Elia - 2001 - Nº 2

URI permanente para esta colecciónhttps://hdl.handle.net/11441/2478

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Aspect variation in narrative: a discourse approach
(Universidad de Sevilla, 2001) Rivas Carmona, María del Mar; Universidad de Sevilla. Departamento de Filología Inglesa (Lengua Inglesa)
The aim of this paper is to show how the choice of verbal aspect may not just be a matter of location in time but also a sign of the addresser’s intentions to highlight different elements of the message. The role of the addressee is to establish temporal assumptions and draw the necessary inferences in order to interpret the text. In the case of literary texts, writers make use of aspect variation in order to foregroud particular events and to involve or detach the readers with respect to them. Thus, writers take advantage of these camera-angle possibilities and we may find instances where sentences containing the progressive or imperfective aspect convey events as if from within a character’s mind or as if the reader were close to the scene, scrutinizing all the details. We will illustrate this with some excerpts from novels by Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys, Margaret Drabble and Doris Lessing, in which temporal inferencing plays a vital role when distinguishing subjective fragments of thought-representation from objective fragments of narration.
A pragmatic analysis framework for the description of modality usage in academic English contexts
(Universidad de Sevilla, 2001) Piqué, Jordi; Posteguillo, Santiago; Andreu-Besó, J. Vicent
In our pragmatic approach to research articles (RAs), we take a look at one of the main characteristics of academic writing: the use of modalized statements. Modalization, in the form of modal verbs, has been extensively studied by ESP researchers and practitioners. Most of their studies, however, have slightly touched upon the distinction between epistemic modality, which questions the certainty or probability of a statement, and deontic modality, which lays obligations or gives permission to the audience. This dichotomy is an important tool to describe disciplinary variations in academic and professional writing. We contend that different disciplines favor different types of modality. Results in this study indicate that health science RAs mostly use epistemic modality, whereas literary criticism RAs combine the use of both epistemic and deontic modality.
Predicting politeness strategies in English conversation
(Universidad de Sevilla, 2001) Hoebe, Susanne E.
Brown and Levinson (1987) put forward the formula ‘Wx = D (S, H) + P (H, S) + Rx’ to calculate the weightiness of face-threatening acts. I tested this formula on English conversations in three of Tom Stoppard’s radio plays, using both qualitative and quantitative analyzes. The results of this study show that the formula does predict politeness strategies used by speakers in interactions, but more so in longer scenes than in shorter ones. Analysis of deviating cases suggests that such factors as the number of utterances per interaction, personal style, background or class, impoliteness or rudeness, overpoliteness, situational factors, metalanguage and effective writing by the playwright may explain why speakers in particular cases do not use the politeness strategy that they are expected to utilize in accordance with the social relation (D), the power relation (P), and the absolute ranking of the imposition (R) found in the interaction. The existence of lower-level goals in longer conversations also influences a speaker’s choice of strategy. I will introduce two coefficients that can be applied to the formula, a variable factor of Instrumentality (I) and a constant factor of Personal Style (C), leading to an adaptation of the formula: ‘Wx = (D (S, H) + P (H, S) + Rx) x I x C’.
El fallo pragmático en la traducción al español de "Time and the Conways" y "Look back in Anger"
(Universidad de Sevilla, 2001) Fernández Amaya, Lucía
Some bilingual people, although able to use two or more languages and speak correctly grammatically, sometimes use the language inappropriately. Thus, for instance, when a speaker mentions something taboo, the hearer, who has not heard anything ungrammatical, does not interpret the utterance as a mistake but rather as impolite. As can be seen, these mistakes, called by Thomas (1983) pragmatic failures, are very important because they can cause a breakdown in communication. Thomas defines pragmalinguistic failure as “...the inability to understand ‘what is meant by what is said’” (1983: 91). This author argues that a speaker’s linguistic competence is made up of grammatical competence – abstract or decontextualized knowledge of syntax, semantics, etc. – and pragmatic competence – the capacity to use language effectively to achieve a given goal and to understand language in context. Therefore, a bilingual person’s linguistic knowledge must consist of both types of competence. However, this is not always the case, and when pragmatic competence is not present, the result is pragmatic failure. In order to show the kind of pragmatic errors that a bilingual person can make, I will analyze some examples taken from the English plays Look Back in Anger and Time and the Conways and their translations into Spanish.
Nuevas tendencias en el uso de la L1
(Universidad de Sevilla, 2001) Martín Martín, José Miguel
This paper discusses certain changes that have taken place among theorists and publishers as regards the use of the mother tongue (L1) in EFL/ESL textbooks aimed at students who share a common L1. The general orthodoxy in the last three decades tended to consider that the L1 should not be present at all in either L2 classrooms or textbooks. This tendency seems to be shifting to a more comprehensive and flexible view of the role and possible use of the L1. Thus, nowadays a good number of textbooks with explicit use of L1 can be found in the Spanish market of EFL textbooks. This paper analyzes some of these textbooks, the activities they present in the L1 and the causes for the change.
Sobre las gramáticas bilingües y la permeabilidad estructural
(Universidad de Sevilla, 2001) Landa, Alazne; Elordui Urkiza, Agurtzane
Drawing from data on several language contact situations, this paper aims to provide some empirical evidence in support of the hypotheses that (i) at the morphosyntactic level, influence from another language is hard to demonstrate and, if it exists, it can only exist indirectly;, (ii) external influence consists at most of the exploitation of a previous surface-level structural similarity between the languages involved in the contact situation (Prince 1992); and (iii) hypotheses (i) and (ii) also apply to terminal dialects; however, these dying varieties undergo different types of simplification processes that can be best accounted for in terms of a combination of language-internal, cognitive and interactional factors. The tendency towards grammar simplification is claimed to be rather universal, although accelerated in the case of dialect death (Dorian 1981), and a number of allegedly contact-induced phenomena are reinterpreted as instances of relaxation of different types of constraints in bilingual grammars. The data on which this research is based have been collected from the following language contact situations: (a) Basque-Spanish in the Basque Country (Elordui 1995, Landa 1995), (b) Spanish-English in the United States (Landa 1992, Silva-Corvalán 1994), and (c) Basque-English in Nevada, U.S.A. (Elordui 1998c).
Native speaker-non-native speaker interaction: the use of discourse makers
(Universidad de Sevilla, 2001) Iglesias Moreno, Ángela Eugenia
Discourse markers have a basic role in oral interactions. Apart from providing coherence and regulating turn-taking, they have important interactive functions that indicate the conversational commitment and the social behaviour of the interlocutors in an interaction. In the case of the L1, discourse markers are acquired as part of our communicative competence, and, therefore, it is important that they also be part of an L2 student’s communicative competence. In this article, I will analyse the use of “well” as a discourse marker (DM) by Spanish students of English in interaction with native speakers. The analysis will indicate that “well” is hardly used as a DM in the students’ discourse, resulting in distinctly non-native discourse, which can negatively affect the students’ images. These results may be significant to teachers and researchers in regard to their approach to the teaching of foreign languages from a pragmatic point of view.
Problemas en la evaluación de la competencia discursiva en inglés como L2
(Universidad de Sevilla, 2001) Chacón Beltrán, Manuel Rubén
Nowadays, language testing is considered a fundamental component in foreign language teaching and learning. In this paper, some of the most representative features of language testing are described and special attention is given to the question of language test validity. Some well-known language-testing institutions use the native speaker (NS) as a stakeholder to evaluate the overall level in the foreign language, without taking into account the feasibility of such a concept. In this regard, some arguments are presented in order to demonstrate the ambivalence of the notion of “native speaker” in language learning evaluation. Particular attention is paid to international language-testing standards that, although well-known and widely used, may not be as appropriate as they are assumed to be. Some suggestions are made for the field of bilingualism studies.
La incidencia de los procesos de desarrollo en la creación de la fonología de una segunda lengua
(Universidad de Sevilla, 2001) Pavón Vázquez, Víctor
Studies on the processes that shape the learning/acquisition of a second language phonology mainly deal with defining the nature of transfer processes and internal developmental processes and clarifying the roles played by these two different influences. There seems to be disagreement with respect to the importance that should be given to each of these processes. In our opinion, any research to be carried out in this field must take into account the learner's new phonological system, particularly in terms of the existence of clear systematic and structured characteristics. If attention is paid to the nature of the regular properties of interlanguage (IL) phonology, it should be possible to analyze more accurately the influence of the mother tongue (L1), the target language (L2) and the learner's own systematic phonological development. It is our intention, then, to point out the need to study the sometimes neglected, internal developmental processes in the explanation of how interlanguage phonology is created.
Los contornos melódicos como señalizadores de la fuerza ilocutiva del discurso del profesor de L2
(Universidad de Sevilla, 2001) Fonseca Mora, Mª del Carmen
L2 teachers often have difficulties in communicating successfully in the target language with students who have poor transitional competence. However, in a former study, Fonseca and Cuenca (2000) observed that it was possible for a native English teacher to communicate with seven-yearold beginners whose mother tongue was Spanish by using a type of simplified code created to help the hearer to learn and understand language. One of the features identified in that code was the use of exaggerated melodic contours to show the teacher’s illocutionary intention. The main purpose of this paper is to present the results of the analysis of the speech melodies used by twenty native and non-native teachers teaching English as a foreign language in Spain. This research is based on findings in first language acquisition papers that argue that those melodic contours, identified in child-directed speech, are used intuitively by parents to guide their babies’ musical beginnings (Papousek, 1996), but also as a speciesspecific learning guide to language (Snow, 1972; Stern at al., 1982; Papousek, 1994; Feu and Piñero, 1996). The conclusions of this study imply that the prototypical contour variations found in the data are based on shared knowledge between teachers and students.
El pensamiento en la clase de inglés: fuente de poder o vulnerabilidad
(Universidad de Sevilla, 2001) Rubio Alcalá, Fernando D.
The students’ thoughts are a source of power when they are used correctly in the EFL classroom, but, on the contrary, they may be an obstacle to learning and cause emotional instability if the students do not use them well. According to general studies of psychology, thoughts can be classified as relevant and irrelevant. A relevant thought takes place when a person dedicates his thinking to a specific task. For instance, a student is doing a multiple-choice exercise about phrasal verbs, and makes hypothesis and deductions from his knowledge of phrasal verbs in order to do the exercise. Then, as those relevant thoughts take place, other thoughts that are not related directly to that exercise emerge. Those can be irrelevant thoughts when they do not help in doing the task, and interfere with relevant thoughts. They refer to intrapersonal matters, as self-efficacy, motivation, self-esteem, etc. For instance, the student thinks: “I won’t be able to do the exercise” or “I should have studied harder”, etc. However, these irrelevant thoughts can be facilitating to the task if the student is able to analyze those thoughts and change them into positive ones: “I will do my best” or “Although I have not studied hard, I will give it a chance” .This paper shows how cognition and emotion relate to each other and how relevant and irrelevant thoughts are created. It will also explain how the language learner employs self-defense mechanisms as s/he finds difficulties or aversion in doing learning tasks. As a general consideration, irrelevant thoughts can be as important as relevant thoughts in learning a language. Moreover, many researchers claim that they are responsible for determining success or failure in ordinary classroom learning tasks.
La incidencia de las imágenes mentales en la comprensión lectora en una L2
(Universidad de Sevilla, 2001) Ávila López, Francisco Javier
Recent neurobiological research points to a new direction in the study of the human mind. Mental imagery seems to be an essential condition of thought that underlies each and every act of knowledge. In light of this research, some educational approaches are incorporating the use of mental images in the classroom, in order to aid in comprehension and recall. In light of the changing conception of knowledge and, ultimately, of thought that is being brought about by neurobiological information, a study was designed at the University of Seville on the incidence of mental imagery instruction on reading comprehension in English as a foreign language. Research methodology included initial reading comprehension tests and tests on the vividness of visual imagery. A quasi-experimental investigation in accordance with the standard educational context in Andalusian secondary schools was designed. The conclusions point towards an improvement in reading comprehension in those experimental groups working with imagery.
Integranting prosodic information into a speech recogniser
(2001) López Soto, María Teresa; Universidad de Sevilla. Departamento de Filología Inglesa (Lengua Inglesa)
In the last decade there has been an increasing tendency to incorporate language engineering strategies into speech technology. This technique combines linguistic and mathematical information in different applications: machine translation, natural language processing, speech synthesis and automatic speech recognition (ASR). In the field of speech synthesis, this hybrid approach (linguistic and mathematical/statistical) has led to the design of efficient models for reproducing the acoustic features of natural language. However, the incorporation of language engineering strategies into ASR is only beginning. In this paper, we present a theoretical framework for the integration of linguistic information into an ASR system. The objective is to design a model which can detect the suprasegmental features of the speech input, mainly those related to the fundamental frequency (F0) that can clarify the functionality of pauses, intonation contour, and interruptions. This specification model has been designed in the framework of a dialogue system
El poder predictivo en la pronunciación de palabras inglesas noveles por hablantes bilingües
(2001) Cuenca Villarín, María Heliodora; Universidad de Sevilla. Departamento de Filología Inglesa (Lengua Inglesa)
Teaching English pronunciation should involve not only production and reception exercises but also the formation of predictive power for the pronunciation of novel words. In the analysis of the strategies followed by learners of English in the generation of phonological forms of novel words, three types of actions have been observed: a direct visual word recognition process, an activation of analogous words, and the application of graphemeto-phoneme conversion rules. The reading of a list of words and pseudowords by bilingual speakers of English and Spanish has been analyzed in order to find out to which extent their strategies are similar to those used by EFL learners. In fact, they employ identical strategies, although in different proportions highly correlated with their amount of experience in the language under study: the bilingual speakers studied favored a direct visual word recognition process and the activation of analogous words in the generation of phonological forms for pseudowords.
The relevance of what seems irrelevant: remarks on the relationship between phatic utterances and sociopragmatic failure
(2001) Padilla Cruz, Manuel; Universidad de Sevilla. Departamento de Filología Inglesa (Lengua Inglesa)
Lingüística inglesa aplicada: origen, evolución y futuro
(2001) Abello Contesse, Reynaldo Christián; Universidad de Sevilla. Departamento de Filología Inglesa (Lengua Inglesa)
El discurso del profesor de inglés como L2: diferencias discursivas nativo-no nativo
(2001) Torreblanca López, María del Mar; Universidad de Sevilla. Departamento de Filología Inglesa (Lengua Inglesa)

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