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- All Subjects: Spanish
- Creators: Gelderen, Elly van
- Creators: Elorrieta, Jabier
Description
Using Spencer-Oatey's rapport management approach, the present study evaluates the interlanguage pragmatic development of 17 native English-speaking American learners over the course of a semester in Spain, specifically in terms of the strategies they used in their second language (L2) to manage rapport in an advice-giving, oral role-play situation at semester start and semester end. To allow for a more in-depth analysis of the effect that a semester abroad has on Spanish L2 advice-giving behaviors, the learners were grouped into two distinct proficiency levels. Group 1 (n=9) represents learners who entered the semester abroad with a beginning to intermediate-low proficiency level and group 2 (n=8) represents learners who entered the semester abroad with an intermediate-high proficiency level. The results indicate that both learner groups had similar overarching behavioral expectations in this context. Specifically, both sets of learners expressed empathy, involvement, and respect for the interlocutor, while at the same time they used advice-giving strategies of varied illocutionary force to claim authority in addressing the interlocutor's dilemma. Both groups also balanced face sensitivities through strategies that both enhanced and challenged the interlocutor's identity face. However, it is argued that in this context claiming authority and challenging the interlocutor's identity face were permitted behaviors that emphasized the relational goals of the participants. Additionally, when developmental differences between the two proficiency levels were analyzed, the results showed that learner proficiency had an impact on specific strategy choices.
ContributorsBaca, Evelyn C. (Author) / García, Carmen (Thesis advisor) / Lafford, Barbara (Thesis advisor) / Elorrieta, Jabier (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
There have been various studies on the pronunciation of the /s/ in Latin American Spanish. Most studies have shown three variants of the /s/ in syllable-final context: [s] (sibilant), [h] (aspiration) and [ø] (deletion). Most studies focused on Caribbean Spanish, i.e. the Spanish spoken in Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and the coasts of Colombia and Venezuela. In Caribbean Spanish, maintaining the /s/ is considered prestigious, aspiration is considered neutral, and deletion of the /s/ is stigmatized (Lafford 1982, 1989). Most people who maintain the /s/ are highly educated people, while people who received little to no education are more likely to delete the /s/ (Lafford 1982, 1989). Besides Caravedo (1990), there have been very few studies on the pronunciation of the /s/ in Peruvian Spanish. To find out more, I analyzed television interviews with Jaime Bayly, a well-known writer and journalist from Lima, Peru to determine when the /s/ is maintained and when it is aspirated or deleted. While watching eight interviews with people of different backgrounds, I recorded what Bayly said, focusing on how he pronounced final-syllable (s). After recording the occurrences of the /s/ and classifying and coding the variables, I used Goldvarb X to establish the probabilistic strength of the proposed factors. The results showed that the most significant linguistic factor was the position of the (s) and the most significant social factors were the gender and acquaintance of the interviewee.
ContributorsPress, Laura (Author) / Cerron-Palomino, Alvaro (Thesis advisor) / García Fernandez, Carmen (Committee member) / Elorrieta, Jabier (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This semester-long study examined the functions for which English (L1) and Spanish (L2) were used in two intact hybrid Spanish as a foreign language (FL) university classes at the 202 (fourth semester) level. Five 75-minutes classes of two instructors were observed by the researcher, video- and audio-recorded, and transcribed. A survey was also used to determine the functions for which the instructors and students believed that Spanish and English were used in the classroom, and the functions for which both believed that the two languages should be used. Talking about a test and teaching grammar were the functions for which both instructors used the most English and the most Spanish. The questionnaire results indicated that the students who heard more Spanish in the classroom would have preferred that their instructor had used less Spanish for the functions of checking how well students understand a reading in class as well as when giving instructions or explaining how to do group activities. The Minnesota Language Proficiency Assessment for listening at the Intermediate-High level was administered to the students of both instructors at the beginning and at the end of the semester. The classroom observations indicated that although both instructors used more than 50% words in English during their classes, one instructor used twice as many words in Spanish as did the other. However, the results of the study revealed no significant relationship between the amount of Spanish used by the instructors in the classroom and the students' progress on listening proficiency from the beginning to the end of the semester.
ContributorsHansel, Patsy (Author) / Lafford, Barbara A. (Thesis advisor) / García, Carmen (Thesis advisor) / Elorrieta, Jabier (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Current research shows a positive relationship between the use of written synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) and oral production (Isenberg 2010; Kern 1995; Payne & Whitney, 2002). No prior investigations specifically analyze the effect of SCMC on the conjugation of simple present tense verbal forms in narratives produced by learners of Spanish in online environments. This semester-long study addressed this issue by systematically analyzing the effect of written SCMC on the oral production of present-tense verb conjugations in two different oral tasks by students in two different intermediate level online Spanish courses. Written chat (WC), a type of synchronous group discussion, was used in the treatment group in order to examine the crossover effects of written SCMC on present tense forms in oral production tasks among intermediate Spanish students in online courses. Both online groups engaged in 30 minutes of concentrated interaction with the instructor and other students each week. The control group engaged in 30 minutes of oral interaction per week while the experimental group was exposed to 15 minutes of oral chat and 15 minutes of WC in the 30 minute session of interaction. Specifically, this study employed a pretest/posttest quasi-experimental design and tested the differential effects of a combination of oral and written SCMC online interaction and SCMC solely oral online interaction on the acquisition of Spanish present tense verb forms. The findings show a significant difference in oral gains among the experimental group.
ContributorsRiley, Holly Kristen (Author) / Lafford, Barbara (Thesis advisor) / García, Carmen (Thesis advisor) / Elorrieta, Jabier (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The nature of imperative syntax has remained an elusive, yet ever-present, subject in syntactic research, spanning several decades of linguistic inquiry and analysis, and it is therefore unsurprising that current views on the subject continue to be somewhat divided. This thesis examines the syntactic evidence from imperatives in Old English and ultimately seeks to develop a picture of the possibilities for imperative clauses in OE alongside an overall framework for imperative syntax within contemporary theoretical models of syntactic structure. The general, perceived pattern for OE imperative clauses (e.g. Millward 1971) is “verb−first,” and statistical data from the corpora confirm this perception, with the majority of imperative clauses exhibiting the verb in clause−initial position. Imperative constructions with post− and preverbal overt subjects are also examined at length, and postverbal subjects are found to be the majority case. These results are further expanded by examinations of data from verb−second and verb−third contexts, which include possibilities for topicalized constituents and adverbs. Ultimately, the relative position of both the verb and the subject and the relationship between these and other elements in the totality of the data provide essential clues for constructing a clearer model of OE imperative syntax. Within a relatively rich cartographic framework (Rizzi 1997), I therefore argue that the imperative verb is standardly fronted to the head of ForceP, with the overt subject remaining in spec−FinP, in parallel with other models for imperative syntax and OE syntax. Exceptions to this pattern for imperatives which suggest lower positions for the imperative verb (e.g. verb−second and verb−third constructions) are also accounted for, all with the central goal of demonstrating a consistent pattern underlying the realization of imperative syntax in Old English.
ContributorsKruger, William Wriley (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Adams, Karen (Committee member) / Major, Roy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Past research has isolated an extension of the copular verb estar into the domain previously sanctioned for its counterpart, ser. This extension has been found in areas of contact between American English and Spanish speaking Mexican immigrants. A similar situation of contact is in occurrence in Arizona, and this study endeavored to evaluate if this same extension was present, and to what degree. This study also explores the framework of linguistic hegemony in order to relate language attitudes in Arizona to language change in Arizona. The findings revealed minimal extension. This may be due to language maintenance in response to hegemony.
ContributorsBonnell, Jamie (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Major, Roy (Committee member) / Ryan, John (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This thesis examines the narratives and meta-commentary of Indonesian users of English about their English as a Second Language (ESL) experiences. It approaches interview data with ten Indonesian second language (L2) speakers of English from a narrative analysis/inquiry perspective. Each interview was transcribed according to a modified set of discourse analysis (DA) transcription conventions, then coded by the researcher. The first research question addressed what linguistic devices members of this population used to achieve cohesion and coherence in their narratives, and the second research question examined how members of this population portrayed their L2 selves in their narratives. The data yielded 21 linguistic devices that fell into three levels of frequency. Connectives, discourse markers, and repetition were by far the most common linguistic devices, followed by adverbials, embedded clauses, intensifiers, and the word like (non-comparison uses), which were somewhat frequent linguistic devices. The data also showed that participants constructed their L2 selves using three main categories: agency, identity, and perceptions of English and the U.S.. In regard to identity, participants invoked membership categorization, where they portrayed their identities in relation to other individuals. The study concludes with suggestions for future research, especially relating to Indonesian L2 users of English.
ContributorsTappendorf, Rebecca C (Author) / Renaud, Claire (Thesis advisor) / Prior, Matthew (Committee member) / Gelderen, Elly van (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
ABSTRACT
This research is a study of the relationship between language acquisition and the status of equity. The history of the Maya people in Guatemala gives strong evidence that their failure to acquire competence in Spanish, which is the national language of their nation, has resulted in their failure to compete in the social, economic, and political components of their society. It also shows that they have failed to maintain their competence in Mayan, their own language, as a result of mistreatment from their conquerors who have shown a determination to eliminate their use of Mayan. Many Maya have left Guatemala and entered the United States in hope of finding the status of equity which has evaded them for hundreds of years.
The key to overcoming their poverty and loss of civil rights can be found in the US through compensatory programs offering them the opportunity of competency in English along with the opportunity to maintain their Mayan language. The US legal system guarantees equal rights for a quality educations for students who are learning English.
This study offers some suggestions for integrating the Guatemalan Maya into mainstream activities of the economy and social life of this country. It offers the idea of sustaining and increasing their competency in Mayan as a long-range possibility. The status of equity is available for the children of the Guatemalan refugees who enter the United States as they exercise their rights to a quality education.
This research is a study of the relationship between language acquisition and the status of equity. The history of the Maya people in Guatemala gives strong evidence that their failure to acquire competence in Spanish, which is the national language of their nation, has resulted in their failure to compete in the social, economic, and political components of their society. It also shows that they have failed to maintain their competence in Mayan, their own language, as a result of mistreatment from their conquerors who have shown a determination to eliminate their use of Mayan. Many Maya have left Guatemala and entered the United States in hope of finding the status of equity which has evaded them for hundreds of years.
The key to overcoming their poverty and loss of civil rights can be found in the US through compensatory programs offering them the opportunity of competency in English along with the opportunity to maintain their Mayan language. The US legal system guarantees equal rights for a quality educations for students who are learning English.
This study offers some suggestions for integrating the Guatemalan Maya into mainstream activities of the economy and social life of this country. It offers the idea of sustaining and increasing their competency in Mayan as a long-range possibility. The status of equity is available for the children of the Guatemalan refugees who enter the United States as they exercise their rights to a quality education.
ContributorsHolder, Adela Berry (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Rodriguez, Sandra (Committee member) / Hernández-G, Manuel De Jesús (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Adult second-language learners of Spanish struggle with the acquisition of preterite and imperfect selection due to the overtly morphological representation of grammatical aspect. Prior studies have documented the effect of a default encoding without influence of the lexical aspect in the emergence of aspectual morphology, and have proposed the Default Past Tense Hypothesis (DPTH).
This study investigates the emergence of aspectual morphology by testing the DPTH and the effect of adverbials at interpreting grammatical aspect in this process of acquisition. Twenty-eight English-speaking learners of Spanish (beginning, intermediate and advanced) and twenty native-Spanish speakers are tested with two written comprehension tasks that assess the interpretation of habitual/imperfect and episodic/preterite readings of eventive verbs. The truth-value judgment task incorporates forty short stories with two summary sentences, from which participants must choose one as true. The grammaticality judgment task presents sixty-four sentences with temporal adverbials of position and duration, thirty-two are grammatical and thirty-two are ungrammatical. Participants must accept or reject them using a 5-point likert scale.
The findings indicate that the DPTH is partially supported by the statistical data showing a default marker, imperfect for beginning learners, and preterite for intermediate learners. This provides support to the argument of unsteady aspectual checking of [-bounded] in the spec of AspP and not necessarily by only checking [+past] in the TP for intermediate learners. The influence of the lexical aspect value of the verb is partially evident with advanced learners. Temporal adverbials play an important role at interpreting grammatical aspect with intermediate and advanced learners. Results show that beginning learners are not influenced by the presence of adverbials due to their inexperience with the Spanish aspectual morphology.
The findings also allow the confirmation of prior results about factors that influence the interpretation of preterite and imperfect. First, the instruction of aspectual morphology co-indexed with specific temporal adverbials, and second, that learners rely on lexical cues at the sentential level, while native speakers rely on discursive ones.
This study investigates the emergence of aspectual morphology by testing the DPTH and the effect of adverbials at interpreting grammatical aspect in this process of acquisition. Twenty-eight English-speaking learners of Spanish (beginning, intermediate and advanced) and twenty native-Spanish speakers are tested with two written comprehension tasks that assess the interpretation of habitual/imperfect and episodic/preterite readings of eventive verbs. The truth-value judgment task incorporates forty short stories with two summary sentences, from which participants must choose one as true. The grammaticality judgment task presents sixty-four sentences with temporal adverbials of position and duration, thirty-two are grammatical and thirty-two are ungrammatical. Participants must accept or reject them using a 5-point likert scale.
The findings indicate that the DPTH is partially supported by the statistical data showing a default marker, imperfect for beginning learners, and preterite for intermediate learners. This provides support to the argument of unsteady aspectual checking of [-bounded] in the spec of AspP and not necessarily by only checking [+past] in the TP for intermediate learners. The influence of the lexical aspect value of the verb is partially evident with advanced learners. Temporal adverbials play an important role at interpreting grammatical aspect with intermediate and advanced learners. Results show that beginning learners are not influenced by the presence of adverbials due to their inexperience with the Spanish aspectual morphology.
The findings also allow the confirmation of prior results about factors that influence the interpretation of preterite and imperfect. First, the instruction of aspectual morphology co-indexed with specific temporal adverbials, and second, that learners rely on lexical cues at the sentential level, while native speakers rely on discursive ones.
ContributorsFistrovic, Tatiana Katy (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Renaud, Claire (Committee member) / Muñoz-Liceras, Juana (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
In the study of politeness in Spanish there are some speech acts that have received more attention, such as requests, apologies, invitations and negotiations. In the case of the of congratulation, there is only one published work by García about congratulation by Peruvian Spanish-speakers. This thesis is a first approximation to the study of realization of the speech act of congratulation in Colombian Spanish. The Brown and Levinson model is used for the study of preferences in the strategies of politeness, and the Scollon and Scollon model for the notion of deferential and solidarity politeness. The Blum Kulka et al. model is used for the classification of the categories of principal head acts and supportive moves in the speech acts of congratulation. The following results were found in answer to the basic hypothesis of the research: The Colombians in this sample have positive politeness when giving congratulations and manifest it with such solidarity strategies as pride and approval, expressions of gratitude and support, and they also give the congratulation in an explicit manner. To a lesser degree they request information and make direct criticism. The data analysis shows a 95% certainty in the differences found between men and women. Nevertheless, the differences between younger and older people or between young women and young men are not statistically significant and only show tendencies. In order to corroborate the finding of this research, it is necessary to have a larger sample in terms of the educational level of the participants. Also, the sample should be broader in terms of gender and age, so as to verify if the difference between younger and older people continues being a tendency or if there is a statistically significant difference. To generalize the term Colombian, other regions of the country should be included, especially the contrast between the Andean, Coastal, and Plains regions which are culturally different within the country.
ContributorsVélez Trujillo, Victoria Eugenia (Author) / García Fernandez, Carmen (Thesis advisor) / Cerron-Palomino, Alvaro (Committee member) / Elorrieta, Jabier (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011