[:en]Members of the GRELL and GRAC research groups attended a talk by the SLA researcher, Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig from Indiana University. The talk was entitled “Unconventional expressions: Productive syntax in the L2 acquisition of formulaic language” and was held on 11th May 2016 at 5pm at UB in Barcelona. The talk was organised by UVic-UCC’s Dr Llorenç Comajoan (GRELL), who had worked with Dr Bardovi-Harlig in Indiana during his early career and Dr Carmen Muñoz (UB).

Dr Bardovi-Harlig’s research on second language grammar and pragmatics includes an investigation on conventional expressions, such as “Nice to meet you,” “(I’m) sorry I’m late,” “I’m just looking,” and “I gotta go.” Her results show that learners display interlanguage syntax which contradicts claims that formulaic expressions are memorised in L2, eventually leading to targetlike grammar use (Ellis, 2003, 2012; Eskildsen & Cadierno, 2007; Myles, 2004; Wray, 2008). Bardovi-Harlig’s conclusions are supported by her data containing several interlanguage forms and she suggests that learners’ expressions are based primarily on lexis and are driven by pragmatics.

Of particular interest in this talk was the data collection method used in the study. A total of 314 learners participated resulting in an oral dataset of 5500 tokens. Confounding variables such as proficiency and exposure to English were accounted for and preliminary piloting of the elicitation tasks was very carefully conducted in order to uncover the interlanguage forms learners employed.[:]

[:en]23 April 2016 was the central date of a year of literary celebrations around the 400th anniversary of the deaths of two of Europe’s most celebrated writers, Cervantes and Shakespeare. From a cultural and intercultural point of view it would be hard to think of anybody more influential than these two gentlemen, both in their sources and legacy. Shakespeare plundered many of the stories and legends of medieval Europe and gave them new currency, often giving rise to what we now think of as the definitive versions, whether it be the tragic love of Antony and Cleopatra, the equally tragic fall of Julius Caesar or the evil ambition of Richard III, or reworkings of old texts such as Romeo and Juliet (based on an Italian story recently translated into English). Shakespeare’s legacy has been international and his reputation has grown over the years, as a result of his championing by writers such as Voltaire, Goethe, Stendhal and Hugo, among others. Curiously, Shakespeare’s plays are often more intelligible to contemporary audiences in translation than they are in the original 16th century English, as I can witness to myself. The obligatory study of Shakespeare’s plays in English language secondary education rarely does justice to his reputation, unfortunately.

It is believed that Shakespeare adapted the story of Cardenio, based on an episode in Cervantes’s Don Quijote, but this text has been lost. To me, it seems extraordinary that so much mystery surrounds the life and times of two great writers who lived relatively recently. Cervantes, if we must compare, was perhaps more innovative than Shakespeare and is widely recognised as the creator of the modern novel, a literary genre which is still thriving, while the stage – Shakespeare’s milieu – has now been overshadowed by cinema, TV and internet multimedia. Times move on.

In truth, these two giants of literature are widely considered as co-pioneers of the modern era of literature, as remarked by Salman Rushdie recently in an article titled How Cervantes and Shakespeare wrote the modern literary rule book.

Consult an agenda of celebrations:

• IV centenario de la muerte de Cervantes
• Shakespeare 400

Even in Vic there have been initiatives to celebrate this special year, such as 400 years later – 400 años después. As the year goes by, watch out for further events and celebrations of all kinds.[:ca]Aquest article només està disponible en anglès.

23 April 2016 was the central date of a year of literary celebrations around the 400th anniversary of the deaths of two of Europe’s most celebrated writers, Cervantes and Shakespeare. From a cultural and intercultural point of view it would be hard to think of anybody more influential than these two gentlemen, both in their sources and legacy. Shakespeare plundered many of the stories and legends of medieval Europe and gave them new currency, often giving rise to what we now think of as the definitive versions, whether it be the tragic love of Antony and Cleopatra, the equally tragic fall of Julius Caesar or the evil ambition of Richard III, or reworkings of old texts such as Romeo and Juliet (based on an Italian story recently translated into English). Shakespeare’s legacy has been international and his reputation has grown over the years, as a result of his championing by writers such as Voltaire, Goethe, Stendhal and Hugo, among others. Curiously, Shakespeare’s plays are often more intelligible to contemporary audiences in translation than they are in the original 16th century English, as I can witness to myself. The obligatory study of Shakespeare’s plays in English language secondary education rarely does justice to his reputation, unfortunately.

It is believed that Shakespeare adapted the story of Cardenio, based on an episode in Cervantes’s Don Quijote, but this text has been lost. To me, it seems extraordinary that so much mystery surrounds the life and times of two great writers who lived relatively recently. Cervantes, if we must compare, was perhaps more innovative than Shakespeare and is widely recognised as the creator of the modern novel, a literary genre which is still thriving, while the stage – Shakespeare’s milieu – has now been overshadowed by cinema, TV and internet multimedia. Times move on.

In truth, these two giants of literature are widely considered as co-pioneers of the modern era of literature, as remarked by Salman Rushdie recently in an article titled How Cervantes and Shakespeare wrote the modern literary rule book.

Consult an agenda of celebrations:

• IV centenario de la muerte de Cervantes
• Shakespeare 400

Even in Vic there have been initiatives to celebrate this special year, such as 400 years later – 400 años después. As the year goes by, watch out for further events and celebrations of all kinds.[:es]Este artículo solo está disponible en inglés.

23 April 2016 was the central date of a year of literary celebrations around the 400th anniversary of the deaths of two of Europe’s most celebrated writers, Cervantes and Shakespeare. From a cultural and intercultural point of view it would be hard to think of anybody more influential than these two gentlemen, both in their sources and legacy. Shakespeare plundered many of the stories and legends of medieval Europe and gave them new currency, often giving rise to what we now think of as the definitive versions, whether it be the tragic love of Antony and Cleopatra, the equally tragic fall of Julius Caesar or the evil ambition of Richard III, or reworkings of old texts such as Romeo and Juliet (based on an Italian story recently translated into English). Shakespeare’s legacy has been international and his reputation has grown over the years, as a result of his championing by writers such as Voltaire, Goethe, Stendhal and Hugo, among others. Curiously, Shakespeare’s plays are often more intelligible to contemporary audiences in translation than they are in the original 16th century English, as I can witness to myself. The obligatory study of Shakespeare’s plays in English language secondary education rarely does justice to his reputation, unfortunately.

It is believed that Shakespeare adapted the story of Cardenio, based on an episode in Cervantes’s Don Quijote, but this text has been lost. To me, it seems extraordinary that so much mystery surrounds the life and times of two great writers who lived relatively recently. Cervantes, if we must compare, was perhaps more innovative than Shakespeare and is widely recognised as the creator of the modern novel, a literary genre which is still thriving, while the stage – Shakespeare’s milieu – has now been overshadowed by cinema, TV and internet multimedia. Times move on.

In truth, these two giants of literature are widely considered as co-pioneers of the modern era of literature, as remarked by Salman Rushdie recently in an article titled How Cervantes and Shakespeare wrote the modern literary rule book.

Consult an agenda of celebrations:

• IV centenario de la muerte de Cervantes
• Shakespeare 400

Even in Vic there have been initiatives to celebrate this special year, such as 400 years later – 400 años después. As the year goes by, watch out for further events and celebrations of all kinds.[:]

The GRAC research group at UVic-UCC was invited to participate in a network meeting called ‘Quality Parameters in International Profiles in Higher Education’. Àngels Pinyana and Sarah Khan represented GRAC at the meetings in Winterthur, Switzerland on 31st March and 1st April.

The meeting in Winterthur was the first of several planned meetings between 2015-2017 to coordinate a joint inter-university project headed by ZHAW (Zurich University of Applied Sciences) and BFH (Bern University of Applied Sciences), “Developing Quality Management Parameters for International Profiles in Universities of Applied Sciences”, which is funded by SERI (Swiss Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation).

This cross-disciplinary project will be headed by a core team of expert advisors in higher education in the fields of International Relations, Quality Management and Applied Linguistics from UVic-UCC, University of Padua and universities of applied sciences from Zurich, Bern, Graz, Munich and Freiburg.

The core team will develop Quality Management Parameters which may be applied across universities and cultural contexts and build up an international network to actively implement sustainable Quality Management Parameters in the future. The final aim of the project is to develop strategic partnerships in order to submit a proposal for an Erasmus Key Action 2+ Mobility Programme in 2017.

[:en]If interested in gaining an insight in how discourse works, this is good news for you.

A new book, Persuasion in Public Discourse: Cognitive and Functional Perspectives, will be published very soon by John Benjamins Publishing Company within the prominent series “Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture”. The editors are Jana Pelclová and Louis Wei-lun Lu, form the Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic.

As suggested by the title, the book proposes a multidisciplinary contribution to the study of persuasion with a very interesting scope of approaches: Part I and II start by accounting for a historical perspective of the phenomenon of persuasion to advance towards the persuasive strategies used in contemporary political and socio-ecological messages. Parts III and IV cover the highly influential media discourse, and the persuasive effects of commercial language. Academic discourse is also dealt with in Part V, and may be of interest to whoever that operates in the academia. Multimodality in public discourse is also dealt with in the last chapters, Part VI, where visuals and music also play a role in persuasion.

Gonzalo Calle Rosingana, member of University of Vic’s Research Group Learning and Communication (GRAC) has been given the opportunity to include a chapter in Part II of this book with the title “Fictionalising scenarios in political discourse: Catalan self-determination”. The chapter deals with political discourse and makes a qualitative study of the investiture speech Artur Mas gave in December 2012, when he was re-elected president. G. Calle focusses on the organization of information of the speech event, the way attention patterns and focal adjustment work, and how these combine with first-person plural pronouns, adjectives, and verb endings. A crucial aspect in the analysis is the role of deontic modal verbs that, after minimizing the deontic force, engage the audience in covert imaginary worlds that project a promising future. The analysis involves the implementation of G. Fauconnier’s mental space theory, the concepts of R. Langacker’s nominal and verbal grounding and evaluating the role of deontic modal verbs taking P. Chilton’s deictic space theory.

We will keep you informed of the publisher’s release date.[:ca]If interested in gaining an insight in how discourse works, this is good news for you.

A new book, Persuasion in Public Discourse: Cognitive and Functional Perspectives, will be published very soon by John Benjamins Publishing Company within the prominent series “Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture”. The editors are Jana Pelclová and Louis Wei-lun Lu, form the Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic.

As suggested by the title, the book proposes a multidisciplinary contribution to the study of persuasion with a very interesting scope of approaches: Part I and II start by accounting for a historical perspective of the phenomenon of persuasion to advance towards the persuasive strategies used in contemporary political and socio-ecological messages. Parts III and IV cover the highly influential media discourse, and the persuasive effects of commercial language. Academic discourse is also dealt with in Part V, and may be of interest to whoever that operates in the academia. Multimodality in public discourse is also dealt with in the last chapters, Part VI, where visuals and music also play a role in persuasion.

Gonzalo Calle Rosingana, member of University of Vic’s Research Group Learning and Communication (GRAC) has been given the opportunity to include a chapter in Part II of this book with the title “Fictionalising scenarios in political discourse: Catalan self-determination”. The chapter deals with political discourse and makes a qualitative study of the investiture speech Artur Mas gave in December 2012, when he was re-elected president. G. Calle focusses on the organization of information of the speech event, the way attention patterns and focal adjustment work, and how these combine with first-person plural pronouns, adjectives, and verb endings. A crucial aspect in the analysis is the role of deontic modal verbs that, after minimizing the deontic force, engage the audience in covert imaginary worlds that project a promising future. The analysis involves the implementation of G. Fauconnier’s mental space theory, the concepts of R. Langacker’s nominal and verbal grounding and evaluating the role of deontic modal verbs taking P. Chilton’s deictic space theory.

We will keep you informed of the publisher’s release date.[:es]If interested in gaining an insight in how discourse works, this is good news for you.

A new book, Persuasion in Public Discourse: Cognitive and Functional Perspectives, will be published very soon by John Benjamins Publishing Company within the prominent series “Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture”. The editors are Jana Pelclová and Louis Wei-lun Lu, form the Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic.

As suggested by the title, the book proposes a multidisciplinary contribution to the study of persuasion with a very interesting scope of approaches: Part I and II start by accounting for a historical perspective of the phenomenon of persuasion to advance towards the persuasive strategies used in contemporary political and socio-ecological messages. Parts III and IV cover the highly influential media discourse, and the persuasive effects of commercial language. Academic discourse is also dealt with in Part V, and may be of interest to whoever that operates in the academia. Multimodality in public discourse is also dealt with in the last chapters, Part VI, where visuals and music also play a role in persuasion.

Gonzalo Calle Rosingana, member of University of Vic’s Research Group Learning and Communication (GRAC) has been given the opportunity to include a chapter in Part II of this book with the title “Fictionalising scenarios in political discourse: Catalan self-determination”. The chapter deals with political discourse and makes a qualitative study of the investiture speech Artur Mas gave in December 2012, when he was re-elected president. G. Calle focusses on the organization of information of the speech event, the way attention patterns and focal adjustment work, and how these combine with first-person plural pronouns, adjectives, and verb endings. A crucial aspect in the analysis is the role of deontic modal verbs that, after minimizing the deontic force, engage the audience in covert imaginary worlds that project a promising future. The analysis involves the implementation of G. Fauconnier’s mental space theory, the concepts of R. Langacker’s nominal and verbal grounding and evaluating the role of deontic modal verbs taking P. Chilton’s deictic space theory.

We will keep you informed of the publisher’s release date.[:]