Irene Checa-Garcia | University of Wyoming (original) (raw)

Papers by Irene Checa-Garcia

Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education, 2023

This study investigates the effects of an immersion experience on the lexical development of Span... more This study investigates the effects of an immersion experience on the lexical development of Spanish heritage language learners (HLLs) and second language learners (L2Ls) abroad. Data were collected from 21 Spanish HLLs and 33 L2Ls who spent a semester abroad. Lexical development was assessed based on written narratives collected before and after the semester. The narratives were analyzed to determine the impact of study abroad on three measures of lexical development: density, diversity, and sophistication. Lexical sophistication was assessed based on Spanish frequency data from the Corpus del Español (Davies, 2006) using the log-transformed frequency count. Results indicate a significant increase over time in lexical density for HLLs but not L2Ls, and a significant decrease in lexical sophistication for both groups. Findings are discussed in light of previous research on study abroad and the analysis of lexical development.

Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education

This document consists of several multimedia lessons all focusing on learning how to place stress... more This document consists of several multimedia lessons all focusing on learning how to place stress marks in Spanish. It contains lessons which have also exercises and quizzes inside them. Each lesson and section are bookmarked and also linked from the main menu. All exercises are linked, so by clicking on the link you go to the exercise. Solutions are offered in the next page, which also links back to the lesson. It is organized in six lessons: why stress marks or tildes are necessary, what is needed to master them, how to split into syllables, how to recognize which one is the stressed syllable, the rules for placing stress marks, and more information on some special cases. In addition, there is a resources page with external links to further content and resources, and a list of all exercises and quizzes that links to each exercise in particular, in case the instructor wants to assign them independently from the lesson. This document can be viewed with any PDF reader from any operat...

RESUMEN Este estudio investiga las preferencias por la adjunción de la oración de relativo (OR) a... more RESUMEN Este estudio investiga las preferencias por la adjunción de la oración de relativo (OR) a un sintagma nominal (SN) complejo del tipo: SN1 de SN2, en los hablantes bilingües de español-inglés y los estudiantes avanzados de español. Los hablantes de español muestran una preferencia moderada por unir la OR al primer SN, mientras que los hablantes de inglés prefieren el segundo SN. Esta construcción se les presentó a los sujetos en su forma escrita (Experimento 1) y hablada (Experimento 2). De los resultados se desprende que ningún grupo tenía preferencia por una u otra adjunción en el contexto de la lectura silenciosa. Se prefería una Adjunción Baja con una pausa después del SN1 por parte de los estudiantes y una Adjunción Alta en ausencia de pausas por parte de los hablantes bilingües y los estudiantes. Sin embargo, el grupo de estudiantes mostró un comportamiento diferenciado durante el Experimento 2 en dos sentidos: sus tiempos de reacción fueron más cortos, y su elección de...

Trasvases entre la literatura y el cine, 2019

Folia Linguistica, 2019

Spanish relative clauses, as in other languages, can contain a resumptive pronoun or other resump... more Spanish relative clauses, as in other languages, can contain a resumptive pronoun or other resumptive element. This study attempts to explain what factors favor the presence of such resumptive elements in the production of Spanish relative clauses. In order to do so, 1237 relatives clauses were extracted from an oral corpus of Peninsular Spanish conversations. A total of 18 factors, some new and some known from previous studies, pertaining to semantic and syntactic processing difficulties, were coded as potentially influencing the choice of a resumptive pronoun. Multivariate analysis (conditional tree and random forest) was then used to determine the significant factors and the most explicative minimal model. The results suggest that the conditions with the most impact are related to difficulties in determining the function of the relativizer. A discussion follows about how these difficulties relate to the different factors studied and how they could be due to a looser relationship ...

Rocky Mountain Review, 2014

Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research, 2016

This study investigates the preferences for attachment of a relative clause (RC) to a complex nou... more This study investigates the preferences for attachment of a relative clause (RC) to a complex noun phrase (NP) of the type: NP1 of NP2, in Spanish-English bilinguals and advanced learners of Spanish. Spanish speakers show a moderate preference for attaching the RC to the first NP, while speakers of English prefer the second NP. Subjects were presented this construction in written (Experiment 1) and oral (Experiment 2) forms. Results show no group had a preference for either attachment in silent reading, Low Attachment was preferred with a pause after NP1 by learners, and High Attachment was preferred in the absence of any pause by bilinguals and learners. However, the learner group behaved distinctively in Experiment 2 in two ways: their reaction times were shorter, and their choice for the kind of RC attachment was more sensitive to the absence of a pause being more likely to choose Low Attachment, as English monolinguals. These results suggest that advanced learners are influenced...

Language Testing, 2017

This study will demonstrate that group differences on a morphosyntactic measure used for the iden... more This study will demonstrate that group differences on a morphosyntactic measure used for the identification of specific language impairment (SLI) do not guarantee validity for diagnosis and tracking, and will exemplify this with a case study of the Spanish version of the Clinical Evaluation of Preschool Language–2 Estructura de Palabras subtest for SLI and typically developing (TD) Spanish–English incipient bilinguals. The use of standardized tests beyond identification, for planning intervention and monitoring progress, requires that validity evidence be provided if and when extended purposes are involved. Results show that although group differences on total subtest score were observed, some of the items exhibited a distinct pattern, that is, high standard deviations and lower rate of correct responses. A careful analysis of these items points to design problems and content-validity deficiencies as causes. Solutions for the different problems are proposed. We conclude on the importance of a careful linguistic analysis to support test validity in order for the test to serve its broader purposes.

Contemporary Advances in Theoretical and Applied Spanish Linguistic Variation

The presence of a resumptive pronoun in Spanish relative clauses has been attested in a number of... more The presence of a resumptive pronoun in Spanish relative clauses has been attested in a number of studies and for a number of varieties in Spanish (Bentivoglio 2003 & 2006; Borzi & Morano 2009; Cerrón-Palomino 2006; Fernández Soriano 1995; González García 2001; Lope Blanch 2001; Samper, Hernández & Pérez 2006; Silva-Corvalán 1996; Suárez Fernández 2010; Suñer 2001, among others), as well as in other languages (Prince 1990; Polinsky et al. 2013; Heestand, Xiang & Polinsky 2011; Ariel 1999, among many others). A myriad of factors have been proposed for the appearance of a resumptive pronoun in the case of Spanish, most of them related to processing difficulties (Silva-Corvalán 1996; Cerrón-Palomino 2006a; Brucart 1999). For instance, the factors: syntactic function of the relativizer, problem in marking this function, subordination degree of the relative clause, and distance between the antecedent and the relativizer, all increasing processing difficulty, have been shown to have a statistical significant effect in a previous corpus study and be sufficient to explain most of the variation: resumptive pronoun strategy vs. gap strategy (Checa-Garcia, 2012).
Some studies, however, have proposed that information status has also an impact on the presence or absence of a resumptive pronoun in relative clauses for the case of Spanish. González García (2001) proposes a thematization process as responsible for resumptive pronouns. Borzi & Morano (2009) defend that resumptive pronouns appear to re-establish the information distribution between topic and comment. For medieval Spanish, Fernández Soriano (2010) connects the two theories by stating that the pragmatic prominence or the information distribution that prompts a resumptive pronoun creates a higher processing load. However, the causality is first placed in pragmatic and informational characteristics.
In this paper, after reviewing the positions on both processing difficulties and pragmatic meaning as main factors for resumptive pronouns, I examine 92 instances of relative clauses with a resumptive pronoun extracted from an oral corpus of spontaneous conversations in Spanish, the CORLEC. I then discuss the information-status or pragmatic special value proposals for the presence of resumptive pronouns in Spanish relative clauses. I will show how, although this could be the case in some specific cases, such as contrast cases (as pointed out by Cerrón-Palomino 2006b), it is not generally a compelling force for relative clauses to include a resumptive pronoun.

"Much earlier than they are able to talk, very young children communicate with visible body behav... more "Much earlier than they are able to talk, very young children communicate with visible body behavior as they build social interaction with peers and adults. Frequently, these interactions focus on asking for some course of action. How do these infants achieve their goal without words? Toddlers embody the beginning of a course of action to incite it. Even very young children are sensitive to, and seemingly aware of, the sequential ordering of certain events, and use such ordering to prompt the desired course of action by embodying the very onset of the action. However, they are not merely performing an action, but using it to signify a course of action and to ask for that action. Three characteristics of these embodiments are evidence for this: the place of the embodiment in the action frame, the sought visibility of the action, and a certain degree of conventionalization in the enactment itself. The body behavior of toddlers (12-30 months) was video recorded at a bilingual kindergarten and is analyzed according to Conversation Analysis methodology. I look at 2 excerpts and analyze the embodied onset of action, how visibility is sought after and achieved, and how the projectability of the sequence allows the caregiver to interpret these embodiments. I will also show the positioning of this embodying in the activity context. Toddlers’ interactions show awareness of some of the salient features of social interaction (sequential organization, observability of actions by others, etc.). This type of interaction illustrates the early emergence of an analysis of sequence that is exploited communicatively by the child.

Spanish as L2 readings are classified by editors into different difficulty levels. However, littl... more Spanish as L2 readings are classified by editors into different difficulty levels. However, little or no criteria are mentioned as to how the readings are classified into levels. When some criterion is mentioned, it is usually the number of different words in the texts, with no reference to morphosyntactic complexity. The present study seeks to answer two main questions then: a) is there a correlation between morphosyntactic complexity and the readings levels of difficulty? and b) do text created as L2 readings and texts that are adapted from originally L1 readings different in the morphosyntactic complexity? A sample of 61 fragments belonging to the two different types of texts are classified into 3 different difficulted levels (basic, intermediate and advanced) and are analyzed for Primary Syntactic Maturity Indexes and Verbal Diversity. Results show that only for the texts originally written as L2 readings is the difference between the difficulty levels significant. In addition, the intermediate and advanced levels are much less different among them than with respect to the basic level. A detailed analysis of each index reveals how simplification of L2 readings is commonly achieved.

Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education, 2023

Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education

Trasvases entre la literatura y el cine, 2019

Folia Linguistica, 2019

Rocky Mountain Review, 2014

Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research, 2016

Language Testing, 2017

Contemporary Advances in Theoretical and Applied Spanish Linguistic Variation

1 What is the language contact effect a. Controversial existence b. Definition and its parameters... more 1 What is the language contact effect a. Controversial existence b. Definition and its parameters 2 Convergence vs. Attrition vs. Grammaticization 3 Who we should look at for language contact effects 4 Where to look if in search of transfer/convergence a. When we just don't have it in English… b. Form-Meaning pairings 5 How to look for tense preferences: surveys vs. naturally occurring data 6 Present tenses in English and Spanish 7 Methodology 8 Preliminary results 9 Tentative conclusions 10 Preliminary results

""The presence of a resumptive element in a relative clause coreferential with the head noun is a... more ""The presence of a resumptive element in a relative clause coreferential with the head noun is a common phenomenon cross-linguistically (Yiddish, English, Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, and Scandinavian and Celtic languages). In some languages this presence is grammatical (Yiddish), while in others it is ungrammatical (English). In the case of Spanish, the presence of a resumptive element is not normatively accepted, except when it is an indirect object; in this case, the double presence of both the pronoun and full NP is also possible in simple sentences. Nevertheless, resumptive elements do occur in conversation.
Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain its appearance:
H1) a mere performance error: Lope-Blanch (1986), Salvation Hypothesis in island environments, Prince(1990)
H2) a need to facilitate processing: Brucart (1999), Tarallo (1999), Silva-Corvalán (1996), Ariel (1999) H3) a particular way to process the reference of the Head NP: Prince (1990), Silva-Corvalán (1996)
H3) the form to mark certain pragmatic meanings, thematization in González García‘s (2001)
terminology.
Among others.
In this paper I explore the different possible explanations with a unified empirical account. Some of these earlier proposals presented empirical data to support their claims, while others did not (i.e for H3); some of them studied the phenomenon in conversation, while others analyzed written data. However, no study tested all different hypotheses using the same data. We consider H1 not to be the case and seek an explanation for the phenomenon by translating the processing difficulty hypothesis into an empirically testable hypothesis.
The corpus consists of 1237 relative clauses from transcribed oral conversations of Peninsular Spanish, of which 92 contain a resumptive element. I studied 19 different variables (such as problems in syntactic function marking, restrictiveness, definiteness, humanness, coincidence of marking in Head NP and relativizer). I perform bivariate and multivariate analysis to arrive to the minimal model of main effects that can explain best the presence or absence of a resumptive element.
The results indicate that resumptive element tend to appear most when there is a processing difficulty, but that not all elements associated with a processing difficulty are equally important, with syntactic function being much less important and not consistent with the Accessibility Hierarchy, while marking problems in the relativizer and restrictiveness play a more significant role.
The possible reasons for the influence of prepositional marking problems are discussed. Finally, different lines of research are proposed to further understand the phenomenon in Spanish.

REFERENCES:
ARIEL, MIRA. 1999. Cognitive Universals and Linguistic Conventions: the Case of Resumptive Pronouns. Studies in Language, 23.217-69.
BRUCART, JOSÉ M. 1999. La estructura del sintagma nominal: las oraciones de relativo. Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española, ed. by Ignacio Bosque and Violeta Demonte, 395-522. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.
GELUYKENS, RONALD. 1992. From discourse process to grammatical construction. On left-dislocation in English: John Benjamins.
GONZÁLEZ GARCÍA, LUIS. 2001. Construcciones de relativo anómalas y despronominalización. Verba, Anexo 48.183-95.
LOPE BLANCH, JUAN MANUEL. 1986. Despronominalización de los relativos. Estudios de lingüística española, ed. by Juan Manuel Lope Blanch, 119-36. México: UNAM.
PRINCE, ELLEN F. 1990. Syntax and Discourse: A Look at Resumptive Pronouns. Paper presented at 16th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Berkeley.
SILVA-CORVALÁN, CARMEN. 1996. Resumptive pronuns: a discourse explanation. Aspects of Romance Linguistics, ed. by Parodi et al., 383-95. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
TARALLO, FERNANDO. 1986. Functional and structural properties in a Variable Syntax. Diversity and Diachrony, ed. by David Sankoff, 249-60. Philadelphia: John Benjamins."

Keywords: Loan Words, Dialectology, Anglicisms, Spatial Statistics, Twitter In this study we l... more Keywords: Loan Words, Dialectology, Anglicisms, Spatial Statistics, Twitter

In this study we look at the geographical and frequency distribution of different types of Anglicisms in tweets in Spanish. In the first part of the study we distinguish different types of Anglicisms according to several criteria: their degree of official acceptance into the language, their structural characteristics, their extension, and the availability of alternative expressions in the Spanish language for the same concept. One recurrent question in the literature about loan words, particularly in language contact situations, such as Spanish in the USA, is how frequent loan words really are. Does a language contact situation heavily influence –and if so, how heavily- the frequency of use of loan words from one language to another? A related question is which types of loan words are more frequent [1]. Previous works have contrasted loan word presence in bilingual and monolingual speakers [2] or offered a percentage of their frequency in different corpora [3], but no further statistical analysis was presented. In this work, we won’t look at who is producing loan words, but rather where they are being produced.

Using a spatial data analysis [4] we will study the geographical frequency of a set of over 250 Anglicisms. We have used R packages streamR for the data collection and different packages from the Spatial Task View for the visualization and spatial data analysis. We have produced maps to summarize the main results and to show the spatial distribution of Anglicisms types that we have found in tweets in different Spanish speaking countries. In this way, we will show the “hottest spots” for the use of the different types of Anglicisms. And we hope to answer geographically the question of how language contact might influence loan word frequency.

References

[1] Medieta, Eva (1999) El préstamo en el español de los Estados Unidos. New York:
Peter Lang.

[2] Otheguy, Ricardo & García, Ofelia (1988) Diffusion of lexical innovations in the Spanish of Cuban Americans. In Jacob Ornstein-Galicia & George K. Green (eds.) Research Issues and Problems in United States Spanish: Latin American and Southwestern Varieties.

[3] Silva-Corvalán, Carmen (1994) Language contact and change. Spanish in Los Angeles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[4] Bivand, R., Pebesma, E. and Gómez-Rubio, V. (2013). Applied Spatial Data Analysis with R. Springer, New York.

Currently there is a lack of appropriate tools to screen for Developmental Language Disorders (DL... more Currently there is a lack of appropriate tools to screen for Developmental Language Disorders (DLD) in Spanish-speaking children. The accurate identification of DLD in Spanish-speaking preschoolers is especially important because DLD can delay both first language (Spanish) and second language (English) development, leading to poor communication and pervasive academic difficulties. Furthermore, early experiential differences in language development have long-term implications for kindergarten readiness skills and achievement. This achievement gap between minority students and mainstream students has been shown to be partly responsible for the high drop-out rate of Hispanic/Latino student and to start at an early age. Therefore, an accurate screening is a critical means to identify the presence of risk for DLD and to provide intervention services to ameliorate the long-term negative effects of language-learning difficulties.
In our presentation, we will first discuss the need for more accurate evaluation of DLD for the Hispanic/Latino population. After evaluating this specific population’s needs and the adequacy of some current tools based on recent empirical results, we will propose new measures and testing items to better detect DLD in bilingual Spanish-English preschoolers. Therefore, our central question is: how can measures evaluating the linguistic development of bilingual children be improved so they are more informative and valid? In order to answer this question we will present more linguistically motivated measures for morphosyntactic development that we will test in a pilot study.
This study advances discovery and understanding of social justice by uncovering linguistic design problems of current language measures used in educational settings. This is particularly important when the target population is already at higher risk of lower academic achievement because of social as well as economic reasons. In addition, this study will include in depth analysis of items by evaluating specific answers that children provided. This knowledge will advance our understanding of development in this population and of bias in tests that are used with linguistic minorities.

AUTHOR: Eric Friginal AUTHOR: Jack A. Hardy TITLE: Corpus-Based Sociolinguistics SUBTITLE: A Gui... more AUTHOR: Eric Friginal
AUTHOR: Jack A. Hardy
TITLE: Corpus-Based Sociolinguistics
SUBTITLE: A Guide for Students
PUBLISHER: Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
YEAR: 2014