Multimodal Corpus of Spanish Speech Acts: main features and potential pedagogical uses

Most of the more serious mistakes we make in our second or third languages are not linked to grammar, but to pragmatics (FélixBrasdefer, 2008; Kasper & Rose, 1999; Olshtain & Blum-Kulka, 1985; Rose & Kasper, 2001). While language textbooks are often focused on grammar content distributed throughout a communicative syllabus (Lázaro Ruiz, 2014; Lörscher & Rainer Schulze, 1988), students are still missing the pragmatic rules that are behind the behaviors of native speakers and their use of language. This chapter talks about the creation and use of a multimodal corpus that allows for the analyzation and comparison of three conflictive speech acts (compliments, refusals, and apologies). Through the recordings and transcriptions of native and non-native speakers, the Multimodal Corpus of Spanish Speech Acts (COR.E.M.A.H.) shows the differences in their strategies when faced with each speech act. In this chapter, we will also see how to use this advanced resource in different ways to teach pragmatics in a class of Spanish as a foreign language.