Handout PDF, four slides per page

4/29/2013
1
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
ENGLISH AND SPANISH
AND WHAT THIS MEANS
FOR YOUR CLASSROOM
Jon Aske
2




This presentation and links are available online:
http://lrc.salemstate.edu/spanishenglishcontrasts
Feel free to ask questions and give feedback at
any time
I am sure that you have a lot to contribute to this
conversation
Department of World Languages and Cultures
Salem State University
April 2013
Who am I?
The Spanish peninsula and its languages
3

Linguist
 Ph.D.
in Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley
 Professor of Spanish and Linguistics, SSU

Origin
 Donostia/San
Sebastián
 Basque Country / Spain
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Basque language vs. Spanish
5

I come from an area with
 language
conflict
 concerns about bilingualism, language death
(attrition), bilingual education

The difference is that there:
 Spanish
 Basque
is the dominant language
is a struggling minority language
Linguistics
7
Example
8


“The scientific/objective study of language(s)”
Linguists describe and analyze language as it is,

 You
shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition
 Ain’t is not a word
 You should say “It is I” (“It is we”?)
as people use it
 with all its variety: dialects, etc.



Linguists are descriptivists: they describe what they see
Traditional grammarians and language teachers often:
describe language as they would like it to be
 there is one correct way


Grammarians are prescriptivists: they prescribe what
ought to be
A prescriptivist says things like

A descriptivist (a linguist) says things like:
 English
 but
 Some
allows sentences to end with prepositions…
some people think it shouldn’t
speakers use “ain’t” as a contraction for “is not”…
say “It is me,” “It is us,” etc.,…
 People
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A definition of prescriptivism
9
Problems with prescriptivism
10

“the practice of championing one variety or manner
of speaking of a language against another. It may
imply a view that some forms are incorrect or
improper or illogical, or lacking in communicative
effect, or of low aesthetic value. Sometimes it is
informed by linguistic purism.”




Prescriptivism promotes a unified, standard language
variety that we all share for at least some purposes
It disparages deviations from the norm (variation) and
the people who use them
it tends to follow erroneous preconceptions and biases

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription

It fails to see that a standard language can tolerate
variation without it being compromised

Consequences of prescriptivism
11
“Saying ain’t, it is me, etc. is illogical, ugly, bad.”
Prescriptivists cannot deal with variation well (since there is
a right way) other than disparaging it.
“First do no harm”
12

Teachers, like the rest of society, have often been
trained with a prescriptivist mindset:
is one right way to use language
 different ways are not just different, they are wrong

 to
teach the standard without making non-standard
speakers feel inferior.
 there
 they



denote ignorance, sloppiness, ...
This can lead teachers to disparage the speech
(dialect) of students from different backgrounds.
But if you reject the speech, you are rejecting the
student.
Our goal should be

The same thing is true of other languages a student
may bring to the school.
A major thing that linguistics can do for teachers is
to help them realize that the standard we promote
as teachers
 is
 is
not objectively better
an arbitrary choice, not a preordained one.
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Spanish-English comparison
14
13

LANGUAGE COMPARISON




Language comparison
15
Now that we got that out of the way…
Let us start talking about the comparing of English
and Spanish
That’s the topic I've been asked to talk about today.
Why is this a relevant topic?
It may help you understand why students whose
native language is Spanish make the sort of
mistakes they do in English.
Language comparison
16


Many linguists engage in language comparisons for
specific purposes
Some branches of linguistics that engage in linguistic
comparison:
 Comparative linguistics
 Contrastive analysis
 Linguistic typology

Comparative linguistics

“(originally comparative philology) is a branch of historical
linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish
their historical relatedness.”



“the systematic study of a pair of languages with a view to
identifying their structural differences and similarities.”


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_linguistics
Contrastive analysis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrastive_analysis
Linguistic typology

“a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages
according to their structural features. Its aim is to describe and
explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the
world's languages.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_typology
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Contrastive analysis
17
What does a language learner learn?
18




Our topic fits best under the tradition of “contrastive analysis”
“Contrastive Analysis was used extensively in the field
of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) in the 1960s and early
1970s, as a method of explaining why some features of
a target Language were more difficult to acquire than others.”
“According to the behaviorist theories prevailing at the time,
language learning was a question of habit formation, and this
could be reinforced or impeded by existing habits.”
“Therefore, the difficulty in mastering certain structures in
a second language (L2) depended on the difference between
the learners' mother language (L1) and the target language
(L2).”




When learning a language, a learner acquires a
system of knowledge.
We call it a system because there are different
parts that are interrelated.
The language system has several subsystems,
which correspond to subdisciplines of linguistics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrastive_analysis
Language subsystems
19
A note about variation
20

Phonology:

Speech sounds and the rules that govern their distribution and interaction

Morphology:

Syntax:




Word parts: the inflection and derivation of words for simpler parts
the principles of word order and of phrase and sentence construction
Lexicon (vocabulary)
Semantics:

word and sentence meaning

Pragmatics:

Orthography and written communication:



the background sociocultural conventions for communication
an alternative output system using written marks instead of sound
not part of linguistics proper, but important to our discussion today




A language is a system shared by all members of a
speech community...
yet there are often many sub-communities that
share a language system
the system is not homogeneous
there are:
 geographical
dialects
 sociolects
 ethnolects
 genderlects
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Spanish
22
THE SPANISH-SPEAKING WORLD
21

There are more than 400 million native Spanish
speakers (third largest language)
 Mexico:
115 million
47 million
45 million
40 million
40 million
 Colombia:
 Spain
 Argentina
 Venezuela
…
 Dominican
R.
 Guatemala
10 million
10 million
Hispanics/Latinos: Demography




In the US we use the labels Hispanic and Latino for
people who come from Spanish-speaking countries
U.S. 2010 census they were 50.5 million

A 44% increase in 10 years (35 million, 12.5%)

Accounts for half the U.S. growth
Between 1990 and 2000 the Hispanic population
doubled
In 2050 it is projected to be 100 million
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2000-2010 growth
25


2010 Census Shows Nation's Hispanic Population Grew
Four Times Faster Than Total U.S. Population
Mexicans are Largest Hispanic Group Nationwide and in
40 States


“About three-quarters of Hispanics in the United States reported
as Mexican, Puerto Rican or Cuban origin in the 2010 Census.
Mexican origin was the largest group, representing 63 percent of
the total U.S. Hispanic population — up from 58 percent in 2000.
This group increased by 54 percent and saw the largest numeric
change (11.2 million), growing from 20.6 million in 2000 to 31.8
million in 2010. Mexicans accounted for about three-fourths of
the 15.2 million increase in the total Hispanic population between
2000 and 2010.”
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/2010_census/cb11-cn146.html
26
Percentage of population self-reported as
Hispanic/Latino by state in the 2010 Census
2000
27
28
Massachusetts
428,729
2010
6.8%
627,654
9.6%
+46.4%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_and_Latino_Americans
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Spanish vs. English?
Hispanics in the US by country of origin in 2010
30

All:
100.0%
México:
63.0%
Puerto Rico:
9.2%
Central America:
7.5%
Rep. Dominicana:
2.8%
Cuba
3.6%
Other
13.9%
http://pewhispanic.org/

http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-04.pdf







50.5 million
31.8 million
4.6 million
3.7 million
1.4 million
1.8 million
7.2 million

Recent adult immigrants speak Spanish

That’s why there are many Spanish speakers in the US
About 22 million according to some estimates

http://www.pewhispanic.org/files/reports/140.pdf





Does this mean Spanish is competing against English in
the US (as some people fear)?
No!
Spanish is very visible right now because of all the
new immigrants in the last 20 years
These immigrants assimilate linguistically at a very
fast rate
Bilingualism among Hispanics
31

Bilingualism is common among second-generation
children (those growing up in immigrant households)
85 percent speak at least some Spanish at home
 This Spanish tends to be English-influenced, sometimes
“unsophisticated” Spanish
32
TRANSFER / INTERFERENCE


By the third generation, the predominant pattern is
English monolingualism (“language shift”)

72% in Hispanic families (92% for Asians)


OR WHY STUDY SPANISH-ENGLISH
CONTRASTS
Spanish survives mostly in areas with high concentrations of
Spanish speakers, such as border towns
http://mumford.albany.edu/children/reports/language_assimilation/language_assi
milation_brief.pdf
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Why Spanish-English contrasts
33
Why study Spanish-English contrasts
34



Linguists often compare languages just for fun
Our goal here is more practical:
What would you say is the purpose of looking at
Spanish-English contrasts?
“It is valuable to both teacher and student to
recognize why a student writes as he does, and why
he commits certain characteristic errors. When the
teacher perceives that the student is not committing
errors out of ignorant willfulness or willful ignorance, he
will begin to show a necessary respect for and
interest in where the student has been and what he
has been learning before his arrival in his present
class.”
 Knowing
(in a more sophisticated way) how Spanish
and English differ can help you understand the
difficulties Spanish-speaking students have when
learning English
 This can help you in your job.

Betty Rizzo and Santiago Villafane. “Spanish Influence on Written
English.” The Journal of Basic Writing 1.1 (Spring 1975)
Correspondences between languages
35
36

This awareness on the part of the teacher is also
beneficial to the student:
 “A
student appreciates knowing, when he finds he is
committing some error, that he is not an inferior learner,
a failure at writing his own language, but that he has
simply been analogizing—the most respectable of
mental activities—in a situation where, rather
exceptionally, to analogize produces error.”
 Ibid.
1.
Language A has a feature X (unit, distinction, pattern),
matched closely by an X in language B.

2.


3.
e.g. English and Spanish have ch sound, for no special reason
Language A has a feature X that resembles an X in
language B to some extent but differs in details of form,
function, frequency, distribution, or conditions on usage
e.g. English and Spanish passives
E.g. English and Spanish progressive
Language A has a feature X which language B lacks or
which is rendered in terms of B's Y, which operates quite
differently

e.g. Spanish tú/usted contrast
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Language transfer
37
Language transfer
38

Starting in the 1950s, researchers endorsed
contrastive analysis for anticipating problems
when students transfer their L1 rules, structures,
and strategies to L2.
 e.g.




features that can be carried over with little modification

For example, vocabulary cognates
Negative transfer hinders learning

Lado 1957


Language transfer (= L1 interference, linguistic
interference) refers to speakers or writers applying
knowledge from their native language to a second
language
2.


features that may cause interference in students' use of L2
For example, vocabulary false friends
Studying transfer allows teachers to:
1.
Two grammars, one head
39
Positive transfer helps with learning
predict degrees of difficulty
identify specific problems
Transfer may be conscious or unconscious
Transfer is mainly an individual phenomenon, but we
can also see it in speech communities, e.g. Spanglish
Behaviorism
40

How are the bilingual's languages organized in the
brain/mind?

 Two


separate grammars, with some overlap?
 Only one grammar: with parts used by each language
and some overlap

We don’t really know.
There seems to be no doubt that there is quite a bit
of overlap


The idea of transfer is closely associated with
Behaviorist theories of habit formation in
psychology
The promotion of contrastive analysis to help
language learners started at a time when
Behaviorism ruled in psychology
Eventually, Behaviorism went into disfavor due to
the influence of cognitive psychology
Also, it became obvious that transfer could not
account for all the errors learners made
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Contrastive analysis cannot account for
41
42
1.
different learners show different degrees and types of
transfer, e.g.

2.
6.
E.g. confusing sentir and sentar, overgeneralizing sientinstead of projecting L1 patterns onto L2
E.g. a student who says si estudies (pres. subjunctive) instead of si
estudias (pres. Indicative)
Trends in SLA research
43
E.g. there is a tendency to simplify expressions by omitting
grammatical words, even when their L1 uses equivalent words
learners adopt a continually changing interlanguage
that lies between the source language and target
language and draws on both

there is mislearning, e.g.

learners from all language backgrounds show
similarities in developmental stages they pass
through in acquiring a given item, e.g.

students may just avoid alien L2 items

4.
E.g. some invent a word expectar, others try an 's possessive in
Spanish
many errors have an intralanguage origin rather than
an interlanguage: e.g.

3.
5.
E.g. the interlanguage reflects the varying ways in which
individuals are internalizing, sorting out, and applying what
they take in from the input they receive
Errors vs. mistakes
44

1960s and 1970s:
 Still


emphasis on transfer as the main source of errors
1980s and 1990s:
 focused
 L2=L1
increasingly on non-transfer sources of error
hypothesis:
Errors reflect gaps in the learner’s knowledge
 the

learner does not know what is correct
Mistakes reflect occasional lapses in performance
 At
a particular time, the learner is not able to perform
what he or she knows
 L2
is acquired in the same way as L1 and errors are
developmental and intralingual, not interlingual

Nowadays SLA mainstream recognizes transfer as
one of several influences on interlanguage
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Factors that affect learning of L2
45

Age





Aside question
ESL students’ reasons for higher
failure rates
Motivation to learn
Personal aptitude
Attitude


46
After puberty (Past the “critical period” ) it becomes much
more difficult to learn a language and the learning is
much more influenced by the first language
of the learner towards the language
of the society towards the learner
Context of acquisition

L2 is most successful the smaller the overlap between the
situations in which the two languages are learned
Other reasons for failure
Questions about language and failure
47
48


Is having a different first language a
disadvantage?
Is poor English a major reason for non-native
speaker school failure?
 Dropout
rates for ESL students are much higher than
those for native English speakers.


One may be tempted to blame it on poor English
There are many other (non-linguistic) reasons for
ESL students’ lack of success






Tracking and ability grouping?
Deficient and interrupted prior formal education?
Alienation from the academic enterprise?
Disconnect from native English students and teachers?
Uncaring administrators?
Uncaring teachers?
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49
Disconnect from native English students
and teachers?


ESL students often avoid interactions with native
speakers,
Possible reasons:
SPANISH-ENGLISH CONTRASTS
50
 frustration
 lack


or embarrassment about English ability?
of knowledge about the larger culture?
This may lead to lack of participation in class and
in extracurricular activities
The student’s culture may also discourage speaking
out in class and interacting with the teacher
“Standard Average European”
Are Spanish and English that different?
51
52

Spanish and English aren’t all that different
 considering

how much human languages can differ
Actually, European languages aren’t all that
different from each other
 if



we compare them with truly “exotic” languages, e.g.
 Native
American languages
 Asian languages

A concept introduced by Benjamin Whorf to group the
modern Indo-European languages of Europe
Whorf argued that these languages were characterized
by a number of grammatical similarities…
…which made them very different from many of the
world's other languages (such as native American
languages)
When it comes to vocabulary there are also many
similarities (cognates) among European languages


Probably no two European languages share more similarities
than English and Spanish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Average_European
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Standard Average European as a Sprachbund
(area of linguistic convergence): examples
53
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

definite and indefinite articles (e.g. English the vs. a);
postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g.
English who vs. whose);
a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English I have
said);
experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case, e.g. English I like music);
a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like
verb (e.g. English I am known);
a prominence of anticausative verbs in inchoative-causative pairs (e.g. in the pair The
snow melts vs. The flame melts the ice, the intransitive verb is derived from the
transitive);
verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English Nobody listened);
particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English bigger than an
elephant) ;
equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g.
French grand comme un élephant)
(Haspelmath 2001)
54
The sounds of Spanish and English
55
THE SOUNDS OF SPANISH AND
ENGLISH
Consonants and vowels
56

I am going to spend some time contrasting the
sounds of English and Spanish
sound is something it is easy to relate to
 pronunciation (along with spelling) is one of the
biggest causes of difficulty with learners
 sound differences are representative of other
differences


Sounds can most basically be divided into:
Consonants (consonantal sounds):
 technically
they are sounds produced with some kind of
obstruction to the passage of air
 not all that different in English and Spanish
 a major difference is their syllabic distribution
 because

Vowels (vocalic sounds):
 technically
they are sounds produced without any
obstruction to the passage of air
 much greater differences between Spanish and English
 number
and how they are used
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Consonants
57
English [v]: as in vase, liver
58





English has consonants that Spanish doesn’t have
Spanish has consonants that English doesn’t have
Let us look quickly at these differences
Remember: we are talking about sounds, not letters
I will be using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
symbols to represent sounds,







within [square brackets]

To represent letters in the language’s alphabet


We use <angle brackets>
 It
[θ] as in think, math
59
Spanish has the letter <v>
But it is pronounced just like the letter <b>
They are both [b], not [v]
However, in Spanish how these two letters are
pronounced differs according to what comes before
In the words “beber” and “vivir” the first and
second <b> / <v> sound different
The sounds do not contrast
Which one you get is automatic,
depends on the phonetic context
[ð] as in this and that
60



Always spelled <th>
Spanish speakers from northern Spain do have this
sound;
that’s less than 10% of all Spanish speakers





Also always spelled <th>
Surprisingly, Spanish speakers do have this sound
It’s the sound of the second <d> in dedo “finger”
But there are strong constraints in Spanish as to
where this sound may be found,
so it often does not help with the pronunciation of
English words with this sound
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[z] as in zip, dessert, desert
61
[ʃ] as in ship
62

For all practical purposes Spanish speakers do not
have this sound
 Some




have it in very restricted environments

In English this sound is often spelled <z>, but often
also <s>: is, these, desert, dessert
Spanish speakers hear this sound as the same as the
<s> in sip
Most dialects of Spanish do not have this sound
The closest to it is Spanish <ch>
So Spanish speakers may have trouble
distinguishing certain English words:
 ship
 cash
= chip
= catch
 sip
= zip
 bus = buzz
[ɫ] (dark l)
[ɹ] as in rope
63
64

The English r is very different from the two Spanish r
sounds:
 Trilled/rolled
 Flapped
r:
r: [r]: in rosa and carro
[ɾ]: in mar and caro


English has two L sounds
[l] in syllable-initial position:
 like,

alike, believe, lake
[ɫ] (velarized or dark L) in syllable-final position:
 peel,


pill, building, until, older
Spanish L is always like the English initial one
Spanish speakers have trouble with dark L
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[ʤ] as in gym (or Jim)
65
Spanish sounds English lacks
66



This sound is very similar to how speakers of Caribbean
Spanish pronounce the letters <y> or <ll>, as in
 yo (“I”) or
 llave (“key”)
These speakers then have difficulties with English <y>:
[j] as in yellow, mayonaise
Speakers of Spanish dialects that don’t pronounce <y>
and <ll> like English <j>,







Vowels
second <b> is [β]
second <b> is [β]
second <g> is [ɣ]
second <d> is [ð])
cañón = canyon
The sound of the letter <j> (and <g> before <e> or <i> in
many dialects

don’t have problems with yellow, but
 they have problems with gym
bebe:
vive:
gaga:
(dedo:
The sound of <ñ> is very similar to English <ny>



67
The pronunciation of Spanish b/d/g in most positions
produces two sounds English lacks
For Mexicans, Spaniards, etc.: [x]: jefe, general
Caribbean dialects = English <h>: [h]: jefe, general
Classification of Spanish vowels
68

Spanish has pretty much five vowels: a, e, i, o, u
 just




like the Latin orthography (alphabet) suggests
English, on the other hand, has at least a dozen
Did you think English only has 5 vowels?
Then you were thinking about letters, not sounds
The Latin alphabet was not designed to describe
the vowel sounds of English, especially Modern
English
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Classification of English vowels
English long and short vowels
71


English contrasts short and long vowels
The long vowels tend to be “diphthonguized”


The tongue glides upwards
Notice also the multiple spellings for these vowel soudns
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Spanish vowels
Stressed and unstressed vowels
73
74


Spanish vowels are all short and crisp
Spanish speakers have trouble distinguishing
between long and short English vowels (among
others)
 beach
 suit
 cap
[biʧ] =
[sut] =
[kæp] =


bitch [bɪʧ]
soot [sʊt]
cup [kʌp]

The main difficulty with English vowels for
Spanish speakers (and viceversa), is perhaps not the
number of vowels or the vowel length
The main problem is English vowel reduction
English vowels, when unstressed, tend to shrink into
a nondescript, short vowel that we call schwa [ə]
 ago
 sofa
e.g. atom vs. atomic
75
[əgoʊ]
[soʊfə]
Aside: the T in atom and atomic
76

atom:

 The

a is stressed
 The o is not stressed, so it gets reduced to ə
 ['æɾəm]

atomic:

 The

o is stressed
 The a is not stressed, so it gets reduced to ə
 [ə'tɑmək]

Spelling does not help us here
Notice that the <t> in these two words sound very
different from each other
The t in atom sounds more like a d
 actually
it sounds more like a Spanish r, as in aro “ring”
The t in atomic is similar to a Spanish t
This difference has to do with whether the English
<t> follows or precedes a stressed syllable:
 It
is a pattern/rule of English that a t after a stressed
syllable changes to the d sound
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Phonology
77
Syllable structure
78

These types of changes in sound depending on the
context are part of phonology:

a
vocalic nucleus
 may have consonants before or after
 the
patterning of sounds in a particular language (or
dialect)


A syllable always has this structure:

The sound patterns of English and Spanish are
quite different and it is one of the major things
learners have to deal with
Let us look at other examples
e.g.
 cap,
 at
 skip
 roast
 a-to-mic,
Preference for open syllables
79
straw, desks, glimps(e)d, etc.
Syllable-initial consonants
80


Spanish speakers tend to have problems with
postnuclear consonants
Spanish has a strong preference for open syllables:




cap, at, roast, club
It tolerates: n, s, l, r
Some dialects of Spanish (Caribbean) don’t even like:
S: they aspirate or delete it, e.g. las casas
 R: they change it to L, e.g. puerta

In syllable-initial position Spanish has no problem with
consonants
Some combinations are not welcome, though:
SP: Spanish, spool
SC: scar, sky, school (different spellings, same sounds)
 ST: stamp, steel

Spanish syllables don’t like most consonants after the
nucleus:


no consonants after the nucleus





Spanish fixes this by adding an E at the beginning
This adds an extra syllable (nucleus) to the word
English used to have syllable-initial consonant clusters
that are not allowed anymore


They persist in the spelling
e.g. knife
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Vowel systems compared
81
Stress
82



The five vowel system of Spanish is one is the most
common in the world and it’s very stable
The English system is not very stable
Consequences of the instability:



 Change:
In Spanish most words have a single stressed
syllable
It is predictable most of the time
In English a word can have more than one stress:
 English
 the
vowel system has changed a lot in the last 500 years
 this explains in part the chaos with the spelling
words can have a secondary stress
 Spanish:
 English:
 Variation:
consideración
consìderátion
 there
is dialectal variation as to how the vowels are
pronounced
Stress and meaning
83
Intonation and rhythm
84


Phrasal stress in English can change meaning
Compare:


A
Spánish tèacher: profesor de español
 A Spànish téacher: profesor que es de España

This is an example of many such patterns/rules a
learner of English needs to figure out:
 An
English teacher couldn’t articulate most of them or
most of the rules of the language
One major difference between Spanish and English is their
respective intonation patterns and rhythm
Spanish:

The duration of every syllable (and vowel) is equal

Typically more monotone intonation
Higher ratio of unstressed syllables to stressed ones



Spanish is a syllable-timed language
English

The temporal duration between two stressed syllables is equal




English is a stress-timed language
Unequal length vowels and syllabi
Intonation has more ups and downs
Lower ratio of unstressed syllables to stressed ones
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Spelling
85
Spelling: Reasons
86





Before leaving the area of sound we should mention
spelling
Reading and writing are not typical concerns of
linguists, who tend to focus on the oral language
Learning to spell in English is harder perhaps than
in most other language with an alphabetic writing
system
Native English speakers have great difficulties
Non-native speakers have even more trouble
1.
2.
3.
Results
87
English spelling was not designed for the sound
system of English, in particular the vowel system
Also, the spelling has not kept up with the many
changes in pronunciation in the last few hundred
years
A large influx of foreign words (Danish, Norman
French, Classical Latin and Greek) with different
and overlapping spelling patterns
Spelling reform?
88

A lot of “silent letters”

 know,
close,
 They used to be pronounced

Different ways of spelling the same sounds:
 Vowels
 <f>/<ph>

One symbol that spells different sounds:
 <th>
Many people have suggested a simplification of the
English spelling system
 Benjamin
Franklin
 George Bernard Shaw



It wouldn’t take much to make the system less
chaotic
Unfortunately none of the proposals have caught on
Nonetheless: It is not just chaos
 There
are many spelling rules that are reliable most of
the time
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Words
90
89

VOCABULARY (LEXICON)


Before looking at grammar, let us talk about words
(vocabulary or lexicon)
Compared to speakers of most other languages
learning English, Spanish speakers have a
tremendous advantage:
Cognates: words that are very similar in sound (or
spelling) and meaning
 paper
– papel
 demonstrate - demostrar
Sources of English vocabulary
91
92
Source
Germanic stock (original)

25%
French (mostly Latinate)
Norman French (spoken source, 11-13 centuries)
and Standard French (spoken & written sources)
28%
Latin (from classical, written sources)
(“fancy” words)
Other Greek
28%
Other
14%
The cognates predominate in the language’s “fancy
vocabulary”
 not
everyday words
 often mostly found in writing
5%
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93
Source of the most frequent 7,476
words of English
Latinate vocabulary in Spanish
94

First 100
Germanic (native)
Latinate
Greek
Others
97%
3%
0
0
First
1000
57%
36%
4%
3%
Second
1000
39%
51%
4%
6%
The rest

Spanish has two types of Latinate vocabulary
Popular words (palabras patrimoniales)
Transmitted orally through the ages
From the first 1000 years of the history of Spanish
 They changed much in sound and sometimes meaning

36%
51%
7%
6%


Classical words (palabras cultas, or cultismos)
Borrowed from written Latin after Spanish became a written
language (second 1000 years of the history of Spanish)
 Very similar to how English enriched itself during this period



Examples of how Latin words changed
into Castilian + later borrowings (1)
LATIN
 CAUSA
 FRĪGĬDU
 ĬNTĔGRU
 MATĔRĬA
 LACTE
 STRĬCTU
 FACTU
 DELICATO
 FABULARI
CASTELLANO
cosa
frío
entero
madera
leche
estrecho
hecho
delgado
hablar
CULTISMO
causa
frígido
íntegro
materia
lácteo (derivado)
estricto
factor (derivado)
delicado
fabuloso (derivado)
Latin had been the language for writing in Europe for 1000 years.
Isaac Newton (17th c.) wrote his Principia in Latin
Examples of how Latin words changed
into Castilian + later borrowings (2)
LATIN
 COLLŎCĀRE
 LABŎRĀRE
 OPĔRA
 AURĬCŬLA
 OVĬCŬ
 SPĔCŬLU
 ŌCŬLU
 FOCU
CASTELLANO
colgar
labrar
obra
oreja
oveja
espejo
ojo
fuego
CULTISMO
colocar
laboratorio (derivado)
opera
aurícula (“auricle”)
ovino (derivado)
espectáculo (derivado)
oculista (derivado)
foco
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Spanish-English word contrasts
97
98



The result is that English and Spanish have many
cognates, especially among the learned or classical
vocabulary
Many of these cognates are part of the higher,
educated register of speech
ELL students may not be all that familiar with some
of them
“False friends”
99
Spanish noun
Spanish adjective English noun
English adjective
mano
diente
manual
dental
hand
tooth
manual
dental
estrella
mar
estelar
marino
star
sea
stellar
marine
agua
acuático
water
aquatic
árbol
noche
hijo
madre
padre
arbóreo
nocturno
filial
maternal
paternal
tree
night
son
mother
father
arboreal
nocturnal
filial
maternal
paternal
Recommended source
100

Spanish speakers have to watch out for false
friends:
 Words
that look like cognates but mean something
different:
 Asistir to attend, not to assist
 Actual current, not actual

Spanish Vocabulary: An Etymological
Approach
David Brodsky
2008
http://www.amazon.com/dp/02927
16680
Semi-false friends: partly overlap in meaning
 Introduce:
 Apply:
introducir; presentar
aplicar; solicitar
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Grammar
102

GRAMMAR
101
Grammar refers to the patterns (or “rules”) for
 Putting
words together:
 Morphology
 Deals
 Putting
with suffixes, prefixes, etc.
phrases and sentences together:
 Syntax
 Deals
English grammar is relatively simple
103
with the distribution and ordering of words
Morphology
104

English grammar has undergone great simplification
over the centuries




small children have no difficulty learning irregularities
English borrowed a lot of morphology along with Latin
words and that tends to be more complex

compare to German, Russian, etc.
This is thought to be due to intense contact with other
languages: Celtic, Danish, French
Spanish too underwent great simplification of its
morphology (compared to Latin)
A simple grammar without many irregularities and
affixes is easier for adults to learn





English native morphology, e.g. restless, unhealthy
English Latinate morphology, e.g. terminate, termination
Word derivation in English is not very predictable and
requires a lot of rote learning.
For example, an adjective can be negated by using
different prefixes





un- (e.g. unable),
in- (e.g. inappropriate),
dis- (e.g. dishonest),
non- (non-standard)
a- (e.g. amoral)
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Verb conjugations
105
Syntax
106


When it comes to verb conjugations, English is quite
simple and regular, making use of separate words
(auxiliaries) to a much greater extent than Spanish
This can be very helpful to adult learners

A major difference between English and Spanish:
 English
has quite a rigid word order:
 Subject
 Spanish
– Verb – Object: Mi hermano vio a Juan
allows other orders:
 Verb
– Object – Subject: Vio a Juan mi hermano
 Verb – Subject – Object: Vio mi hermano a Juan
Prepositions
Articles
107
108



Both languages have prepositions,
Often there isn’t a one-to-one correspondence
One major hurdle for Spanish speakers are the
basic locative prepositions:
 at
(1 dimension):
 on (2 dimensions):
 in (3 dimensions)

at the corner, at the university
on the floor
in the room, in my pocket
The most basic translation for all of them is:

Spanish and English are very similar in that they
both have definite and indefinite articles:
 Definite:
 Indefinite:

the
a(n)
= el, la, los, las
= un, una, unos, unas
There are relatively small differences in how they
are used:
 Soy
estudiante = I am a student
 El tabaco es malo = Tabacco is bad for you
 en
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English phrasal verbs
109
Motion-manner coding
110


A phrasal verb is a verb followed by a preposition or
an adverb
the combination creates a meaning different from the
original verb alone:


 The
bottle floated into the cave
 I ran out of the room
Look up (a word)
 Call back (a person)
 Make up (an excuse)
 Go out
 Break down
 Get together



This typical English construction has:
A
prepositional phrase that indicates the goal of motion
 the
A
cave, the room
verb that indicates how (manner) the subject got there
 float,
Phrasal verbs can cause difficulties to Spanish speakers
since they don’t exist in Spanish
111
One of the most curious differences between
Spanish and English
How would you say this in Spanish:
run
112

In Spanish:
 The
verb has to indicate the direction
 salir,
 The

entrar
adverbial phrase has to indicate the manner
The Spanish versions would be something like this:

This construction is very common in English and it
extends to metaphorical motion with phrasal verbs,
e.g.
I
blew the candle out
la candela de un soplo
 Apagué
 La
botella entró flotando en la cueva
 Salí corriendo de la habitación
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Pragmatics
114
113

DISCOURSE PRAGMATICS

a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which
context contributes to meaning
Linguistic expressions have:



Literal meaning
Contextual meaning
Context can be

situational context of an utterance:

who is speaking to whom, when, where and why
any pre-existing knowledge about those involved
 cultural expectations and background knowledge


Pragmatic or communicative competence:

Pragmatics and culture
115
The ability to understand another speaker's intended
meaning from the literal meaning
Speech acts
116


We cannot say that there is a single Spanish culture
The cultures of Spanish speakers vary greatly

 Make
 Spain
requests
 Apologize
 Caribbean
 Thank
 etc.
 Mayan

Pragmatics studies how speakers accomplish things
through words:
 Andean

How these peoples use language to communicate
can differ to some extent


We call these speech acts
Speech acts have to be done in culturally
appropriate ways
Misuse of linguistic routines/rituals can lead to
misunderstandings
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Some speech acts
(communicative functions)
Speech acts
117
118

Many speech acts in a culture conform to a fixed
routine or script
English example: simple request routine at the table:

In Spanish?:





Can you pass the salt, please?


¿Me pasas la sal?
 Pásame la sal.




Thanking routine: Do we then say thanks?

In English, probably.
 Not so sure in Spanish. It depends on the culture.




Expectations about request and thanking routines vary
from culture to culture in the Spanish-speaking world


Direct and indirect speech acts
119
requesting (and complying or declining)
excusing, apologizing, thanking (and responding to these)
sympathizing, complimenting, congratulating (and acknowledging
these)
narrating, expounding
arguing, criticizing, debating, objecting, counseling
initiating and concluding conversation, interrupting, turn-taking
hesitating, hedging, qualifying
expressing affect (anger, shock, dismay, relief, etc.)
promising (bets, contracts, commitments, etc.)
rituals (ceremonies, introducing guest speakers, etc.)
transacting business (telephone calls, purchases, bartering)
“phatic communion” (speech for establishing or maintaining contact,
as in chitchat)
Theory of politeness
120

Some speech acts can be direct and unambiguous
A

However, many speech acts are performed
indirectly in culturally appropriate ways.
 in
the right context, “It is raining” could mean:
 “I don’t feel like going out”
 “I don’t think you should go out”


statement (“It is raining”) could be just a statement
Cultures differ as to how directly or indirectly
different speech acts are expected to be
performed in particular situations

Politeness in the study of Pragmatics refers to how
we use language to make speech acts less
threatening and infringing.
Politeness is culture-specific to a large extent
 “what
is considered polite in one culture can sometimes
be quite rude or simply eccentric in another cultural
context.”
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Miscommunication
121
Example: the speech act of thanking
122


There is a lot of potential for miscommunication and
misunderstanding when members of different cultures
communicate, even if they use the same language
Actually, there can be differences even among native
speakers from the same culture:



thanking is called for and
is a reasonable way to thank for different
reasons
 what

differences between men and women can be quite noticeable
For example: Anglo US culture expects:
 Thanking
for compliments
close people even for little things, such as
passing the salt
 Thanking
language ability: linguistic competence

but about the

Cultures have rather specific rules as to
 when
Differences between members of different cultures can be
even greater.
Miscommunication is usually not about the



People from other cultures who don’t follow these
rules may seem ungrateful and rude
cultural ability: pragmatic competence
Oral and written language
124
123
THE WRITTEN LANGUAGE


MOSTLY ABOUT SYNTAX



The written language is not just a different medium for
articulating speech
The written language has a register and rules and
patterns that differ to some extent from the oral
language
These patterns have to be learned
They’re learned mostly by doing a lot of reading and
writing
Let us look at some basic writing errors that are
common to many Spanish speakers that can be
attributed to interference
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Noun omission
125
Subject omission
126

Examples:

 “The

first I would do is to buy myself a beautiful house.”
 “But who really is the responsible for people's
education?”



In Spanish adjectives can be easily turned into
nouns (nominalized) by adding an article
English does this to a much more limited extent:
 rich
“Is not only the people itself.”
“But is a matter of fact that I am always trying”
Spanish does not use a subject pronoun for nonpeople (English it, they)
> the rich
-ed omission
127
THE addition
128


The omission of the -ed from the past tense and
from the past participle is a common problem in
writing
This could it be related to the fact that Spanish
speakers have trouble hearing this -d or -t
consonant in syllable-final position



“The problem with the American students is that they
don't worry about the school.”
We saw the reason for this earlier:
In Spanish the definite article is used before
generalized or generic nouns.
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Plural addition
129
Double negatives
130



“In publics schools, as far as I can see, seems like
nobody cares about the students.”
In Spanish if a noun is plural, the adjective that goes
with it has to be plural too.
Another major difference between Spanish and
English is that descriptive adjectives usually follow
the noun rather than precede it as in English




So-called double negatives are the norm in Spanish
English: somebody, nobody, anybody
Spanish: alguien, nadie
Spanish has no equivalent for anybody:

In questions it translates as alguien:



In negative statements it translates as nadie:


Infinitives
¿Vino alguien?
Did anybody come?
No vi a nadie.
I didn’t see anybody
Idioms
131
132



“Apollo tricks Mario to believe that he is his
girlfriend.”
English so-called infinitives, e.g. to believe, doesn’t
match Spanish infinitives, e.g. creer
Spanish infinitive creer can translate in two ways
depending on the context:
 To
believe
 Believing

Quiero creer en lo que dices.
No puede evitar creer.
Cf. Seeing is believing
 Ver
es creer

“I made no notice.”

“I made a line. “





for: no le hice caso (I didn’t pay any attention to him)
For: yo hice fila (I stood in line)
An idiom is a phrase the meaning of which is not
entirely predictable from the meaning of its parts
You have to learn idioms as wholes.
If a speaker is not aware of the idiomatic nature of a
phrase, they will attempt to translate it literally, word
for word
33
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Construction transfer
Spelling mistakes may be caused by
133
134
1.
interference from Spanish spelling

e.g. e.g. Spanish avoids double consonants (letters) where only
one consonant (sound) is pronounced

also, Spanish has simplified other complex spellings from Latin:



2.

aplicar vs. apply




I saw yesterday my teacher

His interes(ts)
He spell(ed) it
when and went
want and what

I saw my teacher yesterday
Possessive construction

the shoe of the girl

“Clause proliferation”
my sister came into the room
Direct objects not next to the verb

percive
135
Came my sister into the room

mishearing of sounds (which may be mispronounced):

Some errors come from applying Spanish structures or
constructions in English
Postverbal subjects

photograph vs. fotografía
apaty (cf. apatía) instead of apathy
failure to learn or misapplication of English spelling “rules”

3.

the girl's shoe
Do support in questions
136


Spanish tends to use full clauses where English
might use
prepositional phrases
 ?the
baby that has a cold, vs.
 the baby with the cold

or reduced clauses

English uses the verb to do to form questions
 Statement:
You understand the problem
 Question: Do you understand the problem?

Spanish has no special construction to make yes/no
questions, so we may see or hear things like:
 “You
understand this problem?”
 *He
 He
asked that I would hurry
asked me to hurry
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137
Prepositional phrase adverbials rather
than adverbs
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Spanish has adverbs that correspond to English adverbs
in –ly:
happily, sadly
 felizmente, tristemente
Telling stories
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Adjective (fem. sing) + -mente
However Spanish speakers tend to prefer using
adverbial phrases

with skill instead of skillfully

with grace instead of gracefully
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
con habilidad vs. hábilmente
con gracia vs. ??graciosamente
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Cultures differ as to how they prefer to tell stories
English discourse organization tends to be direct
and to the point.
The writing of (at least more educated) Spanish
speakers tend to contain:
 long
sentences, often run-on
 reexpression by synonyms and hyperbole for a buildup
effect
 more formal, literary choices of words
 frequent deviations from the main idea
A reference for further study
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If you want to learn more
about the linguistic differences
between English and Spanish,
Spanish/English Contrasts
M. Stanley Whitley
http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-EnglishContrasts-Second-Edition/dp/0878403817
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