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La integración de la pronunciación en el aula de ELE: Integrating pronunciation in the Spanish language classroom
Editado por Zsuzsanna Bárkányi, M. Mar Galindo Merino y Aarón Pérez-Bernabeu
[IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature 42] 2024
► pp. 55–70

Chapter 4
Developing pragmatics in Spanish as an additional language

Enhancing pronunciation through multimodal cues

| Universität zu Köln | Universitat Pompeu Fabra
| Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
This chapter delves into the crucial role of pronunciation, particularly prosody, in shaping meaning and fostering the development of pragmatics in Spanish as an additional language (ELE). Effective communication not only relies on the literal content of verbal messages, but it also heavily depends on the appropriate use of oral and non-verbal cues that enrich it. We first explain how speakers employ multimodal strategies such as speech prosody and body movements to optimise their oral discourse and successfully convey their communicative intentions. Then we propose to focus on the integration of speech prosody and body movements into pronunciation instruction and provide illustrations of how to achieve this when teaching speech acts, discourse and information structure in ELE.
Keywords: pragmatic skills in Spanish as an additional language, ELE, multimodal communication, co-speech gestures, prosody, pronunciation teaching
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Key concepts: Pragmatics, pronunciation, multimodality, and their interfaces
  • 3.Evidence on the benefits of multimodal cues for L2 pronunciation and pragmatic skills
  • 4.Pedagogical implementation: Using multimodal cues to teach pronunciation and pragmatic skills in ELE
    • 4.1Teaching the expression of basic and complex speech acts in oral reading
    • 4.2Teaching how to mark discourse and information structure in spontaneous speech
  • 5.Future work
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
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