Problemas en el uso de las anáforas en producciones escritas de español como lengua extranjera

Torner Castells, Sergi; López Ferrero, Carmen; Martín Peris, Ernesto

Problemas en el uso de las anáforas en producciones escritas de español como lengua extranjera

Citation

Torner Castells S, López Ferrero C, Martín Peris E. Problemas en el uso de las anáforas en producciones escritas de español como lengua extranjera. Revista Española de Lingüística. 2011; 41(2): 147-174.

Abstract

In this article we approach the difficulties that students at advanced levels of Spanishas a Foreign Language (the acronym of which in Spanish is (ELE) have when using anaphoric forms. We analyse a corpus of written texts from Erasmus students in order to account for all the mistakes regarding the use of anaphora. Our results show that the use of anaphora in Spanish is quite complex, due both to the variety of linguistic forms that may be used and to the different fields of reference these forms may refer to. More specifically, when choosing one form of anaphora, one must take into consideration three different factors: i) the type of context the anaphora refers to and, therefore, the kind of activated signalling (either textual or cognitive); ii) the syntactic-semantic function performed by the anaphoric element and iii) its pragmatic value in the informative structure of the clause and of discourse (mainly, the topic, and the focus or contrast). The conclusions of our study have both adescriptive and a pedagogical value: from the point of view of descriptive grammar, we delve into the explanation of some complex linguistic phenomena the description of which is not yet entirely satisfactory; from the point of view of the pedagogical implementation, we identify some of the factors which should be taken into account in a pedagogical grammar of ELE. It is particularly useful to identify the kindof knowledge necessary to correctly produce anaphoric reference, as well as therole of this knowledge in the informative development of the text, in the syntactic structure of sentences and in the argument structure of verbs.