Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Lingüística mención Lengua Inglesa / The general objective of this research study is to analyse and compare receptive and productive word associations produced by intermediate and advanced learners of English as a foreign language, and native speakers of English.

Objetives: to describe the way in which native speakers of English and native speakers of Spanish realize the speech acts of request and refusal in their respective mother tongues; to determine the extent to which the pragmatic norms of the L1 (Chilean Spanish) influence the strategies and sub-strategies that formal learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) at different proficiency levels use when producing the speech acts of request and refusal in English.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Lingüística mención Lengua Inglesa / The English present perfect is a grammatical construction that denotes an event happening at a past point of time and relates to the present time in either a continuative manner or implying that the event is relevant to the present. Thus, the present perfect conveys both aspectual and temporal meanings. The present study investigates into the acquisition and development of the English present perfect by Chilean EFL learners as part of their interlanguage aspectual-temporal system. Specifically, the study makes an account of the main semantic characteristics of the Chilean learners’ interlanguage present perfect in order to determine the semantic prerequisites involved in the acquisition of the different meanings of the construction. It also focuses on the semantic negative transfer from the learners’, L1, Spanish, and the development of the following semantic notions: ‘reference time’,’ anteriority’ and ‘current relevance.’ The research methodology comprised the following procedures: a) data collection by means of two writing tasks elicited from 68 intermediate EFL Chilean university undergraduates enrolled in the English teacher-training course programme at Universidad de Santiago de Chile; and b) the classification of instances of the use, underuse or misuse of the target structure. The quantitative results emerging from the data analysis reveal that the present perfect construction is used in the expression of temporality or aspectuality depending on such semantic categories as ‘current relevance’ and ‘recency’. The analysis also demonstrates that Chilean EFL learners do not seem to be able to activate the concept of temporal recency of a past time event. It also reveals that they tend to use the preterite and the present perfect construction as being semantically equivalent constructions mainly because of the operation of the semantic negative transfer from the L1 temporal aspectual verbal system.

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Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Lingüítica, mención Lengua Inglesa / This thesis examines the effects of focus-on forms instruction on the recognition and production of the English Present Perfect. A study was conducted that observed gains in a series of adapted tests measuring the grammatical judgment, level of production and acquisitional patterns of the English Present Perfect in the written performance of a group of intermediate EFL learners. Participants were 31 intermediate undergraduate Chilean students (Spanish L1) from the morning and evening courses of a teacher training program. The evening course was exposed to a focus-on-forms type of training and therefore considered as the experimental group. One set of judgments regarding the recognition of the proper use of the English Present Perfect and two sets of L2 writing tasks were collected for the study. Effects of the focus-on-forms instructions were then observed in the collected data along with the acquisitional pattern found after the intervention. Results of the study show modest but statistically significant gains in the recognition of the English Present Perfect and its different types of undergeneralizations in the experimental group. Less systematic gains were also observed in the written production of the English Present Perfect. Concerning the effects of focus-on-forms instruction on the pattern of acquisition no modifications were observed.Finally, results suggest that focus-on-forms instruction provides effective tools for the acquisition of the English Present Perfect. The study also contributes with a much needed description of the acquisitional path that Chilean Spanish learners of English as a foreign language develop in relation to the acquisition of the English Present Perfect.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Lingüística mención Lengua Inglesa / This work aimed to investigate about the way Chilean students acquire English Prepositions ‘in’, ‘on’, and ‘at’. Through the identification of the most common strategies used by students when choosing one these three prepositions, the researcher aimed to find out about the difficulties the learners face when using those particles. The data analysis is based on the cognitive aspects of interlanguage, as well as some different notions on the learner´s knowledge. This work shows the way modern Linguistics has considered this kind of words and emphasizes their semantic roles. The data was collected through the use of Cloze Tests and interviews made to primary and secondary students from The Deutsche Schule in Los Angeles, Chile. The aim of the researcher with the interviews was to find out about the reasons why the students chose a particular preposition for their cloze tests. The results showed the students used several strategies to choose among ‘in’, ‘on’, and ‘at’, like overgeneralization of basic uses, inference, application of rules, mental images, among others. The researcher could conclude that learners do have tools to deal with the knowledge they already have and the knowledge they do not yet, which may contribute to the development of more appropriate approaches for teaching English prepositions, to make learning a more meaningful process for the students.

Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Lengua y Literatura Inglesa / Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theory has traditionally focused on the mere learning of linguistic contents. Context from a semiotic perspective is an emerging field which is now taking increasing importance in the area, since recent research has highlighted the relevance of context when communicating in a second language (L2). This study focuses on the ways in which Chilean English language learners use a L2 in order to communicate their real-life experiences, skills and knowledge. The purpose of the study is to understand the functional categories through which context is collectively constructed to facilitate communication in a second language. To develop this study, 18 sessions about various topics were recorded with language learners, participants in each one were three novices and one expert who taught them. Eight of these recordings were selected as meaningful data and thoroughly analysed regarding context making and interaction. Through the analysis, three functional categories were identified as commonly used to establish a common context: learners’ prior knowledge, question/response routines and common sense. Additionally, non-verbal communication and discourse markers played an important role as supporters of interaction. As a conclusion, this study shows that the category of prior knowledge was the most recurrent strategy used to establish a common context. Nonetheless, the three previously mentioned categories are necessarily intertwined to interact in a second language.