Keeping pace with the Spanish digital world

 

Chris Pountain

Queen Mary, University of London

c.j.pountain@qmul.ac.uk

Website: http://webspace.qmul.ac.uk/cjpountain/schools.htm

 

0 Introduction

 

Difficulty of keeping pace.  A recent resource internet resource: high definition photographs of Prado masterpieces on Google Earth (available from http://earth.google.com/).

 

Why it is important to keep pace with the digital world:

            It is a part of everyday experience, especially for young people

            Our students need knowledge of it as a ‘transferable skill’; modern languages students need knowledge of specific skills and resources

            The digital world offers a fantastic wealth of resources

            Manipulation of digital materials can provide more efficient and attractive routes to language learning

            Older generations who did not grow up with the digital world ignore it at their (and their children’s and pupils’) peril

            In multidisciplinary institutions (schools and universities), management and technical experts need informed advice from linguists (and others)

 

1 Surviving in a digital world

 

1.1 What pupils (and teachers) need to know

 

Word-processing in a foreign language

 

·          Foreign character input: setting up a computer with a Spanish keyboard (In Windows Vista, go to Control Panel - Regional and Language Options)

·          Using a spellchecker

·          Using other tools: thesaurus, translation

 

How to use the Internet

 

·          Search engines: using a Spanish interface and the Advanced Search features of Google

·          Spanish search engines (see http://www.spanishlanguage.co.uk/search.htm)

·          On-line dictionaries (see below)

 

Understanding plagiarism

            Assessment by coursework is becoming more common

            The Internet encourages a culture of openness and common ownership

            But all material belongs to somebody - intellectual property is subject to the same copyrights as in other media

            It is not necessary to avoid quotation and reference, but it must be acknowledged accurately

            Plagiarism is getting easier to detect automatically

            The penalties for plagiarism can be severe

 

1.2 What teachers need to know (and pupils probably know already)

 

Language

            The vocabulary of computing and the internet [link to list of terms]

            Text messaging and blogs: the example was taken from http://deepestfears.blog.com/2326444/.

 

2 Exploiting the digital world

 

2.1 Reference

 

2.1.1 What digital resources do better

 

            Portability

                        The Nuevo Tesoro Lexicográfico de la Lengua Española (NTLLE), partially available at http://buscon.rae.es/ntlle/SrvltGUILoginNtlle.

 

            Keeping information updated

                        The RAE dictionary website (http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/) anticipates the 23rd edition of the dictionary.

 

            Storing and processing large amounts of information

                        On-line texts: the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes (http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/index.jsp) is a very large repository [link http://webspace.qmul.ac.uk/cjpountain/spanlang.htm#texts  to a list of some others]

                        Corpora: the RAE’s CREA (Corpus del español actual: http://corpus.rae.es/creanet.html) and Mark Davies’s Corpus del español (http://www.corpusdelespanol.org/).

 

            The Internet as a source of information

                        The illustration for tapada was found at http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/South_America/Peru/Departamento_de_Lima/Lima-1605109/Things_To_Do-Lima-Plaza_Mayor_And_Surroundings-BR-1.html

 

2.1.2 Language development

 

Word processor based exercises

            reordering with cut and paste

            highlighting

            changing text

            rewriting

            comparison

            story outline - hierarchical composition

(Some of the exercises illustrated were based on ideas by Martin Barge, Technical Director of the QMUL Language Centre; they are not available here for reasons of copyright, but if you are interested please contact me.)

 

HTML-based materials

            using frames for annotations and hints: [link]

 

            The Hot Potatoes suite (available from http://hotpot.uvic.ca/

                        gap-filling [link]

                        multiple choice [link]

                        matching [link]

 

Using multimedia: uniting text, sound and pictures

            El tango en auge: video and text at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/misc/newsid_6961000/6961989.stm

 

Concordancing using WordSmith Tools (available from http://www.lexically.net/wordsmith/)

            Quantifying style: these examples came from Chapter 8 of my book Exploring the Spanish Language (London: Arnold), 2003.

            Analysing a text: the text used was http://www.elpais.com/articulo/opinion/Obama/demoras/elpepuopi/20090122elpepiopi_1/Tes

            Concordancers typically create lists of words ordered alphabetically or by frequency, Keyword in Context (KWIC) concordances which permit study of context and collocation; the identification of keywords is also an interesting facility.

 

3 Being critical of the digital world

 

Electronic and on-line dictionaries: their nature and purpose

            DRAE (http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/): the official dictionary of the Spanish-speaking world.

            Diccionarios El Mundo (http://www.elmundo.es/diccionarios/): a convenient suite of monolingual, bilingual, synonym and antonym dictionaries.

            Diccionario CLAVE (http://clave.librosvivos.net/): has the virtue giving a contextualised example for every meaning of every word.

            WordReference (http://www.wordreference.com/): a favourite translators’ resource with often valuable on-line discussions which go into much greater detail than the standard dictionaries are able to.

 

            More specialised

                        VARILEX (http://lingua.cc.sophia.ac.jp/varilex/index.php): a survey of lexical variation across the Spanish-speaking world ordered according to keywords.

                        Jergas de habla hispana (http://www.jergasdehablahispana.org/): slang expressions ordered by country.

 

Using the internet as a linguistic resource

            preliminary judge of frequency and acceptability

                        to stay at a hotel: a dictionary gives three apparently equal possibilities (quedarse / hospedarse / alojarse en un hotel); Google hits suggest that alojarse is the most frequent expression and hospedarse the least frequent.

            amplifying the dictionary

                        the reason why: the dictionary gives only la razón por la cual, but the Internet has substantial attestation of la razón por la cual / por la que / porque / por que.

            a student research project based on on-line research [link]

 

Understanding the limitations on-line translation (http://translate.google.com/ was illustrated).