Spanish vs. English mediated lectures: A contrastive approach to the use of evidential markers

In the last ten years, Spanish universities have started to incorporate English as a means of instruction. As a consequence, many lecturers –who regularly use their mother tongue for their teaching activity– have adapted their syllabus contents into English, resulting in lectures that show evidence of cross-linguistic influence (Odlin, 1993). The goal of this paper is to analyze the use and distribution of evidentials in Spanish and English mediated lectures by the same teachers and to evaluate the extent to which linguistic interference is made visible when it comes to the use of evidentiality. To this aim, a corpus of three Engineering lectures delivered in English and three Engineering lectures delivered in Spanish by the same native speakers of Spanish lecturers has been used as a means of exemplification.

Literature Mediated English in the UCM Degree in Modern Languages: A Pilot Study

The Degree in Modern Languages recently implemented by the Complutense University of Madrid has been designed in the light of the European Higher Education criteria. In the case of English, the curriculum includes a B2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) course of general English, with the consequent lack of motivation of many of the students in the classroom, who already got that level at high school. In this sense, it is our intention to carry about a pilot study intended to design, implement and test the use of literary texts and articles in the ESL classroom

Calque-free lectures? Spanish cross-linguistic influence in content teaching through English

In the last ten years, Spanish universities have gradually started to incorporate English as a means of instruction. As a result, many lecturers —who regularly use their mother tongue for their teaching activity— have been compelled to adapt their syllabus contents into English, resulting in lectures that show evidence of cross-linguistic influence (Odlin, 1989). This is especially noticeable in the recurrent presence of calques, which emerge as a consequence of both the teachers’ insufficient proficiency in the foreign language and a lack of expertise in lecturing through a non-native medium of spoken communication. The goal of this paper is precisely to evaluate the extent to which this interference is made visible. To this aim, a corpus of three Engineering lectures delivered in English has been used as a means of exemplification, with results that prove the presence of syntactic, lexical and morphological calques in all cases. The ultimate end of this research is not only to raise teachers’ awareness of their own dependency on L1 as their main language resource, but also to eventually provide them with tools and strategies which might enhance their performance, hence improving teacher-student communication.En los últimos diez años, las universidades españolas han empezado a incorporar el inglés como lengua para la docencia. Como resultado, muchos profesores —acostumbrados a enseñar en su lengua materna— se han visto obligados a adaptar los contenidos de sus programas al inglés, con la consiguiente influencia cros-lingüística en el desarrollo de su actividad docente (Odlin, 1989). Esto se aprecia especialmente en la presencia recurrente de calcos, consecuencia tanto de la falta de conocimiento lingüístico de los profesores a la hora de transmitir conocimientos en una lengua extranjera como de su escasa experiencia en este sentido. El objetivo de este trabajo es precisamente analizar hasta qué punto esta interferencia se hace realmente patente en el aula. Con esta intención, y a modo de ejemplo, se ha utilizado un corpus formado por tres clases de Ingeniería impartidas en inglés. Los resultados del análisis revelan que todas ellas presentan calcos sintácticos, léxicos y morfológicos. El objetivo último de este trabajo no es sólo concienciar a los profesores de su dependencia de la lengua materna como primer recurso lingüístico, sino también dotarlos con herramientas y estrategias que les permitan mejorar su actividad, lo que sin duda repercutirá en una comunicación profesor-estudiante más óptima

Breaking Boundaries and Dislocating Muths in Alvaro Cunqueiro's "Función de Romeo e Xulieta, Famosos Namorados" (1956): a Galician Adaptation of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet in the 20th Century"

El tratamiento del espacio en Álvaro Cunqueiro siempre ha sido más sutil de lo que la crítica ha reconocido hasta hace muy poco. La creación de una esfera mítica atlántica, en la que Galicia se sitúa al mismo nivel que la Bretaña Francesa o Irlanda, ha demostrado ser de gran importancia para aquellos intelectuales que se han posicionado contra la dominación cultural del Mediterráneo, Cunqueiro entre ellos. Esta cuestión se plantea en la adaptación gallega del autor de la versión Romeo y Julieta de William Shakespeare, además de la negación de un espacio común para la comunicación. En ese sentido, el presente análisis muestra cómo la adaptación de Cunqueiro es esencial en el proceso de denuncia contra la represión cultural en el sistema periférico gallego. Todo ello sumado a la falta de atención prestada por la crítica a la obra y la demonización del autor y su literatura evasiva, como supuesta falta de sensibilidad ante los problemas de la comunidad gallega durante el Franquismo. Con esta propuesta, se pretende que la crítica en una segunda lectura de las adaptaciones shakesperianas de Cunqueiro advierta el valor del tratamiento espacial geográfico, cultural y simbólico en la mencionada obra como catalizador de una denuncia social velada.Álvaro Cunqueiro's treatment of space is subtler than critics have until very recently believed it to be. Creating a mythical Atlantic realm, where Galicia is placed at the same level as Brittany or Ireland, has proved of great importance to intellectuals, including Cunqueiro, who stand opposed to the cultural domination of the Mediterranean. This is posed in the author's Galician adaptation of the Shakespearean original, Romeo and Juliet, alongside the negation of a common space for communication. In that sense, the present analysis shows that Cunqueiro's adaptation is essential in denouncing cultural repression in peripheral Galicia, though critics have hitherto paid little attention to this and rather have tended to demonise the author's attitude towards evasive literature, and accuse him of an inability to understanding the suffering of the Galician community under Francoism. Criticism should now encourage a second reading of Cunqueiro's Shakespearean adaptations in terms of geographical, cultural, and symbolic location

Reportive evidentiality: a perception-based complement approach to digital discourse in Spanish and English

The present study builds on the evidential overtones of the main verbs of physical perception (visual) VER and SEE taking DECIR and SAY-reportive complements retrieved from a self-compiled Google corpus in Spanish and English. This opens up for research the possibility of a "verdecir" and "seesay" evidentiality in Spanish and English digital discourse. The analysis of the results confirms that the main verbs of direct vision VER and SEE take evidential values and provide justificatory support to the reported and quoted information provided by the DECIR and SAY post-complements based on the characteristics of the visual sources of knowledge, the meanings taken by the main perception verbs and the verbs of saying, and their complementation patterns of evidential perception

Reading the Helicon Collage: Hidden Stories in the Collected Fragments

The present study sets out to show that the pastoral anthology Englands Helicon can be read as a compilation of separate poems or fragments, or of fragments interspersed with sequences of poems that form love stories here and there throughout the anthology. For this to be possible, the Classic models of Virgil’s Eclogues II and VII have been followed so that the reconstruction of the sequence will be based on an analysis of the above mentioned models, taking the sequence as an imitatio cum variatione of the two eclogues. Both possibilities were equally valid for seventeenth century readers who knew the literary tradition of the time. It all depended on how they chose to approach the text. This study also contends that most contemporary readers —unless specialists in Early Modern Literature— would need to be given the appropriate tools in order to be able to organise the fragments into love stories, that is, to read the Helicon poems in sequence

Object-oriented perception: towards a contrastive approach to evidentiality in media discourse

This paper is a corpus-based study of the evidential realisations of object-oriented perception verbs in English and Spanish written and oral media discourse. The main aim of the study is to analyse and compare the different uses and complementation patterns taken by the English words look and sound and their Spanish counterparts se ve and suena. The procedure followed involves a contrastive analysis methodology: (i) description of data, (ii) juxtaposition and (iii) contrast. The data has been taken from oral and written media discourse corpora in English and Spanish. The study has revealed interesting similarities and differences in the uses and complementation patterns adopted by object-oriented perception verbs in both written and oral English and Spanish, thus making a contribution to a debate in which Spanish has been obviated to date

Students' response to CLIL in tertiary education: the Case of Business administration and economics at Complutense University

[EN] The implementation of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in Spanish education is a natural consequence of the global use of English as a "lingua franca". This affects not only primary and secondary education but also university, where a wide range of degrees are being taught in English as a medium of instruction (hereafter EMI). However, in contrast to Spanish primary and secondary education, which have received more attention (Sierra, 2011; Llinares and Whittaker, 2009; Halbach, 2009, inter alia), there is still a considerable lack of studies focusing on the Spanish university context and the attitude of both lecturers and students to the implementation of these EMI courses (Aguilar and Rodríguez, 2012; Dafouz, 2011; Dafouz and Núñez, 2009; Dafouz et al, 2007; Muñoz 2001). The aim of this paper is to analyse students' response to pro-CLIL implementation in the degrees offered by the Economics and Business Administration school at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. The data used in the study have been collected by means of a questionnaire addressed to students where aspects like the effects of FL instruction on their own linguistic competence or their general attitude towards instruction in English are considered.At the time of collecting the data, this initiative study was part of a larger project: the UCM-CLIL project (CCG07-UCM/HUM-2602), financed by the Complutense University (2006 PR1/06-144457-B) and the Comunidad de Madrid (2008 CCG06-UCM/ENE-1061). Nowadays, the project is financed by Banco de Santander. We would like to thank our colleagues in this project, most especially Dr. Dafouz Milne for her insights and useful suggestion when revising this paper. Needless to say, all remaining errors are ours.Maiz-arevalo, C.; Domínguez Romero, E. (2013). Students' response to CLIL in tertiary education: the Case of Business administration and economics at Complutense University. Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas. 8(1):1-12. doi:10.4995/rlyla.2013.955.SWORD11281Coyle, D., Hood, P. and D. Marsh (2010). CLIL: Content and Language Integrated Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Dafouz, E. (2004). "It is never too late: implementing CLIL in tertiary education", Paper presented at the 2004 International Symposium of CLIL, Aranjuez, Spain.Dafouz, E. (2011) "English as the Medium of Instruction in Spanish Contexts", in Ruiz de Zarobe, J. M. Sierra and F. Gallardo del Puerto (eds.) Content and Language Integrated Learning. Contributions to Multilingualism in European Contexts. Berlin: Peter Lang, 189-209.Dafouz, E. and B. Núñez Perucha (2009) "CLIL in higher education: Devising a new learning landscape", in E. Dafouz and M. Guerrini (eds.) CLIL across educational levels: experiences from primary, secondary and tertiary contexts. Madrid: Richmond Santillana, 101-112.Dafouz, E. et al (2007). "Integrating CLIL at the tertiary level: teachers' and students' reactions", in D. Marsh and D. Wolff (eds.) Diverse Contexts-converging goals. CLIL in Europe. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 91-101.Dalton-Puffer, C. (2011). "Foreword", in Ruiz de Zarobe, J. M. Sierra and F. Gallardo del Puerto (eds.) Content and Language Integrated Learning. Contributions to Multilingualism in European Contexts. Berlin: Peter Lang, 1-24.Dörney, Z. (2001a). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667343Dörney, Z. (2001b). Teaching and researching motivation. Harlow, Essex: Pearson Longman, Ltd.Dörney, Z. and K. Csizér (2002). "Some dynamics of language attitudes and motivation: Results of a longitudinal nationwide survey", Applied Linguistics, 23(4): 421-462. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/23.4.421Eurydice Report (2006). Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) at School in Europe. Brussels: Eurydice, the information network of education in Europe.Fernández, R. and A. Halbach (2011). "Analysing the situation of Teachers in the Madrid Bilingual Project after Four Years of Implementation", in Ruiz de Zarobe, Y., J.M. Sierra and F. Gallardo del Puerto (eds.) Content and Language Integrated Learning. Contributions to Multilingualism in European Contexts. Berlin: Peter Lang, pp. 240-270.Halbach, A. (2009). "The primary school teacher and the challenges of bilingual education", in Dafouz, E. and M. Guerrini (eds.) CLIL across Educational Levels: Experiences from Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Contexts. Madrid: Santillana, 19-26.Hellekjaer, G. (2010). "Language matters: assessing lecture comprehension in Norwegian English-medium higher education", AILA Applied Linguistics Series, Vol. 7 , in C. Dalton-Puffer, T. Nikula, U. Smit, (eds.) Language use and language learning in CLIL classrooms. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 233-258.Horwitz, E. (2001). "Language anxiety and achievement", Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 21: 112-126. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0267190501000071Llinares, A. and R. Whittaker (2009) "Integrating the learning of language and the learning of content in CLIL classes: the UAM-CLIL project". Invited lecture. III Encuentro sobre Semi-Inmersión en Catalunya -I mesa Redonda Internacional sobre Programas AICLE. Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona.Llinares, A. and E. Dafouz (2010) "Content and Language Integrated Programs in the Madrid Region: Overview and research findings", in Lasagabaster, D. and Y. Ruíz de Zarobe (eds.) CLIL in Spain: Implementation, Results and Teacher Training. Newscastle: Cambridge Scholars, 95-113.Marsh, D. (2001). CLIL/EMILE - The European Dimension. Action, Trends and Foresight Potential. Finland: UniCOM, University of Jyväskylä.Muñoz, C. (2001). "The use of the target language as the medium of instruction. University students' perceptions", Annuari de filologia XIII/A/10, 71-81.Oppenheim, Abraham N. (1992). Questionnaire Design, Interviewing and Attitude Measurement. London: Continuum.Sierra, J.M. (2011). CLIL and Project Work: Contributions from the Classroom. In Ruiz de Zarobe, Juan Manuel Sierra and Francisco Gallardo del Puerto (eds.). Content and Language Integrated Learning. Contributions to Multilingualism in European Contexts. Berlin: Peter Lang, pp. 211-239.Wilkinson, R. (ed.) (2004). Integrating content and language. Meeting the challenge of a multilingual higher education. Maastricht: Maastricht Universit

CALQUE-FREE LECTURES? SPANISH CROSS-LINGUISTIC INFLUENCE IN CONTENT TEACHING THROUGH ENGLISH

AbstractIn the last ten years, Spanish universities have gradually started to incorporate English as a means of instruction. As a result, many lecturers — who regularly use their mother tongue for their teaching activity— have been compelled to adapt their syllabus contents into English, resulting in lectures that show vidence of cross-linguistic influence (Odlin, 1989). This is especially noticeable in the recurrent presence of calques, which emerge as a consequence of both the teachers’ insufficient proficiency in the foreign language and a lack of expertise in lecturing through a non-native medium of spoken communication. The goal of this paper is precisely to evaluate the extent to which this interference is made visible. To this aim, a corpus of three Engineering lectures delivered in English has been used as a means of exemplification, with results that prove the presence of syntactic, lexical and morphological calques in all cases. The ultimate end of this research is not only to raise teachers’ awareness of their own dependency on L1 as their main language resource, but also to eventually provide them with tools and strategies which might enhance their performance, hence improving teacherstudent communication.ResumenEn los últimos diez años, las universidades españolas han empezado aincorporar el inglés como lengua para la docencia. Como resultado, muchosprofesores —acostumbrados a enseñar en su lengua materna— se han vistoobligados a adaptar los contenidos de sus programas al inglés, con la consiguiente influencia cros-lingüística en el desarrollo de su actividaddocente (Odlin, 1989). Esto se aprecia especialmente en la presenciarecurrente de calcos, consecuencia tanto de la falta de conocimientolingüístico de los profesores a la hora de transmitir conocimientos en unalengua extranjera como de su escasa experiencia en este sentido. El objetivode este trabajo es precisamente analizar hasta qué punto esta interferenciase hace realmente patente en el aula. Con esta intención, y a modo de ejemplo, se ha utilizado un corpus formado por tres clases de Ingeniería impartidas en inglés. Los resultados del análisis revelan que todas ellas presentan calcos sintácticos, léxicos y morfológicos. El objetivo último de este trabajo no es sólo concienciar a los profesores de su dependencia de la lengua materna como primer recurso lingüístico, sino también dotarlos con herramientas y estrategias que les permitan mejorar su actividad, lo que sin duda repercutirá en una comunicación profesor-estudiante más óptima