Traditionally, pragmatic aspects of the Spanish language are overlooked in the communicative classroom. Pragmatic competence is important because it may ultimately determine whether a successful communicative interaction takes place. Successful communication in language learning must not only address linguistic forms but also acknowledge language as a reflection of the socio-cultural norms of the L2 community. The research questions of this thesis explore the aspects of experience and instruction and their degree of influence as they relate to the development of pragmatic competence. This thesis reports on the results of a pedagogically-based, empirical study in which the researcher investigated the extent to which course level, study abroad, and pedagogical intervention facilitate the development of pragmatic competence of L2 learners when making a request in Spanish. Two main aspects of politeness, pronominal address forms and verbal forms, were examined to measure the learners level of pragmatic competence. Whether responses were pragmatically-appropriate were based on the responses of native speakers of Spanish. The results of this study reveal that learners who have more experience or exposure to the language, or explicit classroom instruction do not necessarily possess a higher degree of pragmatic competence than those who have not. These findings suggest that perhaps grammatical competence and pragmatic competence may develop separately and at differing rates. Further research and attention to the various factors surrounding pragmatic competence is necessary in the language educators goal to aid the student towards acquisition of overall communicative competence.

Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala finished his chronicle, El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno, in 1615 for King Felipe III as a handbook for improving the Spanish colonial system, although it was not published until 1936 when it was rediscovered in Copenhagen. Despite the fact that the king did not publish it, the manuscript serves as an important part of colonial-period indigenous literature. In his chronicle, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala effectively creates an image of himself as an acculturated Andean who defends the civil authority of the king of Spain and the religious authority of the Catholic Church. However, deeper analysis reveals that this image of the chronicler is but one of many techniques which he used to disguise his true goals: the subversion of the total civil and religious power of the Spanish colonial administration and the creation of a semiautonomous Andean state. The author reveals these goals through his use of various literary and artistic techniques, including the nearly 400 drawings he incorporated into his chronicle and his manipulation of many of the most widespread arguments of the colonial period.

Traditionally, women have been relegated to the margins of society, history, and culture in male-dominated environments. Patriarchal systems have long denied women to play an appropriate role in nation building and to enter the public sphere, as is the case in Mexico. The female participation during one of the countrys most critical periods, the Mexican Revolution, has largely been ignored. Through situating their narratives into the context of the Revolution and describing the obstacles and limiting conditions that women experience, Mexican writers such as Elena Poniatowska and Laura Esquivel criticize the status quo of social and gender politics in Mexico and attempt to re-inscribe the female experience into the nations history. In this thesis, I use Alison Stones approach of feminist genealogy to examine womens resistance in Hasta no verte Jesús mío by Elena Poniatowska and Como agua para chocolate by Laura Esquivel. For this purpose, I examine the specific representations of feminine identity and analyze the similarities and differences between the women writers and protagonists modes of resistance both on intra- and extra-textual levels while taking into account the different contexts and settings in which female resistance against patriarchal oppression occurs. The investigation reveals the various overlaps of the resistance strategies that the women apply regardless of time and place. Furthermore, understanding their resistance in a genealogical context allows them to establish connections with each other in order to provide mutual support in a patriarchal environment. The analysis also shows that the feminist genealogical approach is useful for women in Mexico and Latin America in general as it helps them to perceive themselves as a coalitional group despite any social, cultural, and political differences and is therefore a constructive way of putting forth the womens movement in the region.

This thesis presents an investigation of the attitudes upheld by a diverse group of informants towards the word Spanglish and the combination of Spanish and English in speech. A comparison is made of positive and negative attitudes regarding these two concepts along with an analysis of factors that condition these attitudes. The opinions of code mixing examined in this study were obtained through a survey, which was distributed to a group of 183 participants including bilingual speakers of Spanish and English (categorized by their native language) and monolingual English speakers. Through the employ of the statistical program, Goldvarb, five independent variables were found to have statistical significance with respect to the dependent variable, which is the overall opinion of the participant toward code mixing. It was found that the participants native language influences the attitudes they maintain toward the combination of English and Spanish, with native Spanish speakers less apt to offer a positive opinion of language mixing. Also, both the monolingual English participants and bilingual participants who grew up speaking Spanish and English exhibit particularities in their attitudes that merit future study. The sex of the participant also seems to influence language attitudes as evidenced by the statistical significance given to the linguistic inventory of one´s mother and by the divergent tendencies observed in the opinions of the men and women surveyed in the study. En general, the participants demonstrate an understanding of language contact and bilingualism and seem to recognize that in these situations the combination of two or more languages is expected rather than deviant behavior. Likewise, the term Spanglish is deemed appropriate for describing the combination of Spanish and English linguistic elements. However, the majority in this investigation does not acknowledge that Spanglish constitutes a language in itself. Overall, this investigation presents an innovation to the field of sociolinguistics, as the attitudes under study have never been examined quantitatively nor on the level at which they are explored in this thesis.

This thesis presents an investigation into the various cultural and societal factors that contribute to the Latina teen pregnancy rate. According to the PEW Hispanic Center, Latinas account for more instances of adolescent motherhood than any other ethnic or ethnic demographic in the country. Although much research has been done in the area of teen pregnancy, so far little has been completed with the specified focus on the Latina population. This study therefore offers a unique perspective of the phenomenon in its consideration of various literary and sociological works, by both Latina and non-Latina authors, that underscore the prevalence of cultural expectations and ideologies behind the notions of femininity, virginity, and motherhood. Each of these cultural precepts is so deeply embedded in the Latino community (and influential over the teen pregnancy rate) that each merits its own designated chapter. The fourth chapter explores the actual manifestation of Latino norms in the United States framework as Latinas, being feminine and part of an ethnic minority, encounter significant generational, cultural, and linguistic struggles in the nebulous borderlands of el entre (in-between). The subsequent chapter analyzes the pivotal role that the U.S. society has on the lives of these young ladies as many are confronted by profound educational and economic limitations. Results from the conducted qualitative research, either through questionnaires or personal interviews with young Latinas, will be incorporated throughout these five chapters when relevant. The Latino cultural expectations of femininity, virginity, and motherhood will be increasingly powerful when simultaneously considered with the dearth of opportunities available to many Latinas in the U.S. Understandably, the appeal of young motherhood becomes inversely related to their probability of attaining financial independence and educational success. Lastly, an exploration of the overall conclusions and suggestions for increasing the multiplicity of options for current and future Latinas in the U.S. will constitute the final chapter.

The primary goal of this thesis is to investigate the way in which learners interact when asked to work together to write and revise a composition in an online environment. Specifically, the first research question explores the working styles of learners in the context of a wiki. It seeks to determine whether the various dyads work collaboratively or cooperatively to write and revise a composition in Spanish. The second research question deals with the type and degree of politeness that students express towards each other when working together to write and revise their composition. Specifically, it investigates the nature of politeness displayed by the dyads who worked collaboratively when compared to those who worked cooperatively. The interactions/written discourse displayed in the chat logs of each dyad is analyzed to understand how varying degrees of politeness characterized each dyads working style. The third research question explored how students interpreted and incorporated instructor feedback that was given to them in the wiki on their first draft of the composition. The scores that each composition received were used to determine which type of group work improved more. Chat logs and interview transcripts were analyzed to answer this question. The results of the study indicate that the majority of students/dyads in this study tended to work collaboratively, meaning they truly worked together to write and revise all parts of their composition to achieve the goal of the project vs. those groups who divided the writing and revision tasks and worked on the compositions in a more individualized manner. It was found that collaborative groups improved more in their compositions. The politeness strategies that collaborative groups used more were those of Strategy 1 (attending to the addressee) and Strategy 10 (offering) as described in Brown and Levinson (1987).

Lesbian visibility and representation has been and continues to be marked from a patriarchal perspective, governed by heteronormativity. Heterosexuality and man have and continue to be points from which lesbians are defined. The lesbian has come to form part of a heteronormative sexual sequence in society, what Annamarie Jagose refers to as sequencing. This sequence has placed the lesbian in a latter position of inferiority that depends on heterosexuality and/or man. Because of this reason, it has not been possible to reach a good representation of the lesbian. In order to obtain a better representation of the lesbian she must be defined in her own terms and in relation to other lesbian women. Jagose suggests inverting sexual norms and positioning lesbianism as the preferred sexuality to see how the lesbian is oppressed and subjugated by heteronormativity. The trilogy by Lola Van Guardia (Con pedigree, Plumas de doble filo, La mansión de las tríbadas) is able to capture a society in which every person is a lesbian or has the potential to be one. Keeping in mind the sexual sequence that Jagose presents, Van Guardias world manages to break these chains of a false lesbian representation to create a new and better representation by positioning the lesbian as the subject and normalizing her sexuality through various inversions. Van Guardia does this by presenting a plethora of lesbians, all three-dimensional characters that are relatable. The inversion of certain linguistic norms of the Spanish language and social situations established by a heteronormative and patriarchal society are also highlighted by using the generic in feminine and not the masculine as Spanish prescribes. With her trilogy, Van Guardia is able to create a discourse that is separate from the heteronormative society by focusing on the lesbian, on how she is and what matters to her. The Van Guardia trilogy is able to not only show how the lesbian is subjugated and controlled in society, but with the focus on only lesbian characters she is able to create a representation of the lesbian that is more complete and faithful.

Each body has certain cultural values attached to it regarding the way in which it should perform in public. The body is marked by dichotomous thinking (masculine/feminine, healthy/sick, sacred/degraded, artistic/pornographic, etc.) that dictates its presentation in visual culture. In Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism, Elizabeth Grosz states the importance of non-dichotomous thinking for feminist and gender studies scholars and gives guidelines to deconstruct these hegemonic dualities. The purpose of this thesis is to show how the eroticization of the body of Other, in accordance with Groszs guidelines, can be useful in upsetting taken-for-granted social roles thus leading to non-dichotomous thinking of the body. The non-ideal but erotic/eroticized body cannot faithfully or consistently adhere to either the positive or negative side of the dichotomy since the two sides are both explicitly presented and contested concurrently. A (strategic) sexualization of the body of Other troubles both cultural and natural notions of what the body should be. The body of Other refers to any body that transgresses the contemporary views of a positive body image (healthy, whole, beautiful, youthful, etc.); and the sexualized Other refers to that transgressive body that takes on a contemporary meaning of what is thought to be erotic or sexual. This thesis explores 6 photographs from contemporary Argentine photographers, Gabriela Liffschitz and María Zorzon and attempts to reveal conflicts about the dominant class thinking of the body and the injurious consequences of its implementation into popular visual culture. In this case the sexualized Others are simultaneously sacred and degraded (for various social reasons): the mothers body, the tattooed body, and the sick body. These bodies in some way all exhibit the qualities that Grosz enumerates and effectively defeat notions of nature/culture, active/passive, etc. to create distinct sexual bodies that do not depend on the pre-established norms of order and purity to be considered legitimate.

This thesis explores the influence of socio-religious factors in semantic interpretation. The principal objective of the investigation is to determine the level of that religious influence and make a call for the inclusion of socio-religious factors in all sociolinguistic semantic studies. The religious community of practice analyzed for this study was the Church of Christ. Its status as a community of practice is confirmed through the results of surveys and interviews, which fulfill the requirements promulgated by Lave & Wegner (1991). Participants inside and outside the community of practice, residing in three distinct cities were included: Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Houston, Texas; and Caracas Venezuela. The 151 participants responded to a survey that presented them with 21 linguistic variables which had multiple possible definitions. Besides the religious constraints included, other social variables normally included in other studies of this nature were included, such as sex, age, education level, etc. Through the use of the statistical analysis program, Goldvarb, it was determined that the version of the Bible the participant prefers to read was the constraint most determinant for the most popular definition in 17 of the 21 lexical variables presented in the survey (81%). Also, eight individuals participated in interviews that revealed their religious cultural identity and cultural standing through the use of pronouns. The cultural standing most shared was that of the authority of the Bible. Additionally, it was found that the versions of the Bible reflect greater linguistic evolution than secular dictionaries of the same diachronic years. As such, this semantic evolution, together with the results of the analysis of the surveys and interviews, affirm the influence of religion in semantic interpretation and that socio-religious variables should be included in future sociolinguistic studies.

This study, set in an urban, predominantly Latino high school, addresses a situation of dialect contact between speakers of Puerto Rican and Mexican Spanish. Given the characteristics of this specific research context, existing models of dialect contact would have predicted the development of a linguistic phenomenon known as koineization. This study finds that, contrary to these models, koineization is not taking place in this high school and that instead, the two dialects are remaining distinct. In this dissertation, I will first describe the unexpected social and linguistic situation found at this school. It will be shown that ethnic identity is a very salient social category, and that the cross-ethnic interaction necessary for koineization is not occurring. A linguistic analysis confirms that the two Spanish dialects are indeed remaining distinct. This dissertation proceeds to demonstrate that various social factors are extremely important to the dialect contact situation under study. Specifically, questions of ethnic identity and an ideology of essentialized difference are shown to have a powerful impact on interaction, language choice, and ultimately, koineization. It will also be seen that the uniqueness of this contexttwo dialects of a minority language alongside another, dominant language, Englishalso impacts the question of koineization. Thus, this study affords us new insights into the topic of dialect contact, and emphasizes the consideration that should be given to numerous social factors in any model of koineization. Methods of data collection in this study included semi-structured interviews and participant observation. Numerous rounds of interviews were conducted with progressively smaller groups of participants. The last phase of fieldwork consisted of a focus on twelve key participants who were representative of ethnicity, sex, and the social networks present in the school. In a fashion similar to Bailey (2002), one day was spent with each of these key participants while they carried a mini-disc recorder. The purpose of this data collection method was to obtain more insights into the natural language and interactional behavior of these key participants. Methods of data analysis were varied and included a social network analysis, a quantitative analysis of linguistic data, and discourse analysis.