Cover not available

Article In: Spanish in Context: Online-First Articles

Discourse marking mechanisms in argumentative interaction

A study of debates in Spanish as an additional language

ORCiD logo with link | Brown University
 | Northeastern University London
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
Formal debates are a necessary discourse genre in language learning (CEFR and PCIC). One of the linguistic elements that learners must master in order to produce them is the use of Discourse Marking Mechanisms (DMMs) to guide their contributions, defend the theses held and manage the interaction. This study aims to analyse the repertoire and use of DMMs used by B2 learners in debate activities. The corpus examined consists of 12 debates (113 minutes of recording) which are analysed from a pragmatic approach using mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative). The results indicate that DMMs mainly fulfil a cognitive function and students use a basic repertoire of DMMs, which are introduced, according to the PCIC, at the initial levels. From the analysis we derive the need for the explicit teaching of DMMs linked to the debate genre.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical Framework
    • 2.1Oral argumentation: The genre of formal oral debates
    • 2.2Discourse Marking Mechanisms
      • 2.2.1The use DMMs in spoken interaction in AL
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Data collection
    • 3.2Methodology of analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1DMMs Functions
    • 4.2Total linguistic forms
    • 4.3Comparison between mock and final debates
      • 4.3.1Comparison of DMMs Macrofunctions and Functions
      • 4.3.2Comparison of linguistic forms
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Author queries
  • References
References (57)
References
Acosta, Lidia. 2020. “El uso del debate estructurado en clase como herramienta para desarrollar el pensamiento crítico en la clase de ELE.” In Five years of ELEUK conferences: a selection of short papers from 2019: 55. Research-publishing. net. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Acosta-Ortega, Laura. 2019. La competencia interaccional de estudiantes de ELE: gestión de turnos en actividades de interacción oral. PhD Dissertation, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. [URL]
Acosta-Ortega, Laura, and Marta García-Balsas. 2023. “Establecer criterios para evaluar la interacción oral: Desde la pedagogía de los géneros discursivos a la práctica en el aula.” Revista Nebrija de Lingüística Aplicada a la Enseñanza de Lenguas, 17 (35). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Acosta-Ortega, Laura, and Carmen López Ferrero. 2022. “Exponentes pragmático-discursivos en la interacción oral de español LE/L2.” Journal of Spanish Language Teaching, 9 (1): 81–96. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Adams, Rebecca. 2008. “Do Second Language Learners Benefit from Interacting with Each Other?” In Conversational Interaction in Second Language Acquisition, ed. by Alison Mackey, 29–51. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bini, Milena, and Almudena Pernas. 2008. “Marcadores discursivos en los primeros estadios de adquisición del italiano.” In 25 años de Lingüística Aplicada en España: Hitos y retos. Actas del VI Congreso de la Asociación Española de Lingüística Aplicada (AESLA), ed. by Rafael Monroy and Aquilino Sánchez. Murcia: Editum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Borreguero Zuloaga, Margarita. 2015. “A vueltas con los marcadores del discurso: de nuevo sobre su delimitación y sus funciones.” In Testualità. Fondamenti, unità, relazioni, ed by Angela Ferrari, Letizia Lala, and Roska Stojmenova, 971:151–70. Francesco Cesati Editore.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. “Topic-shift discourse markers in L2 Italian.” Language, Interaction and Acquisition/Langage, Interaction et Acquisition 8 (2): 173–203. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Briz Gómez, Antonio, Salvador Pons Bordería, and Josep Portolés (eds.) 2008. Diccionario de partículas discursivas del español. [URL]
Campillos Llanos, Leonardo, and Paula González Gómez. 2014. “Oral Production of Discourse Markers by Intermediate Learners of Spanish: A Corpus Perspective.” In Yearbook of Corpus Linguistics and Pragmatics 2014: New Empirical and Theoretical Paradigms, ed. by Jesús Romero-Trillo, 239–59. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cañada Pujols, Maria Dolors, Laura Acosta-Ortega, and Aina Obis Monné. 2022. “‘Oui’ como marcador interaccional: Usos y funciones en francés como lengua adicional.” Çédille, revista de estudios franceses, Article 22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cordelia, Marisa. 2009. “Confrontational style in Spanish arguments: Pragmatics and teaching outlook.” Language, Culture and Curriculum 9 (2): 148–62. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cortés Rodríguez, Luis. 2015. Análisis del discurso político: Consideraciones acerca de los debates en torno al Estado de la Nación. Almería: Universidad de Almería.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Council of Europe. 2020. Common European Framerwork of Reference For Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Companion Volume. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cuenca, Maria Josep. 2006. La connexió i els connectors: perspectiva oracional i textual. Vic: Eumo.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
de Santiago Guervós, Javier. 2019. “La conexión discursiva en español LE/L2: problemas terminológicos, propuesta de catálogo y didáctica.” MarcoELE: Revista de Didáctica Español Lengua Extranjera 281. [URL]
. 2020. “El uso de los marcadores discursivos en español LE/L2: estudio de un corpus de aprendices.”. Archiletras científica 41: 83–100.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Diao-Klaeger, Sabine, and Britta Thörle. 2013. “Diskursmarker in L2.” In Sprachwissenschaft–Fremdsprachendidaktik: Neue Impulse, ed. by Christoph Bürgel and Dirk Spiepmann, 145–60. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Hohengehren.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Díaz Rodríguez, Lourdes, and Núria Enríquez. 2020. “Los marcadores discursivos en la interacción oral de nativos, no nativos y hablantes de herencia.” Archiletras científica: revista de investigación de lengua y letras 41: 169–82.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duarte Infante, Ángela Vanesa, Sandra Milena Fonseca Velandia, and Bertha Ramos Holguín. 2020. “Debates about Educational Issues: A Pedagogical Strategy to Explore Argumentative Skills in the EFL Classroom.” HOW 27 (1): 49–67. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ferroni, Roberta. 2018. “Estratégias interacionais usadas por estudantes universitários de italiano le de níveis inicial e avançado durante conversações simétricas.” Trabalhos em Linguística Aplicada 57 (3): 1552–89. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fuentes Rodríguez, Catalina. 2009. Diccionario de conectores y operadores del español. Español/LE. Madrid: Arco Libros.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fuentes Rodríguez, Catalina, and Ester Brenes Peña (eds.). 2023. Macrosintaxis y pragmática del discurso persuasivo. Ediciones Universidad de Navarra / EUNSA.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Galiana, Bea Patricia, Pedro Gras Manzano, Elisa Rosado Villegas, and Iban Mañas Navarrete. 2024. “Marcadores discursivos y otros mecanismos de marcación discursiva. Una propuesta holística para el análisis de narraciones orales en español como lengua extranjera.” RILCE. Revista de Filología Hispánica 40 (3): 937–69. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gan, Zhengdong, Chris Davison, and Liz Hamp-Lyons. 2009. “Topic Negotiation in Peer Group Oral Assessment Situations: A Conversation Analytic Approach.” Applied Linguistics 30 (3): 315–34. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
García-Balsas, Marta, and Carmen López-Ferrero. 2023. “Oral debates in Spanish as an Additional Language classroom: Assessment criteria to improve student performance.” Porta Linguarum An International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Learning, (39), Article 39. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
García García, Marta. 2009. La competencia conversacional de estudiantes de español como lengua extranjera: Análisis y propuesta didáctica. PhD dissertation, Alcalá de Henares [URL]
. 2021. “Turn-Initial Discourse Markers in L2 Spanish Conversations: Insights from Conversation Analysis.” Corpus Pragmatics 5 (1): 37–61. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1974. The interpretation of cultures. Nueva York: Basic Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Giudice, Jacqueline. 2021. “Los textos argumentativos.” In Escritura académica: de la teoría a la práctica, ed. by Juan Antonio Núñez Cortés. Madrid: Pirámide.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gras, Pedro, Patricia Galiana, and Elisa Rosado. 2021. “Modal and Discourse Marking in L1 and L2 Spanish: A Comparative Analysis of Oral Narratives.” Corpus Pragmatics 5 (1): 63–94. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Guillén Solano, Patricia. 2018. “Análisis cualitativo del discurso oral formal de hablantes de ELE en un aula universitaria: Nuevas propuestas para el desarrollo de la argumentación oral.” [URL]
Halliday, Michael Alexander Kirkwood. 1976. “Anti-languages.” American anthropologist 78 (3): 570–84. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haselow, Alexander. 2021. “The acquisition of pragmatic markers in the foreign language classroom: An experimental study on the effects of implicit and explicit learning.” Journal of Pragmatics 186 (diciembre): 73–86. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holgado-Lage, Anais. 2017. Diccionario de marcadores discursivos para estudiantes de español como segunda lengua. New York: Peter Lang. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Instituto Cervantes, ed. 2006. Plan curricular del Instituto Cervantes: niveles de referencia para el español. 3a. edición. Madrid: Instituto Cervantes.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koch, Christian, and Britta Thörle. 2019. “The Discourse Markers sí, claro and vale in Spanish as a Foreign Language.” In Cognitive Insights into Discourse Markers and Second Language Acquisition, ed. by Iria Bello, Carolina Bernales, Maria Vittoria Calvi, and Elena Landone, 119–49. Oxford: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
La Rocca, Marcella. 2020. “Los marcadores discursivos en los manuales de español LE/L2.” Achiletras científica 41: 67–81.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
López Ferrero, Carmen, and Encarna Atienza Cerezo. 2022. “Cartografiar los géneros discursivos: rutas para evaluar la competencia discursiva plurilingüe.” Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas 171: 71–83. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
López Ferrero, Carmen, and David Rose. 2022. “Competencia discursiva, evaluación y aprendizaje de lenguas:(Discourse Competence and Assessment in Language Learning).” In Estudios del discurso/The Routledge Handbook of Spanish Language Discourse Studies, 510–24. Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martín Soria, Cristina. 2013. “Técnicas de debate en la clase de ELE. Análisis de un caso práctico.” En Proceedings of the I Congreso Internacional de Didáctica de Español como Lengua Extranjera del Instituto Cervantes de Budapest, 263–70. Instituto Virtual Cervantes.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martín-Peris, Ernesto, Carmen López-Ferrero, and Carme Bach. 2018. “Plurilingual Discourse Competence: Assessing Genres at the Threshold Level.” Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice 15 (3). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martín Zorraquino, María Antonia, and José Portolés. 1999. “Los marcadores del discurso.” Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española 31: 4051–4213.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nogueira da Silva, Antonio Messias. 2010. “Introducción de los marcadores del discurso en los manuales del nivel B2 usados en Brasil.” marcoELE. Revista de Didáctica Español Lengua Extranjera 101: 1–26.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paltridge, Brian. 2001. Genre and the Language Learning Classroom. University of Michigan Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pascual Escagedo, Consuelo. 2015. “Análisis de las funciones de los marcadores discursivos en las conversaciones de estudiantes italianos de ELE.” Lingue e linguaggi 131: 119–61.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Portolés, José. 2001. Marcadores del discurso. Ariel. Barcelona: Ariel.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Puertas Ribés, Elia. 2020. “El debate como herramienta de aprendizaje y consolidación de conocimientos: una propuesta didáctica para el estudio de la comparación y las descripciones de lugar.” Foro de profesores de E/LE 16 (diciembre): 311–20. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ramsburg, James. 2022. “The Oral Production of Discourse Markers by Advanced Learners of Spanish.” IULC Working Papers 22 (1). [URL]
Ruiz Fajardo, Guadalupe. 2020. “La enseñanza-aprendizaje de los géneros orales interactivos.” In Lingüística textual y enseñanza del español LE/L2, 135–53. Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saldaña, Johnny. 2021. The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Fourth edition. London: SAGE.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Santos Río, L. 2003. Diccionario de partículas. Salamanca: Luso-Española de Ediciones.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah. 2001. “Discourse Markers: Language, Meaning, and Context.” In The handbook of discourse analysis, ed. by Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen, and Heidi Ehernberger Hamilton, 54–75. Blackwell handbooks in linguistics. Malden: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Torre Torre, Aroa María. 2017. “Tratamiento de los marcadores discursivos en documentos de referencia y curriculares: el caso del MCER y del PCIC.” marcoELE. Revista de Didáctica Español Lengua Extranjera 251: 1–27.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Lier, Leo, (ed.). 2004. The Ecology and Semiotics of Language Learning: A Sociocultural Perspective. Vol. 31. Educational Linguistics. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yang, Qin. 2023. “El uso de conectores: análisis de errores basado en corpus de aprendices sinohablantes de español.” Lengua y Sociedad 22 (1): 275–91. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue