Teaching Spanish as a non-primary language in the twenty-first century: insights from linguistic theory, psycholinguistic theory, and empirical research on language acquisition

Abstract

In this paper we focus on the relationship between Spanish compounding and derivation on the one hand, and anaphoric relations involving null and overt subjects, on the other, in order to argue that a pedagogical grammar of Spanish for non-native speakers should take into consideration: (i) universal approaches to the analysis of Spanish which also depict its specific structural properties; (ii) psycholinguistic proposals on how Spanish morphosyntactic structures are acquired and processed; and (iii) empirical research that provides information about the learnability principles and the mechanisms involved in the acquisition of Spanish grammar. This threefold approach draws from developments that have taken place in this century. First, linguistic theory has refined the “universal” principles and parameters approach developed to account for similarities and differences between languages. This means that the parameters that were central to Chomsky's and Chomsky and Lasnik's Principles and Parameters model co-exist now with the feature accounts that characterize Chomsky's Minimalist Program, allowing us to undertake sophisticated research on the representation of language in the mind, language contact, and language acquisition. Second, recent studies on processing and interfaces involving different languages allow us to compare native and non-native speakers' linguistic abilities beyond strict grammatical competence. Finally, research on language acquisition informs us not only about the idiosyncratic nature of any given interlanguage but also about the characteristics interlanguages share with natural languages.

En este trabajo partimos de la relación entre los procesos morfológicos que se conocen como composición y derivación así como de las relaciones anafóricas que establecen los sujetos implícitos y los sujetos explícitos con objeto de proponer que una gramática pedagógica dirigida a hablantes no nativos debe de tener en cuenta: (i) un análisis del español de corte universal que a su vez tenga en cuenta las propiedades estructurales específicas de esta lengua; (ii) propuestas de la psicolingüística sobre cómo se adquieren y procesan las estructuras morfosintácticas del español; y (iii) datos de investigaciones empíricas que proporcionen información sobre los principios y los mecanismos que forman parte de la adquisición de la gramática del español. Este triple acercamiento se nutre de propuestas lingüísticas que ocupan un lugar destacado en este siglo. En primer lugar, se ha precisado la teoría “universal” de los principios y parámetros que se propuso para dar cuenta de las similitudes y diferencias entre las lenguas. Esto significa, por un lado, que los parámetros que ocupaban un lugar central en el modelo de Principios y Parámetros de Chomsky y Chomsky y Lasnik coexisten ahora con los rasgos formales que son los protagonistas del Programa Minimista de Chomsky. Esto nos permite llevar a cabo investigaciones más precisas sobre la representación del lenguaje en la mente y el contacto y la adquisición de lenguas. En segundo lugar, los estudios recientes sobre el procesamiento y las interfaces en distintas lenguas nos permiten ir más allá de la mera competencia cuando comparamos las habilidades lingüísticas de hablantes nativos y no nativos. Finalmente, y partiendo de los estudios sobre la adquisición del lenguaje, podemos abordar no solo la naturaleza idiosincrática de una interlengua dada sino también las características que las interlenguas comparten con las lenguas naturales.

Keywords:

• pedagogical grammar
• native speaker's intuitions
• language representation and language processing
• spontaneous and experimental data
• compounding and derivation
• parameters and formal features

Palabras clave:

• gramática pedagógica
• intuiciones del hablante nativo
• representación y procesamiento del lenguaje
• datos espontáneos y datos experimentales
• composición y derivación
• parámetros y rasgos formales

Notes

1. We will refer to non-native Spanish language learning and teaching as Español Lengua Extranjera (ELE) and Español Segunda Lengua (ESE).

2. We will use indistinctly interlanguage, non-native system and L2 grammar to refer to the system that results from non-primary language acquisition; namely, to refer to the acquisition of a language that is not the primary or native language. Here we will specifically discuss adult non-primary language acquisition. We would not use any of these terms to refer to the acquisition of two or more languages either from birth (simultaneous bilingualism) or before the age of five (sequential bilingualism).

3. From a nativist view of language acquisition, the assumption is that the features and principles of all natural languages are available to the learner who, via a process of selection (Piatelli-Palmarini 1989), activates the features triggered by the input (the language/s they are exposed to).

4. While Fodor's (1983) view of modularity goes hand in hand with nativism, Karmiloff-Smith's (1995) view pairs with emergentism in that, for this latter author, modularity is the outcome of language development.

5. For Fábregas (personal communication, August 2011) whether the suffix has scope over the full compound or can be interpreted as having scope only over the Noun element depends on the [+/−voice] nature of the actual Noun (paragüitas versus salvamantelitos from mantel). However, it may well be the case that it is the actual type of Noun (agua (water) is a mass Noun while mantel (tablecloth) is a count Noun) that makes it possible to interpret the latter but not the former as having scope only over the Noun element of the compound.

6. English compounds are right-headed, which is the reason why, even though the term carta bomba has been borrowed as a word-by-word translation of its English counterpart (“letter bomb”), it has been re-ordered so that carta acts as the head, while in the English compound the head is “bomb” (dos cartaS bomba versus two letter bombS). In this respect, it is interesting to consult the definition of these terms in the Spanish (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carta_bomba) and the English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_bomb) versions of Wikipedia.

7. This experiment was carried out by Lia Walsh to fulfill the requirements of the PhD Comprehensive exam, and it is a subset of the Minority and majority languages in Canada and Spain: English, French and Spanish as first, second and heritage languages joint project (University of Ottawa-University of Valladolid) sponsored by the Canada-Europe Award Program (CEA): International Council for Canadian Studies, 2010–2013.

8. There were three other sequences labeled carta bomba, cartita bomba or carta bombita.

9. While separability could influence the interpretation of a compound with a derivative affix in the modifier (e.g., sofá cama “sofa bed”), this variable was not part of the study.

10. See Liceras and Díaz (2000) and Liceras et al. (2002).