Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons^™

Total Physical Response Storytelling With Undergraduate Foreign Language Learners: Exploring Vocabulary Growth, Eva M. Jones

Masters Theses

This thesis analyzes the effectiveness of two pedagogical techniques used in foreign language teaching on vocabulary growth in a university setting: Total Physical Response Storytelling (TPRS) and a more traditional approach that does not involve storytelling. Over two sessions taking place a week apart, participants were separated into either the Control group or the Experimental group. Each group learned the same list of vocabulary words in the treatment session. While the Control group learned the target vocabulary through a traditional method, the Experimental group learned the vocabulary through a story. In the introduction, TPRS’s origins are reviewed as well as …

Voicing Narrative Through Transatlanticism And Transformation In Historia De La Monja Alférez By Catalina De Erauso, Morgan Schneider

Masters Theses

This thesis analyzes various aspects of Catalina de Erauso’s Historia de la Monja Alférez, escrita por ella misma (1829). The first chapter explores notions of interior and exterior as categories that determine not only the protagonist’s movement in space but also their expression of self-identity over the course of the text, focalized through first-person narration. Additionally, the chapter brings to light how the interior narrative parallels Erauso’s desire to share their transformation from nun in a Spanish convent to a soldier in the Americas with picaresque tendencies. Erauso leverages the power of exterior appearances through the self-fashioning of their public …

Hablo Español, You Know? Language And Identity In The Puerto Rican Diaspora, Rachel Ann Denton

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the relationship between language, personal identity, and culture among members of the Puerto Rican diaspora. Puerto Rico represents a unique situation socially and politically because of its colonial relationship with the United States. This relationship has facilitated a continuous circular migration to and from the mainland U.S. over the last century. As of 2012, the diasporic community now represents a greater population than those who remain on the island. While nationalistic debates in Puerto Rico have traditionally excluded this group (collectively dubbed “neoricans” or “nuyoricans”), their recent contributions to literature and Puerto Rican cultural theory, as well …

Codeswitching In Bildungsroman: A 21st Century Comparative Study, Julie Ann Deyrup

Masters Theses

This thesis examines how the literary voice of Hispanics in the United States is forming through the mixing, or codeswitching, of the Spanish and English languages in the genre Bildungsroman of the Twenty-First Century. It discusses the theoretical framework in written codeswitching and analyzes the application of these studies in most recent Spanish-English texts of the biographical genre Bildungsroman: Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Sandra Cisneros’s Caramelo.

The research presented here looks in detail at the various methods and applications of written codeswitching in a literary text and how the successful and prevalent …

A Comparison Of The Heroines In Three Representative Novels Of Concha Espina, Barbara Harris Dennis

Masters Theses

It has been the intent of this study to present a closely referenced comparison of the heroines of three representative novels by Concha Espina.

Through the use of developmental analyses and plot summaries of La esfinge maragata, El metal de los muertos and El Caliz rojo it has been possible to obtain a valid assessment of the similarities and contrasts found in the respective protagonists. In spite of the obvious differences in environmental, social and circumstantial elements, the three women evidence essentially the same basic personality traits, attitudes and reactions.

The personal tragedy in the lives of the three women …

Realism In The Works Of Marta Brunet, Gertrude Steudler Landis

Masters Theses

The order in which the various subdivisions of this thesis are presented is: Biography of the author, discussion of her principal works, a short discussion of realism in literature and the listing of the six main criteria, the study of the works under each of these criteria and our Conclusions. A short Bibliography is appended.

As is sure to be the case with an author who is still relatively young and who, we hope, will continue for many years to produce other worthwhile books, it is difficult to consider the study conclusive. In the meantime, however, it is hoped that …