Shipibo-Spanish language skills in texts written by bilingual schoolchildren in Ucayali (Peru)

Abstract

The majority of studies on the Shipibo-Konibo, language of the Pano linguistic family spoken mainly in the Amazonian department of Ucayali (Peru), are focused on its grammatical analy-sis. There exist few studies devoted to analyse the communicative skills in Shipibo and Spanish of bilingual children enrolled in the intercultural bilingual education model (EIB). In this sense, we analyze a particular textual genre, recipes written in those languages by children between 11 and 13 who share the same learning environment. Following the methodology used in research on acquisition and language learning in the context of a minority language (Idiazábal  and  Garcia-Azkoaga,  2015;  Manterola,  2012;  Díaz  de  Gereñu  and  Garcia-Azkoaga,  2016, among others), we address the study from a socio-discursive perspective that considers the text as piece to account for the abilities of students. We analyze the following textual aspects: structure, connection, cohesion, and enunciative marks like modalization and voi-ces. The results allow us to identify the resources used by the students and to distinguish the aspects on which we can influence to help them improve written communication of the analyzed text genre.