scholarly journals Problemas fonológicos en aprendientes costarricenses de inglés (Pronunciation Difficulties for Costa Rican EFL Learners)

LETRAS ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (58) ◽  
pp. 141
Author(s):  
Ginneth Pizarro Chacón ◽  
Damaris Cordero Badilla

Se efectuó un estudio de diversos aspectos que dificultan en hablantes contemporáneos del español de Costa Rica, el aprendizaje y práctica eficiente de la pronunciación del inglés estándar. A partir de una recopilación de datos, y su observación mediante encuestas, se comentan los aspectos significativos por considerar, para afrontar las dificultades más frecuentes en el aprendizaje de la pronunciación. Se hace hincapié en que el estudio se concentra en el caso de la variante del español costarricense, por lo que las recomendaciones propuestas se desprenden de ese hecho sociolingüístico.A study was conducted on various aspects which currently affect Costa Rican Spanish speakers when they are learning and practicing the pronunciation of standard English. Based on a review of information and its observation by means of surveys, significant elements are addressed to face the most frequent difficulties when improving pronunciation. Emphasis is given to the fact that since the study focuses on the variant of Costa Rican Spanish, the recommendations given refer to that sociolinguistic situation. 

Author(s):  
Víctor Sánchez Corrales

En este artículo el autor hace un análisis crítico de los estudios lexicográficos del español de Costa Rica de Carlos Gagini (1892) hasta la actualidad. In this article the author makes a critical analysis of the lexicographical studies of Costa Rican Spanish from Carlos Gagini (1892) to the present.


Author(s):  
Annette Calvo Shadid

Este artículo constituye una revisión crítica exhaustiva del estado de la técnica en la realización de los fonemas / r / y / r / en el español de Costa Rica . El artículo también describe la variación de estos fonemas sobre la base del análisis cuantitativo de una muestra, el habla de la primera generación educada de San José. La muestra forma parte de los datos recogidos para el Proyecto Coordinado sobre Variedad de Educación en las ciudades principales de Ibero América y la Península Ibérica.This article constitutes an exhaustive critical review of the state of the art on the realization of the phonemes / r / y / r / in Costa Rican Spanish. The article also describes variation of these phonemes on the basis of the quantitative analysis of a sample of female, first-generation educated speech from San José. The sample is part of the data gathered for the Coordinated Project on Educated Variety in the Main Cities of Ibero America and the Iberian Peninsula.


LETRAS ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (58) ◽  
pp. 119
Author(s):  
Ming Yang

Mamita Yunai, de Carlos Luis Fallas, es una obra emblemática de la literatura de Costa Rica. A pesar de los propósitos políticos, muestra un panorama de la variación lingüística en la región. En la novela, se registra con fidelidad las conversaciones entre pobladores de diferentes etnias en la costa caribeña costarricense poniendo de relieve el estilo coloquial en el texto. Este estudio procura arrojar luz sobre esos datos lingüísticos con la investigación sobre el español de Costa Rica, el préstamo entre el inglés criollo y el castellano, el español hablado por grupos marginados, como los inmigrantes chinos, los indígenas y los pobladores de origen africano.Mamita Yunai, by Carlos Luis Fallas, is an emblematic novel in Costa Rican literature. In spite of its politicial focus, it presents a panorama of the linguistic variation in this region. The writer has recorded the conversations within different ethnic groups on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, emphasizing the colloquial style in the text. This study addresses these linguistic data by analyzing Costa Rican Spanish, words borrowed from English Creole, and the Spanish spoken by marginal groups such as Chinese immigrants, indigenous peoples, and those of African origin. 


Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Piscopo

Jennifer M. Piscopo examines how the crisis of representation in Costa Rica has placed a ceiling on gender equality in representation. The restructuring of the Costa Rican party system and party fragmentation has made electing multiple candidates from any one ballot more difficult. Top spots have become even more prestigious and more likely to be allocated to men, which reduces women’s electoral chances. Corruption scandals, party breakdown, citizen frustration, and economic problems tainted the administration of the nation’s first female president, Laura Chinchilla. Female legislators have often worked to promote women’s issues and feminist policies, but Chinchilla eschewed feminism, even though several of her policies did benefit women. Overall, her failed presidency may create difficulties for other women seeking top political offices and could have negative consequences for views of women in politics. These challenges notwithstanding, Piscopo concludes that Costa Rica remains at the vanguard of women’s political representation in Latin America.


2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Paulette Barberousse-Alfonso ◽  
Marie Claire Vargas-Dengo ◽  
Pamela Corrales-Bastos

From a critical and transformative approach, this essay presents inputs and relevant conclusions obtained during the first stage of the project Construyendo una propuesta de implementación del Programa Maestros Comunitarios (PMC), Code number 0166-15 DEB-UNA (UNA, DEB, s. f.), conducted in 2016. Considering our perspective as researchers and professors at División de Educación Básica, the paper addresses a current topic within the socio-educative field to face challenges of contemporary educational models in formal and non-formal areas of elementary education in the Costa Rican context. Our purpose is that students and teachers of the career program Pedagogía con énfasis en I y II ciclos de la Educación General Básica have an overview of the national, social, and educational reality in an attempt to involve them in applying pedagogical actions towards finding a solution to school dropouts at Escuela Finca Guararí, Heredia, Costa Rica. The essay describes the experience of teaching education students and their socio-educational action with the focus on the systematization of the experience in the initial stage of the project. Furthermore, the paper connects with emerging strategic knowledge areas at División de Educación Básica (DEB), such as social and community pedagogy in the context of the National University (UNA) of Costa Rica. It takes over a route already traced at DEB, which proposes more flexible and alternative pedagogic formats to promote educational equity and diversity issues. The paper describes the project background and a theoretical framework, as well as aspects that have been shared by the protagonist actors along the process: students-teachers, host teachers, supervisor professors, school children, and their parents at Escuela Finca Guararí. Conclusions address main results and facts during 2016 in order to show the viability of the project, which is conducted from a public university. Finally, the article also includes an overview of the project’s future in terms of its implementation in the Costa Rican context.


1996 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 465-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcia Olander

The years following World War Two produced a strong resurgence of U.S. intervention in Central America and the Caribbean couched in Cold War terms. Although the U.S. intervention in Guatemala to overthrow the government of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 has generally been seen as the first case of Cold War covert anti-Communist intervention in Latin America, several scholars have raised questions about U.S. involvement in a 1948 Costa Rican civil war in which Communism played a critical role. In a 1993 article in The Americas, Kyle Longley argued that “the U.S. response to the Costa Rican Revolution of 1948, not the Guatemalan affair, marked the origins of the Cold War in Latin America.” The U.S. “actively interfered,” and achieved “comparable results in Costa Rica as in Guatemala: the removal of a perceived Communist threat.” Other authors have argued, even, that the U.S. had prepared an invasion force in the Panama Canal Zone to pacify the country. The fifty years of Cold War anti-Communism entitles one to be skeptical of U.S. non-intervention in a Central American conflict involving Communism. Costa Ricans, aware of a long tradition of U.S. intervention in the region, also assumed that the U.S. would intervene. Most, if not all, were expecting intervention and one key government figure described U.S. pressure as like “the air, which is felt, even if it cannot be seen.” Yet, historians must do more than just “feel” intervention. Subsequent Cold War intervention may make it difficult to appraise the 1948 events in Costa Rica objectively. Statements like Longley's that “it is hard to believe that in early 1948 … Washington would not favor policies that ensured the removal of the [Communist Party] Vanguard,” although logical, do not coincide with the facts of the U.S. role in the conflict.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Rosero-Bixby

BACKGROUND The Costa Rican vaccination program uses Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines. Real-world estimates of these vaccines effectiveness to prevent hospitalizations range from 90% to 98% for two doses and from 70% to 91% for a single dose. Almost all of these estimates predate the Delta variant. OBJECTIVE To estimate the dose-dependent effectiveness of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines to prevent severe illness in real-world conditions of Costa Rica, after the Delta variant became dominant. METHODS This observational study is a secondary analysis of hospitalizations prevalence. The participants are all 3.67 million adults residents in Costa Rica by mid-2021. The study is based on public aggregated data of 5978 COVID-19-related hospital records from 14th September to 20th October, 2021 and 6.1 million vaccination doses administered to determine hospitalization prevalence by dose-specific vaccination status. The intervention retrospectively evaluated is vaccination with Pfizer-BioNTech (78%) and Oxford-AstraZeneca (22%). The main outcome studied is being hospitalized. RESULTS Vaccine effectiveness to prevent hospitalization (VEH) was estimated as 93.4% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 93.0 to 93.9) for complete vaccination and 76.7% (CI: 75.0 to 78.3) for single-dose vaccination among adults of all ages. VEH was lower and more uncertain among older adults aged 58 years and above: 92% (CI: 91% to 93%) for those who had received full vaccination and 64% (CI: 58% to 69%) for those who had received partial vaccination. Single-dose VEH declined over time during the study period, especially in the older age group. Estimates were sensitive to possible errors in the population count used to determine the residual number of unvaccinated people when vaccine coverage is high. CONCLUSIONS The Costa Rican vaccination program that administered Pfizer and Oxford vaccines are highly effective to prevent COVID-19-related hospitalizations after the Delta variant had become dominant. Moreover, a single dose is reasonably effective, justifying the continuation of the national policy of postponing the application for the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine to accelerate the vaccination and increase the number of people being vaccinated. Timely monitoring of vaccine effectiveness is important to detect eventual failures and motivate the public based on information that the vaccinations are effective.


1997 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 471-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Gentili ◽  
M. Alma Solis

AbstractOmiodes Guenée is redescribed based on all New World species, including the type species O. humeralis Guenée. Four new species from Costa Rica, O. janzeni sp. n., O. hallwachsae sp. n., O. sirena sp. n., O. ochracea sp. n., are described. Ten new synonymies are established : Phostria disciiridescens Hampson is =O. croeceiceps (Walker), Phostria cayennalis Schaus is =O. grandis (Druce), Omiodes ochrosoma Felder & Rogenhofer and Phryganodes gazalis Schaus are =O. pandaralis (Walker), Nacoleia lenticurvalis Hampson, Phryganodes anchoritalis Dyar, and Phostria duplicata Kaye are =O. confusalis (Dognin), O. cervinalis Amsel is =O. martvralis (Lederer), Nacoleia indicata ab. pigralis Dognin and Botis fortificalis Möschler are =O. metricalis (Möschler). One new combination is recognized: O. pandaralis (Walker) was transferred from Coelorhynchidia Hampson. A key and an updated checklist to the neotropical Omiodes species is provided, including O. indicata (Fabricius), a worldwide pest. Ten species that do not belong in Omiodes are retained until appropriate generic placements are identified.


Hispania ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 612 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Villegas

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document