¿Sería coser y… cantar? The role of sound in the phraseological memorization in L2 Spanish

Abstract

For a non-native speaker, the reproduction of the combination of words that forms an idiom represents in general a great memory challenge. Among the main formal errors that he usually makes in this process, those based on a substitution of a component are a major issue. Related to this problem, the relative degree of rigidity that characterizes the lexical make-up of many idioms in Spanish and the importance of motivating, in a cognitive way, the restrictive choice of its components will be explained. To this end, the necessity of going beyond the iconic-semantic dimension, through a structural perspective that mainly focuses on the phonological properties of the literal syntagm must be highlighted. In this field, the possibility of adopting a contrastive point of view linked to the phraseology in the learner’s mother tongue (French in this case) will be also contemplated. Finally, this study will show some limitations concerning the application of this approach and its cognitive impact.