The benefits of instruction on learners’ production and awareness of speech acts is well documented (see Alcón and Martínez-Flor, 2008, for a review of pragmatics in instructional contexts). However, few studies examine the influence that instruction may have on the cognitive processes involved in speech act production (Félix- Brasdefer, 2008). In order to address this research gap, and taking into account the discussion in research on the concept of attention and related terms such as awareness (see Al-Hejin, 2004, for a review of the role of attention and awareness in second language acquisition research) this paper reports on the benefits of instruction on learners’ attention and awareness during the performance of refusals. Thus, based on a pedagogical proposal for teaching refusals at the discourse level, we focus on the benefits that this pedagogical proposal can have on the information attended to during the planning and execution of refusals. Secondly, we explore whether instruction makes a difference in learners’ awareness of refusals.

No abstract

Resumen La omisión y la adición son conceptos definidos en diversos trabajos. Sin embargo, estos estudios se han centrado en una pequeña serie de ejemplos, sin tener en cuenta el alcance del fenómeno. Este trabajo analiza la omisión o adición de segmentos textuales incluidos en un corpus, COVALT, formado por traducciones y originales de textos literarios, cuyo idioma de origen es el alemán y el idioma de destino es el catalán. Los hallazgos del estudio muestran que todos los textos analizados omiten algún segmento, de modo que podríamos inferir que la omisión está mucho más generalizada de lo que se podría pensar. Además, aunque todos los textos tienen omisiones, no todos tienen adiciones. Así, también podemos concluir que la omisión es más usual que la adición. Del mismo modo, no parece haber correlación significativa entre omisiones y adiciones. Finalmente, nuestro análisis parece señalar que los criterios por los cuales los traductores usan estas técnicas son generalmente más justificables en el caso de la omisión que en el de la adición.

Introducció al monogràfic sobre «Traducció i models lingüístics» del número 58 (Primavera 2015) de Caplletra. Revista Internacional de Filologia.

The aim of this study was to determine whether learning how to use certain microparametric aspects – adverbial pronouns – in L4 (French) had an effect on students’ L1/L2 (Catalan) writing scripts. The study was conducted on 427 learners who had Catalan as their L1 or L2, English as an L3, and were studying a translation degree at University. The students were divided into two groups according to whether they were studying French or German as their L4. Altogether 1620 texts produced over four academic years were reviewed. Although both French and Catalan, unlike German, have similar adverbial pronouns, the results of the analysis show that there is no statistically significant difference in the use of adverbial pronouns between the German group and the French group. However, there is some evidence of a more intense use of these pronouns among the Catalan learners in the French group.