Un pájaro azul en Costa Rica: la función de la traducción de L’Oiseau bleu en la Costa Rica de 1912

El estudio procura desvelar la función de El pájaro azul (traducción de Roberto Brenes Mesén) dentro del contexto histórico en que surge. Tras describir y analizar las especificidades ideológicas, sociales y literarias de contexto, individuos y textos involucrados, se concluye que la traducción pudo haber funcionado como un instrumento para promover cambios ideológicos, sociales y estéticos dentro de la sociedad costarricense de principios del siglo veinte.This study seeks to describe the role of El pájaro azul (translated by Roberto Brenes Mesén) when it first appeared in Costa Rica in 1912. A description is provided of the ideological, social and literary features present in the context, and of the agents and texts involved in the production of El pájaro azul. The analysis of these features makes it possible to state that the text is likely to have been an instrument used to promote ideological, social and aesthetic changes within the 20th century Costa Rican society.

Spanish/English Bilingualism and Finitness Acquisition

Se ofrece un análisis del lenguaje de una niña bilingüe (Mina) con la intención de comprobar la teoría de Wexler quien dice que el lenguaje de los niños presenta un período de uso 'opcional de formas verbales infinitivas' en contextos en los que adultos no las usarían. Se presenta importante información relacionada con el tema y se analizan las muestras de idioma para concluir que sí hay evidencia para la existencia de dicho período en ambos idiomas: éste se expresa en inglés a través de formas infinitivas y en español en verbos que varían aspectualmente y que aparecen en predicados que no tienen concordancia con su sujeto. Además se comparan los resultados de varios estudios de diferentes lenguas.This paper presents the analysis of the speech of a bilingual child (Mina) in order to determine if the 'Optional Infinitive Stage' (OI) (Wexler) is present in her language production at this stage of language development (So). The first part presents important background information. Then, the English and Spanish data are analyzed to conclude that the Optional Infinitive stage is expressed both in Spanish and in English through different mechanisms, Root Infinitives in English and 'aspectually variable' verbs that appear as 'misagreeing' predicates in Spanish.

Reading Strategies in Spanish (L1) and English (L2)

The purpose of this study was to identify, detect and compare the reading strategies used in L1 and L2 by four Spanish-speaking university students, in order to find out in what stage of the reading process (before, during or after) they focused their strategic efforts. This research is based on the proposals by Solé (2000) and Díaz Barriga and Hernández (2000); contributions by Oxford (1990) and Barnett (1989) were significant in the interpretation of results. It is a qualitative field-study with semi-structured interviews, observation of participants and two reading comprehension tests for data collection; the information obtained was triangulated. One of the most remarkable findings is the general use of strategies before the L2 reading; although almost the same strategies were used in both texts, except for a group of strategies only used for L2. After comparing the results, it was found that the participants focused their strategic efforts in different stages of the reading process.