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This article presents the results of the first scientific analysis of the inks of a thirteenth-century Castilian manuscript – British Library Res 20787, a copy of the Fuero de las leyes. The analysis reveals the fingerprint of the inks used in the codex and points the way to future cross-disciplinary research based on a wider corpus of evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the centenary celebration of the Bulletin of Hispanic Studies and the publication of papers reflecting on various topics within Hispanic Studies, including pedagogy and research-led teaching.

The aim of this article is to outline an overview and to discuss some constraining factors related to teaching Spanish as L1 in the context of linguistic diversity in Argentina. The underlying argument of this paper is that diverse school materials and teaching methodology involved in teaching Spanish as L1 neglects linguistic diversity. Instead, they subscribe to discourses that reinforce a pyramidal normative structure where the Spanish Royal Academy is the apex, and therefore, so is its linguistic authority. Our suggestion in this regard is that the diversity of voices must have a space not only in the classroom and materials, but also in research processes and academia's knowledge management. For this purpose, and framed within a glotopolitical approach, this paper analyzes, firstly, the obstacle represented by the fixed categories included in school curriculum such as "language", "variety", "standard", and even "national language"; secondly, the paper reviews the role played by grammatization instruments (such as dictionaries and school textbooks, among others) and their monologic discursive wording. Finally, the article suggests didactic strategies to analyze linguistic varieties in class, and to reinforce a critical reading of norm distribution instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses null objects (NOs) in Ibero-Romance. European Portuguese (EP) has both definite and indefinte NOs, but Castillian Spanish (CSpanish) only allows NOs when the antecedent is a bare plural nominal or a mass noun. The paper argues that these differences are related to the distribution of bare nominals in each language and proposes that the same underlying mechanism is at the root of indefinite and definite object drop, namely a rootless [ nP n ] proform. [ nP n ] denotes a contextually salient property, its possible interpretations being derived by general type-shifting operations. In CSpanish, the property denoted by [ nP n ] is interpreted as a restrictive modifier of the predicate and the relevant variable is bound under VP level Existential Closure. Focusing on EP, there are striking similarities between definite NOs and other types of nominal anaphora, including epithets. In particular, like epithets, NOs are subject to an Antilogophoricity Constraint. This affinity between NOs and epithets constitutes a case in favor of the idea that the NO is a base-generated nominal. The difference with respect to CSpanish lies in the possibility of interpreting the null nominal by a choice function, a function maps a property onto an entity that has the property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how one transnational emergent multilingual (TEM) adolescent described her languaging practices across the spaces she navigated daily both within and outside of the classroom across her first year in the US Findings illustrate how this adolescent – a home language speaker of Spanish and Quiché and emergent speaker of English – engaged in languaging practices in ways that illustrated the deep connection between language and identity while also representing how she had been socialized to understand language as both a tool for communication and relationship-building and a way of showcasing – or concealing – her identity. Using translanguaging theory, specifically conceptualizations of the translanguaging instinct and translanguaging spaces, this paper illustrates how monoglossic ideologies operate in ways that can overpower students’ existing heteroglossic ideologies causing them to question their translanguaging instincts and abilities. Findings indicate the need to focus on the creation of translanguaging spaces that cultivate and nurture students’ translanguaging instinct by pushing back on larger monoglossic ideologies and language policies that dictate both school and community spaces that TEMs navigate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the investigation and analysis of speech accommodation effects in data obtained from Spanish learners of German with varying proficiency levels. The production data were recorded during a collaborative map task of the Spanish learners of German among each other and with a native speaker of German. The map task was designed to target words and phrases with specific segmental and suprasegmental characteristics. These characteristics were derived from contrastive analyses of Spanish and German. The main objectives of the paper were to investigate whether segmental and suprasegmental characteristics of the target language German are affected by phonetic accommodation to varying degrees and whether these differences depend on the proficiency level of the speaker or the interlocutor. The statistical analysis, using regression analyses, revealed inconsistent accommodation effects across learners of different proficiency levels as well as different linguistic phenomena. In line with previous findings the results can best be accounted for by an adaptation of a dynamic system approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: ChatGPT's role in medical writing is a topic of discussion. I experimented whether ChatGPT almost automatically generates Correspondence or Letter addressed to a "translated" article, and thereby wish to arouse discussion regarding ChatGPT use in medical writing. Methods: I input an English article of mine into ChatGPT, tasking it with generating an English Disagreement Letter (Letter 1). Next, I tasked ChatGPT with translating the manuscript addressed to from English‐French‐Spanish‐German. Then, I once again tasked ChatGPT with generating an English Disagreement Letter addressed to a German manuscript (triplicate translated manuscript) (Letter 2). Results: Letters 1 and 2 are readable and reasonable, shooting the point that the author (myself) felt as the weakness of the article. Letters addressed to French (single translation) and to Spanish (double translation) and longer Letters (corresponding to Letters 1 and 2) are also readable, and thus stand. Conclusions: Solely based on this experiment, one may be able to write a letter even without understanding the meaning of the paper being addressed, let alone the language of the paper. Although this humble experiment does not conclude anything, I plea for a comprehensive discussion on the implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a new characterization of the Null Subject Parameter (NSP). I contend that the NSP must be modeled referring to two main properties of the Agree/agreement systems: (i) presence/absence of abstract Agree, and (ii) presence/absence of agreement dissociation at PF. The first property results in the division between radical argument ellipsis languages of the Japanese type and consistent null subject languages of the Spanish type, including languages like Central Trentino, i.e., languages with some obligatory clitic subjects but with rich agreement and free inversion. The second property results in the division between consistent null subject languages and consistent non-null subject ones. The agreement dissociation hypothesis also accounts for the partial null subject type, which characterizes languages like Brazilian Portuguese that have impoverished agreement expansion at PF (perhaps, only for number features). From a theoretical point of view, this study focuses on the agreement dissociation property showing why abstract Agree cannot guarantee subject ellipsis even in those perplexing cases in which it produces enough agreement distinctions at PF. The reason is that only an expanded agreement morpheme adjoined to the T0 node can serve as a licit antecedent for ellipsis of a subject D0 head at PF. Therefore, the theory derives the bimorphemic principle in Koeneman and Zeijlstra (Koeneman, Olaf & Hedde Zeijlstra. 2021. Pro-drop and the morphological structure of inflection. Ms. Available at: https://www.heddezeijlstra.org/bio) without further ado, i.e., the observation that null subject properties correlate with a bimorphemic T0 node expressing tense and agreement separately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Solitary rectal ulcer syndrome (SRUS) is a benign and poorly understood disorder with complex management. Typical symptoms include straining during defaecation, rectal bleeding, tenesmus, mucoid secretion, anal pain and a sense of incomplete evacuation. Diagnosis is based on characteristic clinical symptoms and endoscopic/histological findings. Several treatments have been reported in the literature with variable ulcer healing rates. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of different treatments for SRUS. Materials and methods: A systematic review and network meta‐analysis were performed according to the PRISMA guidelines. Studies in English, French and Spanish languages were included. Papers written in other languages were excluded. Other exclusion criteria were reviews, case reports or clinical series enrolling less than five patients, study duplications, no clinical data of interest and no article available. A systematic literature search was conducted from January 2000 to March 2024 using the following databases: PubMed/MEDLINE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Scopus. The biases of the studies were assessed using the Newcastle–Ottawa scale or the Jadad scale when appropriate. Types of treatment and their efficacy for the cure of SRUS were collected and critically assessed. The study's primary outcome was to estimate the rate of patients with ulcer healing. Results: A total of 22 studies with 911 patients (men 361, women 550) diagnosed with SRUS were analysed in the final meta‐analysis. The pooled effect estimates of treatment efficacy revealed that surgery showed the highest ulcer healing rate (70.5%; 95% CI 0.57–0.83). Surgery was superior in the cure of ulcers with respect to medical therapies and biofeedback (OR 0.09 and OR 0.14). Conclusion: Solitary rectal ulcer syndrome is a challenging clinical entity to manage. Proficient results have been reported with the surgical approach, suggesting its positive role in cases refractory to medical and biofeedback therapy. Further studies in homogeneous populations are required to evaluate the efficacy of surgery in this setting. (PROSPERO registration number CRD42022331422). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the importance of language awareness for teachers in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) programs. The study focuses on a collaborative professional development activity in a Spanish bilingual secondary school in Madrid. The analysis of the data highlights the significance of developing CLIL teachers' language awareness through on-site collaboration and discusses different frameworks for content and language integration. The text also discusses the use of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) to understand how knowledge shapes teachers' practices in CLIL. The study emphasizes the need for effective language awareness in CLIL teachers and suggests further research in this area. [Extracted from the article]

Global tourism competition has entered home and family space. Drawing upon ethnographic research in Guatemala, this paper investigates the postcolonial gendered politics that shape (and are shaped by) global tourism competition, homestays, and mothering labour. It shows how Guatemalan women turn to hosting as an economic strategy and, in doing so, become part of a complex power relationship between Spanish schools and their (primarily Western) language tourists (or ‘students’). Spanish schools only work with ‘host-mums’ deemed capable of meeting their students’ needs, desires, and expectations of homestays as affordable, enjoyable, pedagogical experiences of ‘real’ family. To achieve this, Guatemalan women become cosmopolitan, competitive subjects who devise and enact strategies to commodify, transform, and perform their mothering labour and homes/families in ways that appeal to their Western students. Far beyond creating desirable touristic experiences, the everyday competitive mothering of tourists is having widespread consequences at the personal, local, and global levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English reflexive anaphora in cases of VP-ellipsis may allow for strict and sloppy readings. A few L2 studies (Epoge, 2012; Park, 2016; Ying, 2005) have focused on determining the role that L2 proficiency may exert on learners' choices in bare, referential, and non-referential contexts. This paper provides data from 104 Spanish learners of English (A2, B1, and B2 levels) and 32 native speakers of English. Results showed that participants tended to interpret reflexives sloppily in bare and non-referential contexts, whereas strict readings prevailed in referential ones. There existed significant differences in the interpretation of learners versus native speakers, whilst the differences among the three learner groups were not so marked. However, the least proficient group differed most from native speakers. Findings partially confirm previous research and discrepancies may be tentatively ascribed to extraneous variables (e.g., the learners' L1, the range of the proficiency levels, or the characteristics of the control groups). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the framework of Relevance Theory, this paper discusses the coercion cases imposed by nominal classifiers in Chinese and proposes a translation strategy. The results show that the coercion imposed by nominal classifiers in Chinese appears in the cases of metaphor or metonymy. In these cases, the conflict between procedural semantics and conceptual semantics is always resolved in favor of the procedural one. Therefore, when we translate them from Chinese to Spanish, to get a correct translation, we should find out firstly the procedural semantics of the nominal classifiers and then combine them with the metaphor or metonymy meaning of the nouns generated in coercion contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Down syndrome (DS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder of genetic origin with a cognitive‐behavioural profile that distinguishes it from other syndromes. Within this profile, language difficulties are particularly marked, having been more studied in childhood than in adulthood. More generally, there is a paucity of research on the prosodic skills of individuals with DS, despite the relevance of this linguistic component for effective communication. Aims: This study aimed to analyse, for the first time, the prosodic profile of Spanish‐speaking teenagers and young adults with DS. We hypothesized that participants with DS would show significantly lower skills for the perception and production of prosodic functions and forms when compared to peers with intellectual disability (ID) of unknown origin. We also hypothesized that teenagers and young adults with DS would have better prosody perception than prosody production. Methods & Procedures: The final sample included in the study comprised 28 Spanish‐speaking teenagers and young adults with DS and 29 teenagers and young adults with other ID matched on chronological age and nonverbal cognition. Their prosodic skills were tested by means of the Profiling Elements of Prosody for Speech and Communication battery. This battery allows for the separate evaluation of the comprehension and expression of the communicative functions of prosody and the discrimination and production of the forms that carry out such functions. Outcomes & Results: In the prosody function tasks, which are the most adaptive tasks for the communicative process, we found, as expected, significantly lower scores on the turn‐end, chunking, and focus tasks in the group with DS. However, no significant between‐group differences were found for the affect tasks. Participants with DS also had significantly lower scores on the prosodic form tasks than participants with other ID. The results of the comparison between prosodic perception and production skills showed that a generalization about a better profile in comprehension versus production is not possible and that there is a dependence on the demands of the prosodic task undertaken. Conclusions & Implications: The findings contribute to the ongoing development of the language profile of teenagers and young adults with DS and imply the need to design prosodic intervention programs based on their specific profile. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on the subject: Prosody is a fundamental element of language, and its mastery affects the effectiveness of communication. However, research on prosody in Down syndrome (DS) that offers a holistic view from a psycholinguistic approach is still scarce. To date, studies focused on providing a detailed profile of prosodic skills in individuals with DS have been mainly conducted with a few English‐speaking children. These studies have shown that the comprehension and production of prosody is severely impaired, especially when considering affect and focus production, as well as the perception and production of prosodic forms. During childhood, greater efficacy is found in prosody comprehension than in prosody expression. What this study adds: This is the first study analysing the prosodic profile of a large group of Spanish‐speaking teenagers and young adults with DS. Poorer performance in the perception and production of both prosodic functions and forms was observed in participants with DS compared to participants with intellectual disability of unknown origin matched on chronological age and nonverbal cognition. Unlike what has been previously found in children, teenagers and young adults with DS performed at the same level as the control group on the understanding and expression of affect through prosodic cues. Results also showed that a generalization about a better prosody profile in comprehension versus production is not possible. What are the clinical implications of this work?: This study provides new data on the prosodic skills of Spanish‐speaking teenagers and young adults with DS. Given the impact of prosody on effective communication and the pattern of difficulties found in this study, speech and language therapists working with individuals with DS should consider including prosodic skills in interventions not only in childhood but also in adolescence and adulthood. Therefore, the prosodic profile of strengths and weaknesses in individuals with DS found in this research has direct implications for clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to explore the grammatical properties and meaning of pseudo-coordinative structures, as agarra y les paga or va y se muere, registered in different colloquial varieties of Spanish speaking countries. Pseudo-coordination produces grammaticalized constructions of two verbal forms inflected on the same morphological categories and united by the conjuction y, which denotate a unique event, since the first verb is desemantized or grammaticalized. A relevant fact is that the same grammaticalized verbs intervening on pseudo-coordinative structures (besides ir and agarrar, venir, coger, pillar, saltar and llegar, and the more novel volver, arrancar, largarse, lanzarse, ponerse, meterse, mandarse) function (or functioned) as periphrastic auxiliary verbs, often with an inchoative or ingressive meaning. Empirically, the paper concentrates on determine the grammatical distribution of pseudocoordinative structures, differentiating them to inchoative periphrasis, in order to offer a consistent syntactic and semantic analysis of these constructions. This will lead us to conclude that the primary meaning of grammaticalized pseudo-coordinative structures is aorist aspect (Smith, 1991; Camus Bergareche, 2004), in the same lines as Coseriu (1966) and in opposition to recent perspectives, as García Sánchez (2007) and Jaque et al. (2018, 2019). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses how the negative particle no interacts with Spanish deverbal nominalizations that denote an event. Firstly, it is pointed out that, when preceded by negation, these nominalizations only give rise to the inhibited eventuality reading, contrary to what happens with verbs, which give rise to both the inhibited eventuality reading and the negated eventuality reading. Secondly, it is shown that, when these nominalizations co-occur with no, their lexical aspect is modified, as they share properties with events, but with states as well. Thirdly, a proposal of analysis for is presented. We claim that both the interpretation and lexical aspect of this construction follow from the interaction of negation with the syntactic configuration of the nominalization and, specifically, with the projection responsible for the triggering of the eventuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is part of the research project «Fictional orality» in the translation of short stories by Carmen Lyra, registered at the Institute of Linguistic Research of the University of Costa Rica under the number 745-C1-002. It analyzes the Spanish to English translation of components with a semantic function as part of the features of «fictional orality» in Tales from my Aunt Panchita by the Costa Rican writer Carmen Lyra. In particular, the colloquial lexicon, and the semantic relations of similarity are traced. To do so, first, we systematized the results related to translation techniques, methods, and norms; afterwards, we contrasted them with the tendencies identified for the pragmatic field and for phraseological units, according to previous research part of this project; and, finally, we discussed the most representative examples of semantic or stylistic divergence between the source text and its English counterpart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to show the presence of thematic ordering in Spanish teaching materials in the United States, the construction of a textual series and its evolution over time, and the contribution of teachers, lexicographers, and grammarians to the history of linguistics. The vocabularies ordered by designative domains composed by Nicolas Gouin Dufief, by Edward Barry, by F. F. Moritz Foerster, by the author of ¿Habla Vm. Español?, by Luis Felipe Mantilla, by Antonio Ramos Díaz de Villegas and by Alfred Ronald Conkling constitute an interesting contribution to the history of Spanish in the US that has yet to be made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the procedural meaning of the Spanish adverb apenas , proposing that it carries the procedural meaning of right-hand APPROACHING. This procedural meaning effectively accounts for various interpretations and argumentative orientations of apenas in different contexts. The analysis demonstrates that apenas consistently implies a closeness or minimality, whether in quantitative or temporal domain. The procedural meaning also explains the negative argumentative orientation of apenas. Therefore, the different meanings of apenas can be analyzed in a holistic way. Through this analysis, the study aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of adverbial usage in Spanish and potentially guide analogous investigations in other languages. • The Spanish adverb apenas carries a procedural meaning. • The procedural meaning can offer a holistic analysis of this adverb. • The procedural meaning also explains the negative argumentative orientation of apenas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and Objectives: Spanish subject pronoun expression (SPE) among Bube speakers in Equatorial Guinea has hardly been examined. Thus, the paper aims to (a) examine the SPE rate (b) and the linguistic and social predictors of SPE in this variety. Methodology: The data for the present study were collected using sociolinguistic interviews. These interviews lasted between 45 minutes and an hour. Data and analysis: The audio recordings of 18 bilinguals of Bube and Spanish in Equatorial Guinea were transcribed and analyzed using the Rbrul mixed-effects statistical software. Findings: The overt SPE rate of these bilingual speakers is 17.9%. This pronoun rate is one of the lowest ever found among bilinguals. The significant factors are grammatical person and number, ambiguity, the lexical content, and gender. The insignificant predictors were reference, reflexivity, and education. Originality: This is the first variationist study on Spanish SPE among Bube speakers in Equatorial Guinea. In this study, switch reference, a usually robust predictor, is insignificant among bilingual speakers. Significance: This study expands on the scarce research conducted on Equatoguinean Spanish and opens new avenues for exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Text mining has led to growth in sentiment analysis (SA) across various research disciplines. The pandemic has provided a unique and special context for analysing students’ written expression. We utilised comments from a survey conducted during the pandemic to create a corpus for SA. The corpus comprises 25,197 words extracted from over 600 comments in Spanish, collected during a survey that lasted around 20 days. We aim to detect sentiments and emotions from this corpus using SA. However, some essential and little-discussed issues in literature should be addressed, such as its relationship with post-cognitivist theory. This paper uses the post-cognitivist approach to analyse emotions and sentiments through SA with the Spanish lexicon in the economics of education. Literature in this area needs further development, especially in Spanish. The article shows that the emotions and sentiments of students in challenging situations can be identified through a corpus of student comments. However, specific elements should be considered while interpreting emotions and sentiments within the framework of post-cognitivism methodologies. Recognising that the human experience is a complex interaction, it is essential to consider the emotional nuances within the context in which they develop. Addressing this issue from the post-cognitivist approach is one of several ways to carry out this task. Using SA and emotions to analyse a text corpus is still helpful for researchers who follow the post-cognitivist approach. However, combining this technique with other qualitative and in-depth computational methods is essential to fully understanding the emotional experiences within their respective contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most approaches to discourse markers tend to rely on observation on the behavior of monolingual classes of markers. In this paper, we offer a detailed analysis of the behavior and function of a single Spanish discourse marker, namely bueno , in bilingual discourse as opposed to its bilingual counterpart well. In particular, we compare pragmatic factors, and namely fine-grained differences between Spanish bueno and English well , with interactional factors such as the position of the marker in monological vs. dialogical sequences. Finally, we also take into account the impact of individual linguistic choices by comparing the behavior of different speakers when using the scrutinized discourse marker. Thus, we do not only contribute to and expand on previous literature on the behavior of discourse markers, but we also offer a new perspective to further study discourse markers in situations of language contact. • The paper explains the behavior of a single Spanish DM and its English counterpart in bilingual discourse. • A methodology based on online focus groups is used to explore the functionality of the discourse marker in interactions. • The paper finds a broad range of interpersonal functions that explain the use of bueno in bilingual discourse. • An underexplored community is proposed as a focal point in the study of contact and pragmatics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language, numismatics is the discipline that studies coins and medals, mainly ancient ones. In other places, this definition includes the study and collection of paper money or banknotes. The information we can obtain from coins with a minimum study of the aspects that appear on them is surprising. In relation to vision and ophthalmology, they show us important figures in the field, ocular symbology, they tell us about mythology and religion and curious stories that we would hardly have known without looking at the coins. Finally, we will talk about an important 19th century Valencian ophthalmologist, Rafael Cervera y Royo, and the collection of ancient coins that bears his name. This work is not intended to be an exhaustive description of all the coins and medals that speak of vision, but rather a sample of the valuable information that numismatics contributes to our speciality and to stimulate the public's curiosity about this fascinating science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Correct use of Spanish when writing biological papers. We present a list of the most frequent errors in biological manuscripts written in Spanish, and we explain which are the recommended options. Our article is based on the International Codes of Nomenclature, and the guidelines of the Real Academia de la Lengua and the Council of Science Editors. We group the indications in four categories: lexical errors (e.g. English cognates); spelling (graphic accents, punctuation, font), morphology (use of prepositions) and style (linguistic economy). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An eye tracking experiment examined how exposure to a second language (L2) influences sentence parsing in the first language. Forty-four monolingual Spanish speakers, 24 proficient Spanish–English bilinguals with limited immersion experience in the L2 environment and 20 proficient Spanish–English bilinguals with extensive L2 immersion experience read temporarily ambiguous constructions. The ambiguity concerned whether a relative clause (RC) that appeared after a complex noun phrase (NP) was interpreted as modifying the first or the second noun in the complex NP (El policía arrestó a la hermana del criado que estaba enferma desde hacía tiempo). The results showed that whereas the Spanish monolingual speakers and the Spanish–English bilinguals with limited exposure reliably attached the relative clause to the first noun, the Spanish–English bilingual with extensive exposure attached the relative to the second noun. Results are discussed in terms of models of sentence parsing most consistent with the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent there is rhetorical variation between the research article abstracts written in English for international journals and those written in Spanish and published in Spanish journals in the area of experimental social sciences. To this end, the structural units that constitute the macrostructure of these texts have been analysed comparatively. The results show that the Spanish abstracts in this field largely follow the international conventions based on the norms established by the English-speaking international academic community, as they present the four basic structural units (Introduction, Methods, Results, Conclusion) which constitute the different sections of the underlying research article. However, some degree of divergence has been found, mainly in the frequency of occurrence of the Results unit, and Move 2 in the abstract introductions, which is where writers justify their work in their research field as a way of creating a niche. The rhetorical variables found across the two languages may be mainly explained by the different expectations that the members of the international and Spanish scientific communities have. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The present paper aims to describe the process of creating CHARG—Corpus de Habla Radiofónica de Guayaquil (the Guayaquil Radiophonic Speech Corpus). It is the first systematized spoken corpus for this rather under-researched variety of Spanish. Guayaquil is the most populated city of Ecuador, while its capital city is Quito. Therefore, Ecuador is a rare case of a Spanish-speaking country with two major urban centers that belong to two separate dialectal zones, offering a very peculiar sociolinguistic context. CHARG is a corpus composed of Guayaquil radio programs. Its structure is organized by non-linguistic criteria (program type) in order to ensure a representative and balanced sample. The paper describes the design of the corpus (defining the study population, sample and stratification) and its construction (recording procedure, speakers and speech style coding, transcription and annotation). As a result, CHARG consists of 24 h of transcriptions and annotations of recordings from 142 speakers. The paper's potential use is twofold: since it presents a step-by-step procedure of corpus construction that can be replicated, the readers might be interested in both the procedure and the corpus itself as a research material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Passive sentences have been traditionally analyzed in French by descriptive studies in the aim of elucidating the use of the auxiliary verbs être and se faire (Tesnière 1988; Le Goffic 1993; Riegel et coll. 1994; Le Bellec 2014). In Spanish, the formally equivalent auxiliary verbs are ser and hacerse but their use is not concurrent since hacerse is semantically restricted to express beneficial actions (e.g., Se hizo masajear la espalda, He had his back massaged). The goal of our paper is to compare –in spoken French and Spanish– the grammatical and lexical means used in the topicalization of non-volitional patients involved in unpleasant actions. Our results showed that French speakers produced 59.3% of passive sentences, whereas Spanish speakers showed a preference to conceptualize the Patient-victim as an accusative within active voice sentences (37.5%). Concerning the passive sentences produced by each group, French speakers showed an overt preference for the auxiliary se faire (78.9%), whereas in Spanish the Patient-victim's topicalization was most frequently marked by a Latin-derived prepositional object complement (58.8%). Our paper indicates that the topicalization of a Patient-victim is a distinctive typological feature between French and Spanish, and suggests the salience of passive-perspective conceptualizations in French for the semantic domain of unpleasant actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an in-depth analysis of a novel elliptical construction in Spanish, dubbed Topic-Remnant Elided Polar Questions (or polar TREQs in short). A detailed examination of polar TREQs in Spanish will provide evidence for the claim that (a) they are a type of clausal ellipsis, triggered by the presence of an [E]-feature on C, and (b) the remnant is a topicalized XP that undergoes movement out of the ellipsis site. Furthermore, the analysis of polar TREQs in various contexts (in particular, with respect to the so-called connectivity effects) confirms the need of syntactic identity between the linguistic antecedent and the ellipsis site. Moreover, an examination of the patterns related to the presence or absence of an overt complementizer in this elliptical construction provides empirical support for Merchant's (2001) Sluicing-COMP Generalization. In summary, this paper not only provides a comprehensive account of the syntactic intricacies of a new elliptical construction in Spanish, but also provides valuable insights into the broader landscape of elliptical phenomena in this language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates northern Australia's Spanish-speaking community, in order to probe the formation of migrant identity and the perception of Australian society. The community communicated extensively with other members of the global Hispanic Diaspora throughout Europe and the Americas, and used this correspondence to reflect on their experiences in Australia. One individual in particular, Salvador Torrents, wrote a large number of articles and short stories, demonstrating the complex interplay between local and international issues. Migrants used this interaction of local and global events, and the framework provided by transnational radical Hispanic debate, to critique Australian society and migrants' place within it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present the results of a case study that was carried out in order to evaluate the passive paremiological competence of university learners with advanced mother tongue and foreign language proficiency. In doing so, 10 Spanish paremias and 10 French paremias characterised by differing degrees of frequency of use, idiomaticity and opacity were selected. Along these lines, we designed a questionnaire that was completed by a group of 20 university students with Spanish and French considered as their mother tongue and their foreign language, respectively. In this case, passive paremiological competence is directly related to age (the competence of the youngest is significantly lower than that of the oldest), to the frequency of use of the mother tongue and to the degree of idiomaticity and opacity in the foreign language. Finally, it should be noted that passive paremiological competence in the foreign language is significantly lower than in the mother tongue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the methodology for developing a lexicon of Spanish (up to and including level B1) within the framework of the European iRead4Skills project. The basic metalinguistic notions that should be presented to students are introduced so that this resource could be exploited in the most appropriate way possible. The main microstructure fields (in particular, those corresponding to syntactic-semantic features, semantic classes and domains) introduced in the database are presented and discussed. The treatment of phraseology and diasystematics is also specifically examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with diatopic variation in Spanish wine-related language. We evaluate the degree of penetration of diatopic variation in this specialized language at different levels: international, national, regional, county and local. We also analyze the presence of diatopic variation in the origins and evolution of Spanish wine-related language. Documentary research has allowed us to establish the state of the art and fieldwork and documentary work have yielded results that we have analysed using qualitative methodology. We have collected a large number of specialized voices from different geographical areas of the Spanish-speaking world. Our main conclusion is that diatopic variation is intrinsic to the Spanish wine-related language. We have also been able to verify diachronic and functional variation in this specialized language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phraseology is undergoing a paradigm shift largely due to the application of techniques and concepts from other related disciplines. This paper combines big data analysis with the principles of construction grammar. It includes an automatic extraction protocol for the resultative constructional idioms with de quicio. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data are performed in order to draw conclusions about the adequacy of the corpora selected for analysis, the relationships established between these constructions and more schematic ones, as well their distribution, frequency, and productivity, with a focus on "global" Spanish and its diatopic varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we will try to show five humorous signs used in Spanish linguistic jokes and that could be used in Spanish teaching. These signs are polysemy, homophony, paronymy, phraseology and diminutives. The election of jokes as a structure to use in teaching is based not only in the fact that it is the main humorous structure, but also in its easy to learn structure. As Attardo (2008) said, joke is the easiest humorous text type. Also, "joke is a humorous unit with no context and selfcontained, which has all the required information to be understood and enjoyed" (Martin, 2008: 37). The goal of this paper is to show how previously mentioned signs work in an internet extracted corpus, so we can get generalizations that can be used in Spanish teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the few researchers who have approached Alonso de Herrera's Libro de agricultura, the accuracy and richness of its terminology would be two of its main features. Under this premise, in this paper we focus on the fourth book of this six-volume treatise on agriculture, which is dedicated to the knowledge of everything related to the vegetable gardens. After an appropriate lexicological classification of the selected vocabulary, we examine the effect that these words has haved on the Spanish lexicographic tradition, with particular attention to the Diccionario de autoridades--after being Herrera selected as one of the classics of the Hispanic literature for its preparation--, as well as the Covarrubias' Tesoro (1611)--in this case is due to its noticeable encyclopedism, which connect with the rich and assorted information supplied by Herrera--. After our analysis, we conclude the low impact of the Libro de agricultura in the first academic dictionary. On the other hand, we detect a greater harmony between Covarrubias and Herrera, having found several lexicographical articles from the Tesoro with information of vegetable gardens clearly coinciding with the Libro de agricultura. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the translation of Manner-of-motion in a Swedish>Spanish parallel corpus of crime novels by Henning Mankell (and more specifically, a selection of the Wallander series). Since Swedish is a satellite-framed language, while Spanish is a verb-framed language, the aim of the research is to identify translation techniques adapted to the issue of translating Manner-of-motion in an intertypological translation scenario. The results of this study are compared with previous research on the topic, which has focused mainly on general prose fiction and fiction for children and young adults. Our findings confirm that Manner-of-motion is omitted to a great extent in the Spanish translations, compared with the original texts in Swedish. Moreover, some differences are encountered in the translation of original fragments, including general and specific Manner-of-motion verbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sign language serves as the primary mode of communication for the deaf community. With technological advancements, it is crucial to develop systems capable of enhancing communication between deaf and hearing individuals. This paper reviews recent state-of-the-art methods in sign language recognition, translation, and production. Additionally, we introduce a rule-based system, called ruLSE, for generating synthetic datasets in Spanish Sign Language. To check the usefulness of these datasets, we conduct experiments with two state-of-the-art models based on Transformers, MarianMT and Transformer-STMC. In general, we observe that the former achieves better results (+3.7 points in the BLEU-4 metric) although the latter is up to four times faster. Furthermore, the use of pre-trained word embeddings in Spanish enhances results. The rule-based system demonstrates superior performance and efficiency compared to Transformer models in Sign Language Production tasks. Lastly, we contribute to the state of the art by releasing the generated synthetic dataset in Spanish named synLSE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the bilingual Spanish-speaking population in the United States (U.S.) steadily rises (U.S. Census Bureau in Language spoken at home, https://data.census.gov/cedsci/profile?q=United%20States&g=0100000US, 2020), the need for systemic therapists who are competent in working with Spanish-speaking clients also increases. While it is unrealistic to require all mental health practitioners to be bilingual English and Spanish speakers, systemic therapists can improve their understanding of the impact that clients' native language can have on the therapeutic process. In this paper, we synthesize concepts from narrative therapy and linguistic relativity to provide non-Spanish-speaking clinicians with a unique perspective of case conceptualizations and therapeutic interventions for clients who natively speak Spanish. A clinical vignette is presented to illustrate the practical application of linguistic relativity informed systemic therapy. Potential theoretical and clinical implications of this treatment suggestion are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sentence-final completion tasks serve as valuable tools in studying language processing and the associated predictive mechanisms. There are several established sentence-completion norms for languages like English, Portuguese, French, and Spanish, each tailored to the language it was designed for and evaluated in. Yet, cultural variations among native speakers of the same language complicate the claim of a universal application of these norms. In this study, we developed a corpus of 2925 sentence-completion norms specifically for Mexican Spanish. This corpus is distinctive for several reasons: Firstly, it is the most comprehensive set of sentence-completion norms for Mexican Spanish to date. Secondly, it offers a substantial range of experimental stimuli with considerable variability in terms of the predictability of word sentence completion (cloze probability/surprisal) and the level of uncertainty inherent in the sentence context (entropy). Thirdly, the syntactic complexity of the sentences in the corpus is varied, as are the characteristics of the final word nouns (including aspects of concreteness/abstractness, length, and frequency). This paper details the generation of the sentence contexts, explains the methodology employed for data collection from a total of 1470 participants, and outlines the approach to data analysis for the establishment of sentence-completion norms. These norms provide a significant contribution to fields such as linguistics, cognitive science, and machine learning, among others, by enhancing our understanding of language, predictive mechanisms, knowledge representation, and context representation. The collected data is accessible through the Open Science Framework (OSF) at the following link: https://osf.io/js359/?view_only=bb1b328d37d643df903ed69bb2405ac0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This present research paper explores the impact of minimizing the use of Spanish during the English-language teaching process, to generate a significant learning environment that enhances the language acquisition process and proficiency achievement. The literature review presents a deep analysis of communicative language teaching principles and the positive impact and benefits that immersion provides especially on cultural integration and language competencies. In addition, it also presents some worldwide-known strategies that are used by teachers to minimize the use of the native language in the classroom, such as Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), visual aids, and the integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Finally, the research provides some recommendations for future studies, encouraging further research on different educational levels, as well as the exploration of teacher training programs considering the significance of minimizing the use of the student's native language, in this specific case Spanish, lies in its enormous transforming potential to encourage dynamic English language learning environments, preparing students to succeed in a globalized world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Verbal fluency tests are quick and easy to administer neuropsychological measures and are regularly used in neuropsychological assessment. Additionally, phonological fluency is a widely used paradigm that is sensitive to cognitive impairment. This paper offers normative data of phonological verbal fluency (letters P, M, R) for Spanish middle- and older-aged adults, considering sociodemographic factors, and different measures such as the total number of words, errors (perseveration and intrusions), and 15 sec-segmented scores. Method: A total of 1165 cognitively unimpaired participants aged between 50 and 89 years old, participated in the study. Data for P were obtained for all participants. Letters M and R were also administered to a subsample of participants (852) aged 60 to 89 years. In addition, errors and words produced every 15 seconds were collected in the subsample. To verify the effect of sociodemographic variables, linear regression was used. Adjustments were calculated for variables that explained at least 5% of the variance (R 2 ≥.05). Results: Means and standard deviations by age, scaled scores, and percentiles for all tests across different measures are shown. No determination coefficients equal to or greater than.05 were found for sex or age. The need to establish adjustments for the educational level was only found in some of the measures. Conclusions: The current norms provide clinically useful data to evaluate Spanish-speaking natives from Spain aged from 50 to 89 years. Specific patterns of cognitive impairment can be analyzed using these normative data and may be important in neuropsychological assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conference abstract (CA) is an important promotional academic genre that allows scholars to introduce their research to their peers as a conference presentation if the proposal is accepted by the reviewing gatekeepers. However, few studies have explored the CA in specific disciplines and no studies have examined this genre from an intercultural perspective. In this paper, we present a move‐step framework for the analysis of CAs and we examine comparatively the rhetorical structure of 80 CAs written in English and Spanish in the field of Applied Linguistics, with a special focus on those moves/steps that convey a promotional function. The results revealed that, to a great extent, the texts written in both languages present a high degree of similarity in terms of the frequency and distribution of most moves/steps, except for a significant difference reported in the frequency of occurrence of the step that states the implications of research findings, which appeared to be more prevalent in the English CAs. These findings may have relevant pedagogical implications for early career researchers and English as an Additional Language (EAL) scholars who seek to accommodate to the rhetorical conventions expected by the members of their specific national and international disciplinary communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the way in which linguistic accuracy is formulated in El libro de estilo de la lengua española (2018), the latest normative publication by the Real Academia de la Lengua (Royal Spanish Academy) and the Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (Association of Academies of the Spanish Language). We show that more than half of the rules listed are of a diffuse, or fuzzy nature. We study three kinds of fuzzy rules: rules with a low deontic load, which have little prescriptive character; confusing rules, which are imprecise or subjective in nature; and rules for highly specific cases, with a very limited field of application. Finally, we note that it is not unusual for these three types to appear together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to trace the morphologization process that allowed the formation of a prefix from an adverb, both coinciding in the form no. In order to do this, we consider the theory of grammaticalization to analyze a corpus of 794 Spanish words with no-, gathered from different sources from the 13th to the 21st century. The results show the different stages of the change process in which the adverb expanded its contextual distribution, which allowed it to appear before nouns. In this context, the adverb acquires the typical characteristics of a negation prefix, with specific meaning nuances according to the type of noun base it attaches to: total negation for deverbal nouns (no inclusión, ‘non-inclusion’) or partial negation in the case of concrete nouns (no libro, ‘non-book’). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses Texas Examinations of Educator Standards Program Languages Other Than English – Spanish exam (TExES LOTE – Spanish) and its potential bias, particularly against teacher candidates with Spanish as a heritage language (HL) background. In Texas, most teacher candidates, or college students of Spanish preparing for secondary teacher certification, are heritage speakers of Spanish. However, while they are competent Spanish speakers, many fail their TExES LOTE – Spanish exam. In light of recent demographic trends and a growing body of research on HL learners, Spanish teaching in higher education and, to a lesser extent, in secondary schools has begun to move away from teaching so-called prestigious varieties of Spanish (e.g., Spain) toward inclusion of other varieties of Spanish, especially those spoken in the U.S. and those that reflect students' heritage. Despite this pedagogical shift, we posit that TExES LOTE – Spanish exam does not reflect current Spanish curricular content, which negatively affects these students' performance. We provide examples and available exam statistics to support our claim. Through this conversation about the mismatch between student background and TExES LOTE – Spanish content, we hope to start a dialogue about a much-needed revision of this exam in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the diffusion of linguistic change from a case study: the adoption of Spanish tío/tía as a counter-cultural vocatives spreading to youth language over the 70's and 80's (Llopis y Pons 2020). The study is based on a comprehensive corpus, which is interpreted in the light of socio-cultural movements and historical events. To explain this process, it is started from the proposal of diffusion of innovations by Rogers (1962 [2003]) adapted to linguistic change (Labov 1994; Croft 2000; Moreno 1998 [2009]; Blythe y Croft 2012; Nevalainen 2015). It is shown that innovations integrated in cheli slang are part of a complex mosaic of factors, which bring to light certain theoretical issues, such as the cultural factor. It is meant to integrate both sociolinguistic and philological approaches as a strong method to research linguistic change with greater depth and scope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relational adjectives in Spanish constitute a subset of adjectives distinct from qualifying adjectives in both their syntax and semantics. A key difference between relational and qualifying adjectives is that the former can only be created by means of suffixation. From an onomasiological approach, suffixes forming relational adjectives are all conceptually similar, given that they perform the same function. These suffixes create a rivalry between schemes because they compete in the categorization of a lexeme. The choice of a given suffix is dictated by structural and contextual factors. This paper aims to describe the structural factors involved in the use of the -al, -ario, -ero, -esco, -´ico, -il, -ivo, and -torio suffixes, and give an account of their productivity in Mexican Spanish, using data from the Morfolex corpus. The results show that the main suffix forming relational adjectives is -ero, but it is used more in colloquial contexts, so that the diaphasic factor is key. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional tokenization methods using linguistic rules have been replaced by statistical segmentation algorithms. Although these algorithms show a higher efficiency and are capable of building subword vocabularies from large corpora without human supervision, these subwords do not consistently correspond to morphemes. This paper addresses this issue by proposing an evaluation methodology and applying it to the morphological quality of Spanish vocabularies produced by three prominent subword tokenization algorithms –BPE, WordPiece, and Unigram– commonly used in Large Language Models (LLMs). Three gold standards were created to measure relevance, coherence, and morphological accuracy of vocabularies of six tokenizers trained on Spanish corpus, exploring different vocabulary sizes. Evaluation results indicate that none of the three algorithms is suitable for accurately representing Spanish morphology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociolinguistic typology studies have uncovered diverse social, cultural, and political factors that might account for aspects of the structural complexity of the world’s languages. Accordingly, the languages spoken by close-knit (or esoteric) societies tend to feature more complex phonologies and morphologies, as well as increased semantic opacity. By contrast, the languages spoken by open (or exoteric) societies usually exhibit more syntactic complexity together with greater semantic compositionality. In this paper, we support the view that classical (i.e. variationist) sociolinguistics would benefit from applying this typological approach to the study of intralinguistic variation. Specifically, we argue for relying on the concepts of esotericity and exotericity for achieving a better characterization and understanding of Spanish familects (i.e. the private language varieties used within families). We advance a specific protocol for studying this linguistic variety, as well as a tentative list of features characterizing Spanish familects, which we have posited under the view that familects are esoteric varieties of the standard language, although with some distinctive features compared to the oral vernacular, particularly to informal speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]