Rosana Villares and Miguel A. Vela Tafalla participated in the International Seminar “Psylex V: de los datos empíricos a la teoría del lenguaje “(24-25 October 2019, University of Zaragoza, Spain) with the following poster presentations:
Cuando dos metodologías son mejor que una (Rosana Villares)
Abstract
El valor añadido de la combinación de metodologías cualitativas y cuantitativas en el diseño de un proyecto de investigación presenta una serie de beneficios estudiados por laliteratura. Dörnyei (2007) define esta sinergia de métodos (“mixed methods research”) comola oportunidad de combinar las características típicas de cada método de forma reflexiva para examinar con más precisión los resultados obtenidos y el desarrollo de teorías (p. 43). Siguiendo las recomendaciones de este autor, mi diseño metodológico combina la lingüística de corpus (McEnery y Hardie, 2012) y el análisis crítico del discurso (Chouliaraki y Fairclough, 1999). Como punto de partida, la compilación de mi corpus responde a la necesidad de identificar las consecuencias que conlleva, a nivel lingüístico y discursivo, la irrupción del inglés en el ámbito universitario debido al proceso de internacionalización de las universidades (de Wit et al., 2015; Maringe y Foskett, 2010). De este modo, el corpus se compone de 227 documentos institucionales, planes de internacionalización y políticas lingüísticas. Gracias al uso de la lingüística de corpus se pudo realizar un rastreo defrecuencias y colocaciones (“collocations”) de palabras clave para analizar de formacuantitativa los contenidos de los textos y correlaciones entre palabras. Una vez identificados los principales temas, se llevó a cabo un análisis cualitativo del discurso más exhaustivo de aquellos términos y textos relacionados con los idiomas con la intención de identificar elementos tales como rasgos discursivos, ideologías, influencia del contexto, o relaciones de poder entre agentes (autores -receptores). Este análisis permite demostrar como estos factores influyen en los contenidos de los textos y como tienen el poder de transformar comportamientos lingüísticos. Finalmente, se verificará si los beneficios mencionados por Dörnyei (2007) aparecen en este caso concreto o no.
Analyzing intonation in video articles in English for Academic Purposes (Miguel A. Vela Tafalla)
Abstract
Academic success is highly dependent on researchers’ abilities to use language efficiently. The field of Languages for Academic Purposes has a long-standing tradition of studies into well-established academic genres like the Research Article and their contextual, rhetoric, and linguistic characteristics. The data obtained in these studies have shed light into the dynamics of contemporary knowledge production and science dissemination, informing appropriately the teaching of these genres to novice academics.
However, the importance of the written medium, added to the temporary nature of spoken material, has meant that oral genres have many times received less scholarly attention. Studies that have worked on oral genres like the conference presentation or the lecture have most often than not focused on transcript versions of the events. This has brought about a methodological bias against the purely spoken component of oral genres, which is regularly lost when put into writing.
To fill in this gap, this poster aims at presenting methodological considerations to tackle the study of intonation in academic oral genres in English. There are three main areas that need to be discussed. First, I will consider issues related to corpus design, i.e. the selection of a specific genre and the problems encountered and solutions adopted during compilation, processing and storage. Second, I will compare the two major theoretical frameworks that have been applied to the study of intonation in English and the implications of choosing to use one over the other: applying a generative framework like Autosegmental-Metrical phonology and the ToBI (Tones and Break Indices) system as opposed to a systemic-functional approach like the study of Halliday’s Tonality, Tonicity and Tone. While the former proves to be exact and exhaustive at the expense of pedagogy, the latter is very useful for applied purposes but fails to capture the phonetic nature of English intonation. Finally, I will show what the actual analysis looks like with the Praat software and I will discuss decisions related to data labelling and data interpretation.
To conclude, I will show some preliminary findings derived from the application of the above methodological design to a small ad-hoc corpus of five audiovisual academic texts. This will serve the purpose of illustrating the procedure as well as giving a glimpse into what kind of theoretical reflections can be elicited by the analysis of intonation in academic spoken language in a particular genre.