Hortènsia Curell

Autonomous University of Barcelona | UAB · Departament de Filologia Anglesa i Germanística

This paper analyzes the acquisitional stages of L2 apology realizations in response to discourse completion tasks produced in a cross-sectional study by 78 Catalan learners of English at three different proficiency levels. The average number of explicit apologies (IFIDs) used per situation is examined, as are the learners' lexical choice of apology...

The aim of this paper is to study contrastively the use of the present perfect in English and in Catalan. At first sight, and compared to other European languages such as French or German, Catalan and English seem to have similar present perfects, since in both languages this form is used to express past actions but is incompatible with specificati...

We present the problems that the implementation of the new degree in English Studies has created for first-year subjects taught in English. The first choice that was made was to work as a team with the support of an MQD (2009MQD 00082). Although this presentation has been drawn up when the first semester has not yet fully completed, we nevertheless...

This paper presents the results of a corpus-based study on the contribution of Spanish aspectual auxiliary verbs to the factual interpretation of the predicates they modify and with which they constitute the verb complex (a verb periphrasis, VP). The study was carried out as part of a project that, based on linguistic knowledge, aimed at automatizi...

Despite a growing body of research on English-medium instruction (EMI), little is known about how actual EMI lecturers’ language practices support L2 learning, specifically key psycholinguistic processes such as learner comprehension and output. This paper presents a classroom-centred study of the L2 learning opportunities found in the EMI lecturer...

In the present article, we aim to identify, analyse and correlate the variables underlying the perception of empathy based on the evaluations made by the role play participants of their own interactions. The subjects, whose L1 was either Catalan or English, held a conversation dealing with a trouble that aimed to elicit an empathic response. Each p...

This paper explores how empathy is verbally expressed in two different languages, Catalan and British English, by analysing the linguistic strategies used by speakers of these languages when responding more or less empathically in interactions. These different strategies are described according to their nature and aim. Data was obtained from dyadic...

In this paper we present the second edition of the FACT shared task (Factuality Annotation and Classification Task), included in IberLEF2020. The main objective of this task is to advance in the study of the factuality of the events mentioned in texts. This year, the FACT task includes a subtask on event identification in addition to the factuality...

Mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) is a fast-developing field that is constantly growing and evolving in education. There is a lack of publications focusing on implementation studies of MALL as a means to enhance second language/foreign language (L2) reading comprehension. Building on Burston's (2013). Mobile-Assisted Language Learning: a Sel...

The multifunctional tool this paper presents has been developed within the TAGFACT project, a project that aims to automate the annotation of factuality –understood as the degree of commitment with which the writer presents situations– in Spanish journalistic texts. In what follows, the tool, which allows the compilation of the texts and the manual...

In this paper we describe the FACT shared task (Factuality Annotation and Classification Task), included in the First Iberian Languages Evaluation Forum (IberLEF). Full paper: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2421/FACT_overview.pdf

Resumen: El objetivo general de este proyecto es crear una herramienta para la anotación de la factualidad expresada en textos en español a través del procesamiento automático. Pretendemos que dicha representación sea muy rica, por lo que se llevará a cabo desde tres ejes distintos: multinivel, multidimensional y multitextual. El análisis multinive...

Reading academic texts is a skill which is as difficult as necessary for university students. It has been seen (Dhieb-Henia 2003, Hellekjær 2009, Nergis 2013) that even when students have an acceptable level of English, they still encounter difficulties when dealing with academic texts. According to the First European Survey on Language Competences...

StratApp is a project within KA2 Erasmus+, whose aim is to improve the English academic reading skills of university students by means of a game-based app accessible through mobile technology or web. The app will combine the obvious educational purpose with game-design elements and game principles. The first discipline to be included will be educat...

The aim of this paper is to show that the elements of classical rhetoric established by Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilius for the genus deliberatiuum are present in a selection of speeches delivered by Barack Obama around the electoral campaign that took him to the presidence of the United States. The exposition of the parallelisms between the Latin...

The aim of this paper is to contrast the expression of motion events by native speakers of English, native speakers of Catalan and Catalan advanced learners of English. It is based on Talmy’s (1985, 1991, 2000) typological work on lexicalization patterns and on Slobin’s (1996, 1997, 2006) theory of thinking for speaking. Catalan is a verb-framed la...

The aim of this paper is to establish the amount of L1 (Catalan) influence on English L2 in the expression of motion events, in advanced foreign language learners. The analysis was carried out from elicited narratives (“frog stories”) by Catalan university professors of English, which were video- and tape-recorded. We draw heavily on both Talmy’s...

The primary goal of this project is to improve the learning conditions of students in two core courses in the first year of the degree programme in English Language and Literature , English Language: Descriptive Grammar I and II. In these courses, the students have to handle the grammar of a foreign language in a systematic, serious way for the fir...

The aim of this paper is to study how semantic components like path and manner of motion are expressed by Catalan learners of English of three different levels, taking into account both their L1 and their L2. We draw heavily on both Talmy’s (1985, 1991, 2000) typological work on so-called lexicalization patterns and Slobin’s (1996, 1997, 2005)) the...

It is a well established fact in the literature that native and non-native speakers apologize differently (Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper 1989, Cohen 2005, Cohen and Olshtain 1981, Márquez Reiter 2001, Mir 1992 and Trosborg 1987, to name but a few). There are also a number of studies (Carrell and Konneker 1991 and Gershenson 2003, among others) that...

The aim of this paper is to examine the realisations of the speech act of apologising by Catalan learners of English at a proficiency level, focusing on their interlanguage behaviour, which reveals a number of sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic failures: Catalan learners have difficulties to comprehend ‘the intended illocutionary point’ of the tar...

In Catalan, the present perfect has two very clearly differentiated values, as established in Curell (2002, 2003), and Pérez Saldanya (2002): temporal and aspectual. Temporally, the present perfect is a hodiernal perfective past (1a), which is used to make reference to eventualities that have obtained within the day. Aspectually it refers to past s...

Aquesta presentació s'estructura de la manera següent. Després d'explicitar els objectius de l'experiència, explicaré breument en què consisteixen les tutories integrades. En segon lloc, faré unes breus reflexions sobre l'ensenyament bimodal. Tercer, explicaré detalladament com ha estat aquesta experiència. Finalment, faré esment dels resultats obt...

This dissertation consists in a contrastive analysis of the present perfect in English and in Catalan, from a functional-semantic approach. In chapter one the most important theories about the perfect/preterit oppositions are reviewed and assessed, revealing the strengths and weaknesses of each theory. Using the most valuable proposals of these the...