The introductory chapter discusses previous studies of Celestina imitations and adaptations, and the position of early Celestinesque works in Spanish literature. I then move further afield to investigate the diffusion of the Celestina in the rest of Europe, especially in England. Chapter II comments on the general influence of Spain on English literature with particular reference to the two eighteenth-century adaptations of the Celestina. Chapter III suggests some implications of the simultaneous appearance of these two adaptations. Chapters IV-VI are devoted to a closer examination of the dramatic adaptation, A Tragi-Comedy; an investigation into its sources, and the manner in which it remodels its original for the stages culminates in a discussion of the adapters' identity. Chapters VII-IX deal with The Bawd of Madrid; a biographical sketch of its author, Captain Stevens, is followed by a discussion of which version of the Celestina he used and of the sources for the description of Madrid in his first chapter. Chapter IX looks at the way he reworks the Spanish Tragi-comedia into a narrative account. I bring together in Chapter X elements from both adaptations for purposes of comparison. The final chapter shows the similarities between the fictional world of the Celestina and the environment of early eighteenth-century London, and I suggest why these English adaptations may have been particularly apposite at this time.

This thesis consists of a survey of the linguistic features of datable aljamiado manuscripts, taken as nearly as possible at twenty year intervals from 1429 to 1597, with the purpose of ascertaining to what extent Morisco writings in Arabic character shed any light on contemporary Spanish pronunciation and whether any chronology of sound-change in Castilian can be recorded from the collated evidence. The chief features examined are initial F-, the sibilants, the plosive and fricative value of d and the possibility of early instances of yeïsmo. On the whole it has been found that the Moriscos were not innovators and the language of even late sixteenth-century manuscripts still shows forms current at the beginning of the century. The thesis includes transcriptions of extracts from MSS. B.N.5319, J.1, B.N.5073/6/7/12, B.N. 4908/1, B.N. 5364, T.13, T.16, B.N.5223 and J.30. There is also a Glossary

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / This multiple case study investigated the writing behaviors and samples of Spanish-English bilingual fourth grade students in a Transitional Bilingual Education classroom in the Northeastern United States. The questions guiding the study were: For Spanish-speaking children who are acquiring English as a second language, is the writing process in English the same as the writing process in Spanish? How does oral language proficiency in English affect writing proficiency in English? How does knowledge of writing in the Spanish affect writing in English? Students wrote two personal narratives and two persuasive essays, one in each language, as well as a response to reading in both English and Spanish. The teacher researcher and two other teachers observed and audiotaped six students as they wrote their essays. Interviews with the students were conducted when the essays were completed to elicit information on writing behaviors observed as well as general information about personal writing habits. Data from the observations, audiotapes, and interviews were transcribed and coded. Individual cases were studied, then cross-case analyses were done. Results from the analyses provide evidence for the transfer theory ofbiliteracy. Participants in this study generally used similar processes and strategies when writing in both languages. Results of the written products suggest that cognitive aspects of writing also transfer from one language to the other. Differences in the degree to which students employed these strategies, however, were also found. Students had less linguistic control in English, less sophisticated vocabulary, and less grammatical accuracy. Oral code switching was frequently observed, however, written code switching was infrequent. The average scores on the written samples in both languages were below the proficient level. Findings suggest that the ability to use both languages while writing enables bilingual students to plan and compose better essays. Also, benefits of transfer will be maximized if instruction in L 1 literacy continues. Finally, explicit teaching of language-specific grammar, spelling, and punctuation rules should be conducted. / 2031-01-01

This study evaluated the efficacy of Dynamic Written Corrective Feedback (DWCF) on advanced students' writing accuracy of Spanish. This method focuses on manageable, meaningful, timely and constant feedback. Previously, DWCF was studied in the context of English as a second language. The current study investigated the efficacy of DWCF in the context of students who were enrolled in an advanced Spanish grammar class at the university level. A comparative study was conducted measuring students' writing accuracy who received the DWCF against students' writing accuracy who did not receive this feedback methodology. Results showed that there was not a significant difference in writing accuracy between these two groups of students. However, both groups improved their writing accuracy over time. This study also provided a list of the most frequent writing errors made by 28 students in an advanced Spanish class. The results show that the most frequent linguistic errors for learners of Spanish are accent marks, prepositions, gender and number, punctuation, and word choice.

Time, as the title suggests, is the main character of Tiempo diámetro. This brief and unusual phrase embodies the content of the text in an intuitive way rather than in a conceptual one. The sole word diameter brings a precise image to our mind: the circumference, the line that crosses it and, why not, even if it’s not explicitly mentioned, the dot that marks the radius. This simple yet complex image, and its ambiguous set of symbols, are a good point of reference, as I see it, to portray the various manifestations of time, which I approach as a human concept, experience and condition, and also as a linear, cyclical and static phenomenon.

So, everything finished orbiting around the concern about the gap that exists between language and things designated by it, between word and reality. Language is an imperfect resource of communication, breaking its link with the world but also needing to coexists with it. But there's also the past narrative, that determines so deeply the way we narrate us the present. History is a continuum. Writing is always a political act.

My dissertation explores how the concepts of collective memory, identity and nostalgia are defined in Cuban culture after the end of the Soviet Union, and how these definitions relate to the presence of Soviet culture in Cuban daily life during at least thirty years, from the 1960s to the 1990s. The presence of Soviet aesthetics and symbols in Cuban literature and cinema from the 1990s to onward appears not just as physical traces but also as the representation of a nostalgic space and as the allegory of an identity in transition. I argue that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a group of Cuban authors experienced a sense of nostalgia that is linked to the loss of a collective memory from the period when their nation thrived as an ideological partner of the Soviet Union. I also argue that despite the fact that the Communist Party continues to hold power, with the de-penalization of American currency, Cuba is a post-socialist country. These circumstances contributed to the emergence of an imagined Soviet-Cuban sentimental community, which despite ideological differences among its members, retains a common focal point: a generation's memories. The consumption of certain cultural products, among them cartoons, allowed the formation of a Cuban identity marked by affection towards Soviet cultural forms. Daily contact with the Soviet experience brought about an aesthetic where the use of Soviet symbols is frequent: words in Russian, music, graphic arts and other Soviet references. There are many young Cubans with Russian names; also, in the houses and on the streets there are still cars and appliances from the Soviet period. This Soviet aesthetic includes literature, cinematography, music, theatrical performances, and even online sites. The Cuban Soviet past continues in the Cuban present as one of the crucial cultural imaginaries. There is not an ideological nostalgia; nostalgia is a means for mourning the end of a world. The end of this world, finally, has allowed the birth of multiple, unstable and personal worlds, some of them related to the Soviet era in Cuba. I center my analysis on authors such as Anna Lidia Vega Serova, Jesús Díaz, Adelaida Fernández de Juan, Gleyvis Coro Montanet, Antonio José Ponte and José Manuel Prieto. In their novels and short stories we encounter traces of Soviet presence. At the same time, there has been a flourishing of documentaries after the 1990s that explore what the Soviets left behind in Cuban society after their country disappeared.

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This dissertation examines the emergence and consolidation of a textual corpus known as the sicaresca novel, a new genre that proliferated in Colombia in the 1990s. These novels emerged from the violence of the drug wars, and are named after the sicarios, young paid assassins recruited by drug traffickers. The main hypothesis claims that the sicaresca novel is a new literary genre that opens with Our Lady of the Assassins by Fernando Vallejo, and is consolidated by Morir con Papá by Óscar Collazos, Rosario Tijeras by Jorge Franco, and Sangre ajena by Arturo Alape. This work builds on discourse analysis and theorizes some of the characteristics of the sicaresca novel that create a distinctive narrative discourse, directly engaged with the political, economic, and social reality of Colombia. The first chapter is devoted to the effect of drug-trafficking on the rise of a new subculture where the sicario’s attitudes and beliefs are embedded, and relates the sicaresca to other narratives about drug-trafficking. The second chapter studies specific narrative forms in Our Lady of the Assassins that will be copied, altered or subverted by the subsequent novels, such as the use of a street vernacular known as parlache, and other devices borrowed from oral tradition. The third chapter studies fictional configurations of the sicario archetype in relation to the Bildungsroman, the sentimental novel and the picaresca novel. This section reveals how each archetype denaturalizes presumed natural concepts about the sicario figure, validated by official discourses. The fourth chapter examines the relation between the sicaresca novel and mass media. It questions the role of the cultural critic in the reception of the sicaresca novel as a whole, and analyzes how the dialogue between literary and cinematic discourse is established for Our Lady of the Assassins and Rosario Tijeras and their adaptations to film The sicaresca novel is built on the transformation of narrative devices used by testimonial writings, historical accounts and sensationalist press related to drugtrafficking and its young assassins. All the works studied represent a critique of the social, economic and cultural changes that conditioned the sicario’s appearance during the last decades.

My dissertation examines three novels by Colombian author Fernando Vallejo: La virgen de los sicarios (1994), El desbarrancadero (2001), and La rambla paralela (2002). Vallejo is considered by many to be the most controversial Latin American novelist of our time. His literary work is filled with harsh criticism towards key pillars of civilization, from religion and democracy to motherhood, making him a symbol of the "politically incorrect" in contemporary Latin American narrative. This dissertation proves that there is much more to Vallejo's work than the controversy it generates, which has been the focus of much of the literary criticism on him. I show that the discourse of Vallejo's narrator focuses on criticism and nostalgia as a way of dealing with the crisis of modernity in contemporary Colombia. This allows me to establish the origin of the author's critical view of the world in his narrative work: a deep sense of nostalgia for the values of modernity in the midst of the chaos of contemporary life in Colombia, as well as a profound feeling of frustration upon the discovery that they might have actually existed only in the realm of discourse. My research also explores the reasons behind the radical turn in the narrator's view of the world that is evidenced in Vallejo's latter works, as his disillusionment eradicates his belief in criticism and replaces it with a state of nihilism that can only lead to death. Ultimately, my dissertation establishes how Vallejo's narrative reaches its limits by destroying the very arguments on which it once relied.