Lidia Mañoso-Pacheco | Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (original) (raw)

Papers by Lidia Mañoso-Pacheco

Issues in Language Studies, 2024

The utilisation of gender-inclusive language, aimed at promoting equal treatment between men and ... more The utilisation of gender-inclusive language, aimed at promoting equal treatment between men and women, has sparked both positive and negative reactions in Spanish society. Consequently, it has evolved into an ideological issue that transcends linguistic boundaries. This study examines the perceptions of pre-service teachers regarding the use of non-sexist language in the academic environment. Specifically, it analyses the current level of usage and acceptance among the study population, while also investigating the correlation between the language of instruction (Spanish vs. English) and participants' stance on this matter. Given the ongoing debate surrounding its usage, it is essential to identify the factors that influence the opinions of student teachers. Ad hoc questionnaires were administered to a non-probabilistic sample of 348 undergraduate students from Spain. The results indicated widespread adoption of inclusive language, with most participants considering it necessary in daily life and academia. Non-biased linguistic forms were notably prevalent in the L1 context, and nearly half reported using them to enhance academic performance. Age and academic year did not significantly influence these perceptions, as confirmed by Spearman's correlation analyses. However, gender and university degree emerged as critical factors, with female participants showing a stronger inclination toward its use for academic purposes.

Societies, 2024

Bluey stands as the current pinnacle in children’s television series, lauded and adorned with mul... more Bluey stands as the current pinnacle in children’s television series, lauded and adorned with multiple accolades for its educational and social merits. It stands out for its portrayal of childhood social learning within familial settings, offering a realistic depiction of everyday challenges. In addition, Bluey is based on the everyday life of Australian society, clearly reflecting the country’s customs, social values, and natural environments, making it an invaluable resource for enriching the cultural learning of the English language and culture from an Australian point of view, an issue that is rarely addressed in the specialist literature. Thus, this study seeks to identify the cultural and societal facets of Australia depicted in it, with the aim of assessing its pedagogical value in teaching English to non-native learners within the context of primary education. Thirty evaluators analyzed the 52 episodes of the first season of Bluey, endeavoring to identify elements across nine thematic areas. To mitigate variances among evaluators, elements were verified only if agreement was reached by at least three evaluators. In total, evaluators identified 3327 elements representing Australian culture, comprising these categories: (1) Childhood; (2) Devices; (3) Lifestyles; (4) Food; (5) Language; (6) Sports; (7) Animals; (8) Nature; and (9) Places. A total of 1223 elements received verification by the requisite number of evaluators. The resulting catalog of Australia-specific elements per episode serves as a valuable tool in selecting the most instructive episodes for English-language and Australian cultural education for non-natives. This compilation facilitates a nuanced approach to teaching English, rooted in the diverse and culturally rich Australian context, thus breaking away from strictly British and American cultural associations and embracing a broader linguistic and cultural landscape.

Social Sciences, 2024

This is an editorial introduction to the Special issue titled "Challenges of Teaching in Today’s ... more This is an editorial introduction to the Special issue titled "Challenges
of Teaching in Today’s Society: Factors Involved in Educational Quality", published in the journal Social Sciences (open access)

Social Sciences, 2023

The decision to pursue a career in teaching is usually driven by vocational interests, with the s... more The decision to pursue a career in teaching is usually driven by vocational interests, with the social image of teachers playing a pivotal role in this choice. This study endeavors to explore the influence of gender on the perception of teaching and its impact on the inclination of preservice teachers towards vocational training. The research, based on a sample of 1469 participants, aims to evaluate attributive factors related to the decision to become a secondary school teacher, perceptions of the training received during the master’s degree, and gender disparities when recalling their previous teachers. To achieve this, an ad hoc questionnaire was employed. The data obtained were analyzed using Student’s t test, Chi-square, Somers’ D, and Chaid Tree. The results reveal gender differences by age and academic specialization, as well as a more negative evaluation of former high school teachers by female participants compared to their male counterparts. Overall, the study suggests that female students tend to retain more negative memories of secondary school instructors, a phenomenon that could be influenced by the prevailing unfavorable social image of teachers and their perceived struggle to compensate for past educational deficiencies upon embarking on a teaching career. Given that gender proves to be a relevant factor in the work of secondary school teachers, it is strongly recommended that the training of future educators address this issue with utmost diligence and depth. By sensitizing aspiring teachers to the potential challenges related to gender perceptions, teacher preparation programs can better equip them to navigate these complexities in the classroom and foster an inclusive learning environment.

Education Sciences, 2022

This study aims to examine the opinions of prospective pre-primary and primary teachers about Mad... more This study aims to examine the opinions of prospective pre-primary and primary teachers about Madrid's regional Bilingual Programme in Spain, assessing the correlations between their self-perceived level of English and their positioning concerning the effectiveness of the regional programme. Although there is a growing body of research in the field of education on how CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) provisions impact in-service teachers' attitudes concerning bilingual education, there is a dearth of literature on the way student teachers depict the teaching reality. Thus, this paper explores pre-service teachers' beliefs towards the Bilingual Programme via an ad hoc questionnaire, administered to a non-probabilistic sample of 170 undergraduate students at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. The data collected were explored using Chisquare and Somers' D tests. The results show that the self-perceived English level, greatly determined by prior bilingual schooling, has a strong influence on their perceptions about the Bilingual Programme. The findings also indicate that, although the learning experience at the pre-primary stage is valued positively by students, the acquisition of curricular contents in primary education is seen as negatively affected due to English medium instruction.

Education Sciences

Knowing what defines ‘effective teaching’ contributes significantly to the appropriateness and va... more Knowing what defines ‘effective teaching’ contributes significantly to the appropriateness and validity of the instruction provided to pre-service teachers during their initial training. This may help them to perform as expert teachers before finishing their university training. This study aims to reflect upon the most significant models and theoretical contributions of each of the five most common methods for investigating teaching effectiveness in the current scientific literature. To that end, the main scientific sources within this field of study have been obtained on the Internet through the Web of Science (WoS), Scopus and ERIC. The sources were selected for their relevance to the topic, which was determined by assessing the citations generated by the academic works and the impact of the journals in which they were published. The results show that the key and most central factor salient in teaching quality is related to the teachers themselves and their training. Thus, any edu...

Innovación docente e investigación en arte y humanidades: avanzado en el proceso de enseñanza - aprendizaje, 2020, ISBN 978-84-1377-217-2, págs. 217-222, 2020

The emergence of new teaching approaches following the principles of the communicative approach h... more The emergence of new teaching approaches following the principles of the communicative approach has put the spotlight on the importance of sounds in the teaching-learning process. In the past, sounds were regarded as a fundamental aspect for developing oral skills, namely, speaking and listening. With the new trends, in particular Synthetic Phonics, students start building letter-sound awareness of English since kindergarten at all levels of learning. Thus, reading ability, the focus of the present investigation, does not just comprise the strategies of word recognition and language comprehension, but also the association between graphemes and their corresponding sounds. The present study deals with fostering letter-sound awareness as an innovative way to approach learning skills since kindergarten level. To that aim, the research presents theoretical principles and teaching resources to be implemented in class. In order to conduct the study, the researcher has consulted core publications in the field included in scientific databases, such as Scopus. The sources of reference have been selected considering the international scope of the publication, as well as their position in relation to the domain of teaching and linguistics. The study starts by acknowledging the difficulty found in English between sound and letter association when acquiring literacy at early stages. Then, the two above-mentioned scales are presented for measuring reading ability. Synthetic Phonics, the method suggested, focuses on word recognition. The paper also presents some steps for teaching reading to young learners, which depart from discrete sounds recognition to build up bigger units. The theoretical revision finishes discussing the two main approaches for teaching consonants: reliability and frequency, concerning stability and common usage of phonemes, respectively. Finally, the study suggests the implementation of Jolly phonics songs in class, as a meaningful way for reinforcing letter-sound awareness by using music and action performance.

Texto Livre: Linguagem e Tecnologia

This paper proposes a corpus-based examination of the discourse of eliteness and personalisation ... more This paper proposes a corpus-based examination of the discourse of eliteness and personalisation news values in the information source. To that end, the study compares digital news in British and Spanish corpora. The results reveal a tendency to quote elites, which are frequently constructed by means of recognised names from politics, inanimate references with broad scope and role labels in apposition. To a lesser extent, prestige is construed through status-indicating modifiers and allusion to place of work. Ordinary sources, however, are usually construed via indication of provenance, reference to family relationship and anaphoric allusions, mostly in British sources. It remains to be clarified whether the construal of these values is in consonance with the editorial stance of the newspaper.

Heliyon

Second language acquisition as a process is subject to factors related to the student, the teache... more Second language acquisition as a process is subject to factors related to the student, the teacher, the learning structure and learning organisation, and also to the learning environment. The research hereby presented aims to establish the relevance of the above-mentioned factors in the process of second language learning. The study addresses the point of view of teachers, as their perspective concerning the learning process is privileged. If it were not to be included in a scientific process, this detailed and contextual knowledge would not be able to contribute to the improvement of teaching. The data obtained will allow for the designing of teaching strategies focused on learners' needs and requirements. This is a descriptive, observational and cross-sectional study with the participation of 216 practicing teachers within the Community of Madrid in Spain. The information was collected through an online questionnaire using the Google Drive tool Google Forms. Then, it was analysed and validated with IBM SPSS Statistics 25.0. The outcomes of the study show that the factors linked to the teacher are the most dominant for those educators in the Community of Madrid. Regarding the teacher-student relationship, the use of teaching resources and materials adequate for learning, together with the communication, strategies used, the linguistic input received by the students and the planning of lessons, are factors showing the greatest capacity to determine the process of teaching and learning a second language.

Data in Brief

According to many relevant scientific researches conducted in the last few years [1e3], the study... more According to many relevant scientific researches conducted in the last few years [1e3], the study of music-related subjects implies greater development of both intellectual and executive functions of students. Those functions comprise musical intelligence [4] and the rest of multiple intelligences [5], as well as the general and factorial intelligence [6]. The present research may help students organise and plan their studies with an improvement of their study habits, thus better self-organising their daily work. Unfortunately, the percentage of secondary students at Music Integrated Centres is less than 0.01% of the total centres; indeed, there are only 10 centres in Spain out of 34,149 total number of nonuniversity education centres of this type [7]. Hence, the sample obtained from this data collection is a rara avis of a great scientific value [8,9]. In this study, a sample of 28 first-year secondary students at a Music Integrated Centre has been collected. In Music Integrated Centres, learners simultaneously study the General Education System and music-related courses from their third year of Primary Education until the second year of Baccalaureate. In order to obtain

Data in Brief

Taking into account that the first virtual reality viewers started to be marketed in Spain at the... more Taking into account that the first virtual reality viewers started to be marketed in Spain at the end of 2016 (Gadelha, 2018; Parong and Mayer, 2018; Rizzo and Koenig, 2017) [1], [2], [3], a questionnaire was designed in order to show the social and demographic profile of this first generation of users of virtual reality experiences, itemising their ages, genders, educational level, professional field and present work status. Furthermore, the participants’ habits of use, interests, attitudes, assessments about the future potential of virtual reality in a range of areas and their preferences in this area are shown through the other items of the questionnaire. A wide sample of 117 participants, who were early adopters of virtual reality viewers, was obtained posting a new thread in the virtual reality forum of the Internet website ‘Elotrolado.net’. The data were collected by means of an online questionnaire hosted at the private servers of ‘Encuestafacil.com’. The sample did not undergo any pre-treatment and the obtained data were not altered.

Revista Educación y Humanismo, 2019

Este artículo revisa las principales teorías sobre la adquisición de conocimiento y el aprendizaj... more Este artículo revisa las principales teorías sobre la adquisición de conocimiento y el aprendizaje, justificando el surgimiento del Conectivismo como el paradigma educativo más útil para entender el aprendizaje en la era digital y los procesos de e-learning. Se presenta al conectivismo como una evolución respecto a las escuelas anteriores y no una revolución teórica en el ámbito pedagógico. Se valora al Psicoanálisis y la Escuela de la Gestalt como antecedentes más remotos y se considera la influencia del Instruccionismo, Constructivismo, Teoría del Caos, Neurociencia, Teoría de redes y Sistemas Adaptativos Complejos como referentes directos. Se continúa con el análisis de las influencias recibidas por las distintas escuelas teóricas coetáneas y actuales, como la Teoría de la Conversación, la Teoría del Actor?Red, la Red de aprendizaje (Network Learning), e?learning 2.0., Microlearning, Nano?learning, Universidad 2.0., Currículum 2.0., Pedagogía 2.0. y el Navegacionismo, para comple...

Orígenes del conectivismo como nuevo paradigma del aprendizaje en la era digital Origins of conne... more Orígenes del conectivismo como nuevo paradigma del aprendizaje en la era digital Origins of connectivism as a new learning paradigm in the digital era Resumen Objetivo: Mostrar las raíces teóricas del conectivismo en las principales teorías históricas sobre la adquisición de conocimiento y el aprendizaje, ya que se trata del paradigma educativo más útil para entender el aprendizaje en la era digital y los procesos de e-learning. Método: Se realiza una exhaustiva recopilación de fuentes originales pertinentes, seleccionadas en base a su relevancia y significado dentro de cada corriente teórica. A través de esta revisión se presenta al conectivismo como una evolución respecto a las escuelas anteriores y no una revolución teórica en el ámbito pedagógico. Se valora al Psicoanálisis y la Escuela de la Gestalt como antecedentes más remotos y se considera la influencia del Instruccionismo, Constructivismo, Teoría del Caos, Neurociencia, Teoría de redes y Sistemas Adaptativos Complejos como referentes directos. Se continúa con el análisis de las influencias recibidas por las distintas escuelas teóricas coetáneas y actuales, como la Teoría de la Conversación, la Teoría del Actor-Red, la Red de aprendizaje (Network Learning), e-learning 2.0., Microlearning, Nano-learning, Universidad 2.0., Currículum 2.0., Pedagogía 2.0., y el Navegacionismo, para completar los fundamentos teóricos sobre los que se apoya el Conectivismo. Conclusión y discusión: Se confirman las conexiones teóricas del conectivismo con las teorías expuestas y se pronostica cada vez mayor relevancia en el ámbito educativo de este paradigma por su adecuación a la realidad social actual.

Despite the extensive search that has been done on the phenomenon of evidentiality in the discour... more Despite the extensive search that has been done on the phenomenon of evidentiality in the discourse, i.e. the coding of the information source, there are still terminological and conceptual discrepancies that need to be laid out. The present paper presents a theoretical framework of evidentiality. It starts with an examination of the scope of evidentiality in terms of grammar and semantics, ending up with a full understanding of the notion as a functional conceptual domain. The discussion also focuses on the relationship between evidentiality and epistemic modality since this is still an open-ended issue in the field. We support that a thorough study of particular evidential forms, such as reportative evidential, would be needed as a vibrant continuation of this theoretical revision

British and American Studies, 2016

1. IntroductionThe notion of commitment and its connection with reporting verbs has been extensiv... more 1. IntroductionThe notion of commitment and its connection with reporting verbs has been extensively discussed in linguistics in the last few years (Thompson 1996; Hyland 2004; Chen 2005; Morency et al. 2007). Generally speaking, this concept may be claimed to denote "a specific individual's mental state", as it belongs to the "speaker's 'intimate' cognition" (Morency et al. 2007: 198). Basically, propositional commitment is connected with the mental representations that people create in their minds about others' inner intentions by means of their linguistic production, as well as the image that is created in the mind of the speaker about the veracity of her/his statement and the way in which it will be accepted or not by hearers. Therefore, commitment is both message-oriented and addressee-oriented.In journalistic discourse analysis, and more specifically in the study of media reports, approaches to commitment expressed by reporting verbs may...

The language embedded in quotations in newspaper reports is a powerful tool that can influence re... more The language embedded in quotations in newspaper reports is a powerful tool that can influence readers’ thought, in particular their position towards the state of affairs and/or the participants included in the quote (Fowler 1994). This thesis, entitled ‘Reporting expressions: an English-Spanish contrastive study of quality press’, investigates the subtle ways by which the media restructures the world in the discourse, which jeopardises its efforts to configure itself as an objective and unbiased information medium. Thus, this study aims at answering a broad research question: is news industry impartial or evaluative? To this end, I will analyse the linguistic features embedded in reporting expressions that may lead to ideological variations, thus provoking distortions of meaning of what was originally uttered by the information sources.The parameters that will be studied in this investigation are the following: reporting style; reporting verb, which comprises tense, aspect, voice a...

Promoted by some of the most critical sectors of the education community, the history of the Span... more Promoted by some of the most critical sectors of the education community, the history of the Spanish pedagogical renewal (19 and 20 centuries) shows all kinds of experiences representing an innovative, committed and transformative way to understand both pedagogical processes and the school. This article shows the final results of the historical analysis of the Spanish pedagogical renewal from the late 19 century (1876) to the last years of Franco’s dictatorship (1972), through the different primary education schools considered as references, both public and private. Different studies on the Spanish pedagogical renewal have been examined, as well as media from the period and the main education magazines which acted as tools of expression in each historical period. This analysis was completed with data obtained from the revision of education projects, the direct observation of several cases, and consultation with the most relevant stakeholders. In order to create an overview, this art...

Los acontecimientos de la vida están formados por las prácticas sociolingüistas y culturales del ... more Los acontecimientos de la vida están formados por las prácticas sociolingüistas y culturales del grupo social al que pertenecemos, formando así nuestra identidad. Debemos tener cuidado en no mostrar aquellas diferencias que no son toleradas por dicho grupo para evitar conflictos, manipulando la verdad. Para evidenciar este comportamiento hemos empleado un muestreo no probabilístico por cuotas basado en los test científicos NeoPi-R y Millon. Los resultados señalan que el 80% de los individuos prefiere mantener su verdadera identidad al margen y no ser sincero con el resto.

Issues in Language Studies, 2024

Societies, 2024

Social Sciences, 2024

Social Sciences, 2023

Education Sciences, 2022

Education Sciences

Innovación docente e investigación en arte y humanidades: avanzado en el proceso de enseñanza - aprendizaje, 2020, ISBN 978-84-1377-217-2, págs. 217-222, 2020

Texto Livre: Linguagem e Tecnologia

Heliyon

Data in Brief

Revista Educación y Humanismo, 2019

British and American Studies, 2016

Congreso cultura científica y tecnológica en la sociedad digital, 2019

Darse de alta en una red social es muy sencillo: basta con tener una cuenta de correo alojada en ... more Darse de alta en una red social es muy sencillo: basta con tener una cuenta de correo alojada en cualquier servidor o buscador, establecer una contraseña y crear un perfil. El problema reside en que las redes sociales no cuentan actualmente con suficientes mecanismos de seguridad que verifiquen que la persona que se ha dado de alta sea quien dice ser, aunque en todas ellas (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram…) reflejen claramente en sus condiciones y términos de uso que la creación de perfiles falsos está totalmente prohibida. Este fallo de seguridad, y que hoy en día sigue sin tener una solución clara al menos para perfiles de población desconocida, provoca que sea muy sencillo crear estos falsos perfiles para ciertos propósitos. La suplantación de identidad, phishing, grooming, extorsiones, cyberbullying, dañar la reputación empresarial o personal, o como vamos a hablar en este caso, crear y divulgar ciberodio son acciones que cada día cobran más relevancia en la Red.

XXVII Jornadas Universitarias de Tecnología Educativa. Activisimo y tecnología: hacia una universidad comprometida con la educación crítica y emancipadora, 2019

Las redes sociales aplicadas a contextos educativos están mostrando un gran auge en los últimos a... more Las redes sociales aplicadas a contextos educativos están mostrando un gran auge en los últimos años. Gracias a las funciones de Facebook, los alumnos descubren y comparten nuevos contenidos por su cuenta, expresan su cultura, tienen la posibilidad de estar conectados de manera ubicua y pueden crear grupos para tratar diferentes aspectos a los que los compañeros se unen para compartir sus opiniones. A través de una revisión bibliográfica se podrá determinar que estas propiedades convierten a Facebook en una herramienta con gran potencial, siempre y cuando sea utilizada con criterio y con las competencias digitales adecuadas para fomentar un aprendizaje significativo y efectivo.

Paper presented at the 1st International UCM Predoctoral Conference on English Linguistics, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, 2015

Newspaper reporting has traditionally been claimed to be objective and unbiased; however, contemp... more Newspaper reporting has traditionally been claimed to be objective and unbiased; however, contemporary press has exemplified how media reporters tend to use reportive evidentials to position the readership to take a positive or negative stance towards the participants included in a report and/or the state of affairs therein depicted (Fowler 1994; White 2006). For example, changes in the linguistic features of the elements that define the source, including its order, may lead to ideological variations, though they are complicated to deduce at first sight.

This paper proposes a taxonomy of the source of information in the press media regarding the concreteness parameter, i.e. the degree of precision with which the original author of the reported utterance is defined in the reporting clause. Evidence sources are mainly divided into the subtypes that follow: specific, specific-generic and non-specific; other parameters have also been considered in the classification, such as the animacy factor (human vs. inanimate sources) or the semantic nature of the elements in the pre-citation segment (professional vs. personal basis).

The corpus comprises digital news from four broadsheet British and Spanish journals, namely The Times, The Guardian, El Mundo and El País. The quantitative analysis reveals a shared tendency to specify the human source of information, as well as an inclination to include references to inanimate entities on the part of the Spanish press. Moreover, British journals seem to be more prone to use non-specific sources than the Spanish news group.
On the other hand, the qualitative results appear to uncover the ways in which journalists chose the configuration of the source in order to activate certain implicatures in the reader’s imagery. For instance, there might be established a connection between the lack of delimitation of the agent of the assertion with a potential intention to strengthen the newsworthy value of the source on the part of the writer. This factor is noticeable in the use of enigmatic heads where, since the identity of the source(s) is not easily identified, readers end up assigning them high authoritative status and consequently, their information is taken less critically (Smirnova 2009). News reporters then seem to be well aware of the potential reporting sources hold for positioning the readership and use them to subtly launch personal opinions without jeopardising the overall objective tone of their articles.

Paper presented at 25th Conference on British and American Studies, Timisoara, Rumanía, 2015

This paper proposes a revised taxonomy of reportives aimed for the analysis of news discourse. Th... more This paper proposes a revised taxonomy of reportives aimed for the analysis of news discourse. The classification divides them into various subtypes regarding several parameters of study, such as concreteness of the source or writer's commitment. Basically, the purpose of the research is to uncover the linguistic devices journalists use to fulfil the policy and/or ideological bias of their newspaper.

Paper presented at the International Conference on Evidentiality and Modality in European Languages, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, 2014

Over the last decades, there have emerged partial classifications of reportives (Willett 1988, Pl... more Over the last decades, there have emerged partial classifications of reportives (Willett 1988, Plungian 2001, Aikhenvald 2004 or Boye 2012, among others), based on criteria such as the degree of specification of the original speaker’s voice (hearsay vs. quotative), the style of the reportive evidential (direct vs. indirect) or the mode of access to the source of information (second-hand, third-hand, etc.). Nevertheless, there are still terminological discrepancies in the field; Plungian, for instance, considers ‘quotative’ as a hyperonym of ‘reportive’ while other authors claim the reverse.

In this paper, I present a taxonomy of reportives that takes as point of departure a full understanding of evidentiality as a functional-conceptual domain, which means a generic category on its own that includes the expression of evidentiality by grammatical, semantic and pragmatic means. The proposed classification divides reportives into various subtypes regarding several parameters of analysis: concreteness (specific vs. non-specific source), reporting style (quotative direct vs. quotative indirect), writer’s commitment (qualified vs. non-qualified), clause type (finite, non-finite or prepositional phrases) and person (first, second, third or unspecified). Direct reportives will be proved not to be always proper verbatim reproductions of the words of the original source in all the cases, since the former voice of the assertion may well be mingled with the voice reporting the evidence. Following this perspective, quotative direct reportives are not considered in my study proper verbatim reproductions of the prior source. Furthermore, within indirect reportives the distinction between de dicto and de re reported speech will be beheld. As regards writer’s commitment, I will analyse cases of reportives in which the writer qualifies her/his commitment to the truth of the proposition (qualified reportives), in addition to non-qualified samples. With respect to person parameter, the number of first-person reportives, whose pragmatic function is closely associated with denying the validity of the evidence and mitigation of responsibility, is expected to be reduced in the corpus. However, inferential-conceptual reportives in the first present indicative are foreseen to be more frequent.

A quantitative analysis based on this taxonomy will be carried out on reportive evidentials in a compilation of journalistic texts extracted from British and Spanish journals from various lines of thought (The Guardian, The Times, El País and El Mundo). The results will uncover that reportives in newspaper discourse are often used to launch personal opinions and criticisms, even in articles that are supposed to be objective. Intertextual transparency is blurred by subtle introduction of writers’ opinions by means of qualified reportives, and direct reporting is often used in the place of indirect reporting, when the words cited cannot count as a verbatim reproduction of the words of the original source. In other instances, writers tend to clarify who the author of the original assertion is, by making use of reportive evidentials to merely reinforce the veracity of the discourse of the source of the report, or of qualified evidentials to support journalists’ own ideas.

Paper presented at the International Conference on Evidentiality and Modality (ICEM), Madrid, 2018

The choice of the reporting style in news reports is a powerful tool through which journalists ca... more The choice of the reporting style in news reports is a powerful tool through which journalists can exhibit their position towards the information source, the state of affairs and/or the participants included in the quote. Despite the conventional distinction established in the literature between direct and indirect speech, recent research on journalistic discourse has blurred the line dividing these categories and revealed a high degree of mixed direct – indirect mode. Few studies on the subject have addressed the analysis of this hybrid style, a phenomenon which has been “rejected by grammarians but frequently used by journalists” (Calsamiglia and López 2003: 155). As Waugh maintains, the problem that arises from this sort of integrated citations is that “there is no one good source for the criteria by which direct and indirect speech are differentiated from each other” (1995: 167), thereby hampering the study of these forms and the intended purpose behind their use, as in this report published by The Times:

Oscar Pistorius’s social worker has told the court that the athlete was “barely coping” in the days after he killed his girlfriend, but not suicidal. Yvette van Schalkwyk became “upset” when Mr Pistorius was accused of faking emotion and vomiting at his murder trial in Pretoria and decided to testify in his defence (Maclean 2014).

This paper aims at exploring this mixed reporting style in order to discover interesting generalisations in terms of evidentiality, subjectivity, gender distinction and rhetorical purpose, among others. The news reports that will be discussed have been collected from a corpus of digital news published in British and Spanish quality newspapers, namely The Times, The Guardian, El Mundo and El País.
Among the functions that have been typically associated with this reporting style the following can be identified: adding concision, distancing from the quoted information and qualification of the reported segment (Leech 1988; Obiedat 2006; Smirnova 2009). Thus, mixed style appears to be employed as a distancing device on the part of media writers, an issue that will be comprehensively assessed in this investigation.

Paper presented at the 3rd Bloomsbury Student Conference in Applied Linguistics, Universidad de Londres, 2010

In the last years, multimodal metaphors have been a subject of analysis within the field of Criti... more In the last years, multimodal metaphors have been a subject of analysis within the field of Critical Discourse Analysis. It is of special remark the work carried out by Charles Forceville in this matter. Nevertheless, none of the current researches on the field has focused its study on a comparative study of multimodal metaphors and mirror neurons activation's devices in TV advertisements. Thus, my project will be based on a cognitive study of Spanish TV commercials, with special attention on the neuronal and metaphoric processes through which the information is conveyed. My theme departs from a Neuromarketing panorama review, in which mirror neurons are of a great interest. From the sales and neuromarketing perspective, these brain cells interfere in the way the viewer receives the message, feels the product and even, empathizes with the brand. Furthermore, in this paper it is shown that creative metaphors occurring in spots, usually draw on a combination of language, pictures and non-verbal sound. Commercials are then discussed from the point of view of multimodal metaphors or figurative meaning emerging from several modes, and the way these metaphors serve to study nowadays marketing directions. Finally, both the perspective of mirror neurons and the study of the multimodal metaphor construal are analysed as two complementary means so as to advertise a product. The materials used in my research consist in a compilation of TV commercials projected in Spain in the latest years. On the basis of the case studies analysed, the results showed that marketing on TV has not a unique direction. However, these ads manifest several cognitive processes operating at the same time in the realm of the unconscious mind. Therefore, customers reduce their faculty of conscious decision making and in this way, buying turns up to be more than a simple question of needs and preferences.

IGI Global, 2024

Inclusive Education in Bilingual and Plurilingual Programs assembles a compendium of internationa... more Inclusive Education in Bilingual and Plurilingual Programs assembles a compendium of international theoretical and practical contributions, shedding light on the intricate interplay between diversity and bilingual or plurilingual education. This book delves into the multifaceted realm of attention to diversity in education, where the focus is on tailoring teaching methods to the specific needs of students, encompassing differences in abilities, learning paces, and styles, which empowers students to acquire essential competencies and attain educational objectives at each stage of their academic journey. Secondly, it traverses the landscape of bilingual and plurilingual education, which has emerged in response to the societal, employment, and economic demands for language proficiency beyond one's mother tongue. This book is essential reading for many educational stakeholders engaged in bilingual or plurilingual education. Teachers at every educational level, along with teacher trainers at tertiary institutions, will find valuable insights for tailoring their pedagogical approaches to the unique needs of their students.

Agenda 2030: teoría y práctica. Una mirada constructiva desde la academia, 2023

Tras la aprobación en 2015 de la Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible por parte de los Estad... more Tras la aprobación en 2015 de la Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible por parte de los Estados Miembros de la ONU, entre los que se encuentra España, hemos sido testigos del compromiso por parte de los firmantes por hacer efectiva la igualdad entre hombres y mujeres, tratando de impulsar el empoderamiento de las mujeres en todas sus formas. Para lograr este objetivo que ocupa el puesto número 5 en este plan de acción, se aboga por la construcción de un mundo abierto, tolerante e inclusivo, en el cual el empleo del lenguaje juega un papel relevante como herramienta de transformación social. El uso del lenguaje no sexista o inclusivo ha despertado en la última década en nuestro país reacciones tanto positivas como negativas, tornándolo en un tema de índole social más allá de la lingüística. En el contexto aún de la polémica, se plantea la necesidad de examinar la postura de futuros docentes en formación sobre el uso del lenguaje no sexista en el entorno académico, así como de evaluar la influencia que el factor sexo ejerce en su posicionamiento al respecto. El análisis de su posicionamiento pretende no solo profundizar en el horizonte de pensamiento que oscila entre la apología y el rechazo, sino contribuir a la extensión de su uso para lograr la consolidación de la igualdad plena entre los géneros.
Para tal fin, este estudio ha diseñado un cuestionario online ad hoc compuesto por 12 ítems cerrados, validado por la técnica del juicio de expertos, en el que han participado 348 alumnos/as universitarios seleccionados a través de un muestreo no probabilístico por accesibilidad. Los/as participantes son estudiantes del Grado en Educación Infantil, Educación Primaria y doble Grado en Educación Infantil y Primaria en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid durante el curso académico 2021-2022. Los datos obtenidos de la muestra han sido analizados de forma descriptiva e inferencial mediante el programa SPSS, utilizando como estadístico de contraste la Prueba no paramétrica para muestras independientes de Kruskal-Wallis.
Los resultados parecen indicar que la población del estudio considera necesario acomodar su lenguaje para evitar sesgos de género en el entorno académico y erradicar así toda forma de discriminación hacia las mujeres. Los/as participantes coinciden en manifestar su intencionalidad por incorporarlo a su lengua de instrucción cuando ejerzan su profesión docente, así como en esforzarse porque su futuro alumnado estandarice su uso. A pesar de la buena acogida hacia el empleo del lenguaje no sexista, prácticamente la mitad de la muestra reconoce usarlo para obtener mejores resultados académicos, lo que podría desvirtuar estos resultados. Además, el factor género ha demostrado ser un factor determinante, siendo más relevante la eliminación de los sesgos de género en el lenguaje para las encuestadas que para sus homólogos masculinos. Con este estudio se pretende ofrecer una nueva visión crítica sobre el empleo del lenguaje inclusivo en el marco de la educación superior reglada, conociendo en profundidad la postura de estudiantes en formación, quienes en definitiva serán los agentes del cambio social en un futuro muy próximo.

Interculturalidad, inclusión y equidad en educación, 2023

La decisión de convertirse en docente suele ser vocacional para una gran mayoría de educadores y ... more La decisión de convertirse en docente suele ser vocacional para una gran mayoría de educadores y en ella guarda especial relevancia la imagen social que proyecta el docente en el discente. Con una muestra de 1469 participantes, este estudio pretende describir el rol que tiene el factor sexo en distintas cuestiones relacionadas con la imagen del docente y su formación, entre los futuros docentes de Educación Secundaria. Mediante un cuestionario diseñado ad hoc se evalúan factores atributivos de la decisión de formarse como docente en secundaria, impresiones de la formación recibida en el Máster de Formación de Profesorado, y la imagen del docente en función de las diferencias de género. Los resultados obtenidos son analizados mediante t de Student, Chi-cuadrado, D de Somers y mediante Árbol Chaid. Los resultados muestran diferencias en el factor sexo en función de la edad, el área académica y en el recuerdo de la formación de los docentes en la etapa de secundaria cuando aún eran alumnos, el cual es significativamente peor en el caso de las mujeres. Globalmente, podemos concluir que las mujeres guardan significativamente peor recuerdo de los docentes de secundaria cuando ellas fueron alumnas. Este hecho puede vincularse al mantenimiento de una imagen social del docente más negativa y al deseo de convertirse en docente para suplir las supuestas carencias formativas previas recibidas.

Handbook of Research on Training Teachers for Bilingual Education in Primary Schools, 2023

Code-switching is a linguistic phenomenon that is widespread among the bilingual communities of p... more Code-switching is a linguistic phenomenon that is widespread among the bilingual communities of primary school learners. Despite the school administrators' disapproval, teachers commonly resort to this practice as a pedagogical tool to facilitate the dual-focused aim pursued through the content and language integrated learning (CLIL) approach. The present chapter aims to explore the most significant theoretical contributions concerning code-switching in bilingual settings, with an emphasis on its pedagogical functionality in primary education. Data on code-switching were mainly gathered through the bibliographic databases Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus. This literary review categorizes the functions reported by scholars into two broad categories: code-switching as a conceptual-understanding facilitator, focused on mathematics attainment, and code-switching as an interpersonal facilitator, divided into classroom management and affective development. The results point to the need to regulate its use and acknowledge the practicality of code-switching among bilingual school populations.

De la emoción al conocimiento: ecosistemas emergentes de aprendizaje lingüístico, 2021

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the COVID-19 outbreak has had a clear impact on... more According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the COVID-19 outbreak has had a clear impact on global mental health, given rise to an increase in mental disorders such as depression or psychosis (2020, March 18). This fact has put the spotlight on developing ways of providing psychosocial support, particularly amongst the younger population. The present research is a theoretical revision of the concept of anxiety in the education field. It presents an in-depth analysis of its core pedagogical implications and some relevant techniques to minimize the stressful stimuli in a foreign language setting. The paper also presents a methodological proposal to be implemented in bilingual schools, which adheres to the legal framework of the Autonomous Community of Andalucía. The proposal incorporates the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), a 33-item Likert scale developed by Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope in 1986, and one of the most widely used measuring instruments for anxiety. This study aims to offer a theoretical ground for future research practitioners worldwide in the area of foreign language acquisition, thus paving the way for further empirical researchers concerning factors influencing the teaching-learning process in multicultural contexts.

Teoría y práctica en investigación educativa: una perspectiva internacional, 2020

Innovación docente e investigación en artes y humanidades. Avanzando en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje, 2020

The English lexicon has undergone a constant evolution in its attempt to reflect new historical, ... more The English lexicon has undergone a constant evolution in its attempt to reflect new historical, social, cultural and technological developments and realities, which have resulted in the appearance of totally new terms, the so-called neologisms. Progressing in a language is about increasing one’s own range of expression through lexical collocations, and thus, the importance of lexical creativity processes.
This study aims at discussing some of the main word formation processes in English, then focussing on innovative teaching recommendations to address neologisms in the EFL class. To conduct the study, the researcher has consulted core publications in the field of teaching and linguistics included in scientific databases. The selection of the sources of reference has been done considering the international scope of the publications, as well as their position concerning the domains above-mentioned.
The theoretical revision presented in this study departs from reviewing major word formation processes following Yule’s taxonomy (2020), namely borrowing, compounding, blending, clipping, conversion, and derivation. Besides, it discusses some of their classifications and subtypes, as it is the case of ‘hypocorism’, a kind of shortened or clipped form.
The study finishes dealing with neologism and discussing possible ways of incorporating them in class. For instance, creating classroom dynamics consisting of guessing the word process behind some words, deducing the definition of neologisms with visual aids, or inventing new terms in groups using already-existing words.
The methodological practices and approach presented in this research purport to facilitate the teaching-learning process, conceiving English as a living entity where new terms are constantly coined, and pushing instructors to be up-to-date when transmitting the target language culture.

Innovación docente e investigación en artes y humanidades. Avanzando en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje, 2020

The emergence of new teaching approaches following the principles of the communicative approach h... more The emergence of new teaching approaches following the principles of the communicative approach has put the spotlight on the importance of sounds in the teaching-learning process. In the past, sounds were regarded as a fundamental aspect for developing oral skills, namely, speaking and listening. With the new trends, in particular Synthetic Phonics, students start building letter-sound awareness of English since kindergarten at all levels of learning. Thus, reading ability, the focus of the present investigation, does not just comprise the strategies of word recognition and language comprehension, but also the association between graphemes and their corresponding sounds.
The present study deals with fostering letter-sound awareness as an innovative way to approach learning skills since kindergarten level. To that aim, the research presents theoretical principles and teaching resources to be implemented in class. In order to conduct the study, the researcher has consulted core publications in the field included in scientific databases, such as Scopus. The sources of reference have been selected considering the international scope of the publication, as well as their position in relation to the domain of teaching and linguistics.
The study starts by acknowledging the difficulty found in English between sound and letter association when acquiring literacy at early stages. Then, the two above-mentioned scales are presented for measuring reading ability. Synthetic Phonics, the method suggested, focuses on word recognition. The paper also presents some steps for teaching reading to young learners, which depart from discrete sounds recognition to build up bigger units. The theoretical revision finishes discussing the two main approaches for teaching consonants: reliability and frequency, concerning stability and common usage of phonemes, respectively. Finally, the study suggests the implementation of Jolly phonics songs in class, as a meaningful way for reinforcing letter-sound awareness by using music and action performance.

Innovación docente e investigación en artes y humanidades, 2019

The present paper focuses on ways for addressing gender inequalities in the teaching of writing s... more The present paper focuses on ways for addressing gender inequalities in the teaching of writing skill. The research departs from the need for giving innovative alternatives to students in order to prevent the use of sexist language, which is a current source of dispute in education and linguistic analyses. To that end, the study revises literature in the field, with an emphasis on the use of English honorifics, greetings, anaphoric allusions and professions. In the case of social titles, the use of ‘Ms’ is recommended in order not to indicate the marital status of the corresponding referent. If the agent is gender non-conforming, the avoidance of the title is suggested. As regards greetings, students should use the phrases ‘sir or madam’ or ‘to whom it may concern’, the latter being more neutral in terms of gender sensitivity. Concerning anaphoric allusions, the explicit reference to both genders is suggested (‘she or he’, or its contracted form ‘s/he’); however, due to the economy of language, plural forms are much more recommendable. Finally, learners are suggested not to use occupational stereotypes, i.e. derived nouns from the suffix –man or male-specific compounds, such as ‘business man’. Besides, students should avoid extra-visibility of the gender if not required, as in ‘male nurse’. The paper concludes highlighting the need to raise awareness on the issue of gender sensitivity in the classroom. Learners must be able to value the impact the way they express their ideas has in transforming the reality they are living.

Innovación docente e investigación en artes y humanidades, 2019

One of the most problematic issues in the teaching and learning of English in higher education is... more One of the most problematic issues in the teaching and learning of English in higher education is students’ lack of language input to succeed in the completion of the tasks set in class. Learners commonly feel demotivated when dealing with non-authentic material, that is, those texts and activities that have not been designed for academic purposes. Mastering literacy, involving the proper development and acquisition of reading and writing skills, is essential for succeeding in professional life. Thus, teachers need to engage their learners in meaningful activities that involve the practice of those learning skills, such as tasks involving the use of newspaper headlines.
This study focuses on the sort of lexical resources, syntax, punctuation marks and typographical properties that configure headlines in the news. The proposal configures itself as a basis for a teaching proposal to be used either as language input or as a follow-up task in class. News headlines are characterized by special typography, such as large bold letters aimed at drawing the readers’ eye, telegraphic style in terms of lexis and marked focus on the part of syntax. Students should be able to master all these devices, actively engaging in a process of creative writing that allows them to approach the mechanics of writing from an innovative approach.

eprints UCM (Master Dissertation), 2010

Chapter in the book Evidentiality and modality in European languages, 2017

The use of reportatives in news articles can position the readership to take a positive or negati... more The use of reportatives in news articles can position the readership to take a positive or negative stance towards the state of affairs and/or the participants included in a report (Fowler 1994). This paper proposes a taxonomy of one of its key elements in press media: the source of information. The proposed classification, based on a corpus of news from broadsheet British and Spanish journals, is organised according to the specificity parameter, i.e. the degree of precision with which the original author of the reported utterance is defined in the reporting clause. The analysis reveals the ways in which journalists chose the configuration of the information source in order to activate certain implicatures in the reader’s imagery in line with the stance established by the newspaper policy.

Paper presented at the International Conference on Evidentiality and Modality (ICEM), Madrid, 2018