Contemporary Spanish basal readers, published for use in elementary bilingual Spanish/English classrooms in the United States, reflect a technological view of curriculum, a behavioristic view of learning, and a part to whole view of reading. Although teacher's guides and promotional materials for the basal series make reference to recent reading theory and research, the basal materials themselves, when examined from a theoretical perspective, demonstrate little understanding of the reading process. Six basal reading programs, published since 1980, were studied: Addison Wesley's Hagamos Caminos; Scott Foresman's Focus: Leer para triunfar; Houghton Mifflin's Programa de lectura en espanol de Houghton Mifflin; Macmillan's Mil Maravillas; Economy's Economy Spanish Reading Program; and Santillana's Lectura en dos idiomas. Each series was surveyed using the Program Profile Continuum Survey and then analyzed in depth with the Spanish Program Profile Instrument. Both evaluation instruments focus on reading, language, learning, and teaching theory. The results of the study of the six series suggest the programs are more alike than different. These similarities can be summarized as follows: (1) Despite the fact that the series approach print differently, the ultimate goal of skill exercises in all the series is word identification. (2) Recent comprehension theory is discussed in the teacher's guides, but comprehension questions reflect the idea that comprehension is a product rather than a process. (3) Student text is carefully controlled and often repetitious because the assumption is that language is habit. (4) The language of the majority of the student text in all of the series is adapted. (5) The materials reflect the view that the teacher is a technician leading the passive learner. (6) The scope and sequence of the programs sets many students up for failure because each step is dependent upon mastery of the previous steps. The materials of the Spanish basal reading programs studied do not reflect the current state of knowledge about the reading process in Spanish. Alternate programs using a whole language approach to learning would allow Hispanic students to choose their own reading, write their own stories, and become literate in their first language.

The investigator evaluated a commercially available Spanish word recognition ability test. The material consists of four lists of fifty bisyllabic tetraphonemic Spanish words available from Auditec of St. Louis as: "Spanish speech discrimination lists 1-4". Interlist equivalence, word difficulty, speaker's intelligibility, and P/I functions' slopes were investigated. Taped lists were presented to 16 normal hearing native Spanish speaking adults at four presentation levels. Statistical analysis indicated that the intelligibility of list three is significantly different than the other lists at the.05 level. At the low presentation levels, subjects of Mexican origin obtained better scores than subjects of other nationalities. The P/I functions' slope (4.3%) was comparable to that obtained by investigators of English tests. Most frequently missed words have as common denominators: presence of the /s/ sound, and are words that retain their meaning even after deletion of final /s/. Talker's speech intelligibility was judged to be very clear.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / The lives of eleven Latino subjects meeting strict language proficiency criteria were examined as individuals, students, peers, family members, and as members of their community. The students became bilingual and biliterate over time, having arrived in the United States as children with limited English proficiency. Factors believed to have contributed to their bilingual status were categorized in the areas of home, school, individual and society. These were identified through questionnaire, interviews and accountings of academic histories. Language proficiency was measured with story retelling tasks in each language, and scores on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and Spanish Advanced Placement exams. Each subject became bilingual and biliterate through varied and complex circumstances. The data revealed factors that interacted in different ways for each of the subjects although they reached the same results of bilingualism and biliteracy. Two factors, however, were present in each case. One was the use of Spanish in the homes as the dominant language of the parents, and the other was the participation in Spanish language arts classes in high school. The subjects exhibited values such as loyalty to the family, respect for elders and figures of authority, a strong work ethic, and a positive perception of both the Latino identity and the Spanish language. They had all been instructed in bilingual education programs. The Spanish language arts program at the high school provided the subjects with a challenging curriculum in Spanish. They shared the perception that the high school as well as society regarded them with respect as bilingual and biliterate Latinos. The subjects held a strong image of themselves as Latinos proud to be mastering English while educated in both languages. All eleven subjects believed that Spanish was integral to their lives and that learning English did not have to be at the expense of the continued development of Spanish. / 2031-01-01

O presente trabalho versa sobre estruturasconstruídas ao redor da sequência \'cópula estativa+preposição comitativa\', estar con, em espanhol. Analisam-se possibilidades de estas estruturas serem interpretadas como expressões de posse, do mesmo modo como se leem construções com o verbo tener. Contrasta-se o funcionamento de estar con em língua espanhola ao do composto verbal estar com do português brasileiro / This work is about structures contructed around the sequence \'stative copular verb + comitative preposition\' estar con in Spanish. We analize possibilities for these structures to be interpreted as possesion expressions, as expressions with verb tener are read. We contrast the behaviour of estar con in Spanish to the phrasal verb estar com in Brazilian Portuguese.

O presente trabalho versa sobre estruturasconstruídas ao redor da sequência \'cópula estativa+preposição comitativa\', estar con, em espanhol. Analisam-se possibilidades de estas estruturas serem interpretadas como expressões de posse, do mesmo modo como se leem construções com o verbo tener. Contrasta-se o funcionamento de estar con em língua espanhola ao do composto verbal estar com do português brasileiro / This work is about structures contructed around the sequence \'stative copular verb + comitative preposition\' estar con in Spanish. We analize possibilities for these structures to be interpreted as possesion expressions, as expressions with verb tener are read. We contrast the behaviour of estar con in Spanish to the phrasal verb estar com in Brazilian Portuguese.

This study offers an assessment of the non-native speech intelligibility of a group of English learners of Spanish at word level and in connected speech. Specifically, we aimed at analysing the impact of certain categories of phonemic errors, as well as three temporal variables of L2 speech (speech rate, pause frequency and pause duration) on intelligibility scores. In addition, the possible correlation between degree of intelligibility and certain individual factors (gender, level of proficiency, motivation, aptitude and L1) was also studied. Sixty evaluators, native speakers of Peninsular Spanish, transcribed different speech samples belonging to a group of 20 Key Stage 4 English learners of Spanish. The transcription of the different speech samples served to assess intelligibility at word level and in connected speech (sentence, passage and semi-spontaneous production). Results revealed an intelligibility loss at all levels of analysis, as well as a high correlation between intelligibility scores in the single word test and those obtained in connected speech. At a segmental level, deviations affecting vowels, especially unstressed vowels, seemed to play a more important role than inaccuracies affecting consonants. Moreover, correlation analyses underscored the importance of speech rate, pause frequency and pause duration for intelligibility loss. The predictability of our multiple-regression models was high for speech samples obtained at sentence and passage levels. However, multiple-regression models for speech samples obtained through the semi-spontaneous production task exhibited a more limited capability in predicting variation in students’ intelligibility scores. Results suggest the existence of additional variables affecting intelligibility at this level of analysis. All individual differences under study, with the exception of gender, were highly correlated with speech intelligibility. From a pedagogical perspective, it is argued here that any successful instructional treatment of speech intelligibility will depend on an appropriate integration of temporal aspects of speech within the time devoted to pronunciation instruction in the foreign language classroom.

Includes lesson plans. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Este trabalho foca seu estudo nas estruturas transitivas dos verbos dar e vender, presentes nos documentos notariais castelhanos dos séculos XII e XIII, das antigas regiões de Castela do Norte, Burgos, Rioja (Alta e Baixa) e Toledo, transcritos diretamente dos originais por Ramón Menéndez Pidal. A partir da leitura dos documentos, foi possível formar um corpus composto por fragmentos de todas as regiões e dos dois séculos, com a presença dos verbos dar e/ou vender e todos os seus complementos (diretos e/ou indiretos). Para a identificação dos objetos direto e indireto, usamos o critério da proporcionalidade dos objetos pelos pronomes lo(s), la(s) / le(s), respectivamente. Como suporte teórico ao estudo das estruturas transitivas, apoiamonos nos estudos funcionalistas de Hopper e Thompson (1980) e Alarcos Llorach (1994), para quem a determinação da transitividade não depende somente do verbo, mas de toda a complementação verbal, de modo a considerar que não há verbos transitivos, mas estruturas verbais transitivas. A análise dos fragmentos possibilitou a identificação de 18 estruturas diferentes, reunidas em quatro grandes grupos de estruturas sintáticas: Grupo 1 Estruturas presentes nos dois grupos; Grupo 2 Estruturas com complementos verbais latinos; Grupo 3 Estruturas topicalizadas; Grupo 4 Estruturas específicas com o verbo dar. O uso do objeto indireto com a preposição a ainda não estava definido, havendo no período muitos casos de ausência dessa preposição. As regiões de Castela do Norte e Toledo foram as únicas que apresentaram construções de tópico, com todos os casos situados no século XIII. Em relação à presença do latim medieval hispânico nos documentos, encontramos diversos fatores que mostram a integração entre a tradição latina e o falar romance, resultando em textos com a presença tanto de elementos castelhanos quanto de elementos latinos, tais como o pronome dativo uobis ao lado de a uobis. / This paper focus its analysis on transitive structures of the verbs dar (give) and vender (sell), present in Castilian Notarial documents from the 12th and 13th centuries, from old regions of North Castela, Burgos, High and Low Riojas and Toledo, trasnscribed directly from the originals by Ramón Menéndez Pidal. From the reading of those documents, it was possible to form a corpus made up of fragments from all regions and from the two centuries with the verbs dar and / or vender and all their complements. To identify the direct and indirect objects, we used the criterion of proportion of complements set by the pronouns lo(s), la(s), / le(s), respectively. We based the study of transitive structures on the principles proposed by Hopper and Thompson (1980), two functionalists, and Alarcos Llorach (1994), to whom the determination of transitivity doesn´t depend only on the verbs, but on the whole verbal complementation, so that there are no transitive verbs, but rather, transitive verbal structures. The analysis of the fragments made the identification of 18 different structures possible, gathered in four big groups of syntactic structures: Group 1 Structures present in the two groups; Group 2 Structures with Latin verbal complements; Group 3 Topic structures; Group 4 Specific structures with the verb dar. The usage of the indirect complement with the preposition a wasn´t defined yet, what, in this period, justifies the many cases in which the preposition doesn´t occur. The regions of North Castela, Burgos and Toledo were the only ones which presented topic constructions, all of them occurring in the 13th century. In relation to the existence of the Spanish Medieval Latin in the documents, we find several factors that show the interaction between the Latin tradition and the spoken Romance, resulting in texts with Castilian as well as Latin elements, such as the dative pronoun uobis coexisting with a uobis.

One of the aims of this study is to identify shifts of cohesion in translation from Spanish into English, with a view to validating Blum-Kulka's proposal that explication is a universal strategy in translation. The study uses the translation work of ten advanced translation students using narrative texts of approximately 250 words in length. Some of these students are native speakers of Spanish and others native speakers of English. Another aim of the study is to examine how cohesive devices are deployed across an ability range of students and to establish whether there are systematic differences in their deployment. The study will also attempt to establish whether the levels of language competence of informants account for specific shifts of cohesion in translation and whether certain shifts of cohesion are motivated by the style of the source and target texts. / Master of Arts (Hons)

<p>Los géneros y la división sexual son temas a menudo estudiados. Este estudio intenta arrojar luz sobre este campo de investigación desde el punto de vista de los diccionarios. En este estudio se analizan en un marco lexicográfico algunos lemas, como <em>masculino </em>y <em>femenino,</em> relacionados con los géneros. El corpus está constituido por cuatro ediciones del Diccionario de la Lengua Española y tres diccionarios contemporáneos. El objetivo es investigar la imagen que presentan estos diccionarios de vocablos relativos al género y al sexo. Se estudia de cerca los métodos lexicográficos de los diccionarios y el desarrollo de la descripción léxica de los lemas. La hipótesis es que el desarrollo lexicográfico debe de influir en la conciencia de los autores y, consecuentemente en la redacción de las definiciones. Además, se observa que el significado de los lexemas, en el presente, se presenta como más desligado de los sexos. Es decir, se define significado estereotipizado de cada género en mayor medida que significado de cada sexo en sí. El resultado del estudio indica que no existe una metodología específica sobre la manera en que el tema debe de ser abordado. Por lo tanto tienden los diccionarios a tratar los géneros en una manera desigual.</p>