Masculine plural nouns referring to animate beings have two possible interpretations in Spanish: generic (men and women) and specific (men only). Studies conducted with adult populations conclude that this interpretation leans more toward the specific and is modulated by factors such as the stereotype associated with the noun. This study aims to fill a gap in the literature by looking at the interpretation of profession names by children in three age groups (4-5 years, 7-8 years, and 10-11 years). The objective is to verify whether the interpretation varies with age, how the gender of the participant influences it, and to what extent the representation is affected by the stereotype of the noun. To this end, a semantic interpretation task was carried out with 108 students enrolled in a public school in the Community of Madrid. Our results show a general tendency to interpret the masculine plural as specific. They also reveal the great importance of the own sex, in that boys favor the interpretation 'only men'. On the other hand, there is a tendency to interpret nouns with a masculine stereotype as specific, although the results do not reach statistical significance. No evidence of interaction was found between sex and educational level, nor between sex and the stereotype of the noun.
This study examines the communicative accommodation of the discursive voices of doctors and patients in primary care consultations. The hypothesis is that this process may not be due to a strategy of controlling interaction or establishing power relations, but rather to interactive cooperation in the pursuit of instrumental and social goals. This makes a cooperative process that is permitted and even expected. The theoretical-methodological framework comes from Sociocultural Pragmatics (the concepts of role and face), Discourse Analysis (discursive voices), and Accommodation Theory. The results show that accommodation does not seek to reproduce the voice of the other, but rather to adapt it to one's own voice temporarily. Furthermore, it shows that the use of an unexpected voice by speakers is recontextualized and acquires a new meaning, different from that expected in the original role. Thus, the medical voice adopted by a patient becomes a disseminative medical voice that is incorporated into the characteristics of the discursive behavior of the speaker in the role of patient, while the voice of ordinary people adopted by the doctor becomes apseudo voice ofthe street. Both processes involve more participatory, balanced, and egalitarian interaction. This fits with the characteristics currently sought in communication in healthcare settings, where doctors give patients a space to participate in medical decisions and patients take an active role in aspects related to their health.
Visual design plays a key role on banks’ websites. However, little is known about how images are deployed to convey key messages in specific sections. This paper conducts an analysis of the human images in the “Sustainability” and “About us” sections of two Spanish and two UK bank websites, considering aspects of representation, interaction and composition. Although varied patterns emerge, our results show trends to use human images differently in the two sections: group “offer” images predominate in the “Sustainability” pages, suggesting relatable everyday narratives and abstract qualities such as closeness and approachability, whereas “demand” images in the “About us” section appear to be used to reinforce the bank’s ethos, communicate authority and inspire trust.
The context of Higher Education (HE) has undergone major changes with the introduction of new digital tools into the English as a Foreign Language Classroom (EFL). The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers a wide range of possibilities in the field of teaching and learning, especially for developing students’ writing competence. In translation, implementing AI to render culture-specific terms such as proverbs and idioms remains challenging for educators and students alike. This study aims at integrating ChatGPT in written expression tasks, as part of the Applied Linguistics to English-Spanish Translation course in a bachelor’s degree in English Studies. The current research aims to explore (1) the suitability of this tool to render culture-specific terms, (2) how translations provided by ChatGPT might enhance students’ creativity and critical thinking, and (3) the students’ perceptions regarding the use of the ChatGPT platform as a learning tool. Specifically, the study explores university students’ perceptions of using AI for translation through a questionnaire created on Google Forms. Students are expected to use this tool to translate texts of medium-high complexity (proverbs and idioms) from a linguistic, idiomatic, or cultural point of view through two online tasks integrated into the Moodle platform (Lessons). Finally, although students consider ChatGPT an efficient tool for English-Spanish translation with great future potential, this study suggests that it still needs some refinement and produces results that are far from professional performance.
This article offers the first critical reading in English of Roya Hakakian's A Beginner's Guide to America: For the Immigrant and the Curious (2021), which is addressed to a generic migrant, newly arrived in America. Written in the second-person narrative style typical of self-help guides, Hakakian's book serves as a guide for the reader through her journey of becoming an American. Echoing the idea of American exceptionalism, it recounts a tale of historical progress woven through anecdotes of violence and injustice against marginalized communities throughout American history and represents these episodes as essential milestones toward freedom. The narrator teaches the unknowing migrant addressee that struggles for freedom throughout American history were endeavors to submit to the rule of law and the Constitution. The narratee is then invited to stoically and resignedly wait until her naturalization ceremony when her liberties will be protected by the Constitution. Tracing the story's intertextual links and exploring its formal aspects, this paper argues that the emergence of the free subject at the story's conclusion reflects the dominant ideology of assimilation and conformity to American society.
