constantly exposed to complex acoustic environments every day, which even pose challenges for individuals with normal hearing. Speech perception relies not only on fixed elements within the acoustic wave but is also influenced by various factors. These factors include speech intensity, environmental noise, the presence of other speakers, individual specific characteristics, spatial separatios of sound sources, ambient reverberation, and audiovisual cues. The objective of this study is twofold: to determine the auditory capacity of normal hearing individuals to discriminate spoken words in real-life acoustic conditions and perform a phonetic analysis of misunderstood spoken words. Materials and methodsThis is a descriptive observational cross-sectional study involving 20 normal hearing individuals. Verbal audiometry was conducted in an open-field environment, with sounds masked by simulated real-word acoustic environment at various sound intensity levels. To enhance sound emission, 2D visual images related to the sounds were displayed on a television. We analyzed the percentage of correct answers and performed a phonetic analysis of misunderstood Spanish bisyllabic words in each environment. Results14 women (70%) and 6 men (30%), with an average age of 26 ± 5,4 years and a mean airway hearing threshold in the right ear of 10,56 ± 3,52 dB SPL and in the left ear of 10,12 ± 2,49 dB SPL. The percentage of verbal discrimination in the “Ocean” sound environment was 97,2 ± 5,04%, “Restaurant” was 94 ± 4,58%, and “Traffic” was 86,2 ± 9,94% (p = 0,000). Regarding the phonetic analysis, the allophones that exhibited statistically significant differences were as follows: [o] (p = 0,002) within the group of vocalic phonemes, [n] (p = 0,000) of voiced nasal consonants, [r] (p = 0,0016) of voiced fricatives, [b] (p = 0,000) and [g] (p = 0,045) of voiced stops. ConclusionThe dynamic properties of the acoustic environment can impact the ability of a normal hearing individual to extract information from a voice signal. Our study demonstrates that this ability decreases when the voice signal is masked by one or more simultaneous interfering voices, as observed in a “Restaurant” environment, and when it is masked by a continuous and intense noise environment such as “Traffic”. Regarding the phonetic analysis, when the sound environment was composed of continuous-low frequency noise, we found that nasal consonants were particularly challenging to identify. Furthermore in situations with distracting verbal signals, vowels and vibrating consonants exhibited the worst intelligibility.

The Origin Story: Behind the Scenes of Food Festivals

The relationships between food festivals and food storytelling have been scarcely explored by previous research. Nevertheless, these relationships are a source of memorable experiences, based on the authenticity of food places and stories. Drawing on the analysis of the storytelling strategies of the Festival or??Genes (Spanish word for origins), this research demonstrates the importance of product and producer stories in creating a distinct narrative of place through gastronomy. Results identify the relevance of the value chain from land to table (or bar to bean), where stakeholders engage with the origin of the product, respect the producer, and acknowledge the traditional knowledge in food production. Values such as creativity, education, and family are presented in relation to food consumption. This article contributes to the understanding of how and why food festivals generate food storytelling behind the scenes.

Sub-visemic discrimination and the effect of visual resemblance on silent lip-reading

ABSTRACT Relevant visual information is available in speakers’ faces during face-to-face interactions that improve speech perception. There is an ongoing debate, however, about how phonemes and their visual counterparts, visemes are mapped. An influential hypothesis claims that several phonemes can be mapped into a single visemic category (many-to-one phoneme-viseme mapping). In contrast, recent findings have challenged this view, reporting evidence for sub-visemic syllable discrimination. We aim to investigate whether Spanish words from the same visemic category can be identified or not. We designed a lip-reading task in which participants had to identify target words presented in silent video clips among 3 distractors differing in their visual resemblance from the target. Target words were identified above chance and significantly more than distractors from the same visemic category. Moreover, the error rate for distractors significantly decreased with decreasing visemic resemblance to the target. These results challenge the many-to-one phoneme-viseme mapping hypothesis.

Learners’ preferred L2 vocabulary learning modalities

Under the framework of the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, this study examined how four modalities (iconic gestures, beat gestures, no gesture, audio) and learner modality preferences affect L2 vocabulary learning coupled with their relation to language aptitude. Sixty native or bilingual Japanese speakers watched video clips of sixty Spanish words under the above-mentioned four conditions six times. Their retention rate was measured immediately following the learning phase and after two weeks. The primary findings were (a) modalities had no relationship with the test scores; (b) learners preferred iconic gestures most; (c) modality preferences had a strong relationship to test scores; (d) the scores of their most preferred modality were significantly higher than those of other less-preferred modalities, and (e) the language aptitude score was correlated with modalities but not with modality preferences. This study suggests that learners may learn L2 vocabulary most efficiently when the modality matches their preferences.

Statistical Relationships Between Phonological Form, Emotional Valence and Arousal of Spanish Words.

A number of studies have provided evidence of limited non-arbitrary associations between the phonological forms and meanings of affective words, a finding referred to as affective sound symbolism. Here, we explored whether the affective connotations of Spanish words might have more extensive statistical relationships with phonological/phonetic features, or affective form typicality. After eliminating words with poor affective rating agreement and morphophonological redundancies (e.g., negating prefixes), we found evidence of significant form typicality for emotional valence, emotionality, and arousal in a large sample of monosyllabic and polysyllabic words. These affective form-meaning mappings remained significant even when controlling for a range of lexico-semantic variables. We show that affective variables and their corresponding form typicality measures are able to significantly predict lexical decision performance using a megastudy dataset. Overall, our findings provide new evidence that affective form typicality is a statistical property of the Spanish lexicon.

Preguntas y frases para una nieta americana

<p>“Preguntas y frases” is an imagined letter from my grandmother. It is composed of Spanish words and phrases (including missing accents and misspellings) as my grandmother, Esther, wrote them in 1983 in a series of letters she sent to my mother while my mother was living abroad in Ecuador. In those letters, Esther spoken plainly with her daughter—principally, by questioning her decision to leave the United States and asking that my mother back home to Calexico, California.</p><p>Many years after my grandmother’s death, my mother found these letters tucked away in the house attic. When my mother shared these letters with me, it was startling for me to see and hear so clearly my grandmother’s voice and way of speaking after so many years since her passing. In response, I wrote “Preguntas y frases para una nieta americana.” The title is inspired by Teresa Palomo Acosta’s poem “Preguntas y frases para una bisabuela española” in which Acosta reflects on her Spanish heritage by writing a letter to her great Spanish grandmother. In contrast, “Preguntas y frases para una nieta americana” reflects on American assimilation and what is lost, protected, and honored across three generations of Mexican American women. The letter is my imagination of what my grandmother would say to me today if she were to write me—and speak plainly—as she had with my mother all those years ago.</p>

Sound symbolic associations in Spanish emotional words: affective dimensions and discrete emotions

ABSTRACT Sound symbolism refers to non-arbitrary associations between word forms and meaning, such as those observed for some properties of sounds and size or shape. Recent evidence suggests that these connections extend to emotional concepts. Here we investigated two types of non-arbitrary relationships. Study 1 examined whether iconicity scores (i.e. resemblance-based mapping between aspects of a word’s form and its meaning) for words can be predicted from ratings in the affective dimensions of valence and arousal and/or the discrete emotions of happiness, anger, fear, disgust and sadness. Words denoting negative concepts were more likely to have more iconic word forms. Study 2 explored whether statistical regularities in single phonemes (i.e. systematicity) predicted ratings in affective dimensions and/or discrete emotions. Voiceless (/p/, /t/) and voiced plosives (/b/, /d/, /g/) were related to high arousing words, whereas high arousing negative words tended to include fricatives (/s/, /z/). Hissing consonants were also more likely to occur in words denoting all negative discrete emotions. Additionally, words conveying certain discrete emotions included specific phonemes. Overall, our data suggest that emotional features might explain variations in iconicity and provide new insight about phonemic patterns showing sound symbolic associations with the affective properties of words.

Comparison of teaching methods for the emergence and maintenance of untaught relations in foreign language vocabulary acquisition: A systematic replication.

In a replication of Daly and K. Dounavi (2020), the researchers evaluated the effect of foreign tact and bidirectional intraverbal teaching on the emergence of untaught relations. Three university students learned three stimulus sets through three types of teaching: native-foreign intraverbal teaching (vocalizing Spanish words that refer to a Japanese textual stimulus), foreign-native intraverbal teaching (reversed relation of native-foreign condition), and foreign-tact teaching (tacting a picture in Spanish). The researchers used an adapted alternating-treatments design to assess the differential effect of each teaching condition on the emergence of untaught relations in a foreign language and collected data on response maintenance. The results replicated previous findings that native-foreign intraverbal and foreign-tact teachings were more effective than foreign-native intraverbal teaching despite previous reporting that the maintenance outcomes may be a result of carryover effects.

Constructional sources of durational shortening in discourse markers

Abstract Using naturally occurring data from Spanish from Madrid, this study is the first to analyze durations of the Spanish word decir ‘to say, to tell’ both as a verb with prepositional meaning and as part of the reformulating construction [es decir] ‘that is to say’ (N = 388). We show that, although it is neither highly grammaticalized nor frequent, [es decir] undergoes phonological reduction to a significantly greater degree than the more frequent lexical source decir ‘to say’. Results of linear mixed-effects models predicting target duration suggest these durational differences cannot be explained due to conditioning factors of the target context controlled in this analysis (speech rate of the target word context, predictability of following words, number of phones, distance from pause). They do not appear to stem from an accumulation in memory of patterns of likelihood of use in those conditioning environments. We propose that [es decir] is stored as a lexical unit that contains as part of the lexical representation shorter word durations relative to the lexical form decir and that this durational shortening is part of the [reformulator] construction.

Third-Generation Heritage Spanish Acquisition and Socialization: Word Learning and Overheard Input in an L.A.-Based Mexican Family

This case study examines overheard speech in a third-generation heritage Spanish Mexican family. It presents Spanish use longitudinally and describes overheard Spanish word use in interaction. Transcribed on CLAN to create a plurilingual corpus, ethnographic video data consisted of 24 h across three sampling periods, yielding nearly 30,000 Spanish, English, and language mixed utterances. Quantitative analyses indicate strong Spanish use in the first sample, before dropping. Qualitative descriptions show the third-generation target-child’s attunement to overheard Spanish, and her agency to use Spanish. Overheard input helps her use Spanish words, influencing her social encounters. This paper examines what we coded as overheard input in heritage language acquisition and socialization research. The language practices of one multigenerational Mexican family in California are explored, accounting for how their language practices in multiparty interaction co-create meaning, and how they help a third-generation child use Spanish words grounded in daily experiences. The findings contribute to the discussion of bilingualism in general and definitions of heritage bilingualism in particular. The results underscore the understudied role of overhead speech produced by a diversity of multigenerational family members and word learning. Participation frameworks are dynamically constructed by all participants as permeable, inclusive, and engage the children’s use of inherited bilingual and bicultural practices, suggesting that heritage bilingualism is not just about abstract grammar.

The Interplay of Syllable Structure and Consonant Sonority in L2 Speech Segmentation

The present study investigated whether L1 and L2 Spanish speakers show sensitivity to matching/mismatching syllable structure and consonant sonority in lexical segmentation in Spanish. A total of 81 English–Spanish learners and 72 Spanish–English learners completed a fragment-monitoring task. They listened to lists of Spanish words as they saw a CV or CVC syllable (e.g., “pa” or “pal”) and pressed a button when the word began with the syllable shown on the screen. The task manipulated syllable structure (CV or CVC) and consonant sonority (fricative, nasal, or liquid) of target syllables and carrier words. Target syllables either matched or did not match the structure of the first syllable in target carrier words (e.g., “pa—pa.lo.ma”; “pa—pal.me.ra”). The results showed that consonant sonority modulated sensitivity to syllable structure in both groups of participants. Spanish–English learners responded faster to matching syllable structure in words that had a fricative or a nasal as the second consonant, and English–Spanish learners responded faster only with a fricative consonant. Higher L2 Spanish proficiency correlated with faster target-syllable identification, but sensitivity to matching/mismatching structure did not vary as a function of proficiency. The study highlights the influence of phonetic factors in the development of L2 lexical segmentation routines.

The impact of multilingualism and proficiency on L2 vocabulary knowledge: contrasting high and low multilinguals

ABSTRACT This study investigates the effects of multilingualism and the degree of proficiency in different languages on vocabulary knowledge among Spanish language learners. Participants completed a 160-word meaning recall test designed to measure their knowledge of the 8,000 most frequent Spanish words and a self-assessment questionnaire on their multilingual profile. The results show that students with high multilingual profiles (knowing more than three languages) demonstrated greater vocabulary knowledge than learners with low multilingual profiles (knowing three or fewer languages), especially for words in low-frequency vocabulary ranges. However, the positive impact of multilingualism on vocabulary knowledge is only significant among learners with a high proficiency in Spanish (C1-C2 level), suggesting that identifying as highly proficient in multiple languages is advantageous only when learning vocabulary at higher proficiency levels. These results corroborate the benefits of multilingualism for fostering vocabulary development in a foreign language, while offering a nuanced picture of how additional languages (LX) are acquired by multilingual learners.