Latin American Languages and Societies Commons^™

Clarice Lispector: From Brazil To The World, Earl Fitz

Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures

Clarice Lispector: From Brazil to the World explains why the Brazilian master was so transformative of modern Brazilian literature and why she has become such a celebrity in the world literature arena. This book also shows why Lispector is not one writer, as many think, but many writers. By offering close readings of her novels, stories, and nonfiction pieces, Earl E. Fitz shows the diverse sides of her literary world. Chapters cover Lispector’s devotion to language and its connection to identity; her political engagement; and her humor, eroticism, and struggle with the concept of God. The last chapter seeks to …

Todo Sobre América Latina, Kayla Madeline Schwartz

World Languages and Cultures

This project attempts to inform a Spanish-speaking audience about the humanities of Latin America. The format is a blog which solicits more engagement with the embedded research and written text. Colorful photos and informative videos attract the attention of a general public that may otherwise not be interested in learning extensively about history and culture. Such focus is important because Latin American past has great bearing on the lives of much of the Latinx community today—in many regions.

Specifically, this blog contains articles about history, literature, movies and shows, dance, and travelling. The audience can learn about a broad timeline …

The Nawat Language Revitalization In El Salvador And How Its Digital Activism Transcends Borders, Sergio J. Mendoza Gallardo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this research project I seek to show how digital activism for Nawat revitalization can transcend beyond the Salvadoran borders. The goal is to show how the revitalization of Nawat can have a better chance to be successful thanks to technology. Nawat is the last indigenous language in El Salvador, and its position within Salvadoran society has been uncertain for many years. Thus, I aim to show how technological efforts can help revitalize Nawat language with the efforts that are already being done. Although El Salvador has had a dark ethnic history regarding indigenous people, there are actions being taken …

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

Student Centered Language Teaching: A Focus On Student Identity, Rachel Mano

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is a compilation of essays that describe what the writer has come to see as essential topics in second language acquisition. It begins with a professional environment piece, and then a teaching philosophy statement focused on student identity and interaction in the classroom. This is followed by an essay on observations of teaching. The next two sections focus on pragmatic resistance among advanced learners and the importance of preparing learners for peer interaction. The portfolio concludes with an annotated bibliography outlining the main concepts associated with Communicative Language Teaching, a method that is commonly employed in second language …

Investigando La Creación De Un Canal De Noticias BilingüE En Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo: Un Estudio De La Representación LingüÍstica, Paige Farris Mcgill

World Languages and Cultures

The purpose of this research study is to determine if there is a desire or demand for a bilingual English-Spanish news outlet at Cal Poly. Spanish is considered the most relevant language because it is the second most frequently spoken language in the community. Results are based on analysis of data collected through an electronic survey and various interviews. Demographics of the university as well as the surrounding community are also factors to consider.

Contradictions Of Freedom In The Tempest And The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, Menaka Serres

Theses and Dissertations

In William Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1610-1611) and Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) the character negotiate contradictions of freedom: the entitlements that justify violence as well as oppression on the one hand and rights that grant access to emancipation from violence and imposition on the other.

Hallo (Que) Por Opino (Que): La Gramaticalización De La Epistemicidad Del Verbo Hallar En Un Corpus Salvadoreño, Luisa A. Valdez

Theses and Dissertations

En este estudio, tomamos una aproximación semántico-pragmática para trazar la gramaticalización de la construcción verbal hallar (que) en el discurso oral de una comunidad salvadoreña. El primer objetivo es llevar a cabo un análisis cualitativo y cuantitativo de los verbos hallar, pensar, creer, opinar, encontrar y parecer en dos corpus de habla (San Sebastián Corpus vs. Brownsville Corpus), para comparar sus funciones léxicas y epistémicas. El segundo objetivo es comparar la construcción salvadoreña hallar (que) con su análogo brasileño achar (que), para determinar el comportamiento y los diferentes canales de gramaticalización epistémica de ambas construcciones.

El …

Coarticulation In Two Fricative-Vowel Sequences Of Latin American Spanish, Jeff Renaud

Celebration of Learning

Dialectal surveys of Latin American Spanish (Perissinotto 1975, Resnick 1975) describe three main possible pronunciations for fu (fuego 'fire') and fo (foco 'focus') sequences: faithful [f], velarized [x], and bilabialized [ɸ], in order of frequency. While the velar realization has received phonetic and theoretical consideration (Lipski 1995, Mazzaro 2011), little is understood about the voiceless bilabial fricative [ɸ] in Spanish. This paper describes a three-part production study to uniformly account for the unfaithful velar and bilabial realizations.

Mazzaro (2011) explains the velar [x] variant by arguing that, given the acoustic similarity of, e.g., [fu]/[xu], listeners misperceive a speaker's …

Hocicona, Contestona, Repelona: Breaking The Silence Through Testimonio A Collection Of Prose And Poetry, Valerie Ann Leal Cerda

Theses and Dissertations

Testimonio of a first generation Mexican American navigating a duel identity, and examining the clash of two cultures and languages through personal experiences in a collection of prose and poetry.

The Importance Of Language In Cross-Cultural Interaction, Lacy Norton

Senior Honors Theses

Language and culture are connected. Because of this connection, people have a preferred language with which they have an emotional or cultural connection. In Latin American cultures, it is beneficial to speak to a person in their preferred language. Using a person’s preferred language as opposed to any other language will facilitate a deeper connection with that person, cross cultural barriers that may separate them, and be more effective when attempting to share the gospel.

The Evolution Of La Mexicana In Corridos Popular In The South Texas Borderlands (1930-2016), Gabriela Cavazos

Theses and Dissertations

Corridos have been exhibiting history for almost two hundred years. Moreover, throughout the years, corridos have been demonstrating the cultural shifts of Mexico and the South Texas Borderlands. Corridos represent the spirit of the Mexican and Mexican American culture. They are ballads written to celebrate or to be critical of the life of the protagonists through their accomplishments and actions.

Aquí Se Habla Español: Cultural Identity And Language In Post-World War Ii Puerto Rico, Joanna Marie Camacho Escobar

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The following study seeks to understand the process in which language and culture were linked together in order to institutionalize Puerto Rican cultural nationalism. In the decades after 1898, Puerto Ricans went through a U.S.-imposed process of Americanization. What the U.S. originally had in mind was that Puerto Ricans would become American colonial subjects through U.S. control over the curriculum that made English the language of instruction in public schools. With a vague explanation from the U.S. of what Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans meant to the U.S. American nation, Puerto Ricans from various backgrounds debated Americanization practices. However, after …

Critical Pedagogy And Language Acquisition: Benefiting From A Country’S Crisis To Improve Second Language Instruction, Jamile Forcelini

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

Education has the power to influence learners to either accept reality or critically deliberate and change it. Critical thinking is vital to empower learners and society as a whole to move from a practice of inertia to Freire’s practice of freedom as well as humanization. Change, however is only attainable if pursued with one of the most powerful social tools: Language; the most perceptible manifestation of culture and culture is our connection to the world, what unites us in society, identifies us communally, and serves us as guidance for civic conduct (Larson and Smalley, 1972). The present article aims to …

Ciudad Letrada Y Poder En La Novela Del Caribe Hispánico Contemporáneo: La Noche Oscura Del Nino Avilés, Bachata Del Ángel Caído Y La Cazadora De Astros, Amilkar Ernesto Caballero

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes Edgardo Rodríguez Julia’s La noche oscura del Niño Avilés, Pedro Antonio Valdez’s Bachata del ángel caído, and Zoé Valdes’s La cazadora de Astros from the perspective of the intersection between intellectuality and power. Its main thesis is that these three writers are “political” writers who postulate “possible worlds” to reconfigure the divisions of the Social world carried out by power vectors in their respective nations. These reconfigurations are based on “detour” strategies that attempt to deconstruct the canonical aesthetic forms and the discourses of truth established by those vectors. The first chapter analyzes the way the three …

Fragmentation And Multiplicity In Cuban-American Identity: In Cuba I Was A German Shepherd By Ana Menéndez And Memory Mambo By Achy Obejas, Daimys E. Garcia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Maria Lugones offers a new way of perceiving the world, which makes visible that fragmentation is not a valuable and transgressive understanding of identity, as Western philosophy and some political theory suggests. What Lugones believes in, as a strategy of resistance to the dominant gaze, is multiplicity – mestizaje. Using Lugones’s framework, this thesis will look at the different aspects of Cuban-American characters in In Cuba I was a German Shepherd by Ana Menéndez and Memory Mambo by Achy Obejas. Each novel offers insight into how characters develop and understand themselves (and others) when they use language that shows that …

Añoranza, Victor H. Tijerina

Theses and Dissertations

El objetivo del presente trabajo constituye esta compilación de cuarenta y ocho poemas, la cual lleva por nombre Añoranza, tiene como uno de los principales objetivos invitar al lector a introducirse a la lectura y hacerlo partícipe de ella, y con ello acercar al individuo con los diferentes sujetos, y los cuadros de imágenes que aparecen a lo largo de la colección. Se indicaran algunas influencias de algunos poetas vanguardistas que repercutieron ciertamente en el desarrollo de los poemas. Para contrastar, se presenta la filosofía platónica sobre lo que el filósofo griego considera buena y mala poesía. Del Quijotes resaltan …

La Traducción E Interpretación Como Trasfondo Y Consecuencia En Los Personajes De La Novela "Malinche" De Laura Esquivel, Blanca Jaimes-Luna

Theses and Dissertations

En esta tesis muestro el trasfondo y consecuencia de la función de los intérpretes como mediadores lingüísticos y culturales dentro de la novela histórica Malinche de Laura Esquivel (México, 1950). Se estudia la novela como texto histórico, enfatizando el papel del intérprete como mediador cultural y lingüístico. El apoyo crítico y teórico se fundamenta en Perea, Glantz, Goetz y Baudot, primordialmente. El primer capítulo estudia la función mediadora del intérprete y su función lingüística. El segundo capítulo analiza la empresa española y la conquista de México, destacándose el papel de intérprete que Malinalli- Malinche desempeñó para ellos. El tercer capítulo …

La Incorporación De Los Elementos Del Latín Y Griego En La Enseñanza Del Español En Las Ciencias Médicas: Un Plan Metodológico Experimental [The Incorporation Of Latin And Greek Elements In The Teaching Of Spanish In Medical Sciences: An Experimental Methodological Plan], Jesus Ramos

Theses and Dissertations

The use of greco-latin etymologies in teaching Spanish medical terminology. An experimental methodological approach bases on grammar, history of medicine, physiological concepts. The exploration of the diverse prefixes and suffixes forming medical scientific terminology in medical specialties, the use of words and its context in medicine and related sciences.

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El uso de etimologías grecolatinas en la enseñanza de la terminología médica española. Un enfoque metodológico experimental basado en la gramática, la historia de la medicina, conceptos fisiológicos. La exploración de los diversos prefijos y sufijos que forman la terminología científica médica en las especialidades médicas, el uso de las …

La Expresión Y Posición De Los Clíticos En El Español L2 De Hablantes Nativos Del Portugués Brasileño En El Sur De Texas, Mark A. Cisneros

Theses and Dissertations

A pesar de tener sistemas clíticos parecidos, los clíticos del español y del portugués brasileño se presentan y se usan de maneras diferentes y distintas. Este trabajo de investigación analiza la expresión y posición de los clíticos (i.e. los acusativos, dativos, y en perífrasis verbales) en el español L2 de hablantes nativos del portugués brasileño. Los participantes de esta investigación viven en el sur de Texas y tienen diferentes experiencias con el español. Este trabajo de investigación variacionista analiza la relación entre ciertos factores externos e internos con las ocurrencias, o casos, de objeto nulo en la L2 de nueve …

Lengua Latina: Representations Of Sex And Gender In Latina Literature, Jessica L. Harris

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

An exploration of the influence of Spanish language on gender, sexuality, and sisterhood in various aspects of Latina/o literature. In Chapter I, I examine Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s film, Chicana playwright Josefina Lopez's Real Women Have Curves, and Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera as a tool for analyzing conceptions of “Other” and the ways these issues intersect with one another. In Chapter II, I look at La Virgen and La Malinche dichotomy and the ways stereotypes appear in Latina poetry. In Chapter III, I discuss hermanas and comadres and their importance outside the intimacy of romantic relationships. Throughout this project, I …

Narrativizing Pain: Reconstructing Selfhood Through Memory And Language, Erin Joy Carden

Senior Projects Spring 2016

The three female authors I study for this paper- Alicia Kozameh, Alicia Partnoy, and Nora Strejilevich- are all survivors of the Argentinean military Junta’s state-inflicted terror and who have written, with great beauty, about the horrors they experienced as political prisoners during the Dirty War. Through the written word these survivors gain the power to reclaim their human dignity and a sense of distinctive selfhood which were severely damaged through trauma and torture. Through analyzing four works: Steps Under Water(1996) by Alicia Kozameh, The Little School(1986) and Revenge of the Apple(1999) by Alicia Partnoy, and A Single …

La Evolución Del Personaje Femenino Y Su Transformación Político-Social En La Obra De Julia Álvarez "En El Tiempo De Las Mariposas", Lorena M. Villarreal

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

En esta investigación, se analizara la evolución del personaje femenino y su transformación político-social en la obra literaria de Julia Álvarez, En el tiempo de las Mariposas. Se analizará el rol social pasivo del personaje femenino y su transición al rol político social activo. La novela histórica se basa en la historia de la República Dominicana “Las hermanas Mirabal” consideradas iconos nacionales, por lo tanto se tomará en cuenta el aspecto histórico. Me basaré en la teoría crítica de la Estilística y estudios de Avelina Aguilar, Willie Muñoz y Julia Álvarez, así como mi propia aportación. Me apoyaré también en …

Language Attitudes, Ideologies, Maintenance, And Spanish Heritage Learners In The South Texas Border, Hyanghee Lee

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Unlike the situations in Europe or Canada, the power of language exercised by the speakers in the U.S.A is centered on English. Considering the general perception of a language as an index of an ethnic identity, this circumstance clearly reflects a linguistic inequality in the multiethnic U.S. society. The primary objective of this study is to examine the language ideologies and attitudes that the Spanish Heritage Learners in South Texas adapt and exercise in their daily activities. This investigation also attempts to analyze the correlations between language attitudes and the intergenerational transmission of Spanish, which would significantly impact the maintenance …

Los Años Sin Causa, Victor Adolfo Menco Haeckermann

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

La presente tesis es un trabajo de escritura creativa. Esta novela corta narra la historia de un adolescente de quince años que comete el error de poner dinamita por diversión en su colegio, lo cual le acarrea la consecuencia de ser recluido en una correccional de menores. Allí descubre que la amistad es totalmente diferente a la experimentada afuera, llena de traiciones y mandos de los más fuertes, incluyendo las directivas corruptas del centro de reclusión. El género en el que se inscribe es la novela de aprendizaje, con algunas relaciones con la novela negra, y los temas centrales son …

A Través De La Neblina, Monica Alvarez Suarez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

La presente tesis es una obra de creación literaria que presenta un viaje a través del tiempo y el espacio donde la protagonista busca “re-encontrar” su identidad, a la vez que va rescatando la memoria colectiva del pueblo donde se encuentra la hacienda de la familia. La novela pertenece al género de la novela femenina presentando elementos de testimonio, y cuenta con una riqueza cultural que aparece en el trasfondo histórico de la novela. De la misma manera, la tradición oral se convierte en parte fundamental de la novela ya que es la que nos presenta las historias, creencias y …

Mímesis, Ficción Y Ética: El Dinero En Los Cuentos De Julio Ramón Ribeyro, Karen Garcia Escorcia

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

La presente investigación analiza la función del dinero en los cuentos de Julio Ramón Ribeyro utilizando la teoría del realismo de Darío Villanueva, la teoría de la dependencia de acuerdo a Grosfoguel y conceptos económicos de la filosofía de Karl Marx y Michael Sandel. Se argumenta que el dinero mantiene tres funciones principales. A través de éste, la realidad social y económica del siglo XX del Perú es reflejada. Asimismo, se intenta demostrar que funciona también como un recurso meramente narrativo para causar la ficción misma del cuento. Finalmente, se analizan los efectos que el dinero ocasiona en los personajes …

Posmodernismo E Identidad En La Narrativa De Juan Villoro, Jonathan Godinez Perez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Esta tesis representa un acercamiento crítico a la narrativa del escritor mexicano Juan Villoro (Ciudad de México 1956), en base a dos vertientes, el posmodernismo y la idea de identidad nacional. En el primer capítulo se discute el posmodernismo, sus distintas definiciones así como la posibilidad de que se pueda situar dentro de un contexto latinoamericano y mexicano al que pertenece el autor. En el segundo capítulo se desarrolla una crítica sobre el libro de cuentos Los culpables a través de la teoría del simulacro de Jean Baudrillard, y se aborda el tema de la percepción de la cultura mexicana …

El Uso Del Quechua En El Perú: Una Investigación De Identidad Y Performance Cultural, Theresa A. Renker

Honors Theses and Capstones

Utilizando varias fuentes diversas de campos de estudio diferentes, este trabajo investiga temas de autenticidad y autoridad como son relacionados a los “performances” culturales que tantas personas indígenas son forzadas dar para evitar la discriminación cultural y sobrevivir económicamente. Este proyecto se enfoca en el doble siguiente: la sociedad peruana dominante rechaza el quechua por representar atraso, mientras a la vez frecuentemente idealizándolo como reliquia del imperio inca. Generalmente quechua-hablantes del Perú no tienen el espacio ni la autoridad cultural necesarios para establecer sus propias identidades distintas. Concepciones sociales de sus culturas y formas de hablar son construidas por una …

Shiwilu (Jebero), Pilar Valenzuela, Carlos Gussenhoven

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Articles and Research

Shiwilu (a.k.a. Jebero) is a critically endangered language from Peruvian Amazonia and one of the two members of the Kawapanan linguistic family. Most of its nearly 30 remaining fluent speakers live in and around the village of Jeberos (District of Jeberos, Province of Alto Amazonas, Loreto Region), at approximately 5° S, 75° W. The documentation of Shiwilu is scarce and no survey grammar is available. Until very recently, the only trained linguist who had worked on Shiwilu was John Bendor- Samuel, who carried out fieldwork in 1955–1956 and completed a doctoral thesis in 1958 (see Bendor-Samuel 1981 [1958]). An abridged …