La entrevista sociolingüística y su valor como método de investigación

Dans cette étude, nous analysons les principaux problèmes que nous retrouvons lorsque nous utilisons les entrevues sociolinguistiques comme méthode d’analyse pour obtenir des échantillons de l’actuation linguistique authentiques. Cette problématique provient de la nature même de la méthodologie employée en fonction du paradoxe de l’observateur (Labov 1972) et elle impose la nécessité de réfléchir sur les avantages et les désavantages inhérents à l’instrument de recherche utilisé. En ayant ce propos, l’objectif principal qu’on poursuit est celui de donner réponse à une question que surgit lorsqu’on parle de l’entrevue sociolinguistique : Comment pourrait-on obtenir des échantillons de parole de style spontané dans l’observation systématique de l’entrevue? Pour essayer de répondre à cette problématique, on a revu et analysé un échantillon de vingt entrevues semi dirigées (25 heures d’enregistrement) qui font partie du Corpus Oral et Sonore de l’Espagnol Rural (COSER). L’étude des entrevues sociolinguistiques comme méthode scientifique montre, comme principal résultat, que parmi les stratégies utilisées pour essayer de réduire les effets du paradoxe de l’observateur on devrait inclure celle de la tactique de faire parler l’informateur à propos d’un objet qui ait une particulière valeur affective pour lui, pour générer ainsi une déstructuration du schéma formel de l’entrevue et une situation émotionnelle de sorte que l’émotivité neutralise sa conscience linguistique et son discours. De cette façon, l’attention du parlant se concentrera dans l’objet même plutôt que dans sa parole formelle et, de cette manière, on obtiendrait des échantillons de style plus spontané et colloquial.

UNITALK: a corpus of university classroom talk

This is a dataset of recordings and transcriptions of spoken English collected from a range of university classrooms. UNITALK is a modest-sized untagged synchronic specialized full-text corpus of spoken academic discourse collected from fifteen university classrooms. UNITALK was designed to study the genre of small group teaching contexts across academic divisions and subject disciplines and specifically designed to study those teaching events whose goal is to work on collaborative ideas or tasks. The corpus is over 100,000 words and can be used to investigate academic language use and small group university teaching and learning contexts.

The SCOTS corpus and TEFL: Discovering and Using Strategies of Spoken English in Finnish Upper Secondary Schools

Suomen koulutuspolitiikasta vastaavat viranomaiset ovat reagoineet kansainvälisten kommunikaatiotarpeiden asettamiin haasteisiin ja muuttaneet yhden lukion A-tasoisen vieraan kielen kurssin sisällön vastaamaan suullisen viestinnän tarpeita. Tutkimuksessa selvitetään, miten englannin puhestrategioita voi opettaa suomalaisille lukiolaisille ja mitä metodeja on käytettävissä puhestrategioiden oppimisen arvioimiseksi. Vastaan asettamiini kysymyksiin aikaisemman tutkimuskirjallisuuden ja englannin kielen lukio-opetuksesta keräämäni aineiston avulla. Keskeisiä elementtejä tutkielmassa ovat erityisesti pragmaattinen kompetenssi ja kolme yleisen tason puhestrategiaa (keskustelun aloittaminen, oman puheenvuoron säilyttäminen sekä keskustelun ylläpitäminen). Aineistossa on mukana 65 ensimmäisen vuosiluokan lukiolaista (luokka A ja B) Helsingistä ja Espoosta. Opetusmateriaalina on käytetty SCOTS korpusta; tarkemmin määriteltynä puhetiedosto nimeltä Conversation 20: Four secondary school girls in the North East. Tiedostossa esille tulleet, kolmeen puhestrategiaan liittyvät fraasit, sanat ja rakenteet havainnollistettiin opiskelijoille mm. AntConc - konkordanssiohjelman avulla. Opiskelijat tekivät myös kirjallisia ja suullisia harjoituksia, jotka liittyivät puhestrategioihin. Neljälle vapaaehtoiselle opiskelijalle suunnattu toinen suullinen tehtävätyyppi vapaamuotoisine keskusteluineen äänitettiin, transkriboitiin ja tuloksia arvioitiin mm. eurooppalaisen viitekehyksen avulla. Lisäksi B - luokka vastasi kyselylomakkeeseen, jossa kysyttiin heidän mielipiteitään esim. hyödyllisimmästä testioppitunnista sekä heidän osallistumishalukkuudestaan uudelle pitkän englannin kahdeksannelle syventävälle kurssille. Tutkimustulokset ovat kannustavia ja osoittavat, että puhestrategioita on mahdollista opettaa jo lukiotasolla. Vaikka tutkimuksessa käytetty lähestymistapa oli opiskelijoille osittain uusi, valtaosa heistä myönsi oppineensa uutta englannin kielen keskustelurakenteista. Lisäksi vapaaehtoisten opiskelijoiden äänitetyt ja transkriboidut keskustelut tarjoavat hyvän lähtökohdan mahdolliselle jatkotutkimukselle.

A corpus-driven error analysis of the oral and written production of Leaving Certificate Spanish learners

The Leaving Certificate (LC) is the national, standardised state examination in Ireland necessary for entry to third level education – this presents a massive, raw corpus of data with the potential to yield invaluable insight into the phenomena of learner interlanguage. With samples of official LC Spanish examination data, this project has compiled a digitised corpus of learner Spanish comprised of the written and oral production of 100 candidates. This corpus was then analysed using a specific investigative corpus technique, Computer-aided Error Analysis (CEA, Dagneaux et al, 1998). CEA is a powerful apparatus in that it greatly facilitates the quantification and analysis of a large learner corpus in digital format. The corpus was both compiled and analysed with the use of UAM Corpus Tool (O’Donnell 2013). This Tool allows for the recording of candidate-specific variables such as grade, examination level, task type and gender, therefore allowing for critical analysis of the corpus as one unit, as separate written and oral sub corpora and also of performance per task, level and gender. This is an interdisciplinary work combining aspects of Applied Linguistics, Learner Corpus Research and Foreign Language (FL) Learning. Beginning with a review of the context of FL learning in Ireland and Europe, I go on to discuss the disciplinary context and theoretical framework for this work and outline the methodology applied. I then perform detailed quantitative and qualitative analyses before going on to combine all research findings outlining principal conclusions. This investigation does not make a priori assumptions about the data set, the LC Spanish examination, the context of FLs or of any aspect of learner competence. It undertakes to provide the linguistic research community and the domain of Spanish language learning and pedagogy in Ireland with an empirical, descriptive profile of real learner performance, characterising learner difficulty.

A contrastive analysis of non-native interlanguage english intonation systems and their implication in the organisation of information from a functional perspectiva : a study based on a computerized corpus of spanish learners of english

El contexto teórico y empírico de esta investigación sobre entonación, se enmarca dentro de la filosofía lingüística de la teoría sistémico-funcional. El modelo metodológico empleado se basa en la Lingüística de Corpus. La descripción de la adquisición y aprendizaje de la lengua extranjera está justificada dentro del marco teórico de la teoría de interlengua y la adquisición de segundas lenguas y lenguas extranjeras.. El presente estudio del corpus comparativo y longitudinal de aprendices y hablantes nativos de lengua inglesa, tiene como objetivo principal investigar los modelos de entonación producidos por ambos grupos de hablantes. Se pretende demostrar que la diferencia a nivel entonativo entre estos dos grupos no sólo tiene como resultado que los no nativos tengan acento extranjero; sino que puede afectar al mensaje transmitido, en cuanto a la estructura y organización de la información dentro del discurso oral en las metafunciones textual e interpersonal.. Se asume la existencia de un sistema entonativo de interlengua, de esta forma este análisis tiene como objeto no sólo reflejar los errores sino también los posibles sistemas aproximativos de los aprendices mencionados..

A grammar of the modern Spanish language as now written and spoken in the capital of Spain.

Mode of access: Internet.

Semantic neology in the domain of videogames in Spanish

The aim of this paper is to discuss the meaning of five neologisms in the domain of videogames in Spanish: título, aventura, personaje, plataforma, and rol. Our study focuses on a special type of neologism since the Spanish terms we deal with here are not strictly new words; they are what have been called sense neologisms or neosemanticisms, that is, old words taking a new sense in a different domain. These words were identified as new concepts after a process of analysis based on contextual evidence. This study of neology is based on the analysis of a corpus of press articles evaluating videogames published by the Spanish newspaper El País from 1998 to 2008. The analysis of the instances of use of domain specific terms in the corpus revealed that they acquired new senses different to those they have in other domains where they are also used. The paper explains the process of discovering the specialized meaning these words have developed in the domain of videogames and how the analysis of collocational behavior helps in the process of discovering the new sense and in the design of the definition provided.

Semantic Neology in the Domain of Videogames in Spanish.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the meaning of five neologisms in the domain of videogames in Spanish: título, aventura, personaje, plataforma, and rol. Our study focuses on a special type of neologism since the Spanish terms we deal with here are not strictly new words; they are what have been called sense neologisms or neosemanticisms, that is, old words taking a new sense in a different domain. These words were identified as new concepts after a process of analysis based on contextual evidence. This study of neology is based on the analysis of a corpus of press articles evaluating videogames published by the Spanish newspaper El País from 1998 to 2008. The analysis of the instances of use of domain specific terms in the corpus revealed that they acquired new senses different to those they have in other domains where they are also used. The paper explains the process of discovering the specialized meaning these words have developed in the domain of videogames and how the analysis of collocational behavior helps in the process of discovering the new sense and in the design of the definition provided. RESUMEN: En este trabajo se presentan cinco neologismos del ámbito del videojuego en español: “título”, “aventura”, “personaje”, “plataforma” y “rol”. Se trata de un tipo especial de neologismo, conocido también como “neologismo semántico” o “neosemanticismo”, ya que son palabras ya existentes en la lengua que adquieren un nuevo significado. Los nuevos significados que adquieren estos términos en el ámbito del videojuego se establecieron tras el análisis del contexto de uso en un corpus periodístico de críticas de videojuegos. Este corpus recoge las críticas de videojuegos publicadas por el periódico El País entre 1998 y 2008. El análisis de los casos de uso de los términos en el corpus de videojuegos reveló que adquirían un nuevo significado diferente al de su uso en otros ámbitos o en el lenguaje general. El artículo describe cada uno de los neologismos y el proceso de análisis contextual que conduce a descubrir el nuevo significado y elaborar su definición.

Terry's short cut to Spanish; a new, easy, and quick method for learning the Spanish language as spoken in Spanish-America and in Spain, combined with a pronouncing phrase book for travelers in Spanish-speaking countries,

Includes bibliographies and index.

Creation of a Digital Corpus of Bulgarian Dialects

The paper presents our considerations related to the creation of a digital corpus of Bulgarian dialects. The dialectological archive of Bulgarian language consists of more than 250 audio tapes. All tapes were recorded between 1955 and 1965 in the course of regular dialectological expeditions throughout the country. The records typically contain interviews with inhabitants of small villages in Bulgaria. The topics covered are usually related to such issues as birth, everyday life, marriage, family relationship, death, etc. Only a few tapes contain folk songs from different regions of the country. Taking into account the progressive deterioration of the magnetic media and the realistic prospects of data loss, the Institute for Bulgarian Language at the Academy of Sciences launched in 1997 a project aiming at restoration and digital preservation of the dialectological archive. Within the framework of this project more than the half of the records was digitized, de-noised and stored on digital recording media. Since then restoration and digitization activities are done in the Institute on a regular basis. As a result a large collection of sound files has been gathered. Our further efforts are aimed at the creation of a digital corpus of Bulgarian dialects, which will be made available for phonological and linguistic research. Such corpora typically include besides the sound files two basic elements: a transcription, aligned with the sound file, and a set of standardized metadata that defines the corpus. In our work we will present considerations on how these tasks could be realized in the case of the corpus of Bulgarian dialects. Our suggestions will be based on a comparative analysis of existing methods and techniques to build such corpora, and by selecting the ones that fit closer to the particular needs. Our experience can be used in similar institutions storing folklore archives, history related spoken records etc.

Contributions of the Rural Education Project (PER)

This paper presents the results of the research project “El proceso de formación inicial del Proyecto de Educación Rural (PER)” (creation of the Rural Education Project, PER by its Spanish acronym), conducted between 1984 and 1987 in the Regional Offices of the Ministry of Public Education in San Carlos, Coto and Limón. The Rural Education Project (PER) was implemented by the Center of Research and Teaching in Education (CIDE) of the Universidad Nacional (UNA) aiming at training teachers of single-teacher schools located in rural areas. The objective of our research was to collect the contributions of PER bearing in mind the training processes required today, and considering the success of PER, which was based on the leadership of teachers to promote community progress in rural areas from the classroom, an input to be considered in the new learning processes of Rural Education

The role of intermediaries in the implementation and development of asynchronous rural access

In Orissa state, India, the DakNet system supports asynchronous Internet communication between an urban hub and rural nodes. DakNet is noteworthy in many respects, not least in how the system leverages existing transport infrastructure. Wi-Fi transceivers mounted on local buses send and receive user data from roadside kiosks, for later transfer to/from the Internet via wireless protocols. This store-and-forward system allows DakNet to offer asynchronous communication capacity to rural users at low cost. The original ambition of the DakNet system was to provide email and SMS facilities to rural communities. Our 2008 study of the communicative ecology surrounding the DakNet system revealed that this ambition has now evolved – in response to market demand – to the extent that e-shopping (rather than email) has become the primary driver behind the DakNet offer.

Troubling Empowerment : A feminist critique of a rural women and communication technology project

Participatory research methodologies and interactive communication technologies (ICTs) are increasingly seen as offering ways of enhancing women’s empowerment and rural community development. However, some researchers suggest the need for caution about such claims. This book details findings from an evaluation of a feminist action research project that explored the impacts of ICTs for rural women in Queensland, Australia, in terms of personal, business and community development. Using praxis and poststructuralist feminist theories and methodologies, this innovative study presents a rigorous analysis and critique of women's empowerment and participation. This study demonstrates the value of adopting a critical yet pragmatic approach that takes diversity and difference, power-knowledge relations, and the contradictory effects of participation into account. This is argued to enable the development of more effective strategies for women’s empowerment, participation and inclusion. This book should be of particular interest to researchers, postgraduate students, and others working in the fields of communication, gender, and rural development, and feminist evaluation and ethnography.