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This paper analyzes the properties of the image as a tool for the description of grammar phenomena and peeks into its pedagogical potential through an application to the controverted dichotomy between ser and estar in Spanish. The use of visual language as a device for the analysis and presentation of grammar has been one of the Cognitive Linguistics’ most characteristic traits. Nevertheless, the application of this powerful tool in the Spanish Language classroom is still scant, despite the description potential that the experts grant to it. This paper shows an analysis of some approaches to ser and estar through Cognitive Grammar and the metalinguistic image, and proposes another possible interpretation based in those principles and aiming to be exportable to the Spanish as a Foreign Language classroom.

Taking into consideration the fact the method of error analysis gives significant data about the ways in which students adopt the given foreign language and which structures provoke difficulties during this process, in this paper, we want to study in which units should mostly be focused at, for the level B1 in Spanish. The paper shows results of the research which included thirty students of the second year of Spanish Language and Hispanic Literature at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade. Errors were analysed at the corpus of thirty written papers. Special attention was directed to analysis of the grammar errors at the Morphology plan and written production, which is made by students of Spanish, whose mother tongue is Serbian. Results of the research have shown that some units neither although having been done at previous levels, were nor adopted and are not applied thoroughly, and this points at the fact that they require additional methodological attention, so that the given mistakes appear sometimes and at higher levels. Considering this, there are suggestions for treating grammatical errors in written papers of the students, which are stated in the end of the paper.

This paper presents an approach (from the point of view of the Text Grammar of Spanish language, i.e. the grammar that considers the text as the highest unity of analysis) to some particles that the Spanish grammatical tradition has hardly paid attention to. We talk about the expressions: por ejemplo, así, como, ejemplo, verbigracia, a saber and esto es, which we have named text markers of "exemplification", taking into account the textual function that they play or can play. Although we can find many other expressions that fulfil this function, the forms we have pointed out above are the only ones that are lexicalized and, therefore, susceptible to a grammatical study. The principal aim of the paper is to give a formal and functional description of the aforementioned markers in the grammatical system of Spanish language; in order to do that, we have analyzed a wide corpus of written and oral language.

El presente trabajo es un análisis de la evolución de los exámenes de lengua castellana de la denominada Selectividad (las actuales Pruebas de Acceso a la Universidad - PAU) durante veinticinco años (1992-2017), a partir de la propia experiencia como corrector durante todo este tiempo y como subcoordinador de la materia durante los últimos doce años (2006-2017). Para ello se analiza, principalmente, por un lado, tanto la presencia como el peso en la calificación global de los contenidos gramaticales, sobre todo los relacionados con la sintaxis, en las distintas partes de estos exámenes; y, por otro, su dificultad o, mejor dicho, los conocimientos que debería tener un estudiante de Bachillerato para poderlos manejar con total éxito. Del estudio realizado se desprende cómo los contenidos gramaticales en general, y en particular los de sintaxis, han ido perdiendo importancia progresivamente dentro de la tipología de la prueba durante todos estos años, mientras que los aspectos relacionados con el comentario de textos y con la lectura obligatoria de obras literarias la han ido ganando, como consecuencia directa de los diferentes cambios que han sufrido las leyes de educación que afectaban a la programación del Bachillerato. This article aims to offer an analysis of how the Spanish Language section of the national university entrance exam, the so-called PAU, has evolved over the last 25 years (1992-2017). It is based on the author's experience first as an exam reviewer and then, starting in 2006, as assistant coordinator of the Spanish exam. The author analyses, on the one hand, both the presence and the weight of grammar contents in the Spanish Language paper and, on the other hand, the knowledge that Baccalaureate students are expected to possess in order to pass with high marks. She concludes that the grammatical element of the exam-and in particular syntax-has become progressively less important in the PAU, while contents related to text commentary and prescriptive readings have increased their presence, due to the changes that the laws governing the teaching of Spanish have undergone.

The orthographic norm is one of the social conventions responsible for the homogeneity of the language that assures the mutual comprehensibility for the speakers by moderating the heterogeneity generated by the co-existence of diatopic, diastratic and diaphasic variants and overcoming the effects of the linguistic changes produced during the evolution of the language. Throughout the course of the history of the Spanish language, the claim for a phonemic orthography, based exclusively on the inventory of phonemes, arose several times but none of the proposals achieved considerable impact. In this paper, analysing the attitude of different works on grammar and orthography, we review how the set of components that determined the concept of orthography developed from the medieval period until the present day. We also examine the question why the phonemic orthography is a utopia, that is, an ideal pursued but not reached by the users of language.

Resumo: Este trabalho tem, por objetivo, analisar a multimodalidade e o letramento visual de alunos do curso de Espanhol do Núcleo de Línguas da Universidade Estadual do Ceará (UECE), ao ressignificarem um texto multimodal selecionado para a compreensão em produções escritas. O corpus coletado consiste de 18 (dezoito) textos escritos por alunos de língua espanhola e foi analisado à luz dos pressupostos teóricos da multimodalidade e do letramento visual de Kress e van Leeuwen (1996, 2006), no que diz respeito às metafunções e à análise da imagem, segundo a Gramática do Design Visual. Nesse sentido, almejamos mostrar como a produção dos textos pode revelar indícios de letramento visual dos alunos no contexto de ensino e aprendizagem nas aulas de Língua Espanhola. Abstract: This paper aims to analyze the multimodality and visual literacy of Spanish language students enrolled at the Language Center from the State University of Ceará (UECE), Fortaleza-CE, Brazil, by making meanings in written productions based on a selected multimodal text for comprehension. The corpus consists of eighteen texts written by students studying Spanish, and the texts were analyzed in the light of theoretical principles of multimodality and visual literacy theory proposed by Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996, 2006) regarding to metafunctions and image analysis, as set forth in The Grammar of Visual Design. In this regard, we intend to show how the production of texts may reveal signs of students' visual literacy in the contexts of teaching and learning in Spanish language classes.

Based on a corpus of ego-documents (private letters, diaries, memoirs) from the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries, this paper presents a variationist comparative study to determine the fate of the modal periphrasishaber de + infinitive in the history of modern Spanish. Detailed analysis of the envelope of variation enables us to show that, despite an abrupt decline in the selection ofhaber derelative totener que, both ‘to have to’, grammatical environments that favor its use remain in the mid-20th century. Many of the factor groups and the hierarchy of constraints during this period are similar to those that operated in previous periods. Nevertheless, a generalized decrease in the explanatory power of these factor groups, as well as some divergent patterns within several of these groups are also observed, mainly as a result of the fact thathaber de + infinitive is increasingly relegated to some restricted areas of the grammar and lexicon. Based on these results, some theoretical implications for changing rates and constraints in language change and grammaticalization are discussed.

In the instruction of composition skills in both English and Spanish, teachers need to address language features at the text level, not just at the sentence level.1 Many times students may master the vocabulary and the grammar of a language and still be unable to produce acceptable compositions because of problems due to conflicting discourse patterns-that is, the organization and development of text via the logical arrangement of ideas. This paper will analyze discourse features of compositions written in Spanish by secondaryschool students in Mexico, will draw comparisons with those written in English by Anglo-American students in the United States, and will discuss the implications of the results of this research for teaching and evaluating composition skills in Spanish language programs.

teaching of a foreign language.1 With this focus on communication as a route for language learning has come a reevaluation of the role of grammar instruction. Most new textbooks now offer communication-focused activities as well as traditional giammar-focused exercises. Communication activities ask the student to convey information, ideas, opinions, to participate in a game, to role-play, or to hear and discuss information about the speakers of the target language. Grammar exercises offer the opportunity to hear and produce specific forms and structures of the target language. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a framework for describing methodological trends in current beginning level Spanish texts for colleges and universities.2 The framework consists of five parameters