Modern Languages Commons^™

Composing Her Growing Identities As A Mexican American, Xiaodi Zhou

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

This article studies the growing and changing cultural identifications of one early adolescent Mexican American girl as represented by her engagements with literacy. Her writing behaviors in particular manifested a changing cultural identity that reacted to and represented her response to a changing world. Her bilingualism and biculturalism manifested a dialogic innervation of distinct voices and truths, particularly set in the Trump-era United States. Through a theoretical framework of cultural hybridity and bordered identity, this study analyzes the complex linguistic, developmental, and cultural identities of a young Mexican American woman in the rural South.

Straddling Differences: Celebrating Contradictions And Confusion At The Frontera, Miryam Espinosa-Dulanto, Karin A. Lewis, Vejoya Viren

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

A yearlong collective auto-ethnographic stories of three colleagues at a Hispanic Serving Institution at the U.S.–Mexican frontera culminated in the realization that our disparate experiences, the multiple voices used in articulating these, and the diverse ways these manifested in classroom practices and interactions had crafted the only academic space where we-three felt to belong.

Review: Rethinking Joseph Conrad's Concepts Of Community: Strange Fraternity, John A. Merchant

Modern Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications and Other Works

A review of Kaoru Yamamoto, Rethinking Joseph Conrad's Concepts of Community: Strange Fraternity

Humanitarismo Literario Y Migración Forzada: Un Estudio De Las Tierras Arrasadas De Emiliano Monge, Carlos Gardeazábal Bravo

Global Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Las tierras arrasadas (2015) de Emiliano Monge se encuentra entre el creciente corpus de novelas y películas sobre los migrantes centroamericanos y los diferentes tipos de violencia que afrontan. Monge aborda en esta obra los efectos de la militarización en la política migratoria de México, impulsada por la guerra contra el narco que comenzó en 2006. Esta novela lleva a cabo un desmonte crítico del humanitarismo literario al tiempo que enfatiza la vulnerabilidad de los migrantes y su agencia. En tal sentido, se explora la forma en la que, en cuanto ficción posthumanitaria, la novela encarna las diferentes formas en …

Teaching Spanish Conversation Through The Uaps: A Pedagogy Of Jesuit Values And Mission, Richard D. Reitsma

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

This praxis piece explores the development of a Jesuit focused pedagogy within the context of a Spanish language conversation course. The author begins by defining the origins of the pedagogy employed in this course and how it came to be centered around the Universal Apostolic Preferences of the Society of Jesus (UAPs) which consist of the following goals: 1) Showing the way to God/goodness/hope through discernment; 2) Walking with the excluded, the poor, the outcasts of the world, those whose dignity has been violated, in a mission of reconciliation and justice; 3) Journeying with Youth, to accompany young people in …

Proyecto De Traducción: Compartiendo Cultura A Través De Historias De Latinoamérica, Diana P. Beas

World Languages and Cultures

This project attempts to cultivate awareness of ethical and professional perspectives that reflect linguistic and cultural heritage. In other words, creatively share the culture and history of Latin American countries. To achieve this, this project consists of two short stories I have translated. The stories were originally written in Spanish and I have translated them to English. Furthermore, each story is from a different Latin American country (one is from Argentina and the other is from Guatemala). To carry out this project, I began by researching simple background information of each country to which the stories belong to. Afterwards, I …

Jugando Sin Fronteras: Apoyando El Desarrollo Bilingüe A Través Del Juego, Michaela Henderson

World Languages and Cultures

Jugando sin fronteras is a website aimed at both speakers of Spanish and English within San Luis Obispo county. This project attempts to break down the cultural and linguistic gaps between students of bilingual education systems. Jugando sin fronteras is dedicated to uniting language groups and facilitating intercultural communication by demonstrating the use of both Spanish and English equally in bilingual spaces.

Writing Centers As Democratic Spaces: A Review Of A Writing Center Practitioner’S Inquiry Into Collaboration: Pedagogy, Practice, And Research By Georganne Nordstrom, Randall W. Monty

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Consecuencias Sociales En El Cine Latinoamericano: Alta Visibilidad De Lo Queer, Tucker Wayne Skipper

World Languages and Cultures Senior Capstones

This presentation explores hegemonic societies in the Caribbean and the Southern Cone of Latin America as framed by the cultural phenomenon of high queer visibility in four films: Fresa y chocolate (1995) by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío, Antes que anochezca (2000) by Julian Schnabel, El beso de la mujer araña (1985) by Héctor Babenco, and Hoy quiero volver solo (2014) by Daniel Ribeiro. It examines the social consequences that each of the main characters must pay to their hegemonic societies because of this visibility. This research also makes a case for compulsive heterosexuality and how the heterosexist …

Temas Tempranos Del Feminismo En La Literatura Española De Principios Del Siglo Xx: Emilia Pardo Bazán Al Franquismo, Savannah Courter

World Languages and Cultures Senior Capstones

This presentation investigates Spanish feminist themes and how two authors—Emilia Pardo Bazán and Dolores Ibárruri—affected the role of women in their society during Franco’s regime. This presentation will discuss the main themes contributed by these two authors and how they fought against Francoism, Franco’s society, and the chauvinistic ideas and rules created for women during the regime.

Turismo En Nicaragua: Los Éxitos Y Fracasos De La Última Esperanza De Un Gobierno, Julia Devane

World Languages and Cultures Senior Capstones

After decades of political instability left the people of Nicaragua to suffer with homelessness and poverty, the government turned to the tourism industry as a last effort to generate much-needed revenue, which had initially promised economic results. This essay will argue that the tourism industry was developed unsustainably for local populations and explain how the government's push for a tourism industry focused only on the needs of the tourists visiting their country rather than the needs of the locals participating in the tourism industry.

Abordando La Brecha De Desigualdad En Chile: Inquietud Civil Y Política, Savannah Taylor

World Languages and Cultures Senior Capstones

This essay analyzes the underlying causes of the socioeconomic and income inequalities from which Chile still suffers. Moving through a brief historical analysis, it discusses such inequalities from the perspective of the 2019 protests. Finally, the essay identifies three primary potential causes of the unrest and inequality. The unequal education system, unstable political institutions, and disagreement of the management of valuable natural resources all exist as a barrier to achieving a satisfactory level of equality among the people of Chile.

Testimonio At Work: The Power Of Malintzin Researchers, Freyca Calderon-Berumen, Miryam Espinosa-Dulanto, Karla O'Donald

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

We are three Latin American women, once travellers – now US dwellers, mujeres de color, Mestizas, Neplanteras – sometimes ‘Malintzin researchers’ struggling to make sense of all our pieces, identities and changing faces. We draw upon the disruption of apartheid of knowledge in academia, arguing for counter-narratives through the use of pláticas and testimonio as tools to theorize personal experiences that contribute to the decolonization of educational research. We are advancing pláticas and testimonios as epistemological and methodological approaches to challenge and disrupt widespread Westernized research approaches that continue colonizing the U.S. education research.

Translanguaging Practices Of Chinese/English Bilingual Engineers’ Communications In The Workplace, Juan Du, Xiaodi Zhou

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

Existing literature argues for the urgent need to improve workplace and professional communication in the engineering field across the world. This paper reports on a study examining Chinese/English bilingual engineers’ translanguaging practices in their communications in English-speaking high-tech corporations in the United States. Evidence showed that bilingual engineers translanguaged extensively to construct meaning to meet the diverse communication needs at their workplace, which enables them to demonstrate their professional talents and skills. However, when English was the sole language for the interaction, they struggled to sound like English native speakers to convey their ideas and present their work, which disadvantaged …

Checking In: Learner Perceptions Of The Value Of Language Study In College, Julian Ledford, Tijá Odoms

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Access the online Pressbooks version of this article here.

An understanding of the products that Generation Z students value the most from their college-level language study is essential for instructors who must effectively unpack second language theories within the context of their classroom instruction. This preliminary study examines the value system regarding language study as revealed in the language-learning perceptions of a group of current language learners (n = 53) and recent college graduates (n = 49) at a small, private, liberal arts college in the southeast. Through qualitative analysis of student responses, the following emerged as language-learning …

Bilingual Behaviors: Learning Context In Second Language Acquisition, Sydney M. Fulton

Honors Thesis

Language separates human beings from other species in the animal kingdom. Not only does language provide humans with a means to communicate, but it represents one’s family, cultural identity, and personality. There are over six thousand spoken languages in the world today, and around half of the earth’s inhabitants speak more than one language. First language acquisition is a natural process for all humans that begins before birth. The human brain can acquire multiple languages during infancy, but many people acquire a second language after the brain has fully developed. Knowledge of more than one language allows one to make …

Hipersexualización E Infrarrepresentación: La Representación De Las Latinas En Jane The Virgin Y Modern Family, Laura Zarate

Honors College Theses

The Latinx community is one of the fastest growing groups in the United States and accounted for half of the total population growth from 2010-2019. Despite the increasing numbers, the statistics for Latinx representation in the media continue to be low. Numbers for Latinx writers, producers, and actors are significantly lower than their non-Latinx counterparts and Latinas, in specific, are one of the most underrepresented groups on television and often being portrayed as hypersexual in comparison to other groups of the same gender. While this underrepresentation has been researched in relation to women, there is limited discussion regarding the lack …

A Leadership Journey: How Advising Shapes An Institutional Culture, Jacquelyn Jones, Melissa Welker, Jonikka Charlton, Janna Arney

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications

Although we know advising can be conceptualized as a critical component of an integrated and comprehensive student success strategy on a campus, it is often difficult to implement. This chapter will provide a case study of the development and execution of a leadership initiative at an American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) institution to transform advising in service of the goals of student equity and success. The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley's advising model grew out of a convergence of a handful of key momentum points including strategic planning processes and the use of emerging data surrounding …

Formations Of The Mayan Diaspora In Guatemala And The Us: Land, Migration, And Linguistic Ideologies As The Markers Of Diasporic Separation., Daniel Antipov

Theses and Dissertations

This work examines the phenomenon of diaspora formation among the indigenous Guatemalan population as a major identity marker in the new Guatemalan immigrants in the US. This work provides: definition of diaspora, its historical frames, juxtaposition of the self and the Other, and separation and differentiation of the indigenous languages

Phonological Processing Of Stress By Native English Speakers Learning Spanish As A Second Language, Ramsés Ortín, Miquel Simonet

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications

One feature of Spanish that presents some difficulties to second language (L2) learners whose first language (L1) is English concerns lexical stress. This study explores one aspect of the obstacle these learners face, weak phonological processing routines concerning stress inherited from their native language. Participants were L1 English L2 learners of Spanish. The experiment was a sequence-recall task with auditory stimuli minimally contrasting in stress (target) or segmental composition (baseline). The results suggest that learners are more likely to accurately recall sequences with stimuli contrasting in segmental composition than stress, suggesting reduced phonological processing of stress relative to a processing …