The paper addresses problems related to the choice of educational language in Spain. We briefly present the current sociolinguistic situation in the Basque Country, Galicia and Catalonia and the possibilities of educational language choice in these autonomous communities. Based on data provided by the city halls of Bilbao, Vigo and Barcelona, we analyse the language models actually available at both state and (semi)private primary schools in these cities. We also take into account practical elements such as the distance of a school from the family’s residence. Our research reveals that each of the autonomous communities analysed addresses the choice of educational language in a different way and that a theoretical availability of different language models does not necessarily mean that the chosen model will be accessible in a state school close to the child’s home. The analysis aims to present questions related to the choice of educational language in a plurilingual state as part of a complex problem which is related not only to linguistic identity but also to general topics of multilingual education and its suitability for all children.
This paper presents an integration of mental spaces theory and the notion of grounding. The aim is to present a communication model based on the idea of blending of mental spaces that can be used to analyse an ongoing discourse and represent the functions of grounding elements in speaker — hearer interaction. The objective is to emphasise the intersubjective and dynamic nature of human communication and to integrate grammar and discourse analysis within one universal representation. Consequently, the proposed model is used to analyse nominal grounding in authentic texts with variants in English, Spanish and Czech, thus representing the Germanic, Romance and Slavonic families. The communication model is presented as a polyfunctional tool for an abstract representation of communication in general, for an in-depth analysis of grounding in a concrete text and for a contrastive study involving various languages.
The article analyses Spanish and Portuguese verbal periphrases that express the beginning of a process (ingressive manner of action). It analyses stylistically marked and stylistically unmarked ingressive constructions in order to determine similarities and differences between the two languages. The study is primarily based on the comparable web corpora Aranea which makes it possible to see the frequency of use of Spanish and Portuguese periphrases in contemporary language, compare them and determine semantic restrictions for auxiliated verbs in each construction. As a result of this corpus analysis, it is possible to trace the main systemic correspondences between Spanish and Portuguese ingressive verbal periphrases and see the relationship between the original meaning of a concrete semi-auxiliary verb and the group of infinitives that can appear in a periphrasis introduced by that verb.
This paper focuses on the two most widely used universalist approaches that attempt to present a unified account of the Spanish subjunctive. Both Vesterinen’s and Ruiz Campillo’s concepts are based on principles of cognitive linguistics and represent two largely contradictory ways to define a unified principle for the use of a particular verbal form: from an abstract principle to usage and from concrete linguistic manifestations to the search for an underlying function. This paper contrasts the two theories and points out their strengths and weaknesses. We conclude that an uncontroversial universalist theory describing all uses of the Spanish subjunctive has not yet been developed in linguistics; rather both theories are a tool to illustrate how complex and difficult it is to analyse the phenomenon of mood choice.
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