Chapter 18

La pronunciación del español coloquial y su integración en el aula de ELE

Este estudio se dedica a la integración de la enseñanza de la pronunciación coloquial (variedad diafásica informal) en el aula de ELE. Se divide en dos apartados, el de los sonidos (aislados o agrupados) y el de los patrones entonativos. Se propone, así, la enseñanza pautada de los sonidos y de la entonación coloquiales (de acuerdo con las propuestas del Instituto Cervantes, PCIC, 2006) partiendo de la conversación espontánea como marco discursivo. Las propuestas didácticas se ofrecen sobre la base de los análisis de la conversación del corpus de Briz y Grupo Val.Es.Co. (2002).

Languages are not static entities but rather exhibit variations due to factors such as time (diachronic variation), location (diatopic variation), speaker characteristics (social or diastratic variation), and situational context (stylistic or diaphasic variation). This study specifically focuses on register-dependent variation, instructing students on the pronunciation of informal conversational speech within the context of teaching Spanish as an additional language. The study is divided into two main sections: segmental features, which involves the pronunciation of individual sounds or sound sequences, and suprasegmentals, which encompasses intonational patterns layered onto meaningful utterances. An initial challenge faced by Spanish language teachers is deciding between teaching “correct” pronunciation versus “authentic” pronunciation. It is clear that incorporating authentic pronunciation (both segmental and suprasegmental) is vital in the Spanish classroom. After all, most students will eventually engage in everyday communication where authentic sounds and intonation patterns take precedence over normative guidelines presented in textbooks.

Given the above, the subsequent step is to identify suitable phonetic elements for integration into the teaching process, following a progressive approach. In this regard, it is crucial to consider a gradual approach to pronunciation instruction, as outlined in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages of the Council of Europe (2002)’s reference levels advocated by the Instituto Cervantes.

Regarding segmental features, it is pertinent to include certain colloquial phenomena in teaching, termed “phonic constants of colloquial Spanish” by Hidalgo (2002). Examples extracted from the Val.Es.Co. corpus (Briz y Grupo Val.Es.Co., 2002) include vowel weakening or monophthongization and common phenomena of colloquial speech like the weakening of intervocalic approximant consonants (-d-> Ø, -g-> Ø, -b-> Ø), aspiration of implosive -s ([-s] > [-h]), omission of specific consonants in syllable-final positions, and ongoing phonetic shifts. Additionally, lenition of certain sounds in frequent collocations can lead to apocope phenomena often observed in informal conversation (e.g., “everybody”: “to(d)o (e)l mundo” becoming “to’l mundo”).

Concerning suprasegmental features, this chapter presents how to integrate colloquial intonation patterns into Spanish language instruction based on the Interactive-Functional Analysis model proposed by Hidalgo (2019). This approach recognizes characteristic intonational functions of colloquial register, including Secondary Modal Function, Syntagmatic Dialogical Functions, Paradigmatic Dialogical Functions (Spontaneous Prosody), and Emotive Intonation (Emotional Prosody, Hidalgo 2020a, 2020b).