Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons^™

Study Abroad Blog: A Comprehensive Exploration Into Country And Culture, Kristin Zimney

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This writing serves as the reflective/contextual essay component of my creative thesis project. My creative project includes a detailed study abroad blog with photos, videos, and translated interviews I conducted with Salamanca locals regarding certain aspects of Spanish culture. This essay details the workings, text, and video content of my study abroad blog, and is intended to inform on a deeper basis with supporting research, the topics covered in the interviews.

Grammatical Gender Acquisition In L2 Spanish, Alanna Quinn, Mónica Cabrera

Honors Thesis

Grammatical gender, identified as “one of the most difficult structures that non-native speakers need to acquire” (Alamry & Sabourin, 2017) does not exist in English. L1 English speakers learning L2 Spanish must acquire this new grammatical feature. This thesis investigates this acquisition.

A literature review synthesizes the findings of studies on L2 acquisition of Spanish grammatical gender, and includes an overview of the structure and function of gender within both English and Spanish, as well as a variety of L2 acquisition process hypotheses. An analysis of four introductory Spanish textbooks is offered regarding their presentation of grammatical gender. The findings …

Fracaso Y Frustracion Sexual En La Obra Cuentistica De Julio Ramon Ribeyro, Arcadio Bolanos

Theses and Dissertations

In the short stories of Peruvian writer Julio Ramón Ribeyro, there are two important subjects that are mutually connected and are part of a larger literary proposal: failure and sexual frustration. When Ribeyro wrote his short stories, he was portraying the Peruvian reality and the idiosyncrasy of Peruvians in general. Certainly, failure has often been associated with Ribeyro’s literary proposals, as most of his characters fail in one way or another; however, little has been said about sexual frustration, which is quite an important thematic element that should not be overlooked. The theoretical framework relies mostly on psychoanalysis, including Jacques …

El Papel Esencial De La Belleza En Ariel, De José Enrique Rodó, Laura Martinez-Geijo Roman

Theses and Dissertations

El objetivo de la presente Tesis es determinar cuál es la función que cumple la belleza en la obra Ariel, de José Enrique Rodó. Para ello elaboraremos una teoría integradora del significado de la belleza rodoniana basada en el análisis de sus distintas dimensiones: metafísica, espiritual, moral, de integridad y heroica. Las teorías estéticas de Platón y Schiller, junto con la teoría del héroe de Thomas Carlyle constituyen el marco teórico de este estudio. Finalmente, la aplicación de esta teoría nos permite concluir que la belleza cumple una doble función en esta obra: en el plano individual, actúa como valor …

Storytelling Through Movement: An Analysis Of The Connections Between Dance & Literature, Zoe Hester

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Movement and storytelling are the links between past and present; both dance and literature have the same artistic and primal origins. We began to dance to express and communicate, to worship and feel. We tell stories for the same reasons: to learn from the past and to be able to communicate in the present.

This work explores the many connections between literature and dance through examinations of six dance forms: Native American, Bharatanatyam, West African, Ballet, Modern, and Post-Modern dance.

Perspectives From The Streets And The Classrooms In The Same 'Hood: Linguistic Landscapes Of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, Luis Guzman Valerio

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation studies the linguistic landscape of the neighborhood of Sunset Park, in Brooklyn, New York by taking into account both a main commercial avenue and a public school with a dual language bilingual program in English and Spanish. Sunset Park is a multi-ethnic and immigrant neighborhood (Hum, 2014). While research has been done into the linguistic landscape of streets, cities, and communities, on the one hand, and about the linguistic landscape in education, on the other, the co-existence of these two in the same context has barely been studied (cf. Maldonado, 2015). This dissertation makes a contribution to the …

Mahoma En Dos Textos Aljamiados Del Siglo Xvi: La Filosofía Perenne Y El Monomito De Los Moriscos, Emil L. Cruz Fernández

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Besides highlighting the legitimacy of Islam, a religion that was prohibited by the Spanish Inquisition during the 1500’s, Aljamiado-Moriscoliterature has been distinguished by its secrecy, hybridity, ethnocentrism, proselytism, and emphasis on the chaotic reality of the clandestine social group considered to be the "last Moors" of Spain. The Spanish-Muslims or Moriscoswrote this underground literature in the Spanish language, utilizing Arabic characters. The work of historians and “moriscologists” such as L.P. Harvey, Luce López-Baralt, María Teresa Narváez, Vincent Barletta, among others, have examined the practical role and didactic value that —at various levels— these hybrid texts had for the …

El Tango Y La Cultura Popular En La Reciente Narrativa Argentina, Monica A. Agrest

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The aim of this doctoral thesis is to show that Tango as scenario, background, atmosphere or lending its stanzas and language, helps determine the tone and even the sentiment of disappointment and nostalgia, which are in much of Argentine recent narrative. In addition, this thesis aims, to answer questions like: How is it possible for Tango to transform itself into a literary component, and to be considered essential to Argentinean identity? Which of its characteristics allow it to provide literary language, atmosphere and even inspiration to the narrative’s creative process? How is the intertextual dialogue between its lyrics and the …

The Other At War: Performing The Spanish-Cuban-American War On U.S. And Cuban Stages, Juan R. Recondo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Spanish-Cuban-American War, declared by the United States on April 25, 1898, marks a colonial shift in the history of the Caribbean and solidified the expansionist thrust of the United States outside national borders. Theatres in turn-of-the-century New York, which at this point was one of the theatrical centers of the nation, debated for audiences the imperialist character of the U.S. The Cuban struggle and the resulting Spanish-Cuban-American War permeated U.S. drama, thereby portraying a Caribbean in need of salvation by the military intervention of the United States. New York stages of the time became locations where various cultural representations …

Guide To Understanding Catalonian Dissent: From Proclamation To Referendum, Andrew Larkin

Honors Theses

"Guide to Understanding Catalonian Independence Efforts: From referendum proclamation to 1-O" explains and chronicles key events from June 9 to October 1, 2017 that have impacted Catalonia's ploy for independence. The northeastern region in Spain is situated on the Mediterranean coast and plays a strong role in the Spanish economy. Although the region is well situated and prosperous, some push for an independent Catalonia. The guide is written with readers from the United States of America in mind and includes excerpts translated into English so that the struggle between Spain and independence-minded Catalans can be easily understood. Official statements, speeches, …

Los Matices Varios Del Feminismo En Las Comunidades Indígenas De América Latina: Yorkín, Costa Rica Y Santa Anita, Guatemala, Roseangela G. Hartford

Spanish Honors Papers

This project investigates gender constructs and the complex assigned gender roles in settings of female indigenous leadership in Latin America. It examines two distinct indigenous communities, including the BriBri society in Yorkín, Costa Rica and the Maya peoples in Santa Anita, Guatemala that demonstrate the circumstantial spectrum in which women can obtain leadership roles and what actors directly influence this process. Each case study explores the fluidity of gender identities in which concepts of masculinity and femininity often guide female empowerment and liberation. Costa Rica and Guatemala offer contrasting experiences in terms of governmental stability, as Costa Rica abolished its …

El Español En El Pueblo Ngäbe. Factores Fonológicos Y Morfológicos, Kafda I. Vergara Esturaín

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

This study examines phonological and morphological features involved in the release of plural marking –s in nominal phrases of Spanish as a second language (L2). The linguistic variety belongs to Spanish spoken by members of the Ngäbe pueblo of Panama.

Despite the preference of final /s/ deletion in Panamanian Spanish, morphology seems to activate the production of plural marking –s in certain nominal phrases. Meanwhile, other circumstances stimulating the application of alternative strategies for plural marks are detected.

This study also includes questions about the influence of the first language (L1), particularly by comparing Ngäbere and Spanish nominal phrases. It …

Fresa Style In Mexico: Sociolinguistic Stereotypes And The Variability Of Social Meanings, Rebeca Martinez Gomez

Linguistics ETDs

This dissertation examines the flexibility in the social meanings of sociolinguistic stereotypes and how linguistic and non-linguistic information affect these meanings. The investigation consists of four empirical studies surrounding the case of fresas in Mexico –members of the upper class that are perceived as using a unique linguistic style.

Study 1 investigates the linguistic and non-linguistic characteristics associated with the fresa stereotype. Through a qualitative analysis of 64 webpages and 3 performances of the style, it is shown that fresasare perceived as the counterpart of another construct, nacos,and that their linguistic style is linked to English due to …

La Elisión De La /-S/ En El Español Del Caribe Y Los Estados Unidos, Andreina Isabel Colina

LSU Master's Theses

This sociolinguistic study explores the articulation of /-s/ in syllable-final position in the speech of Venezuelans that reside in Southern Louisiana and residents from Cartagena, Colombia. The results show similarities between both Caribbean communities, such as not favoring retention, and elements that differentiate the communities based on their geolects. One of the most significant differences is that speakers from Cartagena promote elision while Venezuelans that reside in Louisiana promote aspiration. Furthermore, the results show a connection between the time of residence of Venezuelans in Louisiana and retention. There is a great variety of studies about elided consonantal articulation of Caribbean …

Memoria Y Trauma De La Mujer Durante La Posguerra Civil Española En La Obra La Voz Dormida De Dulce Chacón, Gina Aurora Villalobos

Theses and Dissertations

Este trabajo examina cómo la ausencia de la facultad expresiva puede inhabilitar el uso de la memoria, tanto individual como colectivamente y traer como consecuencia el trauma, específicamente en los grupos de mujeres prisioneras que lucharon contra el franquismo durante la época de la posguerra. A la vez, con todos los estudios hechos por eruditos como Freud y los estudios modernos, podemos concluir que hay una vía para evitar tales episodios y asegurar un futuro mejor con el apoyo social y comunitario. En la obra de la escritora Dulce Chacón La voz dormida encontramos personajes que construyen dichos episodios y …

The New World, Digested: Anthropophagy And Consumption In Abel Posse's El Largo Atardecer Del Caminante, Adam Points Wilson

Theses and Dissertations

The present thesis uses as its primary source of inspiration Argentine author Abel Posse's El largo atardecer del caminante (1992), which boasts the historically-based, unconventional Spanish conquistador, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, as its main protagonist and narrator. I explore the juxtaposition of two opposing forms of metaphorical consumption in the novel. To highlight the first, I apply to the fictional Cabeza de Vaca the general concept of antropofagia cultural, or "cultural cannibalism," as described by Brazilian writer Oswald de Andrade in his "Manifesto Antropófago" (1928). I specifically examine the symbolic development of Posse's Cabeza de Vaca as the …

Resistencia Y Asimilación: El Espacio Liminal En El Teatro Cubanoamericano, Michael Mardoian

Senior Theses and Projects

The Cuban Revolution that took place in 1959 sparked a mass movement of Cubans to leave the island known as the Cuban Diaspora. To live in another place, a country and within a culture drastically different is a continual internal and external confrontation that many Cubans face living in the United States. Immigration and exile are central themes that emerge from Cuban literature and art. In the field of theater, many Cuban and Cuban-American playwrights such as Matías Montes Huidobro (1931), Alberto Pedro (1954-2005) and María Irene Fornés (1930), have illustrated the effects of immigration and exile on the displaced …

"Duas Tribos:" Contradictions Of Political And Social (Des)Esperança In The Discography Of Legião Urbana, Cai Elisabeth Olsen

Theses and Dissertations

Brazil's 1964-1985 military regime served as one of the principle catalysts for the leftist counterculture movement, Tropicália, which gave way to a new class of músicas engajadas. Later, during the period of redemocratization that followed the dictatorship, musicians extended the morphed the art into new forms, particularly through the use of rock-and-roll. The sociopolitical musical criticism that was formerly cloaked under the censorship stylistically transformed itself into an open, blunt, and much louder movement. Standing at the head of this new period of músicas engajadas was Renato Russo, frontman and lyricist of the Brock band Legião Urbana. At the …

Heideggerian Authenticity In La Celestina And Don Quijote De La Mancha, Stevenson George Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the intersection of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and Spanish literature. The study examines the Heideggerian authenticity and inauthenticity of two characters in the literature: Melibea in La Celestina by Fernando de Rojas and Grisóstomo in Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes. Heidegger’s concept of authenticity is the ability of the individual to live in the world according to her own desires, outside of the influence of others. Both die by suicide, but Melibea is an authentic character in Heideggerian terms and Grisóstomo is inauthentic. At the end of her life, Melibea has resolved …

Teatro Por La Identidad: Derechos Humanos E Identidad En El Teatro Argentino De La Posdictadura, Grace O'Donnell

Senior Theses and Projects

This research project analyzes the political and social effect of Teatro por la identidad’s most prominent productions A propósito de la duda (2000) by Patricia Zangaro, and El archivista (2001) by Héctor Levy-Daniel, during the post dictatorship era in Argentine theater. I will draw attention to the military dictatorship (la Junta Militar) who seized power from 1974 to 1983, and was responsible for the disappearance of 30,000 Argentines and the displacement of over 500 children. In response to these violations, the performances have led to a resurgence in the establishment of human rights organizations in Argentina. Through the use of …

Desplazamiento Y Distanciamiento Lingüístico En El Teatro De Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda: La Mujer Que Cayó Del Cielo, Vy T. Phan

Senior Theses and Projects

In the 1980s, Rita Quintero, a Tarahumara from northern Mexico, was detained in a mental hospital in Larned, Kansas for twelve years because of ignorance and maltreatment from Kansas state officials and health care workers. As a result of their inability and lack of effort to understand her culture, the doctors diagnosed Rita with schizophrenia and forced her to take psychiatric medications. Rita’s case eventually caught national and international attention, especially through the work of the Mexican playwright, Victor Hugo Rascón Banda (1948-2008) who produced the theater piece La mujer que cayó del cielo (2000) to detail the actual events …

Documental Autoetnográfico De Posmemoria. Una Aproximación Al Pasado Franquista Desde La Perspectiva De Género, Maribel Rams

Doctoral Dissertations

This doctoral dissertation analyzes two autoethnographic documentaries recently produced in the Iberian Peninsula, Inner Memory (2002) by María Ruido and Swimming (2008) by Carla Subirana, where the quest for origins and familial truth constitutes a trope to deal with issues of collective historical memory and national identity. Both authors narrate an unsolved family history within the context of the Spain’s traumatic past: 1) María Ruido’s estrangement from her parents, Galician economic exiles during the years of development; 2) the ghostly presence in Carla Subirana’s family of her grandfather, who was executed in 1940 for being an anti-Francoist guerrilla fighter. My …

"Al Gaucho Que Llevo En Mí, Sacramente, Como La Custodia Lleva La Hostia”: Ideología Política Y Literatura Gauchesca En El Contexto Cinematográfico De La Revolución Argentina, Ramiro Garcia-Olano

Doctoral Dissertations

This doctoral dissertation studies Manuel Antín’s Don Segundo Sombra (1969), the cinematographic adaptation of Ricardo Güiraldes celebrated “novela de la tierra” of the same title, in the context of the so called “Revolución Argentina”, the military dictatorship that ruled this country between 1966 and 1973. This investigation seeks to shed light on the political struggle for control of the “gauchesca” literary genre that was taking place at this time in the Argentinean cinematographic field. In a time of rampant nationalism, the different political actors that were vying for political power saw in the “gaucho”, who by then had come to …

Acercamiento Al Conflicto Identitario Peruano En La Novela Cocinero En Su Tinta De Gustavo Rodríguez, Karla Giorgio

Masters Theses

In Peru since the end of the last century, there has been a surge in new interest in cuisine in the country, due to the so-called Peruvian gastronomic boom. The novel Cocinero en su tinta employs this cultural phenomenon as its setting to articulate the personal conflicts of Rembrandt Bedoya, a recognized Peruvian chef, who searches for a récipe that represents the cultural polyhedral reality of his country to be presented in Madrid. This search is coupled gradually with the necessity of making peace with the memory of his father and establishing a relationship with his evasive and unattainable lover. …

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 …

Itinerância(S) Poética(S): Jorge De Sena E Cecília Meireles, Susana L. M. Antunes

Doctoral Dissertations

Based on the idea of itinerancy as a vital element of human existence, this doctoral dissertation examines and reevaluates the corpus of poems integrating Jorge de Sena’s and Cecília Meireles' “travel poetry,” proposing poetic itineraries bearing their own itineraries. Chapter 1 presents some considerations about the concept of travel in literature, as well as theoretical concepts related to the idea of travel, some of them discussed theoretically by the two poets. Reflecting on the privileged relationship that human movement inscribes in space creating new meanings, Chapter 2 presents the Senian and Meirelian physical spaces connected with their “travel poems,” taking …

La Melancolía De Juan Ramón Jiménez: Un Estudio Emotivo, Carmen Valenzuela Cervantes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study addresses Juan Ramón Jiménez's melancholia, a defining feature of his life and work. I argue that melancholia both motivated and limited his writing.

In this thesis, my avowedly psychoanalytic critique attempts to add new ideas to the myriad studies of this significant writer and his work.

By employing techniques developed by the school of Modern Psychoanalysis, with its focus on bottled up aggression, believed to motivate attacks against the self, J.R.J.'s defenses will be studied.

In order to protect and strengthen fragile ego states, modern analysts respect defenses and use what they call joining and mirroring techniques. Herein …

Huérfanos De Orfeo: Poesía Y Música En La Cultura De Los Siglos De Oro, Lorena Uribe Bracho

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an attempt to elucidate some aspects of one of the central issues in the history of lyric poetry, which is the complicated interlace of connections between poetry and music. It focusses on the case of early modern Spain, and it studies a large corpus of poetry in Spanish from 1500 to 1700. The corpus includes Renaissance and Baroque poems of many genres and from many sources, both printed and manuscript, by canonical and by lesser known poets, all of which engage with music and musical practice.

I address the questions of how music is involved in poetry’s …

Espacios Alternativos Y Nomadismo En Tres Poetas Salvadoreñas De La Guerra: Leyla Quintana, Kenny Rodríguez Y Eva Ortiz, Juana M. Ramos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes the literary production of Leyla Quintana, Kenny Rodríguez, and Eva Ortiz, three Salvadoran poets who participated actively in the Civil War of El Salvador (1980-1992), and produced their literary work in that same period. It explores, from the perspective of Nomadism developed by Rosi Braidotti, the resignification of the feminine subjectivity, as well as the construction of new figurations in order to articulate a counter discourse that challenges the official hegemonic and heteropatriarcal narrative. In the same order, it questions the validity of the cultural codes established and imposed by those groups that hold the political and …

Aurality As Methexis And The Rise Of Castilian Literature: The Case Of The Siete Partidas, Maristela Verastegui

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Participation is the engine of cultural production. In the case of literature, the privileged modality that enables participation is auditory perception. In order to articulate a theory of literary cultural production based on auditory perception, participation needs to be analyzed in the context of Platonic methexis, understood as an embodied experience facilitated by brain mechanisms of sensory processing and cognition, which manifest in specific ways in written texts. The Siete Partidas, the first complete and systematic legal code of the Western World, provides the perfect case study to test a theory of literary cultural production based on methexis via …