Relevance theory and the study of linguistic interfaces in second language acquisition
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Aoife Ahern
Aoife Ahern is Associate Professor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid School of Education. Her research interests are related to the interfaces of grammar and pragmatics, as well as to second language teaching, learning and acquisition, and to literacy education. She has published several books such as
Pragmática , as co-author with V. Escandell-Vidal and J. Amenós Pons (Madrid: Akal 2020),Comunicación y cognición en ELE: La perspectiva pragmática , co-authored with J. Amenós Pons and V. Escandell-Vidal (Madrid: Edinumen 2018), and others.
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José Amenós-Pons
José Amenós-Pons is a Senior Reader in Spanish Linguistics at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He specialises in cognitive pragmatics and foreign language acquisition processes and has published numerous articles on tense, aspect and mood, and more generally, on the relationships between grammar and pragmatics, and on how this relationship influences L2 learning. He has taught L2 Spanish for many years and been very actively involved in L2 teacher training.
Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes is a Professor in Spanish linguistics at the University of the Balearic Islands and has headed multiple projects on the acquisition of various phenomena on Spanish language including, but not limited to, the acquisition of ser/estar, tense and mood, differential object marking. He has authored and co-authored numerous journal articles, book chapters and books, published by various international publishers and in high impact journals. He has organized many professional meetings and has been a participant in many professional conferences.
Abstract
In this paper we address Relevance-theoretical (RT) postulates with clear potential for contributing to the substantiation of the notion of interface in second language acquisition (SLA) processes. Whether the interface is considered the locus of contact between the structural linguistic properties and syntactic operations, on one hand, and the interpretive mechanisms of the conceptual-intentional system, on the other; or understood as points of interaction among cognitive modules, interfaces are fundamental to interpreting grammatical structures that require integrating discourse-contextual information. Assuming the RT conceptual-procedural meaning distinction is approximately correlated with that which exists between lexical and functional categories, it will be shown that recent research into SLA revolves around the problem of how procedural units are acquired. Certain functional categories, expressing interpretable features, have been analysed as encoding identical procedural indications across different languages. Thus, one challenge that L2 learners face is identifying diverse interface effects, derivable from a single procedure, across languages. To illustrate this point we discuss a recent analysis of phenomena involving tense and aspect acquisition applying RT principles to empirical findings. Finally, some new directions will be suggested for further theorizing in SLA research on inherent characteristics of utterance interpretation in an L2.
About the authors
Aoife Ahern is Associate Professor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid School of Education. Her research interests are related to the interfaces of grammar and pragmatics, as well as to second language teaching, learning and acquisition, and to literacy education. She has published several books such as Pragmática, as co-author with V. Escandell-Vidal and J. Amenós Pons (Madrid: Akal 2020), Comunicación y cognición en ELE: La perspectiva pragmática, co-authored with J. Amenós Pons and V. Escandell-Vidal (Madrid: Edinumen 2018), and others.
José Amenós-Pons is a Senior Reader in Spanish Linguistics at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He specialises in cognitive pragmatics and foreign language acquisition processes and has published numerous articles on tense, aspect and mood, and more generally, on the relationships between grammar and pragmatics, and on how this relationship influences L2 learning. He has taught L2 Spanish for many years and been very actively involved in L2 teacher training.
Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes is a Professor in Spanish linguistics at the University of the Balearic Islands and has headed multiple projects on the acquisition of various phenomena on Spanish language including, but not limited to, the acquisition of ser/estar, tense and mood, differential object marking. He has authored and co-authored numerous journal articles, book chapters and books, published by various international publishers and in high impact journals. He has organized many professional meetings and has been a participant in many professional conferences.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Resonance and recombinant creativity: Why they are important for research in Cognitive Linguistics and Pragmatics
- Local grammars and intercultural speech act studies: A study of apologies in four English varieties
- Examining interlanguage pragmatics from a relevance-theoretic perspective: Challenges in L2 production
- Forum
- Relevance theory and the study of linguistic interfaces in second language acquisition
- Book Reviews
- Ishihara, Noriko and Andrew D. Cohen: Teaching and learning pragmatics: where language and culture meet (2nd edn.)
- Xie, Chaoqun: The Pragmatics of Internet Memes
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Resonance and recombinant creativity: Why they are important for research in Cognitive Linguistics and Pragmatics
- Local grammars and intercultural speech act studies: A study of apologies in four English varieties
- Examining interlanguage pragmatics from a relevance-theoretic perspective: Challenges in L2 production
- Forum
- Relevance theory and the study of linguistic interfaces in second language acquisition
- Book Reviews
- Ishihara, Noriko and Andrew D. Cohen: Teaching and learning pragmatics: where language and culture meet (2nd edn.)
- Xie, Chaoqun: The Pragmatics of Internet Memes
