Speaking tasks involving peer-to-peer candidate interaction are increasingly being incorporated into language proficiency assessments, in both large-scale international testing contexts, and in smaller-scale, e.g. course-related, ones. This growth in the popularity and use of paired and group orals has stimulated research, particularly into the types of discourse produced and the possible impact of candidate background factors on performance. The validation of tests of speaking involving paired candidate formats is increasingly focusing on ways in which interaction between candidates is sustained, as 'interaction' emerges as an important criterion for assessing candidate performance. However, despite the fact that the strongest argument for the validity of peer-to-peer assessment lies in the claim that such tasks allow for the assessment of a broader range of interactional skills than the more traditional interview-format tests do, there is surprisingly little research into the judgments that are made of such performances, the development of scales to rate interactional skills, and candidates' awareness of features of interaction in such tests. The thesis reports on the findings of a verbal protocol study of teacher-raters viewing the paired test discourse of seventeen beginner dyads in a university-based Spanish as a foreign language course. The fact that raters, and rating criteria, are in a crucial mediating position between output and outcomes warrants investigation into how raters construe the interaction in these tasks. The thesis also reports on the development of an evidence-based rating method to score peer L2 communicative interaction, based on experienced judges’ comments on videoed student samples filmed during operational paired candidate tests of beginner level Spanish. Six trained and experienced raters generated criteria for communicative interaction, which were incorporated into a tool for developing a discourse sample based rating procedure, the Empirically-based, Binary-choice, Boundary-definition (EBB) method (Turner & Upshur, 1996). The thesis examines the features of paired candidate interaction which raters used to define ii the boundary between performance levels. Three main criteria emerged as the boundaries used to define levels of interaction: non-verbal interpersonal communication, interactive listening and interactional management. These new notions are evidence of how peer interaction can be rated and they advance our understanding of the significant features of interaction in the rating context. Finally, this thesis also focuses on the previously unexplored area of candidates' awareness of features of interaction in such tests. It uses a retrospective Stimulated Verbal Recall methodology with video-taped test performances from 25 participants in the same beginners' level test of spoken Spanish. The participant reports are analysed in terms of student orientation to paired interaction. The analysis addresses non-verbal interpersonal communication, interactive listening and interactional management, the features of interaction identified a priori in the rater Verbal Protocol Study. Examples from the data are presented and discussed. The findings confirm that candidates are significantly oriented to the features of interaction which are salient to raters and which have been included in the devised rating procedure. The findings from the three parts of the thesis (the rater orientation study, the scoring procedure and the candidate awareness study) have implications for our understanding of the construct of effective interaction in paired candidate speaking tests, and for the development of appropriate rating procedures.  

 

Le but principal de cette thèse est de comprendre et de retracer le processus d’acquisition des temps verbaux du passé de l’espagnol par des francophones adultes apprenant la langue dans leur propre pays, en milieu guidé (cours de langue dans une institution spécialisée). La tâche à accomplir est double: d’un côté, il est nécessaire de décrire le sémantisme des temps de l’espagnol et du français, ainsi que les différences entre les deux langues, afin de mieux saisir les obstacles à surmonter par les apprenants. De l’autre côté, il s’agit de fournir une description des dits phénomènes d’apprentissage. Nous poserons d’abord la problématique descriptive. En tant que langues romaines, l’espagnol et le français ont des systèmes verbaux très proches l’un de l’autre. Entre autres ressemblances, les deux langues possèdent une forme de passé simple, un passé composé, un imparfait et un plus-que-parfait. Cependant, il y a une dissemblance morphologique importante : l’espagnol, à la différence du français, fait appel à un seul verbe auxiliaire pour les temps composés. 
Les objectifs spécifiques de notre thèse surgissent du croisement entre la problématique de base et la perspective fournie par la Théorie de la Pertinence. Voici donc ces objectifs:
• Produire une description des temps du passé fondamentaux de l’espagnol (pretérito perfecto, pretérito indefinido, imperfecto et pluscuamperfecto) et de ceux du français (passé composé, passé simple, imparfait et plus-que-parfait), à l’aide de la Théorie de la Pertinence. Plusieurs objectifs sont subordonnés à ce premier:
o Décrire le sémantisme de chaque temps verbal, ainsi que le rapport entre ce sémantisme et les effets de sens auxquels il peut donner lieu dans l’interprétation des énoncés linguistiques.
o Développer une réflexion sur la variation interlinguistique dans des expressions ayant une origine commune mais appartenant aujourd’hui à deux systèmes différents (les temps verbaux de l’espagnol et ceux du français).
o Considérer l’utilité de la Théorie de la Pertinence en tant que cadre principal dans ce type d’étude.

• Étudier l’acquisition des temps du passé de l’espagnol par des apprenants francophones adultes en situation d’apprentissage institutionnel, dans le cadre de la conception générale des processus de communication humaine de Sperber et Wilson. Plusieurs objectifs sont aussi subordonnés à celui-ci :
o Examiner les applications de la Théorie de la Pertinence à l’étude de l’interprétation des énoncés par un allocutaire non natif.
o Décrire l’usage que les apprenants francophones font des temps du passé de l’espagnol et les représentations qui sous-tendent l’usage dans les différentes étapes du processus d’apprentissage de la langue étrangère.
o Déterminer le rapport entre les données empiriques obtenues des apprenants (productions orales et écrites et jugements d’acceptabilité) et les descriptions des temps verbaux présentées auparavant.
o Mettre en relation ces données empiriques avec des hypothèses explicatives développées à partir de la Théorie de la Pertinence.
o Considérer l’utilité de la Théorie de la Pertinence pour l’étude de phénomènes d’acquisition des catégories grammaticales d’une langue étrangère (dans notre cas, les temps verbaux de l’espagnol). 

La enseñanza del español como segunda lengua en el bachillerato (high school) en los Estados Unidos presenta serias dificultades (sociales, económicas, etc.), a las que se suma cierto desconocimiento de carácter metodológico por parte de los docentes que no aprovechan las potencialidades de la aplicación del análisis del discurso en este nivel de enseñanza. Para contribuir a la solución de las dificultades antes mencionadas, esta investigación se traza como objetivo la elaboración de una propuesta metodológica basada en el análisis del discurso de la distinta tipología textual correspondiente al nivel B1 que deben alcanzar los estudiantes al culminar el bachillerato: el desarrollo de habilidades para la interacción comunicativa, las pautas para la autoevaluación que propone el Marco común europeo de referencia para las lenguas, que se adecuan a las necesidades de los estudiantes del high school, así como el enfoque cognitivo, comunicativo y sociocultural para contribuir a una mejor interacción comunicativa formarán parte del estudio que vamos a llevar a cabo.

 

La presente tesis, que consta de una parte preliminar y cuatro capítulos, es una investigación didáctica teórica y empírica sobre la enseñanza/aprendizaje del español coloquial conversacional a través del material cinematográfico para alumnos de español lengua extranjera (E/LE). La parte preliminar establece el problema de partida por medio de un diagnóstico inicial de las carencias, necesidades y preferencias del alumnado intermedio de E/LE en Varsovia, así como plantea los objetivos, hipótesis e interrogantes del estudio y la elección de las pautas pedagógicas de investigación. El capítulo I es el marco teórico de la investigación y, tras el análisis de la bibliografía, propone una clasificación de las constantes y estrategias del español coloquial conversacional susceptibles de explotación didáctica en el aula, investiga de qué forma puede el material cinematográfico contribuir a transmitir estos fenómenos y lleva a cabo una revisión histórica de los métodos que han abierto el camino al estudio del registro coloquial y al uso de los medios audiovisuales en el aula. El capítulo II es el marco práctico de la investigación y define las opciones metodológicas planteadas para la propia experimentación en el aula. El capítulo III es la investigación didáctica empírica con tres grupos de aprendientes y el IV se ocupa del análisis de los resultados gracias al cual se determinan las ventajas, inconvenientes y el balance final, lo que permite, a su vez, determinar las conclusiones, validar las hipótesis, comprobar el cumplimiento de los objetivos así como abrir el camino para nuevas investigaciones.

This dissertation is an empirical investigation of mitigation strategies in spoken Spanish between L1 speakers and advanced Swedish L2 learners. The first aim of our study is a pragmalinguistic analysis and description of the mitigating functions of a number of linguistic elements in our corpus. The second aim comprehends a study of three contrasts, namely, the use of mitigation strategies in (a) two speaker groups: L1 vs. L2 speakers; (b) two discourse types: semi-spontaneous discussion vs. negotiation role play; and (c) two cultural contexts: intra- vs. intercultural context. Our investigation is couched within the framework of face (Goffman 1967) and politeness theory (Brown and Levinson 1987), which assumes the existence of Face Threatening Acts (FTAs), which human beings, in interaction, strive to mitigate. However, by contrast with the traditional view of mitigation, and following Briz (e.g. 1998, 2007), Hernández Flores (2002), Bravo (2003b) and Albelda (2005), among others, we assume that mitigation need not imply protection of the hearer‟s (H) face, i.e., it does not necessarily express politeness, but can just as well stem from the speaker‟s (S) own face concerns only. In our proposal, we therefore distinguish between allocentric mitigation (H and S face protection with politeness) and autocentric mitigation (S face protection without politeness). The empirical data is a selection of 34 conversations from Corpus AKSAM (Fant et alii 1996), split between four subcorpora and six speaker groups: (1) L1 Spanish speakers in intracultural discussions; (2) L1 Swedish speakers in intracultural discussions; (3a) L1 Spanish and (3b) L2 Spanish speakers in intercultural discussions; (4a) L1 Spanish and (4b) L2 Spanish speakers in intercultural negotiations. The material has a total duration of about 20 hours and comprises around 232 000 words. On the basis of previous work, including studies of Spanish and Swedish cultural values and face concerns (chapter 2), and a characterization of the different discourse types included in the corpus, assigning them certain contextual features (chapter 3), we present three quantitative hypotheses, according to which we expect to find a more frequent use of mitigating expressions: (1) in L2 than in L1 speakers of Spanish; (2) in negotiation than in discussion; and (3) in an intercultural context than in an intracultural context. In chapter 4, we investigate 28 different mitigating expressions in the shape of single words or word like units, called mitigation markers (or mitigators). These are divided into two main categories: (1) epistemic mitigators, and (2) approximative, generalizing and limitative mitigators (approximators). Through detailed qualitative analyses of contextualized corpus examples, we account for the mitigating functions of these expressions in each speaker group. Chapter 5 provides a deeper examination of a strategy that goes beyond the word unit, the so called concessive moves. These moves have two parts, conjoined by the adversative conjunction but („pero‟), out of which the first part mitigates the potentially face-threatening content of the second part. The concessions are divided into two major categories depending on their orientation in terms of face protection: allocentric and autocentric concessive moves. The qualitative analyses in chapters 4 and 5 are complemented with quantitative and statistic analyses (ANOVA), in order to accomplish the contrastive second aim of the study and test the hypotheses. Our findings show significant differences in a number of aspects, partially corroborating the hypotheses and partially pointing in other directions than the expected. On a general level, speaker group (L1/L2) as well as type of conversation (intra- and intercultural discussion and intercultural negotiation) are shown to have an influence on the use of both mitigation markers and concessive moves in our corpus.