https://doi.org/10.56219/letras.v64i105.3286

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342

Artículo

Palabras clave: comparación fraseológica, intensificación, fraseodidáctica, español de Colombia

Recibido: 18/04/2024 Aceptado: 05/09/2024

Stereotyped comparisons with food in Colombian Spanish.

Criteria of objective lexical selection for its teaching in ELE/L2

ABSTRACT

In discourse, stereotyped comparisons (e.g., fresher than a lettuce, crazier than a goat, older than Methuselah) function as mechanisms of hyperbolic intensification, serving to exaggerate meaning. Unlike free comparisons, stereotyped comparisons are fixed, memorizable formulas that belong to repeated discourse and are readily available for use when expressing the pragmatic content they encapsulate. This article presents a qualitative analysis of 106 adjectival phraseological comparisons featuring food stereotypes, as recorded in the Corpus Léxico del Español de Colombia (CorlexCo) of the Instituto Caro y Cuervo. The study aims to establish objective lexical selection criteria for designing teaching materials for Spanish as a foreign and second language (ELE/L2). The results reveal that the most stereotyped food categories are fruits (21; 18.8%), dishes (21; 18.8%), amasijos (15; 13.4%), and dairy products (13; 11.6%). The most frequent syntactic structure is “más ADJ que X” (78; 73.6%). The majority of these comparisons belong to Colombian Spanish, and the most intensified characteristics include heaviness/annoyance, stinginess, ordinariness, blushing, old age, and loneliness. This research illustrates the value of using linguistic corpora in the study of phraseology and demonstrates their practical application in the development of ELE/L2 didactic materials for teaching stereotyped comparisons, thereby enriching phraseodidactic approaches.

Keywords: phraseological comparisons, intensification, phraseodidactics, Colombian Spanish.