The intimate relationship one develops with his or her native language is an experience which cannot be replicated through any amount of education. Diction, vocabulary, intonation and the connotations which accompany the many facets of language all develop along with us as we progress through life's experiences. Because of this deeply ingrained personal understanding, each individual's perspective towards a work of art, namely poetry, is completely unique to his or her experiences with the language in which it is written. Therefore, no amount of diligent translation can make a poem inhabit the same sentiment and effect in any language other than the one it was originally written in. This phenomenon will be explained in terms of several sonnets written by Garcilaso de la Vega. While the sonnets were originally written in Spanish, several translations into English will be explored in order to express the downfalls and limitations inherent in poetic translation.

It is imperative that educators understand the current state of heritage language education because many locations have experienced large increases in their heritage language populations in recent years. This study reports on the findings of a statewide survey of secondary Spanish teachers in Utah regarding the instruction of Spanish heritage language students. Their perspectives give insight into Spanish Heritage Language (SHL) education in both traditional Spanish foreign language and heritage language classes. The information gathered describes the availability of specialized courses, the prevalence of SHL students in Spanish classes, and these students' backgrounds. It also describes the characteristics of Spanish teachers in terms of their beliefs and attitudes related to teaching SHL students and their preparation for doing so. Other issues considered include placement, materials, creating specialized classes, instructional approaches and accommodations, areas of emphasis, and teachers' perceptions of the effectiveness of both their traditional and specialized Spanish classes in meeting SHL students' needs. Results indicate that specialized classes are not yet widely available in Utah, many teachers lack training to work with SHL students, and SHL students come from a variety of backgrounds. In traditional Spanish classes, teachers use many approaches to accommodate SHL students, and their schools have a variety of experiences in attempting to create specialized classes. Teachers of specialized Spanish classes report that their schools vary in whether or not they offer classes that are differentiated by levels, and that their classes' principal objectives typically include literacy and grammar. These teachers also typically perceive that their Spanish classes are more effective in meeting SHL students' needs than do teachers of traditional Spanish classes. In addition, this study includes many recommendations to improve Spanish heritage language instruction.

Phonetic accommodation is the process whereby speakers in an interaction modify their speech in response to their interlocutor. The social-psychological theory of Communication Accommodation Theory (Giles 1973) predicts that speakers will converge towards (become more similar to) their interlocutors in order to decrease social distance, whereas they will diverge from (become less similar to) their interlocutors to accentuate distinctiveness or show disdain. Previous studies have found that phonetic accommodation is affected by many social, situational and linguistic factors (Abrego-Collier et al. 2011; Black 2012; Babel 2009, 2010, 2012; Babel et al. 2012; Kim, Horton & Bradlow 2011; Nielsen 2011; Pardo et al. 2012). With respect to accommodation across dialects, a handful of studies have suggested that the perceptual salience of the various differences between two dialects might affect the pattern; however, these studies make conflicting predictions. Trudgill (1986) predicts that speakers will converge more towards the more salient dialectal differences, while Kim et al. (2011) and Babel (2009, 2010) suggest the opposite: that speakers will converge on the less salient differences. This thesis investigates how the perceptual salience of 6 differences between Buenos Aires Spanish and Madrid Spanish affect the pattern of phonetic accommodation in conversation. The results are considered both in terms of the magnitude of the changes that the participants make as well as the direction of the change (convergence or divergence). The results show that perceptual salience has a significant effect on the magnitude of the change, with all participants making greater changes as perceptual salience increases. On the other hand, perceptual salience was found not to have a consistent effect for all speakers on the likelihood of converging or diverging on the dialectal differences. I argue that the lack of consistent effect of salience on the direction of the change stems from individual differences in motivation to take on the opposing dialect norms and issues of personal identity, whereas the very consistent effect of salience on the magnitude of the change suggests that there is something more basic or systematic about how salience interacts with the extent to which speakers accommodate.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

This study offers an analysis of the interaction between urban spaces and bohemian literature in Madrid around 1900. I argue that bohemianism and bohemian literature are actually part of a very well structured cultural discourse--a discourse of social resistance--and must be studied as such. At the same time, the obvious urban nature of this phenomenon is a deciding aspect of it. In order to know how the bohemian discourse evolved in Madrid from 1850s to 1920s--from Realism to Modernismo--we have to study the core and reciprocal relationship between bohemianism and the city. This issue has not yet been explored within Hispanism, in spite of the fact that it provides a very useful perspective for considering the period as a synthesis of intellectual and artistic matters.In my dissertation I engage the essential aspects of bohemianism in the turn of the twentieth century Spanish literature. I focus on the characterization and use of space in the bohemian discourse of Peninsular Modernismo. My starting point is the description and characterization of such a discourse as it has been constructed, analyzing how it takes form in a variety of different kind of texts. I study the construction and evolution of its "cartographic imaginary" (David Harvey), an image of the city that bohemian literature uses to resist the bourgeois order imposed on Madrid's urban spaces and the capitalistic process that supports it. I argue that bohemianism was taken by the peninsular version of Hispanic Modernismo as its central aesthetic discourse. Consequently, and because of the subaltern and marginal nature of it, Modernismo could never position itself at the central stage of the 1900s Spanish culture.

This creative project is a textbook which has only one objective: to improve the Spanish vocabulary.The method consists of showing a group of Greek and Latin elements such as roots, prefixes and suffixes. It will be possible with this list to derive a large quantity of Spanish words and special terminology. It will be possible also to study some linguistic phenomena concerning semantic changes.The exercices are systematized in order to present words which are necessary for the students to learn. They will have to recognize these elements in different sentences and, at the same time, they will have to deduce their meaning from the context.

Phonetic accommodation is the process whereby speakers in an interaction modify their speech in response to their interlocutor. The social-psychological theory of Communication Accommodation Theory (Giles 1973) predicts that speakers will converge towards (become more similar to) their interlocutors in order to decrease social distance, whereas they will diverge from (become less similar to) their interlocutors to accentuate distinctiveness or show disdain. Previous studies have found that phonetic accommodation is affected by many social, situational and linguistic factors (Abrego-Collier et al. 2011; Black 2012; Babel 2009, 2010, 2012; Babel et al. 2012; Kim, Horton & Bradlow 2011; Nielsen 2011; Pardo et al. 2012). With respect to accommodation across dialects, a handful of studies have suggested that the perceptual salience of the various differences between two dialects might affect the pattern; however, these studies make conflicting predictions. Trudgill (1986) predicts that speakers will converge more towards the more salient dialectal differences, while Kim et al. (2011) and Babel (2009, 2010) suggest the opposite: that speakers will converge on the less salient differences. This thesis investigates how the perceptual salience of 6 differences between Buenos Aires Spanish and Madrid Spanish affect the pattern of phonetic accommodation in conversation. The results are considered both in terms of the magnitude of the changes that the participants make as well as the direction of the change (convergence or divergence). The results show that perceptual salience has a significant effect on the magnitude of the change, with all participants making greater changes as perceptual salience increases. On the other hand, perceptual salience was found not to have a consistent effect for all speakers on the likelihood of converging or diverging on the dialectal differences. I argue that the lack of consistent effect of salience on the direction of the change stems from individual differences in motivation to take on the opposing dialect norms and issues of personal identity, whereas the very consistent effect of salience on the magnitude of the change suggests that there is something more basic or systematic about how salience interacts with the extent to which speakers accommodate.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universidad de Zaragoza, 1986. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 374-386) and indexes.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 54-55).