Papers by Miguel Cuevas-Alonso
Frontiers in Education, 2022
This article analyzes the capacity for improvement of digital observation in initial teacher trai... more This article analyzes the capacity for improvement of digital observation in initial teacher training to investigate whether the implementation of visual materials is effective for the reinforcement of previously taught content, the assessment of one's own linguistic abilities and whether it motivates learners. To do so, the subjects analyzed classroom behavior and learning typology through the reflection of their own videos recorded with children and tutors. Data was collected through 12 closed-ended questions that follow the Likert scale and one open-ended question for general reflection. The questions focused on the motivation and interest of the students with respect to the videos viewed, comprehension, learning, perceived usefulness, and the problem arising with the privacy of the Students' personal data. The responses were classified and their frequencies and percentages were calculated. The results show that implementing video tools in the classroom and reflecting on their content afterward can be an effective means of assessing one's learning and language skills. In addition, the study highlights the inherent complexities posed by EU GDPR regulations and the significant barriers to integrating video technology into the classroom for schoolchildren in these contexts.
REVISTA IBEROAMERICANA DE PSICOLOGÍA Y SALUD, 2022
During the early grades of primary school, texts are mainly narrative and focus on technical aspe... more During the early grades of primary school, texts are mainly narrative and focus on technical aspects such as decoding words and understanding simple syntax. However, from 4th grade onwards, texts become increasingly more difficult and expository texts become the main source of knowledge from which children will have to extract and learn new information while creating their mental model. This article examined the influences of two main text characteristics: text genre and level of representation (text base and mental model), in the reading comprehension scores of 313 Spanish primary school children aged 8 to 11 to study the relationship between these variables as well as the differences between grades. Comprehension of each text genre was assessed through a validated multiple-choice questionnaire and each variable was compared through a series of correlational methods, such as Pearson's correlation, Spearman's rho and ANOVAs. The results showed that all grades obtained significant higher scores on the text base than the mental model but only the expository texts exhibited better results when passing from 4 th to 5 th and 6 th grade. This study provides findings that may contribute to the topic of literacy education during primary school.
Publications, 2022
Given the interest in the study of metadiscourse as the communication of ideas and the way people... more Given the interest in the study of metadiscourse as the communication of ideas and the way people use language in different communicative situations, this paper attempted to find the degree of confluence between metadiscourse markers from different studies and to show how patterns of metadiscourse analysis based on various written genres can be applied to a wider range. The mean values for the frequency of marker use and their respective deviations were determined by comparing a significant number of studies on metadiscourse elements. To ensure comparability, those following Hyland's model were chosen. The units of analysis were grouped into two broad categories based on discursive characteristics: Academic genres (research articles, theses, and textbooks) and non-academic genres, which included documents ranging from newspaper editorials or opinion columns to Internet texts and other forms of digital communication. The results of our study highlight that the disparity in interactive markers between academic and non-academic texts is relatively small. This difference has been identified by previous studies, and it is confirmed herein that the difference may be related to the use of academic language, the topic, or the object of study. In contrast, the mean values of the interactive markers in non-academic texts are considerably higher than those in academic texts. At the same time, the texts seem to be organised along two axes (interactional and interactive) in distinct areas. Despite our initial assumptions that the data would be subject to individual variations, that differences would be found between different sections of the same genre within the same academic discipline, and that the results would vary if certain texts were added or excluded, we observed certain trends in the behaviour of the documents, although it prevailed that, within each category, the texts should be studied individually.
Language Learning, 2021
Previous meta-analyses of the relationship between phonological awareness (PA) and reading have b... more Previous meta-analyses of the relationship between phonological awareness (PA) and reading have been conducted mostly in children who speak English, a language with an opaque writing system. In this study, we present a meta-analysis that examined mean correlations between three PA tasks testing phonemic, syllabic, and intrasyllabic awareness and three reading tasks testing word reading, nonword reading, and reading comprehension in Spanish, a language with a near-transparent writing system. A random-effects model of 47 articles (N = 7,956) was used for a multiple correlation study that showed a significantly moderate correlation between some of the PA subcategories and the reading tasks in Spanish-speaking children. The largest correlation values were found between syllabic awareness and reading, which highlights the importance of syllable recognition during reading acquisition. In addition, we found that
Plos One, 2021
Inclusive language focuses on using the vocabulary to avoid exclusion or discrimination, speciall... more Inclusive language focuses on using the vocabulary to avoid exclusion or discrimination, specially referred to gender. The task of finding gender bias in written documents must be performed manually, and it is a time-consuming process. Consequently, studying the usage of non-inclusive language on a document, and the impact of different document properties (such as author gender, date of presentation, etc.) on how many non-inclusive instances are found, is quite difficult or even impossible for big datasets. This research analyzes the gender bias in academic texts by analyzing a study corpus of more than 12,000 million words obtained from more than one hundred thousand doctoral theses from Spanish universities. For this purpose, an automated algorithm was developed to evaluate the different characteristics of the document and look for interactions between age, year of publication, gender or the field of knowledge in which the doctoral thesis is framed. The algorithm identified information patterns using a CNN (convolutional neural network) by the creation of a vector representation of the sentences. The results showed evidence that there was a greater bias as the age of the authors increased, who were more likely to use non-inclusive terms; it was concluded that there is a greater awareness of inclusiveness in women than in men, and also that this awareness grows as the candidate is younger. The results showed evidence that the age of the authors increased discrimination, with men being more likely to use noninclusive terms (up to an index of 23.12), showing that there is a greater awareness of inclusiveness in women than in men in all age ranges (with an average of 14.99), and also that this awareness grows as the candidate is younger (falling down to 13.07). In terms of field of knowledge, the humanities are the most biased (20.97), discarding the subgroup of Linguistics, which has the least bias at all levels (9.90), and the field of science and engineering, which also have the least influence (13.46). Those results support the assumption that the bias in academic texts (doctoral theses) is due to unconscious issues: otherwise, it would not depend on the field, age, gender, and would occur in any field in the same proportion. The innovation provided by this research lies mainly in the ability to detect, within a textual
Psicología Educativa, 2021
The importance of reading proficiency in a second language (L2) is growing worldwide. Reading in ... more The importance of reading proficiency in a second language (L2) is growing worldwide. Reading in a L2 involves many
questions about the abilities of reading comprehension, including metacomprehension, a core reading ability in native
speakers (L1) that allows them to be aware of their reading comprehension level and to regulate their learning. However, its
link to L2 has not been sufficiently researched. This study examines the relationship between the reading comprehension
scores of diverse texts and metacomprehension, assessed by the ECOMPLEC test and PROLEC-R reading task, in Portuguese
students studying Spanish as a L2. Similar to the results found in L1 research, we found a significant relationship between
reading comprehension and metacomprehension in expository and discontinuous texts: students with low reading
comprehension scores overestimated their metacomprehension while metacomprehension abilities of students with
high reading comprehension abilities were more accurate. These results provide a frame of reference for future studies on
metacomprehension in L2.
Moenia, 2019
vas absolutas desde el occidente hasta el oriente de la zona estudiada. Partiendo de los trabajos... more vas absolutas desde el occidente hasta el oriente de la zona estudiada. Partiendo de los trabajos realizados previamente por el grupo AMPER-Cantabria, se estudian tres zonas nuevas y se contrastan los datos obtenidos. Se confirma la hipótesis de la existencia de un continuum prosódico que cruza todo el norte peninsular y se plantea una posible clave entonativa que sirve para la distinción entre las variedades dialectales de esta área peninsular.
Publications
The use of inclusive language, among many other gender equality initiatives in society, has garne... more The use of inclusive language, among many other gender equality initiatives in society, has garnered great attention in recent years. Gender equality offices in universities and public administration cannot cope with the task of manually checking the use of non-inclusive language in the documentation that those institutions generate. In this research, an automated solution for the detection of non-inclusive uses of the Spanish language in doctoral theses generated in Spanish universities is introduced using machine learning techniques. A large dataset has been used to train, validate, and analyze the use of inclusive language; the result is an algorithm that detects, within any Spanish text document, non-inclusive uses of the language with error, false positive, and false negative ratios slightly over 10%, and precision, recall, and F-measure percentages over 86%. Results also show the evolution with time of the ratio of non-inclusive usages per document, having a pronounced reduction in the last years under study.
Onomázein Revista de lingüística filología y traducción, 2013
Our goal here is to construct, insofar as possible, a scenario for an intonation methodology in w... more Our goal here is to construct, insofar as possible, a scenario for an intonation methodology in which intonation patterns can be explained taking into account a sociolinguistic perspective. We preferred to start with a description of what happened, a review of the previous Spanish literature, focusing specifically on the methodological developments. The methodology presented here looks at the role of social factors-speaker gender, age, level of education, and at the ways in which social identities and beliefs shape and influence intonation.
The first aim of this paper to expose the treatment
of the scriptural methods used to represent t... more The first aim of this paper to expose the treatment
of the scriptural methods used to represent the languages
of the Philippines before the arrival of the Spanish
colonizers done by the missionary linguists in their gramatization
process of these languages. After a detailed
study on how scriptural Filipino tradition is treated by
a large number of grammatical missionary studies, we
focus on the aspects that led them to the adoption of
the Latin alphabet, how it is used by the missionaries to
represent Filipino languages and what were strategies
that should be used to circumvent the problems that
the use of this alphabet presented in its application to
these linguistic realities.
Our goal here is to construct, insofar as possible, a scenario for an intonation methodology in w... more Our goal here is to construct, insofar as possible, a scenario for an intonation methodology in which intonation patterns can be explained taking into account a sociolinguistic perspective. We preferred to start with a description of what happened, a review of the previous Spanish literature, focusing specifically on the methodological developments. The methodology presented here looks at the role of social factors -speaker gender, age, level of education, and at the ways in which social identities and beliefs shape and influence intonation.
Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana, 2011
Lingüística española actual, 2010
Y. Congosto, M.ª L. Montero Curiel y A. Salvador Plans (eds.), Fonética Experimental, Educación Superior e Investigación, Madrid: Arco Libros, 287-308, 2014
Estudios de fonética experimental, 2009
Todas as Letras. Revista de Língua e Literatura 14(1): 71-86, 2012
In this paper we will deal with allende and aquende, both medieval adverbs. We will study them et... more In this paper we will deal with allende and aquende, both medieval adverbs. We will study them etymologically, semantically and functionally. Unlike others, these adverbs have happened unnoticed in many historical grammar studies. Therefore, we will revise in this study the etymological proposals together with the development of an exhaustive analysis of the mentioned adverbs all through the Middle Ages. Bearing in mind the hypothesis that these elements own an adverbial category, we will study the possibility of treating them as double-sized forms: adverb and preposition
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Papers by Miguel Cuevas-Alonso
questions about the abilities of reading comprehension, including metacomprehension, a core reading ability in native
speakers (L1) that allows them to be aware of their reading comprehension level and to regulate their learning. However, its
link to L2 has not been sufficiently researched. This study examines the relationship between the reading comprehension
scores of diverse texts and metacomprehension, assessed by the ECOMPLEC test and PROLEC-R reading task, in Portuguese
students studying Spanish as a L2. Similar to the results found in L1 research, we found a significant relationship between
reading comprehension and metacomprehension in expository and discontinuous texts: students with low reading
comprehension scores overestimated their metacomprehension while metacomprehension abilities of students with
high reading comprehension abilities were more accurate. These results provide a frame of reference for future studies on
metacomprehension in L2.
of the scriptural methods used to represent the languages
of the Philippines before the arrival of the Spanish
colonizers done by the missionary linguists in their gramatization
process of these languages. After a detailed
study on how scriptural Filipino tradition is treated by
a large number of grammatical missionary studies, we
focus on the aspects that led them to the adoption of
the Latin alphabet, how it is used by the missionaries to
represent Filipino languages and what were strategies
that should be used to circumvent the problems that
the use of this alphabet presented in its application to
these linguistic realities.
questions about the abilities of reading comprehension, including metacomprehension, a core reading ability in native
speakers (L1) that allows them to be aware of their reading comprehension level and to regulate their learning. However, its
link to L2 has not been sufficiently researched. This study examines the relationship between the reading comprehension
scores of diverse texts and metacomprehension, assessed by the ECOMPLEC test and PROLEC-R reading task, in Portuguese
students studying Spanish as a L2. Similar to the results found in L1 research, we found a significant relationship between
reading comprehension and metacomprehension in expository and discontinuous texts: students with low reading
comprehension scores overestimated their metacomprehension while metacomprehension abilities of students with
high reading comprehension abilities were more accurate. These results provide a frame of reference for future studies on
metacomprehension in L2.
of the scriptural methods used to represent the languages
of the Philippines before the arrival of the Spanish
colonizers done by the missionary linguists in their gramatization
process of these languages. After a detailed
study on how scriptural Filipino tradition is treated by
a large number of grammatical missionary studies, we
focus on the aspects that led them to the adoption of
the Latin alphabet, how it is used by the missionaries to
represent Filipino languages and what were strategies
that should be used to circumvent the problems that
the use of this alphabet presented in its application to
these linguistic realities.