Technological progress in lexicographic tools and its impact on Spanish for Business teaching

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26378/rnlael1531464

Keywords:

lexicography; user study; lexicographic resources; Business Spanish; free online machine translation

Abstract

In a very short period of time, the increased quality of digital lexicographic tools (dictionaries, translators, etc.) has prompted foreign language learners to change the use they make of them. With the aim of finding out those resources most frequently used and those that produce the best results, an experiment was designed in which students of Business Spanish were asked to translate two texts from Spanish into German and vice versa. Data from 67 participants show an increasing use of machine translators to the detriment of the bilingual dictionary. Additionally translator users achieve the best results when completing the tasks and also spend the least time on them. The widespread use of these tools has clear implications for the foreign language classroom: teachers must explain their use and adapt learning tasks to this new context.

Author Biographies

Elisabeth Kölbl, WU Vienna

Assistant professor and researcher at the Institute for Romance Languages of the Department of Foreign Language Business Communication at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Business Administration and a Master’s degree in Export and Internationalization Management at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Her research is dedicated to topics of terminological variation and lexicography. She is a member of the organizing committee of the JEFE-Vi congress for Spanish for Specific Purposes and of the founding and organizing team of PlataformaENE, a website that aims to foster the international collaboration between teachers of Business Spanish.

Pilar Pérez Cañizares

PhD in Philology from the Complutense University (Madrid) and a Master's degree in Spanish as a Foreign Language (ELE) from the Antonio de Nebrija University. She has worked in higher education institutions in Germany, the UK and Hungary. Currently she is assistant professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Vienna) and teaches Didactics of Spanish as a Foreign Language at the University of Vienna. She has published on lexicography, didactics and corporate communication and acts as a teacher trainer. She has extensive experience as author and editor of teaching materials, among others, parts of the textbook series Con Gusto, Meta Profesional and Estudiantes.ELE, all issued in Germany by the publishing house Klett. Since 2017 she has been a member of the organizing committee of the Vienna Spanish for Specific Purposes Conference series. She is part of the founding and organizing team of PlataformaENE, a website that aims to foster the international collaboration between teachers of Business Spanish.

Johannes Schnitzer, WU Wien

PhD in Romance Philology from the University of Vienna and is a full professor at Vienna University of Economics and Business, where he currently acts as head of the Institute of Romance Languages (Department of Foreign Language Business Communication). He has been teaching Spanish for Economics and Business for more than 30 years. He is the author of numerous research papers on lexicography, terminology and business communication, among them a manual of economic terminology (Wirtschaftsspanisch, Terminologisches Handbuch - Manual de langue económico, Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 62014) and a teacher trainer in the field of Spanish for specific purposes. He is also one of the organizers of the Vienna Conference on Spanish for Specific Purposes (JEFE-Vi), which has taken place at the WU in Vienna since 2017 and brings together specialists in this field from all over the world. He is part of the founding and organizing team of PlataformaENE, a website that aims to promote international collaboration among teachers of Business Spanish.

portada del número 31

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Published

2021-12-10

How to Cite

Kölbl, E., Pérez Cañizares, P., & Schnitzer, J. (2021). Technological progress in lexicographic tools and its impact on Spanish for Business teaching. Nebrija Journal of Applied Linguistics to Language Teaching, 15(31), 161–178. https://doi.org/10.26378/rnlael1531464

Issue

Vol. 15 No. 31 (2021): Issue 31

Section

Miscellanea

License

The copyright holder(s) consent to the distribution of their article under the license CC BY ND.

Creative Commons License