A cross-regional study on the recognition of dialectal diversity in the uses of Spanish past tenses in L2 Spanish textbooks

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This analysis continues the examination of the acknowledgement of dialectal variation in L2 Spanish textbooks initiated by Hernández Cubo (2019) and compares its findings with those from that previous study by focusing on the same linguistic aspect: the difference in the uses and semantic scopes of two past tenses – Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto and Pretérito Indefinido – in the Peninsular and Hispanic American macro-varieties. As the study by Hernández Cubo (2019) only examines textbooks produced in Spain, this investigation proposes a cross-regional comparison by evaluating materials from other world regions. Therefore, this research contributes to the investigation of language variation in L2 Spanish instruction by proposing a cross-regional analysis, which shows that the recognition of dialectal diversity within the uses of the aforementioned tenses is not a priority among textbook authors. Works from the USA, France, Germany and Italy present certain levels of dialectal acknowledgement, while the ones from Brazil and the UK constitute the most significantly dialectally sensitive materials regarding the treatment of Spanish past tenses.

Keywords

• L2 Spanish textbooks
• dialectal variation
• standard language ideology
• past tense
• Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto
• Pretérito Indefinido