Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons^™

Enhancing Listening And Spoken Skills In Spanish Connected Speech For Anglophones, Elena Paz Vizcaya

Doctoral

Native speech is directed towards native listeners, not designed for comprehension and analysis by language learners. Speed of delivery, or economy of effort, produces a speech signal to which the native listener can assign the correct words. There are no discrete words in the speech signal itself therefore there is often a linguistic barrier in dealing with the local spoken language.
The creation, development and application of the Dynamic Spanish Speech Corpus (DSSC) facilitated an empirically-based appreciation of speaking speed and prosody as obstacles to intelligibility for learners of Spanish. “Duologues”, natural, relaxed dialogues recorded in such a manner that …

The Making And Breaking Of A Language: The French And Spanish Effect Upon The Catalan Regional Language, Margaret Emilyn Cychosz

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Almost four hundred years ago, the French and Spanish governments divided the Catalan border regions located between their respective countries. The subsequent centuries have seen the expansion and development of the Catalan language in Spain and the demise of the Catalan language in France, where it has nearly deteriorated to disuse. Is this a reflection upon the French and Spanish culture or was it simply governmental policy? If so, what did the central governments of Madrid and Paris do in the centuries following the division that resulted in this contrasting development of Catalan? What effect did the usage of Catalan …

Sexism In Teaching Spanish: Linguistic Discrimination Is Sometimes Unconscious, Aileen Dever

Journal of Excellence in College Teaching and Learning

The Spanish language is becoming more flexible in creating feminine forms for occupational names that correspond with the already existing masculine terms. However, there has been some resistance among Spaniards with regard to using feminine forms like física to refer to a physicist who is a woman. Similarly, there have been objections to química (chemist, chemistry), música (musician, music), and others because, some say, such terms are ambiguous and confusing with regard to the professions. Do words and the way they are used significantly affect their meaning? The author discusses this question by highlighting linguistic discrimination in Spanish that is …

Sabbatical Leave Proposal And Report, Melissa Leach

Sabbaticals

I propose a renewed emphasis on my Spanish language skills -reading, writing, speaking and listening- through: 1) speaking with native speakers; 2) immersion in Spanish media -magazines, newspapers, television, movies, etc.; 3) travel to Spanish speaking countries; and 4) a journal project in my target language. These activities will refresh and improve my Spanish and give me newfound connections with the Spanish speaking world and its cultures, making me a better Spanish teacher.

El Uso De Las Funciones De Las Citas En La Estructura Retórica De Las Introducciones De Memorias De Máster Escritas En Español Por Estudiantes Nativos Españoles Y No Nativos Filipinos, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

This article analyzes the correlation between the use of functions of citations and the organizational structure of the Introduction section of a corpus of sixteen (16) master´s theses written in Spanish in the field of Applied Linguistics by native and non-native writers. The quantitative and qualitative analysis in this study arises from the model proposed by Carbonell- Olivares et al. (2009) which aims to define the organization of the Introduction section of the doctoral thesis in Spanish and the classification of the functions of citations made by Sánchez Jiménez (2011). The research results show that there is a direct relationship …

Acquisition Of The Non-Generic Definite Article By Spanish Learners Of English As A Foreign Language, Christina Isabelli, Rachel Slough

Scholarship

This study explains the acquisition of the non-generic uses of the English definite article the by L2 learners. Chilean university students completed a questionnaire containing deleted obligatory uses of the. in all, four identified categories showed to have different accuracy rates. Of the four categories, the one most similar to the L1 was the least difficult to acquire while the most different resulted as the most difficult. This concurs with other research and can be explained by L1 rules that are transferred to the L2. The other two categories did not show the same acquisition rate as compared to previous …

Observing Census Enumeration Of Non-English Speaking Households In The 2010 Census: Spanish Report, Christina Isabelli, Yuling Pan, Lubkemann Stephen

Scholarship

This study was part of an ethnographic research project in the 2010 Census Assessment and Research Program to observe the 2010 Census Nonresponse Followup interviews with households that speak a language other than English, in areas of the U.S. with heavy concentrations of residents with limited English proficiency. A multilingual research team consisting of seven sub-teams in the seven primary languages (Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese) was commissioned to carry out the research in the 2010 Census.

The objectives of this research were to identify: (1) how language and socio-cultural factors affect the enumeration of non-English-speaking populations …

How We Seem "To Be": English- And Spanish-Speaking Children's Susceptibility To The Fundamental Attribution Error And Actor-Observer Bias, Mary E. Dixon

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

La Patología Del Habla Y Lenguaje Bilingüe, Shannon Blike

World Languages and Cultures

This project will first review the history of Bilingual Speech-Language Pathology in the United States of America. Bilingual Speech-Language Pathology is important in our diverse country where 245 languages are spoken. After a general overview of the field, I will focus on the Spanish language because it is the second most spoken language in the U.S. according to the U.S. Census in 2010. Then, I will review different aspects of Spanish linguistics such as phonology, morphology, and semantics. The understanding of such terms is pertinent to the practice of Bilingual Speech-Language Pathology.

Bilingual Speech-Language Pathologists have many responsibilities because they …

Current Perspectives On Tunisian Sociolinguistics, Lotfi Sayahi

Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Scholarship

Despite its small size (63,170 sq miles) and a rather small population with a stable growth rate,2 Tunisia represents a rich sociolinguistic laboratory with a long history of bilingualism and language contact. The delicate position of Berber, the diglossic situation of Arabic and the increasing efforts for Arabization, the regional and social variation in Tunisian Arabic, the presence of French, and the gradual spread of English, among other closely-related topics, constitute the core themes of research within Tunisian sociolinguistics. Since the publication of R. M. Payne’s Language in Tunisia in 1983, no attempt has been made to reassess the situation …

Bilingual Children's Book, Lauren Beth Gagliardi

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Welcome To My House, Bienvenido a mi casa is a bilingual children’s book that defines and explores the rooms of a house. The book uses simple sentence structure and simple dialogue to engage early level Spanish and English readers. Welcome To My House, Bienvenido a mi casa introduces its intention to the reader before the story begins. On the opening pages the reader is given instructions in English and Spanish on how to read the book in order to appreciate both languages. While this message is written simply enough that a young reader could follow and understand it, the intention …

Polyphony And Performance In The Poetry Of José María Arguedas, Leslie Bayers

Academic Affairs Faculty and Staff Articles

No abstract provided.

The Aspiration Of The Spanish Grapheme ‘H’, Carolina Gonzalo-Llera

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

One aspect of Spanish pronunciation that differs from English pronunciation is the phonetic treatment of the letter ‘h’. While this grapheme corresponds to a voiceless glottal fricative [h] in English (also known as “aspirated [h]”), it has no phonetic realization in Spanish. In other words, the letter ‘h’ in Spanish is not pronounced at all or is “silent”. This difference often results in Spanish pronunciation errors by L2 learners of the language. The present study aims to deepen our understanding of the erroneous pronunciation of ‘h’ by exploring how prevalent the error really is in the speech of beginning and …

Usos De Google Docs En La Clase De Ele, Pilar Munday

Languages Faculty Publications

Presentación hecha en los I Encuentros virtuales de la Comunidad Todoele.

Variationist Approaches: External Factors Conditioning Variation In Spanish Phonology, Antonio Medina-Rivera

World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

This chapter will focus on the external factors conditioning phonological variation. I will introduce the traditional factors to analyze social variation (e.g. sex, age, social class) and stylistic variation (careful vs. casual speech), as well as other possible factors not fully explored in Spanish. These other factors are mostly inspired by Allan Bell's model of language style as audience design (1984), and Rickford and McNair-Knox's incorporation of addressee and topic of conversation as two important factors to analyze variation (1994).

Una Aproximación Teórica A La Definición Del Modo Verbal Español, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Política Del Lenguaje Y Geopolítica: España, La Rae Y La Población Latina De Estados Unidos, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

The status of Spanish in the US is discussed through a focus on the coexistence of monoglossic and heteroglossic ideologies as well as on the institutionalized discourses on Spanish in the US.

Teaching Spanish To Beginning Spanish Students, Amy Baldini

World Languages and Cultures

During my time in college and studying abroad, I have developed a passion for languages.  As a result, I plan on teaching Spanish in High School.  Therefore, my senior project will involve tutoring beginning-level Cal Poly students in Spanish and evaluating the difficulties that students encounter while learning a second language.  I will tutor for a minimum of 30 hours and complete a write-up which summarizes my experience.  In this write up, I discuss the tutoring sessions and the different obstacles and successes I encounter.  I will also discuss what tutors must consider when tutoring students.  I will outline my …

La Hispanización Y La Identidad Hispana En Filipinas, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Acquisition Of Spanish Gender Agreement In Two Learning Contexts: Study Abroad And At Home., Christina Isabelli

Scholarship

The goal of this study is to describe the acquisition rate for gender acquisition in Spanish and to show whether individual variability and language contact may affect this rate. The participants were intermediate second language Spanish (first language English) learners in the study abroad and at-home contexts over a 4-month period. The participants received grammaticality judgment tests coded for morphological class of the modified noun as well as attributive and predicative adjectives. Data were also collected on social behavior and language contact in Spanish and English in order to explain data outcome. The findings suggest that no difference exists between …

La Traducción Del Software De Mindbody Al Español, Molly Kathryn Mcfarland

World Languages and Cultures

This project entails the translation of the business management software of MINDBODY to Spanish to facilitate international communication and commerce for the company. This translation is meant to better equip MINDBODY with the tools necessary to engage in bilingual international commerce. Translation of this software demo is intended to aid the company’s Spanish speaking clientele and prospective clients by breaking down many of the language barriers they currently face with the software in English, and also to promote the recognition of the growing need for bilingualism in the rapidly changing world, both within and outside the realm of business.

The …

Anxiety De La Historia: Understanding The Roots Of Spanglish In The Texts Of Junot Díaz, Kelsey A. Shanesy

English Honors Projects

In exploring Junot Díaz’s use of Spanglish, I propose that Díaz is driven by the anxiety of history—a phenomenon similar to the anxiety of influence, as articulated by Harold Bloom, but which focuses on the role of the Latino minority in this postmodern moment. I compare Díaz’s texts to Piri Thomas’s autobiography Down These Mean Streets, one of the original texts to utilize Spanglish, and Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed, a satirical novel about minority culture. Díaz’s vision of a future, Spanglish-speaking America is revealed to be the ultimate outcome of the anxiety of history’s influence on Díaz.

Looking Back And Moving Forward: African Americans Descendants Living In The Dominican Republic, Stephanie Claytor

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

“Looking Back and Moving Forward” is a captivative short documentary that captures the essence of Samana, Dominican Republic, home to a sizeable African American population for nearly two centuries. This community, grounded in faith, has undergone many changes over the past two hundred years.

In the film, documentarian Stephanie Claytor sets out to explore these changes, such as switching the language in the schools and churches from English to Spanish, and the transformation of the economy from agriculture to tourism. She takes the story back to Philadelphia to get a grasp of the history and the reasons for why …

Se Vosea En Costa Rica, Elizabeth Horta

Pitzer Senior Theses

Something happens visiting a Spanish speaking country, where linguistic characteristics are not uniform throughout the country or region. Specifically, this research emerged from lack of knowledge of the pronoun vos, to acquire information to its introduction in the country of Costa Rica, its use, and variants, and the reasoning behind its prevalence in metropolitan regions, and certain regions around the Pitzer College Firestone Center.

Modern-Day Miracles, Jessica Lillie

Lake Union Herald

No abstract provided.

Disputas De Origen: Américo Castro Y La Institucionalización De La Filología En La Argentina, Fernando Degiovanni

Publications and Research

En este trabajo se revisa el proceso de institucionalización de la filología en la Argentina a partir del estudio de un conjunto de documentos desconocidos hasta el presente: las cartas que Américo Castro, primer director del Instituto de Filología de la Universidad de Buenos Aires, que dirigió a Ramón Menéndez Pidal y Tomás Navarro Tomás, responsables del Centro de Estudios Históricos de Madrid. El análisis de estos materiales permite demostrar que la fundación del Instituto supuso la articulación de posiciones encontradas respecto de la definición de su agenda institucional. Los discursos culturales del nacionalismo y del hispanismo, así como ciertas …

El Análisis De Errores Ortográficos De Estudiantes Filipinos En El Aprendizaje De Español Como Le Y Su Aplicación Didáctica, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

La presente investigación fue presentada en 2006 en la Universidad de Salamanca, como memoria final del Máster en Enseñanza de Español como Lengua Extranjera. Este estudio se realizó en la Universidad de Filipinas y en el Instituto Cervantes de Manila, para el que se encuestó a un total de 258 informantes. La tesis principal de la investigación partía de la hipótesis de que los errores ortográficos cometidos por los estudiantes filipinos de español eran fruto de unas dificultades específicas que no coincidían con las causas de los errores ortográficos que generan este tipo de error en los estudiantes nativos, especialmente …

La Lengua, Los Bicentenarios Y La Estrategia Del Acompañamiento, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

In this article, the connection between language policy and the bicentennial celebration of Latin American´s independence from Spain is explored.

Las Representaciones Ideológicas Del Lenguaje: Discurso Glotopolítico Y Panhispanismo, José Del Valle, Elvira Arnoux

Publications and Research

Linguistic ideologies are defined and placed in the context of glottopolitical studies (or political approaches to language). Ideological representations of Spanish in the context of MERCOSUR and the panhispanic community are discussed.

Facebook Interactions And Writing Skills Of Spanish Language Students, Windy Gonzalez Roberts

Spanish Publications

Facebook (www.facebook.com) is an online social-networking site used by many high school and college students today in their personal lives. This thesis reports on an exploratory study which investigated the possible increase in writing skills of Spanish language students from incorporating a Facebook component into an otherwise standard college course. Fourth semester college Spanish students were asked to complete weekly writing assignments in Facebook throughout the semester. Regular writing practice on varied topics in the familiar and informal environment of Facebook was expected to increase the language production and the writing skill of the students. The study had several components. …