Heritage, Second-Language and Native Speakers’ Intuitions on Deictic Verbs in Spanish: Beyond the Linguist’s Intuitions
Chui, D. (2016). Heritage, Second-Language and Native Speakers’ Intuitions on Deictic Verbs in Spanish: Beyond the Linguist’s Intuitions. Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research, 5 (2), 38-43. doi: 10.7821/naer.2016.2.169
movement towards the listener
traer ‘to bring,’ and llevar ‘to take’
THE
EXPERIMENT
3
RD
forbidden
What about heritage speakers or
L2 speakers? Do they fit this pattern?
Speakers of Spanish
venir and traer
movement towards the speaker
acceptability judgments about
sentences with deictic verbs in Spanish
YES
9
scenarios
/dialogues
4
sentences
36
sentences
20 stimulus items
16 filler items
Participants
subsequently
assessed sentences such as
“¿Debo traer* algo?/Should I
bring something?”
Statistical ANALYSIS: :binary logistic regression in a Generalized Linear Mixed-Effects Model (GLMM)
They make more mistakes than native speakers when it comes
to assessing the grammaticality of deictic verbs oriented
towards the listener.
pragmatic transfer from English
(Colombia, Spain, Mexico, Honduras, Argentina, and Peru)
1st Question
They commit fewer errors than heritage speakers.
They forbid the use of the verbs venir-traer to refer to
movement towards the listener.
DIRECTION/SENSE
Heritage speaker
Native speaker
L2 speaker
IR, LLEVAR,
speaker/listener
TRAER AND VENIR
TIME
PARTICIPANT NUMBER SCENARIO
CODING time or
REFERENCE time
each participant with a number
3 Question
They utilize an intermediate system where the verbs venir and
traer may be used to express movement towards the listener.
12 Native speakers
TYPE
“Traer” and “venir” are similar regarding their comparison
with “llevar” and “ir” as far as both the main effects and the
bidirectional interactions are concerned; nevertheless, a
difference arises when the direction is towards the listener,
which suggests that “traer” constitutes a more acceptable
candidate for the movement of the deictic towards the listener
than “venir”.
rd
1st Question
They systematically apply English deictic rules to their
Spanish.
GROUP
2nd Question
34 Heritage speakers (Mexican parents)
An explicit teaching of deictic verbs is advisable.
1st Do heritage speakers of Spanish and those who speak it as an L2 commit more mistakes than native speakers in their evaluation about the grammaticality of deictic verbs oriented
towards the listener? 2nd To what extent do traer-venir and llevar-ir follow the same pattern? 3rd Is the theoretical separation between movement towards the speaker and movement
towards the listener justified by experimental data?
and questions
Discussion and conclusions
They have a lacuna in the knowledge of deictic verbs in Spain
(2 years’ exposure does not suffice).
The present study has gathered data about preferences regarding deictics of bilingual heritage speakers of Spanish and English (HS) and
compared those data with those corresponding to monolingual native speakers of Spanish (NS).
Objectives
Variables
1
ND
2
deictic verbs
ST venir
‘to come,’ ir ‘to go,’
Speakers of Spanish
venir and traer
in the US with at
least 2 years of Spanish)
29 L2 speakers (born
The direction of the movement is important and speakers tend
to make more errors when movement is directed towards the
speaker.
1st Question
They make more mistakes than native and heritage speakers
together when it comes to assessing the grammaticality of
deictic verbs oriented towards the listener.
They have a lacuna in the knowledge of deictic verbs in Spanish
(2 years’ exposure is not enough).
An explicit instruction about deictic verbs is advisable.
They systematically apply English deictic rules to their
Spanish.
The study
CORRECT
CORRECT: they accepted an acceptable stimulus or
rejected an unacceptable one. INCORRECT: they
rejected an acceptable stimulus or accepted an
unacceptable one.
Future
works
1
nd
2
st
More native speakers (Mexico).
Contrasting the results of monolingual native
speakers living in Mexico with those obtained
for native speakers of Spanish who have
resided in the United States over a prolonged
period of time.
3
rd
Generating the production of deictic verbs
along with judgments about grammaticality
makes it clear that verbal deixis is a topic which can be examined from a fresh perspective through the use of
applications with the capacity to offer a higher degree or discernment, such as the general linear mixed-effects
model. Thanks to these new methods, linguists will be able to go beyond their intuition and the anecdotal tests to reach far
more rigorous conclusions.
Journal of New Approaches
in Educational Research
http://naerjournal.ua.es
doi:10.7821/naer.2016.2.169.01
Editors: Dra. Rosabel Roig Vila and Dr. Santiago Mengual Andrés
Paper design and adaptation: Àngel Vilaplana Camús
Graphic content: Freepik.es