Introduction to Linguistic Analysis of Spanish Texts

Teacher(s)

De Cock Barbara;

Language

Spanish

Prerequisites

The prerequisite(s) for this Teaching Unit (Unité d’enseignement – UE) for the programmes/courses that offer this Teaching Unit are specified at the end of this sheet.

Main themes

The course focuses on the pronominal paradigm, verb morphology and the syntax of the complex sentence in contemporary standard Spanish.

Aims

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1	By the end of the course and the tutorials, students should be able to: ' Use correct pronominal forms and verb forms in the sentence and construct correct simple and complex sentences in contemporary standard Spanish; ' Explain the choice of a certain verb form or syntactic structure in an authentic text (a corpus), using the adequate grammatical and linguistic terminology. To reach this goal, students should be able to analyze the sentence and the constituents from a morphosyntactic point of view (identifying word categories, syntagms, syntactic functions, main propositions and subordinate clauses, and connectors) and to identify the argumentative structure as well as the aspect of the predicate. As a result, this course combines aims relating to normative (first aim) and descriptive (second aim) grammar. Its goal is to initiate the student to corpus analysis.

Content

- Syntactic analysis of standard contemporary Spanish, using the correct terminology.
- Introducing the use of Spanish corpora from a didactic and analytic perspective.
- The consolidation of level B1 by means of syntactic analysis. Introducing some grammatical apects of levels B2 and C1, and the analysis of those grammatical aspects.

Teaching methods

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the information in this section is particularly likely to change.

The course will be divided in two parts : group sessions (CM) and practice sessions in smaller groups (TP).
The group sessions will focus on the acquisition of the analytical schemes and on the descriptive approach of the data. In addition, a critical reflection concerning the contribution of corpus searches will be included. Student participation is considered the central point of the learning process.
The practice sessions will focus on practicing the analytical strategies.
The students will be required to prepare analytical exercises and corpus searches.

Evaluation methods

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the information in this section is particularly likely to change.

This course has permanent evaluation:
-written test during the term (6/20)
-written exam during the exam session (8/20)
Both tests include linguistic analysis questions concerning fragments of the corpora used in class. The students will have to show their capacity to offer a complete analysis, taking into account the context and using the correct terminology.

-paper written in pairs (6/20) : the calendar and more detailed description will be published on Moodle
Not presenting one of the two parts of the evaluation implies a 0 score for the entire course. The resist session consists of a written examen (14/20) and a paper (6/20). For the resit, students who did not pass the written paper in the first session, should resubmit an improved version of the paper. Not presenting one of the two parts of the evaluation (this includes submitting a version of the paper that has not been improved) implies a 0 score for the entire course.

 

Online resources

Moodle page of the course

Bibliography

Syllabus (disponible chez la DUC)
Gómez Torrego L. Gramática didáctica del español. Madrid: SM.
Buero Vallejo A. El tragaluz. Madrid: Austral. (corpus)
Valdeón J., Pérez J., Juliá S. Historia de España. Espasa Calpe. (corpus)
 
Le syllabus mentionne au début de chaque chapitre de façon informative des références bibliographiques supplémentaires.

Faculty or entity

ELAL