Translation, Technology
and Autonomy in
Language Teaching
and Learning
Edited by Pilar Alderete-Díez,
Laura Incalcaterra McLoughlin,
Labhaoise Ní Dhonnchadha
and Dorothy Ní Uigín
Peter Lang
This volume brings together contributions from academics, languageteachers and practitioners from across Europe and beyond to discuss questions of autonomy and technology in the area of language learning and translation. The book focuses on English, French, Italian, Irish and Spanish language acquisition, but many of the essays also develop an interlinguistic perspective from a plurilingual point of view.
The book opens with key contributions from a number of leading scholars: Dr Daniel Cassany on critical literacies, Professor Henrik Gottlieb on translation into ‘minor’ languages, and Professor David Little on autonomy in language learning. These are followed by explorations of translation, technology, intercultural issues, autonomous learning and the European Language Portfolio. The volume represents an important contribution to the development of new plurilingual approaches to language teaching and learning.
Pilar Alderete-Díez is a university teacher in Spanish at the National University of Ireland, Galway. She is currently completing a PhD in language learning and classroom research with the University of Valladolid.
Laura Incalcaterra McLoughlin lectures at the National University of Ireland, Galway. She is co-director of the MA in Advanced Language Skills and teaches Italian language and translation.
Labhaoise Ní Dhonnchadha is a Learning Technologist with specific responsibil-ity for Modern Languages. She manages the multimedia language laboratories at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
Dorothy Ní Uigín works in Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
A lder et e-Díe z, Inc alc at er ra M cL oughlin, Ní D honnchadha and Ní U igín (eds) Tr ansla tion, T echnolo g y and A ut onom y in L anguage Teaching and L ear ning www.peterlang.com ISBN 978-3-0343-0812-0
ISFLL Vol. 12
12
Translation, Technology
and Autonomy in
Language Teaching
and Learning
Edited by Pilar Alderete-Díez,
Laura Incalcaterra McLoughlin,
Labhaoise Ní Dhonnchadha
and Dorothy Ní Uigín
Peter Lang
This volume brings together contributions from academics, languageteachers and practitioners from across Europe and beyond to discuss questions of autonomy and technology in the area of language learning and translation. The book focuses on English, French, Italian, Irish and Spanish language acquisition, but many of the essays also develop an interlinguistic perspective from a plurilingual point of view.
The book opens with key contributions from a number of leading scholars: Dr Daniel Cassany on critical literacies, Professor Henrik Gottlieb on translation into ‘minor’ languages, and Professor David Little on autonomy in language learning. These are followed by explorations of translation, technology, intercultural issues, autonomous learning and the European Language Portfolio. The volume represents an important contribution to the development of new plurilingual approaches to language teaching and learning.
Pilar Alderete-Díez is a university teacher in Spanish at the National University of Ireland, Galway. She is currently completing a PhD in language learning and classroom research with the University of Valladolid.
Laura Incalcaterra McLoughlin lectures at the National University of Ireland, Galway. She is co-director of the MA in Advanced Language Skills and teaches Italian language and translation.
Labhaoise Ní Dhonnchadha is a Learning Technologist with specific responsibil-ity for Modern Languages. She manages the multimedia language laboratories at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
Dorothy Ní Uigín works in Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
A lder et e-Díe z, Inc alc at er ra M cL oughlin, Ní D honnchadha and Ní U igín (eds) Tr ansla tion, T echnolo g y and A ut onom y in L anguage Teaching and L ear ning www.peterlang.com
ISFLL Vol. 12
12
Edited by
Arnd Witte and Theo Harden
Volume 12
Oxford · Bern · Berlin · Bruxelles · Frankfurt am Main · New York · Wien PETER LANG
Language Teaching and Learning
edited by Pilar Alderete-Díez, Laura Incalcaterra McLoughlin,
Labhaoise Ní Dhonnchadha and Dorothy Ní Uigín
PETER LANG Oxford · Bern · Berlin · Bruxelles · Frankfurt am Main · New York · Wien
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Printed in Germany
detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
International Conference on Translation, Technology and Autonomy in Language Teaching and Learning (1st : 2010 : National University of Ireland, Galway)
Translation, technology and autonomy in language teaching and learning / [edited by] Pilar Alderete-Diez ... [et al.].
p. cm.
Articles are presented in English, Spanish, Italian, and Gaelic (Irish).
“The papers included in this volume were presented at the First International Conference on Translation, Technology and Autonomy in Language Teaching and Learning, held at the National University of Ireland, Galway on 10 and 11 December 2010.”
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-3-0343-0812-0 (alk. paper)
1. Language and languages--Study and teaching--Congresses. 2. Language and languages--Study and teaching--Technological
innovations--Congresses. 3. Second language acquisition--Congresses. 4. Translating and interpreting--Congresses. 5. Learner
autonomy--Congresses. 6. Communication--Cross-cultural studies--Congresses. I. Alderete-Diez, Pilar, 1975- II. Title. P53.I529 2010 418.0071--dc23 2012019533 ISSN 1663-5809 ISBN 978-3-0343-0812-0 (print) ISBN 978-3-0353-0340-7 (eBook)
List of Figures xi
List of Tables xiii
Buíochas/Acknowledgements xvii
Nollaig Mac Congáil
Brollach/Preface xix Réamhrá/Introduction 1
Part One Guest Contributors 9
Daniel Cassany
Foreign Language Reading from the Point of View
of New Literacy Studies 11
Henrik Gottlieb
Translation into ‘Minor’ Languages: Invisibility vs. Anglification 37
David Little
Learner Autonomy, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, the European Language Portfolio
Part Two Translation 93
Emma García Sanz
El uso del diccionario en el aula de traducción 95
Elisa Ghia
Audiovisual Translation as Acquisitional Input:
Quantitative and Qualitative Aspects 117
Cristina Oddone
Translation in Language Learning:
Comparing and Contrasting Film Titles 137
Maria Pavesi
The Potentials of Audiovisual Dialogue for
Second Language Acquisition 155
Lucía Pintado Gutiérrez
The Use of Translation towards Foreign Language
Autonomous Learning 175
Verónica C. Trujillo-González
Principales Características y Dificultades traductológicas
de un diccionario cultural 197
Part Three Technology 217
Emanuela Cotroneo
Da Facebook a Ning per imparare l’italiano:
Alessandra Giglio
‘Racconto L2.0’: Esercitare la Produzione Scritta in Rete 241
Susanna Nocchi
Buongiorno, mi dica…or: Can a Virtual World Help Me Learn
How to Deal with a Real Life Problem? 265
Part Four Intercultural Issues 289
Florence Le Baron-Earle
Social Media and the Acquisition of Intercultural Communicative Competence: A Focus on Discussion Forums 291
Victor Bayda
Teagasc na Gaeilge i Stát-Ollscoil Mhoscó 317
Claudia Borghetti
Pursuing Intercultural and Communicative Goals in
the Foreign Language Classroom: Clues from Selected Models
of Intercultural Competence 333
Part Five Autonomous Learning and the Portfolio 361
Encarnación Atienza and M. Vicenta González Argüello
El portafolio de formación desde el punto de visa del formando 363
Patrick Farren
Autonomous Language Teaching:
Belinda McHale
An Foghlaimeoir Machnamhach:
Fís Mhíréadúil nó Féidearthacht Mhór? 403
Part Six Language Teaching 421
Linda Butler
Building Autonomy in Language Learning through Drama 423
Nataša Gajšt
Autonomous Business and Economics Terminology Acquisition in a Bilingual Context: A Glossary Based Approach 441
Elena González-Cascos Jiménez and Laura Filardo Llamas
Are They Children or Adults? The Lack of Impact of the
Tenor Contextual Variable in EFL Classroom Materials 467
Jennifer Hatte
Technology, Tradition and Flexibility in the Teaching of Second Year ab initio French to Distance University Students
in the Australian Context 481
Éamon Ó Cofaigh
Learning French through Irish: The Impact of Bilingualism
on the Acquisition of French as an L3 499
Notes on Contributors 521
Index of Names 527
Frontispiece by Marina Wild
Figure 1 A traducir…se aprende traduciendo 110–13 Figure 2 Engeström’s Activity Theory System 274 Figure 3 Activity Theoretical Diagram of a Role-Play 278 Figure 4 Freagraí na Mac Léinn ar an gCeist ‘Cén fáth ar thug tú
faoin nGaeilge?’ 320 Figure 5 Balboni’s Model of Intercultural Communication Competence 343 Figure 6 Language and Communication in the Classroom Context 470
Table 1 Cognitive Orientation v. Socio-Cultural Perspective 15 Table 2 Importance of Translations 41 Table 3 Importance of English in Translations 42 Table 4 Importance of English Translations in Denmark 43 Table 5 Provenance of Books Translated into Danish/Dutch 44 Table 6 Languages Translated into Danish (1979–2005) 45 Table 7 Translations from English in Denmark (2010 estimates) 46 Table 8 Types of Print Media Translation 53 Table 9 A Case of Two-Step Anglification 65 Table 10 From Germanisms to Anglicisms: A Textbook Example 65 Table 11 Results of English Impact on Intranational Communication 66 Table 12 Continenti presenti in Facebook nel mese di dicembre 2010 225 Table 13 Fasce di età presenti in Facebook nel mese di dicembre 2010 225 Table 14 Le funzioni de Facebook in ottica didattica 227 Table 15 I principali social network per l’apprendimento linguistico 229 Table 16 I principali social software e social service 232 Table 17 Punteggio medio riportato dai corsisti 236 Table 18 The SL® Course 277 Table 19 Types of Disruption in Role-Plays 280 Table 20 Project Details 304 Table 21 Summary of Students’ Comments 309
Table 22 Students’ Comments on How the Discussion Forum Made Them Learn about French Culture 310 Table 23 The Selected Models in Relation to Three Research Questions 338 Table 24 A Summary of the Analysis 352–3 Table 25 Corpus de Análisis 365 Table 26 The Number of Students Submitting the Seminar Papers
Per Course and Per Academic Year 448 Table 27 Selection of Texts 450 Table 28 Selection of Technical Terminology 452 Table 29 Search for and Choice of Definitions 454 Table 30 Translation (Translating Vocabulary and Translation Process) 457 Table 31 Students’ Attitudes and Perceptions of Personal Achievements 459 Table 32 Corpus of Texts for Analysis 473 Table 33 Average Scores for Mainstream and Fraincis trí Ghaeilge Students
in 1BA Language 510 Table 34 Average Scores for Mainstream and Fraincis trí Ghaeilge Students
in 1BA French 511 Table 35 Average Scores for Mainstream and Fraincis trí Ghaeilge Students
in 2BA Language 511 Table 36 Average Scores for Mainstream and Fraincis trí Ghaeilge Students
in 2BA French 512 Table 37 Average Scores for Mainstream and Fraincis trí Ghaeilge Students
in 3/4BA Language 512 Table 38 Average Scores for Mainstream and Fraincis trí Ghaeilge Students
in 3/4BA French 513 Table 39 Average Scores for Mainstream, Fraincis trí Ghaeilge
and Native Irish Bilingual Students in 1BA Language 514 Table 40 Average Scores for Mainstream, Fraincis trí Ghaeilge
Table 41 Average Scores for Mainstream, Fraincis trí Ghaeilge
and Native Irish Bilingual Students in 3/4BA Language 515 Table 42 Average Student Language Progression (English Students) 516 Table 43 Average Student Language Progression (Irish Students) 516 Table 44 Average Student Overall Progression (English Students) 517 Table 45 Average Student Overall Progression (Irish Students) 517
Ba mhór ag na heagarthóirí buíochas a ghabáil le Comhairle Taighde na hÉireann um na Daonnachtaí agus na hEolaíochtaí Sóisialta (IRCHSS) as a ndeontas fial don fhoilseachán seo. Ní mór buíochas a ghabháil freisin leis na piarmheasúnóirí a chuidigh linn go fonnmhar agus an foilseachán seo á ullmhú. Ba dheas linn buíochas a ghabháil leis na mic léinn agus aon duine eile a chuidigh linn le linn na comhdhála i nGaillimh (10–11 Nollaig 2010) as ar eascair an foilseachán. Tá buíochas ar leith tuillte ag Marina Wild, sár-ealaíontóir a dhear póstéir na comhdhála agus a bhfuil a saothar le feiceáil anseo freisin. Ár mbuíochas chomh maith leis an Ollamh Nollaig Mac Congáil, Meabhranaí agus Uachtarán Ionaid OÉ Gaillimh, a scríobh brollach an leabhair dúinn. Gabhaimid buíochas lenár muintir a thacaigh linn agus an obair seo idir lámha. Ní fhéadfaí an foilseachán seo a thabhairt chun críche gan cuidiú agus saineolas ár sár-chóipeagarthóir, Anna Mc Donnell Dowling – go raibh maith agat, a Anna. Ar deireadh, ba mhaith linn buíochas a ghabháil le gach duine in Peter Lang, Christabel Scaife go háirithe, agus na heagarthóirí sraithe Arnd Witte agus Theo Harden. The editors wish to express their gratitude to the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) for their generous grant in support of this publication. Gratitude is also owing to the peer review-ers who gave of their time willingly and freely to help in the preparation of this volume. We would like to thank all the students and others who helped at the conference in Galway (10–11 December 2010) from which this publication emanated. A special thanks to Marina Wild, the very talented artist who designed the artwork for our posters and whose work is reproduced again in this volume. Our thanks to Professor Nollaig Mac Congáil, Registrar and Vice-President of NUI Galway, for writing the preface to our publication. We also thank our families for their support during the preparation of this book. We could not have completed this
work without the help and expertise of our excellent copyeditor Anna Mc Donnell Dowling – thank you, Anna. Finally we would like to thank all at Peter Lang, in particular Christabel Scaife, and the series editors Arnd Witte and Theo Harden.
Brollach/Preface
At an early stage of the world’s history, communication was at a relatively low level which probably ref lected the narrow parameters of life as it was then experienced and practised. With the passage of time, basic survival and economic necessity forced communities to fan out in all directions over hills, across plains and over oceans. This led, in turn, to a concomitant diversification of verbal communication by homo loquens; hence the
evo-lution of languages. Over centuries thousands of languages have evolved and some have become extinct. Some have become dominant world lan-guages, whereas others have been relegated to very lowly and localised status. Factors inf luencing the dissemination of languages include econom-ics, military expansion, diplomacy, emigration, religion, literacy, politeconom-ics, technology and, of increasing importance currently, entertainment in all its manifestations.
Knowledge of another language other than one’s own was initially at a basic level to communicate or elicit the rudimentary information required. Thus, the monoglot Gaelic-speaker from Ireland communicated his needs in English-speaking lands by pointing to items required and said ‘Give it!’ This level of knowledge of a foreign language was adequate for his needs. The linguistic needs of others, however, were and are on a dif ferent level. The dissemination of religions and expansion of empires, for instance, necessitated a higher level of linguistic competence and versatility. The invention of the printing press, the establishment of schools and universi-ties and the spread of literacy and development of technologies of mass communication has brought the whole question of languages to the fore as never before.
Universities are the natural fora where all aspects of languages can be discussed in an intellectual way, divorced from but conscious of all ethnic, religious, political or other bias. Within their walls is a creative space where
languages in all their manifestations exist and f lourish. There, experience of and expertise on language teaching and learning, translation, technology, pedagogy, literature, politics, culture can be shared and accessed.
Ireland, and, more particularly, National University of Ireland, Galway was an ideal location for the first International Conference on Transla-tion, Technology and Autonomy in Language Teaching and Learning / An tAistriúchán, an Teicneolaíocht agus an Fhoghlaim Fhéinriartha i dTeagasc agus i bhFoghlaim Teangacha which was held in the winter of 2010 and organized by the university’s School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge and the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching. Galway is the most traditional, lin-guistically and culturally speaking, of Ireland’s cities, located beside the most extensive Gaelic-speaking area or Gaeltacht in the world and having at its centre a large university which aspires towards bilingual status. Such a location provides a workshop for practitioners and experts in the field. In tandem with a vibrant School of Languages, the University’s commit-ment to and investcommit-ment in excellence in teaching and learning and its pre-eminence in information technology, all combine to provide valu-able and informed input into wide-ranging discussions on all aspects of language-related topics.
Speakers came from the four corners of Ireland and, indeed, of the world and paraded their wares, introducing us to the familiar and less-familiar in terms of languages, cultures, strategies and methodologies. All levels were catered for, from basic to intellectual, from practical to esoteric, from spoken language to literature. Learned and detailed papers, repro-duced in this book, were presented on many aspects of language learning and teaching, methodologies and pedagogies, traditional and innovative, literature and culture, translation and interpreting, hands on and hands of f, psychological nuancing, etc. It is a veritable feast in terms of range and diversity.
The world has been revolutionized by the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press, the availability of accessible world travel and the universality of the internet. All of these have impacted on languages in many dif ferent ways in recent years in particular. It is important that such dramatic and far-reaching developments should be discussed at appropriate intellectual
fora as has happened at this First International Language Conference, the fruits of which are contained in this book of proceedings. Tá súil agam go mbainfear eolas agus tairbhe as na cainteanna a tugadh ag an gComhdháil seo agus atá i gcló sa leabhar seo. Tá súil agam fosta go leanfar ar aghaidh le comhdhálacha eile a mbeidh sé mar sprioc acu barr feabhais a bhaint amach sna réimsí cuí a bhaineas le chuile ghné de cheist na dteangacha. We have travelled a long way from cane to mouse, from bata scoir to hypnosis.
and Dorothy Ní Uigín
Réamhrá/Introduction
The papers included in this volume were presented at the First Interna-tional Conference on Translation, Technology and Autonomy in Language Teaching and Learning, held at the National University of Ireland, Galway on 10 and 11 December 2010. The aim of the conference was to provide an international multilingual forum for discussion and exchange of ideas on language teaching and learning and the resulting publication is, there-fore, a snapshot of current research trends, language policy and teaching practices across Europe. The articles have been double peer-reviewed, a process that added greatly to the quality and the richness of the material presented here.
Language teaching and the innovation of many language teachers have not always received due regard or acknowledgement, and indeed – in Ireland at least – language teaching has suf fered reduced funding at all levels in recent years. With this conference and publication, therefore, we sought to showcase the work of language teachers and translators at every educational level and across a series of languages – those most commonly taught in the schools and colleges in Ireland. Included here is Irish, since it is taught widely and at all educational levels, but is not always included under the heading of ‘Modern Languages’. As NUI Galway is committed to encouraging the establishment of a bilingual campus, and is to the fore in promoting education through Irish, it was important that this work was included in our conference and publication.
The teaching and learning of modern languages does not date back as far as one might think. It was not a central part of the curriculum in Euro-pean schools until the eighteenth century (Ellis, 1992: 2). Using methods that copied the teaching of Latin, teachers based language learning on the explanation of grammatical rules and translation. Oral interaction was not
a priority and strategies such as memorization, analysis and the produc-tion of written language were the key to language learning. From these principles the ‘grammar-translation’ method developed.
Having received much criticism in the twentieth century, this method has been recently reappraised in light of the review of cognitive strategies for language learning, and because of this, translation is making its way back into our classrooms. This is discussed in Part Two of this volume: the section is dedicated to translation in FL (Foreign Language) teach-ing, and covers topics such as the use of dictionaries in translation classes (Emma García Sanz) and the potential of audiovisual translation in language learning (Elisa Ghia, Cristina Oddone, Maria Pavesi). The significance of translation in fostering autonomous learning is discussed by Lucía Pintado Gutiérrez, while Verónica C. Trujillo-González examines the dif ficulties of translating cultural terms, and the benefits of cultural dictionaries.
The twentieth century was dominated by various language-teaching approaches that may be categorized as direct methods or natural methods. They attempted to teach languages through the use of the target language only, aided by non-verbal cues and a teacher-led inductive approach. These direct methods were the precursors of the communicative approach, which dominated the field until recently. New approaches to language teaching tended to ignore, not only the advantages of the previous methods, but also the students’ previous knowledge.
This anti-L1 (first language) standpoint has been a central element in late twentieth century language teaching and learning. Stemming from it is the discouragement of the use of the L1 in the classroom, which of course, dif fers from everyday practice. In general, teachers have a sense that using the target language as much as possible is important; however, they may not yet be in agreement as to how this is best achieved (Polio & Duf f, 1994: 324). Direct methods and the communicative approach suggest that the L1 should not to be used in L2 teaching and should be left outside the language classroom. According to Howatt (1984: 289), ‘the monolingual principle, the unique contribution of the twentieth century to classroom language teaching, remains the bedrock notion from which the others ulti-mately derive’. Stern (1992: 281) feels that the ‘intra-lingual’ position is still so strong that ‘many writers do not even consider cross-lingual objectives’,
even though the academic world encourages interdisciplinary approaches. As we can see in this volume of articles, however, recent approaches are not as prescriptive in forbidding L1. Part Six, in particular, contains papers dealing specifically with language teaching and of fers a wide range of topics from the assessment of learning materials created for bilingual schools (Elena González-Cascos Jiménez and Laura Filardo Llamas) to the creation of autonomous language learners through drama (Linda Butler). Éamon Ó Cofaigh, meanwhile, discusses the benefits of learning French through Irish, and Jennifer Hatte’s article deals with teaching French in a distance learning environment. Finally, Nataša Gajšt gives an interesting account of how learners of English in Slovenia have had success with a glossary based approach to language learning.
The original justification for the exclusion of the L1 in the L2 class-room was based on the ideal equivalence of L1 acquisition and L2 learning. The assumption underlying this justification is that the only completely successful method of language learning is that used by children learning their first language. Language teaching, therefore, needed to match the features of L1 acquisition. Karen Atkinson and Robert Phillipson have examined the reasons behind this assumption: they maintain that the approach stems from the political context of the spread of English as a global language, characterized by several languages in the classroom and the teacher’s inability to speak them. This creates distance between the teacher and the student and restricts the possibilities for language learning rather than enhancing them. L2 learners, however, generally come into the class with an L1, a certain level of social development, a developed short-term memory and relative autonomy (Singleton & Little 1984). Above all L2 learners already know how to negotiate meaning, which is a clear advantage that children do not have. The articles in this volume explore specific language learning contexts and how to best respond to students’ needs, maximizing the value of their previous knowledge and applying it to second language learning.
Language immersion has, in recent years, become the preferred lan-guage-learning approach, based on the empirical evidence that a higher exposure to authentic input normally leads to better f luency. Programmes such as Erasmus/Comenius in the European Union were established in the
light of these beliefs. These programmes include the enriching environment of the target culture and are geared to the development of intercultural competence as well. Part Four of this volume includes several articles that deal specifically with this topic: Victor Bayda, for example, examines the dif ficulties Russian students of Irish experience with some of the cultural dif ferences between Ireland and Russia – dif ferences often exhibited in the language itself. Florence Le BarEarle discusses the ef fectiveness of on-line forums in the acquisition of intercultural competence, while Claudia Borghetti provides a comprehensive overview of the discourse surrounding intercultural competence, and provides a useful basis for the development of a methodological model of same.
The authors of the many articles in this publication show that it makes sense to examine all the language teaching and language learning methods available in a positive manner and to apply them as appropriate to of fer the student the best guidance in language learning. This attitude has earned our era the label of the ‘post-methods era’ (Richards, 1981: 35). Brown (2002) criticized the concept of method believing that it was naïve to think that teachers’ procedures can be rationalized into a prototype (170), and Kumaravadivelu (1994) questioned the theory-driven nature of some methods, derived from disciplines such as linguistics, psycholinguistics etc (29). Richards and Rogers (2001: 20) argue that the time and social contexts of these methods are ignored and that they were responding to the specific demands of their context, and were not developed as infallible scientific truths. Brown’s (2002) postmodern pedagogy compares the teacher to a doctor, who is capable of diagnosing the needs of his/her students and giving them advice in the use of successful strategies that facilitate their learning (11). Nunan, meanwhile, believes that balance between theory and practice will be reached when research and insights about language learning of fer joint empirical solutions (1991: 1).
Recent debates about language teaching and learning have included dis-cussions about Computer-Assisted Language Learning or CALL, another focal point of this volume. Levy introduced the term in 1997 as ‘the search for and study of applications of the computer in language teaching and learning’ (1). CALL includes all types of information technology and it emerged in the 1960s with traditional behaviourist software programmes.
In recent years CALL has seen a mindboggling development of these first small software packages into the realm of virtual learning environments and massive multiplayer online games (MMOs) as well as blogs, wikis, podcasts and social networks characteristic of Web 2.0 (soon to become Web 3.0). The use of classroom technology such as pointers, interactive whiteboards and, more recently, mobile-assisted learning – with the pro-liferation of Smartphone technologies and tablets – also come under the CALL umbrella. Most of these ICT tools, however, are not used on their own as language programmes, but have aided the creation of blended learning programmes. Blended learning mingles classroom interaction and computer-based activities. Countries, including Ireland, are investing at a national level in the creation of free digital resources deposited in the NDLR (National Digital Learning Resources) to help in language teach-ing and learnteach-ing – as well as other areas of academia. The third section of this volume focuses on the impact of new technologies on language teaching and discusses the wide-ranging implications of the didactic use of social networking tools now widely available in Web 2.0 (Emanuela Cotroneo), the use of blogs to improve writing skills (Alessandra Giglio) and the potential of Second Life and virtual worlds for promoting inter-cultural awareness (Susanna Nocchi).
Language teaching and learning has developed a considerable corpus of educational techniques and the quest for the ideal method is part and parcel of that tradition. The model designed by Byalistok (in Tunku Mohani, 1991) in 1978 ref lected a change in viewpoint in language learning. The main innovation in this model was the introduction of the concept of ‘other knowledge,’ which could refer to another language or to knowledge of a dif ferent kind. The second innovation that this model presented was ‘strat-egies’. Student strategies and later on, teacher strategies, have become the object of much research conducted in the last few. In this volume, teachers and researchers of fer their insights, showing how teaching approaches can cooperate with, rather than compete against, each other, enriching both teacher and student perspectives.
Several of the papers in this publication draw on the research of our three guest speakers at the Galway conference: Dr Daniel Cassany, Prof. Henrik Gottlieb and Prof. David Little. Daniel Cassany is engaged in the
new line of research called Critical Literacies and sheds some light on the way students all over the world have learnt their first language. These insights of fer a dif ferent perspective on how these students approach the learning of a second or third language. It focuses on student voices by tell-ing the stories of several students from very dif ferent parts of the world, extracted from a database created by the Critical Literacies Research project conducted in University Pompeu i Fabra in Barcelona in Spain.
Henrik Gottlieb’s article, meanwhile, challenges the foreignization strategy in translation, especially when applied outside the Anglo-American context. Gottlieb argues that the use of such a strategy outside that context increases the impact of English on languages already subject to the inf luence of the Anglo-American culture. A wealth of data is supplied in his article, in a detailed analysis of the trends of the translation market.
Finally, David Little’s article discusses the notion of autonomous learn-ing in the context of the European Portfolio and the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Professor Little is one of the archi-tects of the Framework and a leading expert in autonomous learning. The fifth section of the book develops the topic of autonomy in language teaching and learning – in the vein of David Little’s keynote contribution – and depicts dif ferent approaches to both concepts of autonomy. Encar-nación Atienza’s and M. Vicenta González Argüello’s article, for example, discusses the use of portfolios in language teaching and learning. Belinda McHale explores autonomous learning in the Irish-language classroom in the context of a focus group of A2 learners, while Patrick Farren argues that autonomous language teaching is a pre-requisite for autonomous language learning.
In the spirit of multilingualism and plurilingualism, this volume con-tains articles in four languages, and deals with many more. In a world where English is fast becoming the lingua franca, we have sought to celebrate all
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(Translated by Pilar Alderete-Díez and Lorna Shaughnessy)
Foreign Language Reading from the Point of View
of New Literacy Studies
11 Reading in a Foreign Language and
New Literacy Studies
The practice of ‘Reading in a foreign language’ usually involves a few common ideas or axioms, which are seldom discussed openly. I am refer-ring to assumptions, representations or concepts such as:
1. Learners already know how to read in their mother tongue and can transfer this skill to the foreign language. This af firmation implies that reading is the same in every language, community, context and time period.
2. Reading involves the recovery of the content of the written text and this content is located in its words. This af firmation assumes that other aspects of reading such as the purpose of reading, the characteristics of the texts, the roles that reader and author take on, and the circum-stances under which reading develops (context, moment, etc.) are not relevant.
1 Part of the data used in this paper comes from a research project called Descripción de algunas prácticas letradas recientes. Análisis lingüístico y propuesta didáctica (HUM2007–
62118/FILO; 2007–2011), from Plan Nacional de Investigación Científica, Desarrollo e Innovación Tecnológica funded by the Spanish Government. The Literacitat Crítica team that coordinates this Project, integrated in Gr@el (Research group on the teaching and learning of languages), is also funded by the Catalan government as a consolidated research group (AGAUR 2009 SGR 803, 3–7–2009). I would like to acknowledge the help of Youssef Afeita, Ibrahim Akazi, Yu-Chin Li, Liana Egiazarian, Bahareh Mahdavi and Roberto Ortí in the elaboration of this paper.
3. The vocabulary and grammar of the foreign language need to be learnt in order to recover the content. This af firmation assumes that the only dif ference between reading in Spanish and other languages stems from linguistic competence, or in other words, that in every community or context people read in the same way, or even that any specific aspects of reading in dif ferent contexts are irrelevant.
4. Reading is a universal and homogenous skill, based on cognitive proc-esses which have a human biological basis, so that there are neither cultural nor pragmatic variations in the way each community uses written texts.
These four af firmations derive from a cognitive psychological perspective, which reduces the practice of reading to the mental activity involved in its process and ignores the physical, contextual, pragmatic and cultural par-ticularities of every literacy act. Thus, these previous af firmations ignore the following elements:
a) The physical features and qualities of each textual artefact (paper, screen, profile, graf fiti);
b) The processes of production, distribution and reception of the artefact, with their particular circumstances (cost, speed, distribution channel, production and reception contexts, etc.);
c) The space-time parameters of each literate situation: geographical and social enclave (institution, environment), historical moment, epistemological stance or discipline (science, arts, entertainment); d) The roles that the author and the reader assume in each context (teacher,
journalist, neighbour, colleague), as well as their psychosocial aspects (identity, social status, intellectual and moral authority, worldview); e) The pre-established procedures in each reading practice (commu-nicative purpose, discourse genre, structure, protocol, rhetoric and politeness) as well as the insertion of this reading practice in its social context: the relationship between reading and speaking, between text and terms, rights and duties;
f ) The values and attitudes associated with each reading practice (Is it prestigious? Does it lend power to the author? Is it considered original
or repetitive?), as well as the political and social order that rises from each practice or the power at stake or the forms of domination and resistance that are exercised in it.
Without these specific aspects and circumstances, each reading practice loses its peculiarities and dissolves into a general, abstract, homogene-ous and neutral activity. Reading a novel on paper, skimming through a sports newspaper in a bar, reading and signing the contract for a mortgage, buying a train ticket in a vending machine in the street, or searching for the meaning of a term on the Internet are deemed the same. It does not matter where or when it happens, the role that the reader adopts, the pur-pose or the structure of a text and its support, or even the social value that the practice has acquired in each community.
According to this approach, reading and understanding basically consist of the activation of cognitive processes that include decoding, inference making, hypotheses construction, previous knowledge recovery, meaning elaboration, and the use of linguistic competence (vocabulary and morphosyntax). It is this approach that refers back to an essentialist or autonomous approach to reading, based on cognitive psychology, that has prevailed until now in research on teaching and learning practice, both in the teaching of the mother tongue and in foreign language teaching (Grabe 2009; Parodi ed. 2010).
However, a socio-cultural perspective of reading takes into account all those particularities that the previous points highlight. It adopts a situated and ecological approach, which takes into account the singularities of each
reading practice and its socio-cultural variations, without leaving aside the cognitive and linguistic components of written usage. In a seminal text, Barton and Hamilton (2000: 8) articulate this stance with six axioms:
1. Literacy is best understood as a set of social practices; these can be
inferred from events which are mediated by written texts.
2. There are dif ferent literacies associated with dif ferent domains of life.
3. Literacy practices are patterned by social instiutions and power
relation-ships, and some literacies are more dominant, visible and inf luential than others.
4. Literacy practices are purposeful and embedded in broader social goals and cultural practices.
5. Literacy is historically situated.
6. Literacy practices change and new ones are frequently acquired through processes of informal learning and sense making.
From this approach, each literacy community (country, discipline, insti-tution, gang) creates its own written artefacts (parchment, tables, books, notebooks, fora) that are used to develop the social practices that require writing (copying, reciting, signing, filling forms, composing poems) and that have been created throughout history. The members of each one of these communities use these artefacts daily to lead their lives, to achieve spe-cific goals within the community and in ordinary social activities (at work, home, street, free time). To put it more synthetically, reading is a ‘transitive verb’: we read each text in a dif ferent and particular way, in each context, in each community, in order to do dif ferent things. Reading is an appropria-tion of a literate social practice which uses a pre-existing textual object in a pre-established way and which has pre-established conventions known by all, in order to fulfil certain relevant purposes in each community.
This two-column table compares a cognitive orientation, related to psycholinguistics, with a socio-cultural perspective, which we are propos-ing in this article:
Table 1 Cognitive Orientation v. Socio-Cultural Perspective Cognitive Approach
• Reading = Cognitive linguistic approach. • Text = communicative unit, message. • Message is neutral.
• We read verbal texts.
• Reading activities are homogeneous. • Reading = decoding, inferring, understanding.
• Reading = accessing data.
• Learning how to read = acquiring the code, developing strategies.
• Prototype tasks: what information does the text provide? Identify the main topic.
Socio-cultural Approach
• Reading = literacy practice, embedded
in a social practice.
• Text = social and political artefact. • Message is located, and therefore, it
has ideology.
• We read multimodal texts.
• Reading practices are distributed by domains and scopes, which are institutional, dominant and vernacular. • Reading = doing things, taking on roles, building identities.
• Reading = exerting power.
• Reading = appropriating
pre-established practices.
• Prototype tasks: When and where can I use this text, this data? What is the author’s intention?
The socio-cultural orientation perceives the literate community as a human group that develops a collection of literacy practices, located in social practices, which use written artefacts and are located in specific time-space contexts. These artefacts are multimodal objects that integrate writing with other forms of representation of knowledge (images, drawings, videos, tables, etc.) and which have developed socio-historically in specific contexts, linked with pre-established purposes, roles, and values, instilled with their own community culture. Due precisely to cultural aspects and because writers and readers are located within human groups, these artefacts recover, reproduce, discuss or widen the ideologies of their community.
In addition, written artefacts and literacy acts are distributed by domains or contexts (home, school, work, government) which can be more dominant (government, school) or vernacular (home, street, private life). When using written artefacts and participating in literacy practices, individuals build their social identity in a literacy community and they
exert their power, within an established order or challenging this same established power. The members of each community appropriate these written artefacts and use them in literacy practices in order to achieve their objectives in such a way that the most common questions which are posed are: a) what is the purpose of this artefact and b) what is the intention of the person sending this text or writing all this in a piece of news? These questions are completely unlike the conventional classroom questions about the main idea or information contained in a text, which are taken completely out of context.
It is not within the remit of this article to review or fully describe here this socio-cultural approach to reading, which has already been publicized in Spanish (Zavala 2002; Zavala, Niño-Murcia, Ames ed. 2004; Cassany 2008; Kalman, Street ed. 2010; Cassany ed. 2011), so I will simply locate it historically quoting some of the research and authors. Perhaps the most common term for this approach in the Anglo-Saxon context has been New Literacy Studies (NLS), which has been translated into Spanish as Nuevos Estudios de Literacidad (NEL), even though the adjective ‘new’ does not
make much sense at the moment, since this approach has a considerable developed trajectory. It started with Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole’s ethnographies The Psychology of Literacy (1981) and Shirley Brice Heath’s Ways with words (1983), which discussed the dichotomized vision of spoken
vs. written culture derived from the use of speech and writing – stemming from famous anthropologists and linguists such as Jack Goody, Walter Ong, David Olson and Eric A. Havelock – known as The Great Divide.
More recently, work by David Barton and Mary Hamilton, Roz Ivanic, Gunther Kress, James Paul Gee, Roland Scollon and Suzanne Scollon or Brian Street, amongst others, has explored several aspects of this approach, which little by little has developed as an alternative to cognitive approaches. In Spanish, this approach has important researchers in Latin-America, with the work of Virginia Zavala and Patricia Ames in Peru, Mercedes Niño-Murcia in EUA, Judith Kalman, Guadalupe López-Bonilla and Alma Carrasco in Mexico, Marieta Lorenzzati in Argentina, to name but a few; in Spain it is worth mentioning the research done by the group of David Poveda in Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and our group of Literacitat Crítica in Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona.
From our point of view, there are several powerful reasons to justify the application of this approach to the treatment of reading in a foreign language, both in research and teaching. This approach:
1. Considers the historical, social and cultural particularities of each
read-ing practice, which allow us to explain in a more detailed and clearer manner the tight bonds established between language and culture and the particularities of each community in relation to their reading and writing practices. With this approach, the fact that we find dif ferent and particular reading practices in each community of speech that are appropriate to the idiosyncrasies of every human group makes more sense and shows more coherence.
2. Allows us for epistemological particularities of each context of knowledge
and each academic discipline. In other words, the ways of reading and writing in the context of business in Spanish do not fully match the texts and common practices of justice or government administration; neither does it match research in laboratories on experimental science. Every context develops its own literacy practices and a socio-cultural point of view can highlight these in a clearer, more emphatic manner. 3. Provides a critical perspective to language teaching and learning, which
is relevant in a globalized world in which we are all committed to the struggle against injustice and inequality. If it is impossible to be neutral politically, as a teacher and as a learner, the management of ideology (opinions, social representations, imaginaries) must come into the classroom as well, in a respectful and humanistic way.
4. Is coherent with other linguistic approaches such as discourse analysis, corpus linguistics or discourse genre analysis. Specifically, it complies with the tradition of structural analysis of discourse genres, which stems from the famous pioneering study by John Swales about scientific articles, their structure, their rhetorical moves and the verbal resources
employed in each of them. I consider that this socio-cultural orienta-tion is compatible and even complementary to this proposal, which has played its part in the teaching of writing and reading exactly in an L2. In fact, the last publications by John Swales (2004) attribute a bit more relevance to the extra textual or cultural elements in the texts.
5. Does not reject the input of psycholinguistics on the processing of syntax or discourse with cognitive processes. In fact, this socio-cultural perspective can go hand in hand with the theories dealing with the process of comprehension and composition.
All in all, this socio-cultural view does not dispute the relevant role that cognition and linguistic competence have in reading. However, the change of perspective and consideration of the socio-cultural aspects mentioned will change the way in which we perceive reading. Particularly, it is impor-tant to review the four first issues dealing with reading in a foreign language with which we started this section:
1. The fact that the learner knows how to read in their mother tongue does not necessarily mean that he or she can also do it by default in another community, because their written artefacts and literacy prac-tices do not coincide. The ways of reading and writing vary according to the languages, communities, contexts and time periods (Cassany forthcoming). Hence we should analyse the reading needs of each learner, identify artefacts and corresponding practices in the target community and develop proposals of appropriation of these arte-facts. Undoubtedly, previous reading experience in other contexts (languages, disciplines and with several artefacts) facilitates the appro-priation of new forms of reading, but that transference of skills is not automatic.
2. The social and cultural aspects of reading are as important as the recov-ery of the explicit content of a text or the development of cognitive processes to construct the meaning in the reader’s mind. A learner who knows most of the vocabulary of a foreign written text and can understand its main ideas, but ignores the interpretation, the value or the power that is given to it in the target community, has not under-stood anything. Since the socio-cultural aspects vary from practice to practice and from one community to the next, we cannot assume that the learner will transfer them from his/her reading practice in his/ her mother tongue.
3. The learning of vocabulary and grammar of the foreign language is not enough to guarantee that the learner will be a good reader. The appropriation of textual artefacts implies knowledge of the pragmatic features (intention, politeness, communicative parameters) and the cultural aspects (social value of the artefact, historical use, etc.) of each literacy practice that uses each artefact.
4. Since reading varies from context to context, no-one knows how to read or write all the texts of a community. Like any literate citizen, the learner should only appropriate the reading practices that are of interest to him/her, in their social context (profession, entertainment, work) which is only a reduced subsection of all the artefacts and lit-eracy practices of a community.
Summing up, this socio-cultural orientation of reading, which responds to the particularities of each social practice, a) of fers a more global theo-retical framework; b) takes into account in a more detailed and plausible manner the variations in the usage of written texts in a more plurilingual and multicultural era, in which we all have access to texts and practices from other communities, and c) it neither rejects nor disputes the importance of cognitive and linguistic components in the task of reading.
But until nowadays, socio-cultural studies have focused above all on literacy practices in the mother tongue (Kalman, Street ed. 2010; Poveda, Sánchez 2010), in current digital environments (Lankshear, Knoble 2011) or in educational or academic environments in plurilingual or pluricultural contexts (Poveda, Palomares-Valera, Cano 2006; Zavala, Córdova 2010). There are fewer works published under the remit of the teaching and learn-ing of foreign languages (Wallace 1988; Koda 2005).
2 Critical Comprehension in Second Languages
Let us have a look at a research group that has developed under this socio-cultural view of reading, which emphasizes the diversity of possible readings and the need to pay attention to the particularities of each practice. Next, we will sum up two case studies carried out by our research group deal-ing with readdeal-ing on the Internet in Spanish, and specifically dealdeal-ing with higher levels of comprehension or critical comprehension – which refers to
the ability to interpret the ideology of a written piece (intention,
politi-cal tendency, point of view) according to the value that native speakers of the language – also members of the community that produced it – would attribute to it (Cassany 2008). There are some studies on digital reading in L2 from a cognitive perspective (De Ridder 2003), but other studies stress that the comprehension of ideology, text and the diversity of reading contexts or the impact of previous knowledge and reading practices in the mother tongue on the reading in second language are far less common.
Francina Martí (2008) asked three Catalan-speaking secondary school students (13–14 years old) to choose a webpage about drugs to recom-mend to a friend, amongst the three preselected through a Google search: 1) tododrogas.net, a Spanish website by a pharmaceutical association about
all types of drugs and with very technical information; 2) ideasrapidas.org,
also a Spanish website, deals with varied topics (abortion, divorce, human dignity, AIDS, drugs) and even though it does not acknowledge authorship or sources, seems to come from some religious Catholic group with pros-elytizing motives and religious features, since they relate drugs with human dignity, religion and ‘the Creator’, and 3) gencat.net/salud, an institutional
website in Catalan from the Autonomous Government, with topics on youth, including drugs. Therefore, the informants read a website in their mother tongue (Catalan) and two in their environmental language (Span-ish in Catalunya), and they had to choose a website from the three options which had completely dif ferent perspectives: a scientific one, a religious one and a political one. While they were carrying out the task, they read on the screen and chatted, the researcher observed them and took notes and recorded the session; afterwards, the informants were interviewed.
The informants discarded the pharmaceutical webpage because it was too technical, but disagreed on the others: Two of them liked the religious one even though there were no pictures (‘es més difícil llegir-la, però està millor explicada’ [it is more dif ficult to read it but it’s clearer]) the third one
was suspicious of the references to religion (‘aquí parla molt de Déu’ [they talk a lot about God here]) and the word ‘the Creator’ (‘eh!, un moment:
El Creador…’ [hey, just a second: the Creator]) because it reminded him of an old man that sometimes waited for the students outside the secondary school, to preach about the end of the world and the return of ‘the Creator’. In the end, the three informants chose the religious website and only in their final interview with the researcher, forced to justify their choice and to explain why they ignored their suspicions, the boys were made aware of the religious twist in the website and they wanted to change their choice.
Summing up, the study shows that the boys: a) are aware of their infor-mation needs, since they reject technical data (pharmaceutical website); b) notice web design and clarity as a superficial criteria of assessment (religious website), and c) attach meaning to their reading when they can relate it to their world (term ‘the Creator’). But they are not critical readers because: d) they ignore webpage ideology (intentions, orientation, authorship); e) they cannot interpret linguistic markers that denounce ideology, and f ) they are not able to position the authors of the website in the social order within the community. The reasons for this deficit are more complex and speculative and, in this case, do not seem related to the use of a second lan-guage (Spanish), a fact which is mentioned neither in the interviews nor in the conversation about the reading task: the informants feel comfortable in both languages (Spanish and Catalan). The hypothesis of the researcher refers to the previous reading experiences of the informants, which lacked a critical perspective and also their lack of experience in reading websites of this kind, or fulfilling the task of assessing them and choosing one.
Murillo (2009) presents us with a similar but more complex task involving two French Arts students in their second year, both Spanish language learners since they were seven years old (in other words, very competent: B2/C1). The task consists in gathering trustworthy informa-tion from the Internet about the of ficial languages of Spain for a journalist who needs to write a feature article in French about the issue. Some more
specific questions asked in this task were: how many languages there are in Spain, what they are, how many speakers each of them have, if they are of ficial or they are not in their area of usage and finally, what is a ‘language’ and what is a ‘dialect’? Using these questions, they needed to clarify, for example, whether ‘Castilian’ and ‘Spanish’ are the same language, whether ‘Catalan’ and ‘Valencian’ are the same language, whether ‘Andalusian’ is a language in the same way as the others are, etc. The task is recorded in a
Webquest entitled Reportaje Babel: las lenguas de España. Murillo prepared
this Webquest, gathered previous questionnaires from the informants about
their use of Internet, recorded their conversations while they read, carried out interviews with each of them, revised their written reports, observed the development of the task, transcribed all the oral material and analysed the dif ferent sources in a triangulated manner.
There were six webpages chosen for this task;2 1) Three anonymous and controversial opinions in a discussion forum about of ficial languages in Spain; 2) a scientific article from a university teacher in a website about Castilian; 3) The institutional website of PROEL, which defends minor-ity languages; 4) the webpage called Just Landed for foreigners who want
to study Spanish in Spain; 5) a blog by Educastur in Asturias for
second-ary school teaching, and 6) several documents from El Rincón del Vago, a
website of notes, exams, summaries and school work done by students for students. This selection includes dif ferent genres, authors and opinions, precisely because they demonstrate one of the dif ficulties of reading on the web, which incorporates in the same space very diverse texts in terms of origin, intention and content.
2 Links to the websites used: 1) Lenguas oficiales de España: <http://es.answers.yahoo.
com/question/index?qid=20080425040851AAxEyV>; 2) El castellano.org. Javier
Cubero ‘España es un concepto plural’: <http://www.elcastellano.org/lenguas.html>; 3) PROEL: <http://www.proel.org/index.php?pagina=lenguas>; 4) Just Landed: <http://www.justlanded.com/espanol/Espana/Guia-Espana/Idioma/Idiomas>; 5)
Blog Educastur:
<http://blog.educastur.es/jjcmlyl/2007/05/24/siuacion-actual-de-las-lenguas-de-espana/>; 6) El rincón del vago: <http://html.rincondelvago.com/
In this context, Murillo describes the ideal reader within these param-eters. The ideal reader:
a) Identifies the practice (website, blog, forum), its purpose (to inform, to convince), the author (institutional/private, scientific/legal) and its audience;
b) Locates the discourse in its original socio-cultural context, in other words, distinguishes a personal blog from a scientific article or a Span-ish government ministry from an NGO or an anonymous author; c) Develops an awareness about the reading process, bearing in mind the
aim of the reading process, and reads strategically guided by this aim, noticing what it is understood and ignored, and
d) Builds a personal opinion, combining the dif ferent points of view, the data he or she has read, the personal points of view and the contribu-tions of other readers (friends, colleagues).
Given the good level of Spanish (B2/C1) of the informants and their status as university students (with a higher education and culture), our depart-ing hypothesis would suggest that the students would draw on previous reading behaviour and that they would be able to solve the main issue of the task at hand. However, the general results showed dif ferently – we will only present here a few data:
1. The informants do not incorporate the data from their reading, in other words, they do not integrate in their answers the information provided in the websites, despite being able to understand it without dif ficulty. For example, they believed that Andalusian was a language, but while searching for information about this issue in the webpages suggested and others (such as Wikipedia), they did not find
confir-mation for their belief, concluded that ‘these websites were bad’, and continued believing that Andalusian was a variety of Spanish like Catalan or Galician (Murillo 2009: 53):
A2: non, il en parle pas de l’andalous A1: ah oui je te parle de l’autre langue
A2: ça c’est une introduction || il faut trouver combien de gens le parlent || on peut regarder sur Google
A1: gente: andalous: ah Wikipédia!, moi j’aime bien A2: Bon mais c’est PAS DU TOUT SURE, eh? A1: oui
A2: ah non, Wikipédia tout le monde peut mettre A1: il y a pas
A2: non mais tu vois? ça c’est la pire des merdes A1: on retourne si tu veux
A2: la pire des sources
Similarly, in spite of the fact that some websites contain information about the lack of semantic variation between the words ‘Spanish’ and ‘Castilian’, in their final answer they concluded that: ‘Castilian is the way of speaking in
Madrid and Spanish is the way they speak all over Spain’. Something similar
happened with the terms ‘language’ and ‘dialect’: after having visited several webpages containing accurate data, they repeated their previous idea that ‘language’ is the language of the state and ‘dialect’ refers to all other ways of using a language, carbon copying probably a French perspective about linguistic diversity. Summing up, the informants kept their attachment to their previous knowledge, to the semantic, pragmatic and social meaning that these words have (language, dialect, Andalusian) in their community,
they translate it into Spanish and Spanish communities, and they reject the data provided by the Internet. (This invites further research on informants from other communities, which may have dif ferent previous ideas, in order to check how they react to this type of task and to verify if their attachment to their previous ideas related to their mother tongue and culture prevail.)
2. The informants identified some superficial features in some genres (they distinguish the forum from the blog) and they can identify the author (Ministry, NGO, etc.), but they are not always aware of the consequences of this authorship, and they have significant dif ficul-ties in assigning reliability to each website. In this fragment of their dialogue, the informants compare two websites that they are not sure about, Educastur and Elcastellano.org (Murillo 2009: 56):
A1: Educastur ça a un rapport avec éduquer, non? (laugh) oui ! A2: Qu’est-ce qu’on fait ?
A1: Je ne sais pas
A2: bf f, j’aime bien les deux quand même
A1: on sait même pas qui l’a écrit || non, il n’y a pas de source, quoi || une fois en Terminal on a fait ça comment choisir les bons sites A2: C’est un blog quoi
A1: VOILÀ | moi si je veux je peux mettre n’importe quoi […]
A2: c’est dif ficile A1: on a des doutes
A2: moi mon préféré c’est soit celui-là soit point.org A1: Oui
[…]
A2: en fait celui-là il est mieux parce qu’il décrit A1: et c’est plus concret/
A2: et l’autre n’est pas ni of ficiel ni rien
Undoubtedly, the informants do not have enough socio-cultural back-ground to understand the websites (their institutions, authors, intentions, etc.), in order to value their quality, and finally, in order to decide if the information they provide is useful. This shows the need for foreign language learning to include information and instruction about main websites and resources that are located in the Internet for each language.
3. The informants do not critically analyse discourse. They do not pay attention to the lexical choices (historical dialect, use of dialect and language in each website, absence of Andalusian) in their statements,
and other markers of subjectivity which show the ideology and per-spective of each website. The only linguistic features that attract their attention are orthographic mistakes or informal expressions, such as
lo ves?, yo creo, which they interpret as a lack of formality and
Summing up, this study shows that readers with a good level of Spanish have important dif ficulties in understanding some webpages from the Spanish community and in attributing to them the meaning they have and how they are understood in our community. It is not a matter of a lack of linguistic competence, but a lack of pragmatic and socio-cultural competence, as Murillo explains in his two first conclusions:
If the students do not possess the ability to read critically, they will not be able to fully understand the discourse, no matter how good their Spanish is. That is why it is important to pay more attention to critical reading on the Internet in the teaching of Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL).
Students find it dif ficult to access a higher level of reading comprehension situation model (according to the theoretical model of comprehension by Kintsch, Rawson
2005) because they lack previous experience or their knowledge is not adequate. On top of that, they tend to put too much trust in the socio-cultural knowledge related to their mother tongue.
All in all, these two case studies show that the dif ficulty in understanding websites in Spanish as a second language or as a foreign language does not depend on the level of linguistic competence of the informants. In both cases, the informants have a good level of Spanish, but they have significant dif ficulties in understanding the intentions of these websites, in interpret-ing in a plausible way the information that they provide, and to complete the task in a satisfactory way. Such dif ficulties seem to derive from a lack of experience in digital reading online and in critical reading, in their capacity to infer discourse ideology (first and second case), or in a lack of knowledge of the socio-cultural aspects of Spanish reality (its languages and their representation of Spanish population in the second case).
Both researchers also confirm the thesis that the reader used his/her previous knowledge and experience in reading in their L1 in order to solve the task in L2 (Bernhardt 2003), but more precisely with negative results. Teenagers read websites about drugs as if they were reading a textbook, in which – seemingly – all information is neutral and it does not make any sense asking about ‘ideology’ or authorial intention (which are not amongst common questions in school reading practices). On the other case study, readers competent in Spanish as an L2 show their attachment