LA LINGÜÍSTICA TEÓRICA EN LA ENSEÑANZA SECUNDARIA.

The quick development of Linguistics during the 20th century has not fully reached high school in Spain. In this paper we present some linguistic concepts and ideas that could be taught at secondary school and that could in turn improve the teaching of Spanish as a first language, were they included in educational syllabuses. Firstly, the idea that language is a complex internal system that is part of our cognition and, if only because of this, worth studying. Secondly, the importance of a scientific approach to linguistic data: data organizing, hypothesis testing, generalizations making, etc. Lastly, the need to include Linguistics in school curricula, for the absence of this discipline may explain the ignorance that the public shows towards many issues related to linguistics that are part of our everyday life, such as dialects, bilingualism, language acquisition, etc., or its very own name,»linguistics», which tends to be interpreted as «the study of foreign languages» by non-academics. For these reasons, we also suggest that some contents and concepts related to both Sociolinguistics and Psycholinguistics be taught at high schools, thus included in the curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]