https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/32619 Laboratorio de Adquisición del Lenguaje (UVALAL) Sun, 12 Apr 2026 05:02:27 GMT 2026-04-12T05:02:27Z https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/82681 Natural translation or natural interpreting (NI) – performed by bilingual speakers without formal training – has received little attention in bilingualism studies, as it is often unfairly considered a byproduct of linguistic competence development (e.g., Harris, 1980a, 1980b, 2013; Álvarez de la Fuente & Fernández Fuertes, 2015, 2024; Hornáčková Klapicová, 2021; Álvarez de la Fuente et al., 2019). Similarly, the field of translation has largely dismissed it, regarding it as non-professional and rudimentary (see Álvarez de la Fuente & Fernández Fuertes, 2012a for a review). However, our paper presents a theoretical proposal that frames NI as a language-contact phenomenon playing an essential role not only in L1 bilingualism studies but also in those of L2 bilingualism. In fact, the way bilingual children acquire their two languages simultaneously in natural and family contexts has been recently drawn upon to offer a more accurate model for language production in fields such as language teaching (e.g., Marsh, 2000; Leonardi, 2010; Sneddon, 2012; García, 2013; Laviosa, 2019; González-Davies, 2020). The authenticity of family interactions presented in such bilingual acquisition contexts seems to provide better insights for the study of both language acquisition and teaching because they reflect how language naturally evolves. Therefore, our goal is to highlight that L1 NI studies can be extended to an L2 context. In this spirit, we offer an analysis of L2 NI cases following the framework of L1 NI to showcase the universality of NI and its pervasiveness in language interactions, whether in L1 or L2, within family or school settings. Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/82681 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/78263 Cada vez hay más personas bilingües y multilingües en el mundo. Entre el 60 y el 70 % de la población mundial habla más de una lengua, un porcentaje que llega hasta el 90 % en el caso de África. El contacto de lenguas es una constante en nuestros días, ya sea entre dos lenguas maternas o entre una lengua materna y una lengua extranjera. Estudios como los que llevamos a cabo en nuestro laboratorio, el UVALAL, tratan de dar respuesta a preguntas claves sobre este contacto. ¿En qué contextos se produce este contacto? ¿Qué consecuencias tiene para el hablante bilingüe? ¿Cómo puede el cerebro bilingüe procesar las dos lenguas? ¿Procesan de manera diferente las dos lenguas los individuos bilingües dependiendo de qué tipo de bilingües sean? Al tratarse de un fenómeno tan extendido, abundan las investigaciones científicas que buscan superar los mitos que han existido acerca del bilingüismo. Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/78263 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/69433 De manera especial en los últimos años, el estudio de datos lingüísticos ha llevado, no sólo a una mejor comprensión del lenguaje en general y de las lenguas en particular, sino también a que los estudios teóricos y prácticos de una lengua concreta o de la comparación de dos o varias ofrezcan herramientas para un mejor aprovechamiento de la enseñanza de lenguas a diversos niveles. Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/69433 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/68845 One of the defining properties of second language (L2) acquisition is crosslinguistic influence, which can be broadly defined as the influence that occurs between the two languages of the bilingual (e.g., Ringbom, 2007, 2016; Blom & Baayan, 2012; Montrul & Ionin, 2012; Gathercole, 2016; Unsworth, 2016; Llinás-Grau & Bel, 2019). In this study, we of-fer a characterization of crosslinguistic influence in the L2 English pro-duction of a group of sequential bilinguals that have Chinese as their first language (L1). In particular, we explore this language contact si-tuation between Chinese and English in the domain of direct objects, given that the production–omission of direct objects is regulated diffe-rently in these two languages. Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/68845 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/68736 The Imperfect/Preterite aspectual contrast is one of the most studied topics in Spanish as a second language research. However, there are few works focused on describing the acquisition of modal uses of the Imperfect by L2 speakers. This paper investigates the L1 Russian L2 Spanish speakers’ mastery of politeness, evidential and nonfactual modal values of the Imperfect. Based on a Timed Acceptability Judgments Task (TAJT), this study examines the degree of acceptability of Imperfect forms in modal contexts in three groups of advanced level L2 Spanish learners. The results show that only the Imperfect of politeness achieves acceptance rates similar to those of native speakers at the most advanced levels of proficiency. The high degree of lexicalization of some imperfect forms, which function as pragmatic routines in certain communicative situations, is alleged to facilitate this tendency. In contrast, the evidential and nonfactual Imperfect forms present greater challenges for the L2 Spanish speakers. The results of our study indicate that (i) the imperfect forms are not recognized as legitimate alternatives for marking evidentiality and nonfactuality and (ii) reflect a partial form-function mapping of learners’ knowledge of the Imperfect and its associated values Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/68736 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/67419 This chapter compares gender assignment of real Spanish nouns by second language learners (L1 English n=26, L1 Russian n=26) and by native Spanish speakers (n=26). Participants completes an acceptability judgement task with 40 sentences with Spanish determiner phrases wich were grammatical or ungrammatical, with masculine and feminine nouns with transparent or opaque endings. Our resulst show that (1) the L1 Russian group is more sensitive to gender incongruencies than the L1 English group, suggesting that the presence of grammatical gender in the L1 facilitates the perception of gender inconguencies; and that (2) noun morphology facilitates gender acquisition in L2 Spanish, as both groups of participants rated non-matching determiner phrases with transparent noun more accurately than opaque nouns. Based on the results os this study, this work also provides didactic recommendations in order to improve the teaching of grammatical gender for learners of Spanish as a second language (L2). Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/67419 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/67418 This study addresses the acquisition of second language (L2) Spanish grammatical gender by native speakers of two typologically different languages: English (n = 39) and Russian (n = 37). We aim to explore if the presence or absence of gender features in the first language (L1) influences the acquisition of Spanish grammatical gender. Participants completed an acceptability judgment task consisting of 40 sentences with grammatical and ungrammatical Spanish Determiner Phrases (DPs). They included masculine and feminine Ns (Nouns) with transparent or opaque endings. Our findings show that (1) both groups are sensitive to gender non-matching structures, although L1 Russian speakers gave the lowest scores to ungrammatical structures in Spanish; (2) higher rating scores to masculine matching DPs point to the use of masculine as default by both L2 groups; (3) Ns with transparent endings act as cues for L2 Spanish learners, since both groups of participants rated the non-matching DPs with transparent Ns more accurately than those with opaque Ns. Therefore, our findings suggest that gender in L2 Spanish can be acquired regardless of the presence or the absence of these grammatical property in the L1, although its presence in the L1 seems to accelerate this process. Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/67418 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/66773 Codeswitching has been used as a tool to investigate how the properties of the two language systems interact in the bilingual mind with relatively few studies investigating bilingual children. We target two groups of L1-Spanish–L2-English children in Spain to address language activation and language inhibition in the processing of codeswitching between a determiner (DET) and a noun (N). We investigate how the mental representation of the formal features involved is responsible for the sensitivity to grammatical gender, which in turn affects how bilinguals’ language activation and inhibition processes are at play and shape processing. We target both the directionality of the switch (English-DET–Spanish-N vs. Spanish-DET–English-N) and the type of implicit gender agreement mechanism (in the case of Spanish-DET–English-N switches) by using offline acceptability judgment data and eyetracking during reading data. Results suggest lower processing costs of English DET switches and higher ones of non-congruent Spanish DET switches. We interpret the preference for classifying the non-gendered Ns along the lines of the gendered Ns in the gendered language as evidence for the integrated representation hypothesis which states that both Ns depicting the same concept are connected in the mind of the bilingual. Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/66773 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/64524 Bilingual children can perform natural interpreting in two different spontaneous settings, i.e., at home when acquiring their two languages and when practicing language brokering. In both cases, as natural interpreters and as child brokers, bilingual children can act as interpreters between two monolingual adults, although the scenario in which they interpret (domestic versus non-domestic settings, respectively) and the goal (raising children bilingually versus mediating for their family, respectively) may differ. Recently, some scholars have revealed how negatively or positively child brokers may see their role as family-society mediators. Likewise, natural interpreters may show positive or negative attitudes towards interpreting, and these may vary as they grow up as bilinguals. In order to observe how bilingual children respond to interpreting as they develop linguistically, experimental data from CHILDES involving a pair or twins across three elicited interpreting sessions were used (i.e., ages 4;6, 5;05, 6;03). The results show that both children translate efficiently and mainly when required to do so, providing predominantly simplified translations in their first experience and later an equal proportion of simplified and literal translations. To interpret these results, some external variables associated with experimental conditions (e.g., the aim behind interpreting; the interlocutors’ needs and roles; the duration of the sessions) are also taken into consideration which help characterize how natural interpreters face natural interpreting. Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/64524 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/59497 The acquisition of Spanish grammatical gender has been widely investigated in the L2 and 2L1 literatures. Previous studies have focused on identifying the difficulties L2 speakers encounter and on whether they attain a native-like performance. This has been widely researched with ungendered L1 speakers (mainly English) and with gendered languages such as Russian or German. This chapter aims at reviewing the most relevant works recently published on the acquisition of grammatical gender in L2 Spanish by setting the focus on the role played by the gender transparency of the noun and how the latter influences the speaker’s acquisition depending on the presence or absence of gender in their L1. Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/59497 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/58620 This paper investigates two of the most widely analyzed universals in translation research, namely simplification and explicitation. We examine the oral production of bilingual children with different language pairs as available in the CHILDES project (MacWhinney 2000) (i.e. the FerFuLice, Ticio, Deuchar, Vila, Genesee and Pérez-Bazán corpora) as well as in other compilation forms (i.e. Ronjat 1913; Leopold 1939-1949; Swain 1972; Lanza 1988, 1997, 2001; and Cossato 2008). We address two main issues: whether instances of simplification and explicitation appear in the production of non-instructed interpreters and, if so, how their occurrence relates to the type of data (i.e. spontaneous or experimental) and the language pair involved. The results show that children acquiring two first languages often translate and use simplification and explicitation at varying degrees irrespective of the language pair. We conclude that the analysis of acquisition data can contribute to shed light on the nature of these translation universals. Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/58620 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/58619 Using data from simultaneous and sequential bilingualism, we address a series of learnability issues by investigating the acquisition of four different structures: (i) the [Gender] feature of the Spanish Determiner in the production of English/ Spanish mixed Determiner Phrases; (ii) the [Determiner] feature of Tense in the production of null/overt subjects; (iii) the morphosyntactic status of definite articles and clitics; and (iv) the morphosyntactic characteristics of Spanish deverbal compounds. We compare spontaneous and experimental data elicited from children and adults in order to show how these linguistic constructs can account for the differences and similarities between native and non-native bilingual systems. The data reveal clear-cut differences between native and non-native production/ interpretation. We attribute this to feature specification and the way in which both groups access the input. Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/58619 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/58617 Previous code-switching literature argues that no switch takes place between a pronoun and a verb, while Determiner Phrases (DPs) do code-switch. This paper uses code-switching acceptability judgment data elicited from three groups of English–Spanish bilinguals (2L1 children, L2 English children and L2 English adults) to test: (i) van Gelderen & MacSwan’s (2008) PF disjunction theorem intended to account for the DP/pronoun divide; and (ii) an agreement version of the analogical criterion (Liceras et al. 2008) which is based on Pesetsky & Torrego’s (2001) double-feature valuation mechanism intended to account for the different status of third person versus first and second person pronominal subjects. We show that the PF disjunction theorem is clearly rooted in the mind of the bilingual and that the Spanish dominant bilinguals can ‘relax’ its requirements to value person agreement features as predicted by the double-feature valuation mechanism. Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/58617 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/58598 We analyze the emergence of grammatical gender in the spontaneous longitudinal Spanish production of a set of Spanish/English bilingual twins from the FerFuLice corpus (Fernández Fuertes & Liceras, 2009). We take as a point of departure theoretical accounts on gender assignment and gender concord and previous empirical work on the acquisition of gender by monolinguals and bilinguals. Our study deals with how gender incorporates in the case of L1 Spanish bilinguals; how concord within the determiner phrase (DP) operates; and how monolingual and bilingual Spanish pattern in the same way in this respect. We conclude that DP syntax and the gender concord valuation mechanism are in place from very early stages and that morphology and semantics are not determinant factors in this process. Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/58598 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/57480 Ever since Harris (1973; 1977) put forward the term natural translation/ interpretation (Harris, 1997), research has also been conducted on the relationship between the capacity bilinguals have to translate (Harris & Sherwood, 1978; Harris, 1980; 1997) and the bilingual competence required for it (Malakoff & Hakuta, 1991; Lorscher, 1992; Álvarez de la Fuente, 2006; 2007). The present study aims at contributing to this debate by providing an analysis of the natural translations that appear in the data from two English/Spanish balanced bilingual chil­ dren from the Ferfulice corpus (Femández Fuertes & Liceras, 2009) in CHILDES (MacWhinney, 2000). We address the issue of bilingual competence and, in particular, of how the analysis of oral translation cases can provide informa­ tion regarding the pattems that govem this kind of translation; the constraints that govem the interpretative and contextual mapping between the two languages; and the relationship that exits between bilingual competence and performance in the translation activity. In order to do so we have analysed the spontaneous and experimental production of these two bilingual children (age range: 1;11-6;3 years old) and we have also proposed a series of variables that render the linguistic and contextual pattems that the children follow when they interpret naturally. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/57480 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/57479 Translation has been informally and broadly perceived as a commu­ nicative act that involves the transfer of meaning of a text from one language into another. According to this definition, translation is seen as a process by means of which an equivalence of meaning between two texts is established. This process has been dealt with in the litera­ ture on translation studies from at least two different perspectives: in the more traditional approach, the equivalence process refers to the semantic, pragmatic and stylistic identity between the two texts, the original text and the target text (e.g. Delisle, 1984; Toury, 1984); this viewpoint, which we may refer to as an extemally-oriented ap­ proach to translation, implies a prescriptive approach towards this process whose starting point is a series of a priori formal criteria that the translator must meet in order to interpret the original text correct­ ly and deliver a good translation; under a more communicative perspective, the equivalence process rendering any translation has a more dynamic nature in the sense that, in this rather intemally-ori­ ented approach (e.g. Nida, 1964; 1976; Seleskovitch, 1976; Rabadán Álvarez, 1991), the reproduction of a message is specially linked and ultimately constrained in a way by the intended interlocutors; that is, the semantic-pragmatic components would weigh more than the mere formal ones in this equivalence process. This last perspective involves then a shift from the text itself towards the speaker and, in particular, towards the speaker the translation is intended for. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/57479 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z