Introduces students to the study of linguistic variation in
Spanish. Among the topics to be covered are geographic,
social, and linguistic factors in language variation and
dialectology. Students will analyze specific cases of variation
in present-day Spanish dialects in Latin America, Spain, and
the United States.
Athena Title
Spanish Dialects
Prerequisite
SPAN(LING) 3050 or SPAN(LING) 3050E
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student learning Outcomes
Students will recognize the principal dialect zones of the Spanish-speaking world and the linguistic traits that characterize them.
Students will understand foundational concepts of why and how language use varies--between social groups within a society, between regions, and within individual speakers.
Students will learn appropriate qualitative and quantitative methods of sociolinguistic analysis and use them to analyze real-world speech data.
Students will organize and categorize linguistic data to compare linguistic features and patterns of variation across varieties of Spanish.
Students will learn the social dimensions along which language varies, including demographic characteristics (speaker age, gender, socioeconomic status (SES), etc.) and region.
Students will understand how speakers use linguistic variation as a social resource of identity marking.
Students will analyze linguistic attitudes and how they reflect and perpetuate existing social biases.
Students will compare how official linguistic policy affects the vitality of a language, often reinforcing the existing social hierarchy and limiting users of non-majority languages.
Students will understand how different societal structures give rise to various types of multilingualism and how multilingual societies function.
Topical Outline
I. Introduction to Language Variation and Dialectology
II. Dialectology and variationist sociolinguistics
III. Dialect areas of the Spanish-speaking World: Spain
IV. Dialect areas of the Spanish-speaking World: Latin America
V. Introduction to the study of language variation: Methodologies
VI. Issues in language variation: Phonology and Phonetics
VII. Issues in language variation: Syntax, Morphology, and Lexicon
VIII. Variation and Social Factors
IX. Language Contact
X. Bilingualism and Multilingualism
XI. Language Variation and Change
Institutional Competencies Learning Outcomes
Analytical Thinking
The ability to reason, interpret, analyze, and solve problems from a wide array of authentic contexts.
