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The corpus of Spanish learners: analysis of conflictive grammatical phenomena for foreign speakers.
GARCÍA FERNÁNDEZ, Sara
In this paper, we conduct a contrastive analysis among three languages (Spanish, Czech and English) as far as the explicit or implicit use of subject personal pronouns is concerned, given that it can entail a source of linguistic conflict from the standpoint of English and Czech speakers who learn Spanish, as this particular grammatical phenomenon works differently in their mother tongues. The issue of this study is firstly and mostly grounded on a collaboration project in which we have participated along this past academic year, focused on the revision, correction and annotation of certain mistakes detected in a section of texts compiled in an American learner corpus called Corpus of Written Spanish of L2 and Heritage Speakers (COWS-L2H). The second basis for our research is a small, own compiled corpus of Czech-speaking learners of Spanish, which we analysed using a special software for linguistic annotation called Analec. Our study can be contextualized within the framework of corpus linguistics as a growing and evolving methodology, applied to multiple language research fields via the development of different types of corpora. In this case, our main concern are those linguistic databases that contain essays from students of Spanish, since these materials allow for the analysis of their interlanguage in order to identify and determine the prime faculties and difficulties that they will face when learning this language. Following this path, teachers will be able to develop a more effective and suitable pedagogical approach, in accordance with the specific characteristics of the target group(s). However, to attain this goal, it is vital to foster the exposure of educators and students to these linguistic tools.
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Errors in use of the subjunctive of the English-speaking and Czech-speaking students of Spanish
ROSA CALVO, Marta
The understanding and production of the Spanish subjunctive mode has always been regarded as a challenge for students and Spanish teachers as a foreign or second language. It is the lack of correspondence of this verbal mode in other languages, along with its versatility and the numerous semantic and pragmatic nuances that the change of verbal mode implies, what leads to problems among both students and teachers. Due to this and many other reasons, the present study aims to analyse the specific problems that two groups of students of Spanish may encounter: anglophone and Czech speakers with an intermediate-high level of language (B2 according to the CEFR). To do so, two similar surveys have been launched aimed at both groups. These surveys include the specific syntactic structures pertinent to this language level, whose modal selection usually causes major difficulties. Likewise, a contrastive analysis will be developed focused on the syntactic structures which are subject of study in Spanish, English and Czech. The purpose of the latter is to extract some specific characteristics of the above-mentioned languages, and thus offer an objective perspective of the problems that students may encounter in the comprehension and production of these syntactic structures. Furthermore, the difficulties that may be drawn from the results of the surveys will be evinced, and some solutions are expected to be presented in response to these problems and in the face of Spanish language teaching as a foreign or second language.
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