Abstract:

The question to what extent and on what basis Latin American (LA) Spanish (in terms of its vocabulary units) should be introduced to university students has lately been a topical issue at a considerable number of congresses in Russia and abroad. We suggest that teaching such vocabulary to non-philologists at Russian universities be based on the typology of communication difficulties (CD).

CD are viewed as language and socio-cultural obstacles one can face studying a foreign language and are connected with differences in language systems and pictures of the world, and pragmatic factors, but do not necessarily result in miscommunication. They can be divided into language-bound and language-and-culture-bound. We consider such division relevant for revealing the main types of difficulties Russian native speakers face studying Spanish and its variations.

Language-bound CD, usually fixed in specialized dictionaries, can be either evident (i.e. differences in grammar and spelling), or latent (i.e., semantic differences, lexical polysemy, collocations etc.).

Evident language-bound CD connected with the vocabulary of Spanish national variations might be divided into spelling and grammar ones. The first group concerns the questions learners have about doublet or triplet versions of words, in which one belongs to the Pyrenean variant, and the other represents a national variant (e.g., ahí vs. ái – LA, añales vs. añares – Ch., Ur. vs. añazos – Arg.). In some cases they do not affect the word meaning itself or the communicative situation. In others there is a difference in stylistic connotation (e.g. antes – neutral, enantes, denantes and endenantes (only LA) – low colloquial, enantes – obsolete).

Evident grammar-bound CD mostly concern doublets in grammatical constructions (e.g., the Lat.-Am. por instead of the Pyrenean para in the meaning of purpose), and differences in meaning linked to morphology, such as gender, number or belonging to a certain part of speech (e.g., el asidero (“case”, “pretext”) vs. la asidera (Arg., Ur: “a leather belt to tie a lasso to the saddle”); la hora (n. “hour”) vs. hora ( = ahora (Mex.) – “now”).

Latent language-bound CD are hidden in the semantics and may be classified as follows: differences in the scope of meaning (e.g., tiempo in the additional meaning of “lottery ticket” in Costa Rica), paradigmatic relations (e.g., homonymy, such as the notorious coger, synonymy, such as enfadarse – enojarse – acelerarse, paronymy, such as acatar vs. acotar), etc.

The source of language-and-culture-bound CD lies only in lexical phenomena. Evident difficulties here include lacunary words in Latin American Spanish denoting gaps in the conceptual picture of the world. These can be words as such (e.g. cursoria) or certain lexical meanings (e.g., azul – Ec., Hond. “member or supporter of the conservative party”). Lexical units denoting historical events and special holidays, and national idioms can also be regarded as lacunary.

Unlike evident difficulties, latent ones are not fixed either in dictionaries, nor in textbooks, but play a more important role in the intercultural communication, and such vocabulary should be taught to any audience studying Spanish. We suggest that for non-philologists teaching LA-vocabulary should focus on latent language- and language-and-culture-bound lexical units, linked to the potential sphere of their future activity in order to prevent possible communication difficulties in a certain professional area.

Keywords:

Latin American spanish, communication difficulties, language-bound difficulty, language-and-culture-bound difficulty, lacunary words, language teaching methods.