Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons^™

Examining Variability In Spanish Monolingual And Bilingual Phonotactics: A Look At Sc-Clusters, Katerina A. Tetzloff

Doctoral Dissertations

Current models of generative phonology have failed to address the variability that is observed in bilingual language patterns patterns. This dissertation addresses exactly that issue by examining the perception of Spanish sC-clusters in Spanish monolinguals and English-Spanish bilinguals. Surface sC-clusters in onset position are prohibited in Spanish and are repaired by inserting a prothetic /e/ (sC $\rightarrow$ esC). English differs in that it allows sC-cluster onsets, and the structure of the sC-cluster has been shown to differ based on the sonority profile (i.e., s+stop clusters are bisyllabic, s+liquid clusters are tautosyllabic). A batch version of a Harmonic Grammar Gradual Learning …

The Production And Perception Of Subject Focus Prosody In L2 Spanish, Covadonga Sanchez

Doctoral Dissertations

New information can be introduced in discourse through different strategies, including syntactic and prosodic ones. This project provides an account of the syntactic and intonational strategies used for focus-marking in Peninsular Spanish, Mainstream American English and L2 Spanish using parallel experimental designs and a unitary method of analysis within the Autosegmental-Metrical framework for the study of intonation. It provides a comprehensive description of specific phonological categories and their phonetic implementation not only in monolingual speech, but also as they develop in the L2 grammar of Spanish learners with different experiences with the target language, following the premises of the L2 …

Rhotic Variation In The Spanish Spoken By Puerto Ricans In Puerto Rico And Western Massachusetts, Alba Arias Alvarez

Doctoral Dissertations

The Spanish trill is known to present a wide range of phonetic variation in Puerto Rican Spanish (PRS), attested not only on the island but in the diaspora. Combining auditory and acoustic analysis, this research project studies acoustic data on onset /r/ in Holyoke, MA, the city with the largest per capita population of Puerto Ricans living outside the island. The aim of this dissertation is to analyze whether there is trill variation in the PR community in Holyoke, and, whether it mirrors the variation found in Puerto Rico. Special attention is paid to glottal, velar, or uvular /r/ realizations. …

Pronoun Variation In Cavite Chabacano: Creole/Non-Lexifier Contact Situation, Sheryl Lynn Bernardo-Hinesley

Doctoral Dissertations

Cavite Chabacano is one of the Philippine Creole Spanish varieties that emerged during the Spanish colonial occupation of the Philippines. It is a Spanish-lexified, Tagalog-substrate contact language spoken in Cavite City in the Manila Bay region. An evaluation conducted by Lesho and Sippola (2013) using the UNESCO framework for assessing language vitality indicates that the creole variety is critically endangered. The number of Cavite Chabacano speakers is currently in decline due to the position of Tagalog being the majority language in Cavite City. Pronominal variation in the speech of Cavite Chabacano speakers and language shift from Cavite Chabacano to Tagalog …

The Effect Of Enhancing Learner Input Via Computer Assisted Language Learning Tools: On The Acquisition Of Clitics By Spanish Second Language Learners, Bridget C. Pinsonneault

Doctoral Dissertations

The current project contributes to the growing body of research in second language acquisition that investigates the facilitative effects of drawing learner attention to problematic aspects of linguistic input through input enhancement. Specifically, the research examines the extent to which input enhancement (Sharwood Smith 1991, 1993) via typographically altered texts facilitates the acquisition of third person dative and accusative clitic pronouns in Spanish for university level native English speakers enrolled in both beginner and advanced levels of Spanish second language courses. A number of past studies have indicated that all verbal clitics have been an obstacle in gaining L2 Spanish …

El Estudio Contrastivo Y Comparativo De La Perífrasis De Gerundio En El Español Y En El Portugués Hablado En Massachusetts Y Rhode Island, Judy De Oliveira

Doctoral Dissertations

Esta disertación explora desde un punto de vista sociolingüístico las formas alternantes en español y en portugués para expresar la actualidad y la habitualidad. El objetivo del presente trabajo de investigación es determinar los contextos que propician la variación de las formas consideradas para así determinar los factores lingüísticos y/o sociales que inciden en la elección de una u otra forma dentro de un determinado contexto. Se realiza un análisis cuantitativo de la variación morfosintáctica de la perífrasis de gerundio y del presente de indicativo en español y a la vez la perífrasis de gerundio, el presente de indicativo y …

How Far Can They Go?: Non-Native Speakers Of Spanish And Wh- Questions, Maria Turrero Garcia

Doctoral Dissertations

The wh- island is a syntactic phenomenon that constitutes a constraint on wh- movement with implications for interpretation (the speaker must be aware of the distinction between arguments and adjuncts, and of the effects of the [-QU] feature on the middle wh- word against extraction) and for production (the speaker needs to know the limited, short distance scope of the fronted wh- word in adjunct questions). In Spanish, each wh- word carries a referential value that affects its classification as an adjunct or an argument, hence affecting the extractability of each wh- word from a complex question containing a wh- …

Linguistic Cognition And Bimodalism: A Study Of Motion And Location In The Confluence Of Spanish And Spain’S Sign Language, Francisco Meizoso

Doctoral Dissertations

The goal of this dissertation is to study the intrapersonal and symbolic function of gesture by a very specific type of population: hearing speakers of Spanish who, having been born to deaf parents, grew up developing a bimodal (Spanish and Spain’s Sign Language) linguistic interface, which borrows elements from the manual and spoken modalities. In the ordering of gestures devised by Kendon (1988) and cited by McNeill (1992), gesticulation and sign languages are placed at opposite ends of a continuum. At one end, gesticulation is formed by idiosyncratic spontaneous gestures lacking any conventional linguistic proprieties, which are produced in combination …

Concept-Based Teaching And Spanish Modality In Heritage Language Learners: A Vygotskyan Approach, Elena Guillermina Garcia Frazier

Open Access Dissertations

This study analyzed how six Heritage language learners at the university level gained conscious awareness and control of the concept of modality as revealed in student verbalizations (Vygotsky, 1998) throughout five different written communicative events. This work took place in the only course designed for Heritage language learners at a large public suburban university in the Northeast part of the United States.

Grammatical simplification in bilingual speakers is due to incomplete acquisition of Spanish, attrition or loss of an underused linguistic system (Lynch, 1999; Martínez Mira, 2009a, 2009b; Mikulski, 2010b; Montrul, 2007; Ocampo, 1990; Silva-Corvalán, 1990, 1994a, 1994b, 2003; Studerus, …

Towards A Posthumanist Reenchantment: Poetry, Science And New Technologies, Marta Del Pozo Ortea

Open Access Dissertations

This interdisciplinary study analyzes the work of two contemporary writers in Peninsular Spanish literature, Agustín Fernández Mallo and Javier Moreno, using the the posthumanist stance that considers the epistemological and ontological continuum and inseparability of contemporary cultural practices. This thesis delves into the interrelationship of their respective work with three main aspects of the 21st century reality: the omnipresent world of images in our culture, the scientific paradigm and the use of new technologies. The study of their work has led me to propose the birth of a new literature that 1. articulates the “pictorial turn” by recognizing how the …

Verbalizing In The Second Language Classroom: The Development Of The Grammatical Concept Of Aspect, Prospero N. Garcia

Open Access Dissertations

Framed within a Sociocultural Theory of Mind (SCT) in the field of Second Language Acquisition (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006), this dissertation explores the role of verbalizing in the internalization of grammatical categories through the use of Concept-based Instruction (henceforth CBI) in the second language (L2) classroom.

Using Vygotsky's (1986) distinction between scientific and spontaneous or everyday concepts applied to L2 development (Negueruela, 2008), this study focuses on the teaching and potential development of the grammatical concept of aspect in the Spanish L2 classroom, and the role of verbalizing in its internalization. It is proposed that verbalizing mediates between the learners' …

No Círculo Do Uroboro: Articulações Identitárias Na Narrativa De Milton Hatoum, Cecilia Paiva Rodrigues

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation examines the four novels published to date by Milton Hatoum, a contemporary Lebanese-Brazilian author from the Amazon region. There are a great number of critical readings of his work that foreground the postmodern dissolution and fragmentation of the self, of human relationships, and also of national identity. In contrast to such approaches, I propose what I call a reading of hope. I argue that Hatoum is at the forefront of a shift in sensibility in Brazilian literature, one that simultaneously demonstrates certain aspects of postmodernism, but also breaks with other elements of it. In order to illustrate this …

La Arquitectura De La Memoria Narrativa: Un Anáisis De La Estructura En Cinco Novelas Contemporáneas De España, Jason Charles Cummings

Open Access Dissertations

The current study contemplates the relationship between narrative structure and memory in five contemporary Spanish novels. Since the Spanish Transition to Democracy literary critics have been quick to discuss the resurgence of historical memory in narrative. In particular, there has been an abundance of work that seeks to vindicate those who supported the Second Republic during the Spanish Civil War, but whose voices were silenced upon the republic's fall to Franco's army in 1939. Nevertheless, despite the wide critical recognition of a movement to recuperate Spanish historical memory, critics have largely ignored the role played by narrative structure in the …

'Oh! La Que Su Rostro Tapa/No Debe Valer Gran Cosa': Identidad Y Critica Social En La Cultura Transatlantica Hispanica (1520 - 1860) / 'Oh! The One Who Covers Her Face / Surely Is Not Worth Much': Identity And Social Criticism In Transatlantic Hispanic Culture (1520-1860), Isabelle Therriault

Open Access Dissertations

In 1639, a law prohibiting women any head covering; veil, mantilla, manto for example, is promulgated for the fifth time in the Iberian Peninsula under the penalty of losing the garment, and subsequently incurring more severe punishments. Regardless of these edicts this social practice continued. My dissertation investigates the cultural representation of these covered women (tapadas) in Spain and the New World in a vast array of early modern literary, historical and legal documents (plays, prose, and regal laws, etc.). Overall, critics associate the use of the veil in the Spanish territories with religious tendencies and overlook the social component …