Introduction
English and Spanish are both European languages that are widely utilized all over the world. It is a well-known fact that English is a language of international commerce and diplomacy, while Spanish currently occupies second place in popularity worldwide. Yet, despite having many cognate words, linguistically, they belong to different groups, with English being a West Germanic language and Spanish being a Romance language. Consecutively, many of their linguistic features differ in various essential ways, and this paper aims to provide an overview of these features, supported by examples. It also seeks to provide a review of the first part of the analysis and reflect on my experiences related to the acquiring process of the relevant language features.
Review of Part 1
In the first part of the analysis, I have summarized my learning processes for both languages in question. My Spanish learning has been detailed as I come from a family that speaks only Spanish, which is, subsequentially, my native language. My English learning has been sequential, as it is the official language of the United States where I had emigrated, and elective, as it has allowed me to pursue a career I wanted.
Furthermore, in part 1, I provided an overview of the emotional component of language learning. I reflected on how cognate words in both languages and identical plural structures helped me familiarize myself with a new language through the sense of recognition. In the second part of the analysis, I hope to elaborate on the linguistic features of English and Spanish from a more academic perspective. The areas of linguistic analysis I am focusing on are phonology, syntax, morphology, and pragmatics.
Linguistic Features Comparison
Phonology concerns the specifics of the speech sounds in languages and is based on the idea that an adult speaker of a language subconsciously knows its sound patterns. Therefore, it focuses on the theory of sounds in language rather than the physical manifestation (Yule, 2020). Sound practices in phonology remain constant within its distinct groups, even when the spelling itself differs, and this observation is actual for English and Spanish alike. For example, the t sound in the English words “star” and “eight” is recognized as phonetically the same due to the theoretical nature of phonetics. In reality, the pronunciation of t in these words may differ substantially depending on its relationship with other surrounding sounds in a comment (Yule, 2020). The same is true for Spanish, with c presumed to be phonologically the same in the words “casa” and “azucar”, despite sounding differently in these words.
Yet, at the same time, despite generally the same phonological observations, the phonemes of Spanish and English are far from the same. Namely, Spanish only has five vowels, while English, when we account for all the dialects, has up to 14. Such drastic difference in the number of vowels naturally causes the sound theory and, by extension, the pronunciation to be different between these two languages.
The syntax is an area of linguistics that studies the order, arrangement, and internal structure of a language and sentences. It accounts for all grammatically correct criteria of the phrase construction and the sentence structure and puts the word order into the spotlight (Yule, 2020). From this perspective, Spanish syntax allows for greater freedom and flexibility when arranging sentences in a grammatically acceptable way. For example, due to Spanish verb forms changing depending on the subject, mentioning an issue is not always mandatory in the Spanish language. I could say “Ayer fui al cine” without specifying that it refers to myself by putting “Yo” into the sentence since the form of the verb “ir” already indicates it. As the English language verb forms do not operate within the same system, such syntax would not have been possible. In general, the stricter syntax is easy to memorize, and I consider this area of English one of my biggest successes as a learner.
Morphology refers to the study of forms and word structures, examining the parts of which the words are made and the functions of said parts, and combination principles. Morphology divides words in language into morphemes, which it recognizes as the minor units that contain meaning (Yule, 2020). Such structures as prefixes, suffixes, and roots are all morphemes and can be arranged in several grammatically correct ways. English morphology is structurally very simple, making it easier to incorporate appropriate words from other languages (Ruiz, 2017). To give an example, the English language could import the word goulash from Hungarian without changes easily. The same is impossible within the Spanish morphology, which, when incorporating the term, has changed it to gulá.
Furthermore, the comparative simplicity of English morphology is evident when comparing the average number of syllabi between English and Spanish. English words have, on average, one syllable, while Spanish words have three, making the English language more effective in cases when the information has to be delivered quickly (Ruiz, 2017). Although not a rule, English broadcasters tend to fit more content in the same size of a news program slot.
Pragmatics was the additional linguistics area I chose for this assignment as, in my opinion, it is one of the most interesting and complex ones in the study field. It refers to the “invisible meaning” the speaker includes in their words and is always tied to the relevant social and cultural context (Yule, 2020, p. 250). Pragmatics concerns what is meant and implied rather than what is said or written, making it challenging to analyze scientifically. Yet, understanding such implications and contexts is significant when learning new languages and has acted as a barrier to me when I began to study English. Pragmatics became the biggest challenge for me as a learner since you cannot effectively learn it through any academic channels and have to acquire practical experience instead.
Undoubtedly, pragmatics is a field that exists within all spoken languages and is directly tied to how we use language in explicit and implicit communication. Different colloquial phrases and the difficulties they provide in intercultural communication are easy examples of pragmatics. The Spanish phrase huevo de Colon and the English phrase piece of cake mean the same functionally, namely referring to something straightforward and simple. However, one can quickly see how a non-native speaker would not necessarily have an intuitive understanding of either of these.
Experience Acquiring Features
When examining my experiences with acquiring the aforementioned linguistic features of English, I cannot overstate what my immigration to the U.S. has made when it comes to language learning. Moving into the new linguistic environment has allowed me to communicate with native English speakers daily. It allowed me to strengthen my pronunciation and phonological understanding of the new language and recognize the comparative simplicity of morphology and strictness of syntaxis.
The pragmatics, however, as mentioned above, was the most difficult to understand and incorporate into my speech and write accurately. In my experience, for a non-native speaker, the use of colloquial phrases and everyday speech figures can only start making sense with time. The passionate approach to language that my teachers have manifested throughout my learning process has helped. Although now I consider myself bilingual, I continue discovering more linguistic nuances of English every day. I would also like to point out how learning a second language allowed me to understand the structure and linguistic rules of Spanish on a deeper level. Speaking two languages, one engages in a never-ending comparison, I have enhanced my ability to use Spanish linguistic features since learning a second language.
Conclusion
In conclusion, and as expected, Spanish and English have plenty of linguistic similarities and differences alike. Although similarities might be what I notice intuitively as a bilingual person, differences become evident when one analyzes the languages through the different fields of linguistics. In particular, I find the difference in the number of the syllabus in words on average between Spanish and English to be fascinating. I have always perceived Spanish as comparatively more flowery and emotional than English, which has seemed more direct and concise. Hence, seeing a morphological representation of this feeling in the research article has been an exciting experience. Overall, I think linguistics is a fantastic tool to understand language on a deeper, fundamental level and improve one’s familiarity with it.
References
Ruiz, A., (2017). Differences of English and Spanish Grammars, and Their Bearing on American and Mexican Cultures. Texas Journal of Literacy Education, 5(2), 142-158. Web.
Yule, G., (2020). The Study of Language (7th edition). Cambridge University Press. Web.