Spanish Vocabulary Learning in Meaning-Oriented Instruction

Joe Barcroft, Javier Muñoz-Basols, Joe Barcroft, Javier Muñoz-Basols

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781351585873
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Languages & Linguistics
• Categoria: Languages

Spanish Vocabulary Learning in Meaning-Oriented Instruction is the first comprehensive overview of current research and instructional practices into Spanish vocabulary acquisition through the lens of Meaning-Oriented Instruction (MOI).

Key features:

• a breadth of topics including language variation, input, tasks and processing specificity, incidental learning, idiomatic language, lexicographic perspectives, lexicosemantic representation, vocabulary testing, and receptive and productive vocabulary;

• a combination of theory and practical guidance highlighting pedagogical best practices in the teaching of vocabulary;

• guidance on the difficulties teachers face when teaching vocabulary in the classroom;

• clear explanations with plenty of examples and useful references;

• tasks and activities that help teachers move from a traditional curricular approach to a more innovative and engaging one focused on communicating, completing tasks, and learning content.

Written by an international cohort of scholars in a succinct and accessible manner, Spanish Vocabulary Learning in Meaning-Oriented Instruction is an essential resource for teachers of Spanish at all levels. It is also an excellent reference book for researchers and both undergraduate and graduate students interested in Spanish vocabulary acquisition.

1
Identifying target Spanish vocabulary

Issues of regional variation

Manuel Díaz-Campos and Laura M. Merino Hernéndez

DOI: 10.4324/9781315100364-2

Abstract

This chapter examines the acquisition and teaching of regionally and socially appropriate vocabulary. We provide a panorama of the methodological advances in research concerning the acquisition of vocabulary with a special emphasis on Spanish. Learners often lack the ability to vary their speech, given the limited nature of their exposure to different varieties of Spanish in the classroom where formal registers are favored. Even in the case of study abroad experiences, limited interaction with native speakers and informal registers may explain the underdeveloped sociolinguistic competence of L2 students. We advocate for the teaching of language in reference to the cultural context so that vocabulary is introduced as relevant material for the teaching of content such as food preparation, ordering in a restaurant, or buying groceries at the supermarket. We also provide three sample lesson plans to teach lexical and discursive-pragmatic vocabulary items. Finally, it is important to underscore the need to take various factors into account when determining which vocabulary items to teach since not only topic and geographical region are important; but also, factors such as age, sex, race, socioeconomic status, among many others can affect the use of one lexical item over another.

1. Introduction

Lexical variation studies are concerned with the use of one word over another to refer to the same concept or object. An example of this would be the use of pop versus soda to refer to a sugary carbonated drink in the United States (Kiesling 2011, 164). According to Kiesling (2011, 164), lexical variation was once the main way to determine dialects and isoglosses. Lexical variation can occur at the word level, but one must generally go beyond the word level (i.e., sentence and discourse level) to fully understand the meaning of a word. Essentially, a lexicon cannot be studied in isolation. Lexical meaning is dependent on context and its most immediate context is linguistic. For example, the word especie literally means “species”; however, depending on its collocation, it can have other completely different meanings, as in los ratones son una especie de mascota “mice are a sort of pet,” in which especie now means “sort” (see Simone and Masini [2014] for a more detailed discussion on this type of words). Kiesling (2011) also considers intensifiers (I am pretty tired) and address forms (tú, usted, vos “you singular”) to be lexical variants. Furthermore, we must also consider the pragmatic aspects of lexical items. For instance, when teaching the different forms of address, we need to model to students when it is appropriate to use one word or another and that their usage varies by region.

Determining which lexical items to teach can be daunting for instructors of any foreign language. In Spanish, this task can become overwhelming due to the extensive variation that exists across the Spanish-speaking world. The sociolinguistic factors affecting language use can be contextual (formal, informal), social (e.g., class, age, sex, education level), and/or regional (e.g., Spain, Mexico, Southwest of the US). Regional variation, the focus of this chapter, refers to the linguistic differences that exist in any given speech community; that is, a group of individuals who share a set of linguistic patterns (Labov 1972). Typically, regional variation across speech communities is characterized by geographical criteria. However, establishing the limits of any given dialect can be problematic given the gradual and probabilistic nature of sociolinguistic phenomena. For instance, while the term Caribbean Spanish can be used to refer to Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, it also includes Panama, Northern Venezuela, and coastal Colombia. Moreover, this macro-region is not homogenous, and lexical differences can be attested in insular versus continental varieties. The difficulty in determining dialectal areas raises several issues for language instructors. Are we supposed to teach regional variation taking into account geopolitical divisions (e.g., the Mexican and Argentinian dialect), or should we look into linguistic research and include regional variants based on empirical evidence? Although the latter option would be ideal, the former seems to be more practical. Moreover, regional variation does not occur in a vacuum: That is, there is also variation within each dialect. When we teach one lexical item, even if it is from a specific region, we must also ask ourselves if this variant is used by the general population, or if there is a sex/age/class divide, as well as if its use varies according to the interlocutor’s characteristics and/or register.

Consequently, the purpose of this chapter is to examine the acquisition and teaching of regionally and socially appropriate vocabulary. Sociolinguistic aspects of vocabulary teaching are often difficult to address in the context of a regular classroom in which formal and limited social situations are the norm. In the remainder of this chapter, we aim to provide our readers with some useful ideas and tools to identify and teach target vocabulary items that are suitable for the social context that students may be exposed to while interacting with a diverse group of speakers. Section 2 provides a detailed review of the general aspects of vocabulary acquisition. Some of the key questions asked here include: What does it mean to be sociolinguistically competent in a language? What role does vocabulary play in learner competency? What do language teaching frameworks say about the student proficiency and vocabulary? And what goals should the instructor have for the student regarding regional variation? Section 3 then analyzes the pedagogical implications of lexical and regional variation. Some of the main questions dealt with here include: How should a language instructor choose the vocabulary items for any given lesson? What social and linguistic factors should they take into account? Section 4 provides the reader with three task-based lesson plans that they can implement in their classroom. Finally, we conclude with a brief overview of the main topics covered in this chapter.

2. Vocabulary acquisition

One issue that instructors face when deciding what lexical items to teach is the lack of attention given to this topic in pedagogical research. In Spanish, researchers are mostly interested in morphosyntactic-lexical variation and tend to focus on issues such as subject expression (e.g., Linford and Shin 2013; Geeslin, Linford, and Fafulas 2015), copula choice (e.g., Geeslin 2000, 2013), clitics (e.g., Salgado Robles 2015), and future expression (Regan, Howard, and Lemée 2009), among others.

Classroom vocabulary lists make little reference to lexical variation and usually stick to the traditional one-lexical-form = one-meaning approach. However, in order to be successful second language (L2) users, students would benefit from developing richer linguistic awareness from the point of view of lexical variation. Dewaele (2007) indicates that traditional classroom learners are exposed to basic vocabulary with a denotative meaning. These items are considered broad enough to be used in the majority of regions and social situations. Issues related to connotative meaning, or different denotative meanings shared by specific speech communities, are often not addressed or remain an afterthought in the classroom context. Such lack of exposure is problematic since learners must be sociolinguistically competent to be successful L2 users while interacting with other speakers. That is, they must be able to use a speech community’s sociocultural and discourse rules. Such competence will allow them to decipher “utterances for social meaning, particularly when there is a low level of transparency between the literal meaning of an utterance and the speaker’s intention” (Canale and Swain 1980, 30). Sociolinguistic competence covers a broad range of aspects such as “situations, variation [on linguistic choices], switch-on, participants, content [e.g., politeness], message form, channel and management, and pragmatics” (Marriot 1995, 198). In other words, lexical variation is at the core of sociolinguistic competence considering that learners must use individual lexical variants (e.g., tú “you informal” versus usted “you formal” versus vos “you regional”) in order to produce speech that is appropriate for any given situation in any given geographical area.

The general focus of vocabulary research has been on the cognitive factors that facilitate its acquisition, as well as the most effective pedagogical strategies to present and model its usage in the classroom. Lexis, the collection of words in a language, is at the core of second language acquisition since vocabulary items carry the basic meaning of any utterance. Thus, having an ample vocabulary is necessary in order to attain a good level of proficiency in any L2. This holds true for frameworks like the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL), where a broad range/repertoire of lexical items is seen as an essential element of high-level proficiency. For instance, the ACTFL guidelines for advanced interpersonal skills indicate that for this level the student “Comprehends and produces a broad range of vocabulary related to school, employment, topics of personal interest, and generic vocabulary related to current events and matters or public and community interest” (ACTFL 2015, 15).

The CEFRL guidelines for vocabulary state that a student in the C2 level (highest level) “Has a good command of a very broad lexical repertoire including idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms; shows awareness of connotative levels of meaning” (Council of Europe 2001). However, despite the fact that vocabulary is central to high-level proficiency, consideration of its acquisition has remained secondary. Instead, (morpho)syntax has been the main focus of Second Language Acquisiton (SLA) theory (Haastrup and Henriksen 2001). This focus might be because vocabulary “does not represent the finite and relatively neat system that can be found in grammar” (O’Dell 2000, 59). This description implies that it is difficult for learners to know all the words and their context of use. Even in the case of native speakers, knowledge of vocabulary usage is finite. Vocabulary learning is a process that never ends and that depends on speakers’ experiences and exposure to different social/regional contexts. These factors make it difficult for researchers to agree on what words to teach, how to teach them, and/or what it means to “know a word.” It can be mentioned that the process of developing knowledge about a word comes together with familiarity and automatization of its meaning and appropriate context of use. Despite the difficulty of word-level instruction, in the last few decades, we have seen an increasing interest in the topic (e.g., Dewaele and Pavlenko 2002; Tight 2010; Sommers and Barcroft 2013).

Different scholars have focused on diverse aspects of vocabulary acquisition. Haastrup and Henriksen (2001), for example, propose a central distinction between receptive and productive vocabulary. The former is associated, in this particular article, with reading and the latter is associated with writing. Knowing a word has also been divided into receptive and productive knowledge. Receptive knowledge entails that the learner must recognize the word, understand its morphological structure, and know its semantic meaning in context; whereas the productive knowledge of a word consists in its proper writing, pronunciation, and use in context (cf. Nation 2001b). Accordingly, language instructors need to decide the capacity in which new vocabulary items will be used. For example, when reading an authentic text from Argentina learners might be faced with the colloquial word quilombo “mess,” as in example (1).

1. (1) Para ordenar esta economía, que es un quilombo, necesitás un Ministro de Economía (Prat Gay, Argentinian ex-Minister of Finance, August 18, 2018)
2. (2) “To fix this economy, that is a mess, you need a Finance Minister”

Should learners only be able to recognize the word and make the necessary sociolinguistic associations, or should they incorporate it into their oral or written speech? According to the CEFRL, learners must be able to use an ample repertoire of colloquialisms. Colloquialisms might be easy to teach in languages that are spoken in limited areas. However, for Spanish, one must ask the extent to which learners are able to acquire colloquialisms from all 21 Spanish-speaking countries, and how feasible/beneficial it would be to incorporate them in the classroom.

The definition of context is also problematic, as it is further complicated by the social situation in which language is used appropriately (regional variety, repertoire, concrete information about the interlocutors, topic, etc.). Using a word in context provides another set of questions, particularly in the case of Spanish, a language with 472 million speakers in four continents. Variation is inherent to any language and vocabulary learning is connected to the particular social contexts speakers experience every day. Classroom teaching is typically limited to reproducing particular settings that tend to be formal.

By including socially and pragmatically appropriate vocabulary, we reach another line of study, that of the acquisition of phraseological units/idioms (i.e., multiword, fixed, non-compositional, lexically restricted units; Bolly 2009, 202), which has been considered a difficult area even for advanced learners (Bolly 2009). For example, Bolly (2009) found that advanced French learners overuse collocations with the verb donner “to give” (e.g., donne la possibilité “give the possibility”), but underuse formulaic phrases with ...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Notes on contributors
• Meaning and vocabulary: two key elements in Spanish language teaching
• 1 Identifying target Spanish vocabulary: issues of regional variation
• 2 Input, tasks, and processing specificity in Spanish vocabulary learning
• 3 Incidental learning of L2 Spanish vocabulary
• 4 Acquisition of idiomatic language in L2 Spanish
• 5 Lexicographic perspectives and L2 Spanish vocabulary
• 6 Quality of lexicosemantic representations in L2 Spanish
• 7 Testing L2 Spanish vocabulary knowledge
• 8 New vocabulary levels tests for L2 Spanish
• Index