https://hdl.handle.net/10481/27841 2026-04-05T18:43:56Z 2026-04-05T18:43:56Z López-Beltrán, Priscila https://hdl.handle.net/10481/33456 2021-06-15T12:04:05Z

Information structure violations in passive constructions at the syntax-discourse interface by advanced L2 English learners López-Beltrán, Priscila In the recent history of linguistics, there have been several theories that have attempted to give a full account of the functional architecture of the mind. One of the most important was Fodor's in the 1980s. In line with his theory of the modularity of mind, Sorace and Filiaci (2006) put forward the Interface Hypothesis (IH from now onwards). It originally proposed that language structures involving an interface between syntax and other cognitive domains are less likely to be acquired completely than structures involving an internal interface (e.g., lexicon-syntax) and that external interfaces acquisition are problematic and lead to residual deficits even in very advanced stages of L2 development. Researchers have concentrated mostly on the syntax–discourse interface as it has turned out to cause more deficits because it requires speakers to integrate syntactic information with information about the discourse status of different entities. This study focuses on the way a group of 12 very advanced L2 English learners and another 12 native speakers of English manage the informational distribution of passive (vs. active) constructions. Much research has been conducted on passives regarding their acquisition and instruction in both L1 and L2, in adults as well as in children, but there are no studies that analyse in depth its informational distribution, as far as we are concerned. As such, in the present dissertation, the topic of research is the processing and knowledge of information in passive constructions by means of two tasks. On the one hand, an on-line task has been designed that will test the participants' processing, and on the other, an off-line task that will test their knowledge. The decision to use two different types of task is based on a series of predictions made by the IH. According to this hypothesis, learners will experience processing deficits that will show in the on-line task, as they need to integrate more elements, which takes a higher toll on their working memories, whereas no deficits will be experienced in the off-line task, and they will behave in a native-like manner. Therefore, the predictions are as follows: (i) in the on-line task, learners will show higher Reading Times when processing sentences whose information structure has been violated, and (ii) in the off-line task, learners will show higher acceptability rates for those sentences whose information structure has not been violated. All in all the results obtained and analysed in this study support the general predictions of IH, as well as the ones present in this dissertation, and shed light on the otherwise underexplored area of information structure distribution and processing of passive sentences in L2 English acquisition, fitting into the body of literature produced up to now on the syntax-discourse interface and adding valuable information on passive constructions. The data gathered also provide new findings on how both learners and natives process passive constructions at the syntax-discourse level and point out the deficits in said processing, adding to the corpora of interface knowledge.

Fontana Ibáñez, Úrsula https://hdl.handle.net/10481/28284 2021-06-28T09:53:10Z

A morpheme order study based on an EFL learner corpus: A focus on the Dual Mechanism Fontana Ibáñez, Úrsula This study aims to shed light on the acquisition of inflectional morphology in learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) whose first language (L1) is Spanish. Our research has been carried out creating a learner corpus in which we have collected data from a total of 79 English learners (from starter to advanced proficiency level). Firstly, we compare our results with other previous studies in order to corroborate the so-called “predictable order” for morpheme acquisition. The results in our research confirm that there does exist a natural order, as other studies have consistently shown over the four last decades (Dulay & Burt, 1973; Bailey, Madden and Krashen 1974; Pica 1983; Muñoz 2006). Krashen (1982) defines the natural order as one of the most striking discoveries in second language acquisition, which states that acquirers of a given language tend to acquire certain grammatical structures in a predictable order. We explore a set of nine grammatical English inflectional morphemes from a corpus of Spanish EFL learners. Additionally, we focus on the past tense morphology by exploring the Dual Mechanism for processing the regular vs. the irregular past. We conclude that there does exist a U-shaped learning curve for the production of irregular vs. regular past tense morphology in naturalistic corpus data, similarly to what has been previously reported in experimental studies (Pinker, 1998; Marcus & al, 1992 ). This shows that acquisition processes are not lineal but change across time. Both of these findings confirm the well-known existence of an interlanguage, a dynamic system which is developed by L2 learners during their process of L2 acquisition.

Crespo Steinke, Carolina https://hdl.handle.net/10481/28209 2021-06-15T12:04:02Z

The newer the better? A comparison of the 1974 and 2013 film adaptations of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby Crespo Steinke, Carolina The present work deals with the question whether a new adaptation of a literary work, in spite of unconventional elements and the blockbuster cinema, can outclass a prior and more traditional version. Moreover, it aims at demonstrating the importance of moving away from fidelity discourse in the field of film adaptation studies and of considering different aspects for the evaluation of a movie. For this, we compared and analyzed some selected elements of the narration, the historical background of the Roaring Twenties and the contextual frameworks of the 1974 and 2013 adaptations of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. This examination demonstrated that it is, in fact, the new movie that successfully recreates this classic in a personal way without setting aside the range of aspects and the author’s criticism. Therefore, it does not reduce the story to a simple romance as happens with the older version. Additionally, the analysis proved that only a variety of strategies and aspects, shifting away from the strict faithfulness to the original that contravenes the individual creativity, can do justice to an adaptation and the filmmaker’s interpretation of the source text. As a result, it stresses the importance of further developing this new way of approaching and evaluating modern film versions with the help of a multifaceted view, drawing the distinction between analysis and review.

Jiménez Aguilar, Elisa Isabel https://hdl.handle.net/10481/27842 2021-06-15T12:04:04Z

"With Tears and a Journey": Recreating Shakespeare's Life on Screen Jiménez Aguilar, Elisa Isabel The purpose of this paper is to study the film Shakespeare in Love (1998) from the perspective of biopics with a twofold aim. Firstly, our intention is to consider how the adaptation of a writer's life, in Leitch's words "of non-literary or non-fictional sourcetexts", can "enlarge the range of adaptation studies by revealing the parochialism of theories that restrict their examples to films based on fictional texts" (2008: 67). Thus, our aim is to explore the way this film recreates Shakespeare's life, taking into account the most recent studies about the biopic genre and the latest theories of adaptation. Secondly, with the analysis of this film we intend to contribute some ideas to Carretero González and Rodríguez Martín's view on the arguable necessity of biopics being completely "faithful to the original story" (2010: 603). Besides, if an adaptation, either fictional, non-fictional, literary or non-literary, is according to Stam an intertextual dialogue (2000: 66), the importance of analysing the notion of intertextuality in this film is already stated. The movie not only brings Shakespeare's life into the big screen from a 20th century perspective but it also fictionalises the Bard's life when mixing it with his literary works. We can also trace in the film the use of different sources which may go from Shakespeare's biographies to previous adaptations of his life and works. Moreover, it is necessary to take into account "the interpenetrative dynamics of Stoppardian intertextuality" which made Bloom apply "the ancient Roman stage trope of contaminatio to Stoppard’s plays" (Meyer 1989: 106). According to Meyer, contaminatio is a "technique" Stoppard may use "as a contextualizing and historicizing force making a play not only a comment on another play but also what Stoppard has called a commentary on something else in life" (Ibid.). From our viewpoint, the same can be applied to Stoppard's work as a screenwriter, as can be seen in his script for Shakespeare in Love.