CfP: The acquisition of discourse markers in Romance languages as L2 (Workshop), 46th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (2nd circular)
- Ort: Split, Kroatien
- Beginn: 18.09.13
- Ende: 21.09.13
- Disziplinen: Sprachwissenschaft
- Sprachen: Sprachenübergreifend
- Frist: 15.01.13
Acquisitional studies have mainly paid attention to phonetic and morphosyntactic phenomena and only in the last years discourse organization has been on focus in L2 studies. First approaches to this subject have shown that the acquisition of some discourse elements, like discourse particles – understood here in a broad sense as to include connectives, focus particles, interactional discourse markers, etc. – present special difficulties for L2 learners, but research in this field has not really developed until theoretical descriptions on discourse markers in Romance language were accurate enough.
The study of discourse markers has become an important domain in Romance Linguistics in the last 30 years. Since the pioneer study of Gülich (1970), research in this field has rapidly increased. There are still many unanswered questions regarding the type of lexical items that can be considered as discourse markers, the kind of functions they assume in discourse and if it is possible to establish a cross-linguistic valid taxonomy of these functions, the relationships between function and position in the utterance, the kind of meaning (either conceptual, procedural or both) that these particles convey, etc. Notwithstanding, discourse markers are today considered as a canonical object of Romance linguistics as it is attested by their presence in descriptive grammars as well as in linguistic introductions to spoken language (e.g., to name only a few, Martín Zorraquino/Portolés 1999; Bazzanella 22001; Koch/Oesterreicher 1990). Some Romance languages like Spanish have even several lexicographic works devoted to discourse markers (Santos Río 2003, Fuentes 2009, Briz et al. 1998-2012).
However, studies on the role of discourse markers in the learning and teaching of Romance languages as L2 have begun only ten years ago. We have already at our disposal descriptions of some connectives (Andorno 2008, Borreguero 2009a/b, Pernas 2009) and focus particles (Benazzo et al. 2004; Benazzo 2008; Watorek/Dimroth 2005), but research relative to their discursive and interpersonal functions in oral interaction (the structuring of discourse, turn taking, utterance planning, modalisation, back channel, etc.) is at its first stage, in spite of the key role that discourse markers have in communicative competence (Bardel 2003, 2004; Andorno 2005, 2007; Guil et al. 2008).
Learning and teaching discourse markers is not a simple task. Sometimes considered as the most “malicious” elements of second language learning, discourse markers represent a challenge both for linguists and teachers (Wichmann/Chanet 2009). This is due – among other things – to their heterogeneous character: they are in fact difficult to ascribe to a traditional grammatical category and constitute a functional class, they have normally undergone a process of desemantization, are often pragmatically polyfunctional, and their function depends on prosodic and syntactic features. Besides, there are no strict correspondences between discourse markers of different language, not even between close-related ones.
In view of these properties, the study of the process of discourse marker acquisition appears to be particularly interesting. Until now most studies have been devoted to the study of these elements in the first stages of acquisition (Bini/Pernas 2008; Klaeger/Thoerle, in press), where these elements are less frequent, phonetically light and/or lexically similar to other particles of the learner’s L1 and assume functions that are not present in native speakers. However, some works have been concerned with the acquisition in intermediate and advanced levels (Hanckock 2010) and have detected processes of fossilization (Romero Trillo 2002) that confirm the hypothesis of a difficult acquisition process and thus insufficient didactic strategies in this field.
The workshop aims at presenting the state of the art after ten years of research in the field and the main current problems that require urgent solution to advance in this field of research. Researchers from all over Europe working on discourse markers in Romance languages as well as on the acquisition of oral and written competence in learners with different native languages will discuss together about the best ways to deal with a variety of problems in the acquisition and didactics, comprehension and translation of discourse markers without forgetting the cross-linguistic studies that are at the basis of these analysis.
The main subjects to be addressed would be:
1. The comparison between discourse markers in different languages.
− Comparison of discourse markers in different Romance languages or in Romance and Non-Romance languages.
− Main problems in the translation of discourse markers.
2. The use of discourse markers in L2.
− Interlanguage phenomena (Selinker 1972) concerning the use of discourse markers such as transfer from L1 or other L2, interferences, overgeneralisations, etc.
− Formal aspects of the use of discourse markers in L2. What forms/combinations of forms are first (or very late) acquired? What syntactic or prosodic properties of these forms can be observed in L2?
− Functional aspects of the use of discourse markers in L2: do they present a more reduced or a broader polyfunctionality with regard to their L1 functions?
− Role of discourse markers within the acquisition of conversational strategies. How the absence of discourse markers is supplied by paralinguistic and non-verbal elements.
− Influence of the context of acquisition (institutional/scholar settings, linguistic immersion)
− How are discourse markers processed by L2 learners? Are they able to decode the processing instruction conveyed by these elements?
3. Corpus linguistics in L2
− Collecting data: how to select the informants; what types of data (elicited in more artificial or “natural” settings) are more adequate for the analysis of discourse marker acquisition.
− Implication of qualitative and quantitative approaches for the study of acquisition processes.
− Methods of transcriptions, tagging and editing
4. Didactics of oral competence
− Analysis of textbooks/methods, regarding the ways discourse markers are dealt with.
− Strategies for the teaching of discourse markers in L2.
Registration and submission of abstracts via the conference website: www.sle2013.eu
Deadline: January 15, 2013
Official languages in the workshop: Romance languages, English
Workshop convenors:
Dr. Margarita Borreguero Zuloaga
Profesor Titular, Dpto. de Filología Italiana
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
mbzuloag@filol.ucm.es
Prof. Dr. Britta Thörle
Romanistik/Angewandte Sprachwissenschaft
Universität Siegen
thoerle@romanistik.uni-siegen.de
Publiziert von: LS