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FrameNet as a Resource to Teach Spanish as a Foreign Language

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Teaching Language and Teaching Literature in Virtual Environments

Abstract

The advent of new technologies in our society has pervaded the field of language teaching. FrameNet is one of the tools whose potential for language teaching is still unexplored. In this chapter, I trace possible pedagogical implications and applications of the Spanish FrameNet in the Spanish as a foreign language (SFL hereafter) classroom. The chapter is divided into four parts. First, I briefly describe the history of the field of Spanish language teaching (SLT hereafter) as well as the development of the framework of online teaching. I expand on notions such as computer–assisted language learning, computer–mediated communication, and data–driven learning. Second, I give an overview of FrameNet, including concepts such as frames, frame elements, lexical units, and their annotation. Third, I discuss the ways in which the Spanish FrameNet can be used in the SFL classroom. This section is divided into subsections dealing with aspects of vocabulary, grammar, and metaphors. Finally, I stress the benefits and drawbacks of new technologies like FrameNet in teaching foreign languages.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    However, most of the features this dictionary has (senses based on frequency, examples from corpora, argument and role information for each verb, etc.) are not exclusive, making us wondering how it differs from mainstream dictionaries. The Redes dictionary (Bosque 2004), a compilation of collocations in contemporary Spanish, can serve a similar purpose to advanced students of SFL.

  2. 2.

    The ‘zone of proximal development’ (ZPD) is a concept introduced by Vygotsky in his Mind in society (1978). It consists of the developmental space between what the child can do and cannot do. Fostering learning is achieved by assigning not too challenging tasks that are within the ZPD. Scaffolding, that is, gradual and continuous support through this stage, is used to achieve successful learning.

  3. 3.

    Despite this, most self-learning and didacticism finds support in either formal education or complementary didactic, structured materials and syllabi.

  4. 4.

    The notion of frame has been explored in the literature under the labels of ‘script’, ‘schema’, ‘scenario’, and ‘situation’.

  5. 5.

    See https://FrameNet2.icsi.berkeley.edu/fnReports/data/frameIndex.xml?frame=Commercial_transaction. [accessed 27/02/2018].

  6. 6.

    Note that the relation of generality is based on taxonomical relations, that is, when something is a type of something. The relation of containment, nonetheless, is based on partonomic relations, that is, when something is a part of something (see Croft and Cruse 2004 for a review).

  7. 7.

    There is another type of frame element, namely the extra-thematic one. It consists of an element that frames the main event against a background event. Temporal subordinate clauses are good candidates to be extra-thematic elements.

  8. 8.

    For example, the Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana (2008, 4th edition) by Joan Corominas.

  9. 9.

    As Giglio (Chap. 2, this volume) points out, practicing pronunciation in a virtual learning environment is still a challenge. In this particular activity, we can’t use FrameNet in any way to evaluate students’ pronunciation.

  10. 10.

    This example illustrates the need to include the study of figurative language, and more specifically metonymy, in the foreign language classroom. Goles imposibles in Spanish, literally ‘impossible goals’, makes use of two metonymies. The first one draws from the event schema where the effect of an action (the goal) is referred in English by the instrument (the ball). The second one draws from the conceptual domain of scales and values where a very high value within a scale (namely, the unlikelihood of scoring a goal) is referred through the totality of that scale (namely, the impossibility of scoring a goal). These metonymies motivate the translation of the Spanish expression un gol imposible into ‘a football that is hard to stop’.

  11. 11.

    Actually, the Metanet Metaphor Wiki gives the agentive_causation and natural_process frames as part of this metaphor. Since they are not yet part of FrameNet, students could attempt to create those and map them to simulate the metaphorical process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    José Antonio Jódar-Sánchez

  2. University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, USA

    José Antonio Jódar-Sánchez

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  1. Departamento de Lingüística Aplicada, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain

    María Luisa Carrió-Pastor

Appendix

Appendix

Table 7.4 Sample of comparable frames with lexemes starting with ‘p’
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Table 7.5 Sample of metaphors and the frames they involve
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Jódar-Sánchez, J.A. (2019). FrameNet as a Resource to Teach Spanish as a Foreign Language. In: Carrió-Pastor, M.L. (eds) Teaching Language and Teaching Literature in Virtual Environments. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1358-5_7

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