¿Qué esconden las palabras? La enseñanza del léxico y los estereotipos nacionales

Abstract

When we teach the lexicon we must make students aware about the underlying information in the words. One of the best ways to do it is the use of names of nationalities in the classroom. In the present article, we will analyse the Spanish lexicon related to the proposed topic in order to discover what worldviews hide in the denominations of nationalities in this language. In a first phase we will approach the concept of a stereotype, present its definition and study its functioning in language, explaining how we understand the concept of the worldview. In the next phase we will focus on the nationalities and their use in phraseologisms in order to conduct a search for stereotypes rooted in thought and language. It is worth adding that this work will focus primarily on the Spanish language, although we will add examples of the Polish language, which, in contrast, will allow us to broaden the analysis and highlight another point of view.