Written from the twin perspectives of linguistic and cultural change, this pioneering book describes the language inherited from Latin and how it was then influenced by the Visigothic and Arabic invasions and later by contact with Old French, Old Provençal, English and, not least, with the indigenous languages of South and Central America.
Spanish Phonology offers a comprehensive analysis of a variety of crucial issues in the phonology and morphophonology of various dialects of Spanish including syllable types, syllabification algorithms, syllable repair mechanisms, syllable mergers, nasal assimilation, obstruent vocalization and spirantization, obstruent neutralization, diphthongs and hiatuses, glide formation, onset strengthening, aspiration, rhotics, velarization, plural formation, word classes, and diminutives. Written from the perspective of optimality theory and with syllabic structure at its core, this volume highlights recent advances in Spanish phonology. The book includes margin notes to highlight key points and a glossary of constraints. Each chapter includes study questions, lists of the most influential sources for each chapter, and topics for further research. Spanish Phonology is intended as core reading for advanced phonology courses in Spanish linguistics, general linguistics, and related areas such as bilingualism, language variation, language acquisition, and speech and hearing.
An introduction to bilingualism in the Spanish-speaking world, looking at topics including language contact, bilingual societies, code-switching and language choice.
Written for both researchers and advanced students, this Handbook provides a state-of-the-art survey of the field of Spanish linguistics. Balancing different theoretical perspectives among expert scholars, it provides an in-depth examination of all sub-fields of research in Hispanic linguistics, with a focus on recent advances.
Unlike most monographs on Spanish phonology and morphology that approach these topics from a structuralist or generativist framework, this volume is written from a less traditional point of view. More specifically, it emphasizes quantitative evidence from sources such as usage-based studies, psycholinguistic experiments, corpus data, and computer simulations. Arguments are presented to demonstrate that these kinds of evidence are crucial for establishing theories of language that relate to the psychological mechanisms involved in producing and comprehending speech, in contrast to theories about abstract linguistic structure. A range of topics is covered including morphological parsing, nominalization, stress, syllable structure, diphthongization, gender, morphophonemic alternations, and epenthesis. An appendix is included that serves as a primer on quantitative linguistic research. It discusses how some of the cited experiments were carried out, provides an introduction to statistical analysis, and discusses tools that are available for conducting quantitative research on the Spanish language.
This interdisciplinary volume explores the unique role of the sociohistorical factors of isolation and contact in motivating change in the varieties of Spanish worldwide. Recognizing the inherent intersectionality of social and historical factors, the book’s eight chapters investigate phenomena ranging from forms of address and personal(ized) infinitives to clitics and sibilant systems, extending from Majorca to Mexico, from Panamanian Congo speech to Afro-Andean vernaculars. The volume is particularly recommended for scholars interested in historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, history, sociology, and anthropology in the Spanish-speaking world. Additionally, it will serve as an indispensable guide to students, both at the undergraduate and graduate level, investigating sociohistorical advances in Spanish.
This book provides a comprehensive overview of Hispanic applied linguistics, allowing students to understand the field from a variety of perspectives and offering insight into the ever-growing number of professional opportunies afforded to Spanish language program graduates. The goal of this book is to re-contextualize the notion of applied linguistics as simply the application of theoretical linguistic concepts to practical settings and to consider it as its own field that addresses language-based issues and problems in a real-world context. The book is organized into five parts: 1) perspectives on learning Spanish 2) issues and environments in Spanish teaching 3) Spanish in the professions 4) the discourses of Spanish and 5) social and political contexts for Spanish. The book’s all-inclusive coverage gives students the theoretical and sociocultural context for study in Hispanic applied linguistics while offering practical information on its application in the professional sector.
This book explores the current state of Spanish sociolinguistics and its contribution to theories of language variation and change, from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. It offers original analyses on a variety of topics across a wide spectrum of linguistic subfields from different formal, experimental, and corpus-based standpoints. The volume is organized around six thematic sections: (i) Cutting-edge Methodologies in Sociolinguistics; (ii) Bilingualism; (iii) Language Acquisition; (iv) Phonological Variation; (v) Morpho-Syntactic Variation; and (vi) Lexical Variation. As a whole, this collection reflects an array of approaches and analyses that show how in its variation across speakers, speech communities, linguistic contexts, communicative situations, dialects, and time, the Spanish language provides an immense wealth of data to challenge accepted linguistic views and shape new theoretical proposals in the field of language variation and change. Spanish Language and Sociolinguistic Analysis represents a significant contribution to the growing field of Spanish sociolinguistics.
Linguistic Landscape in the Spanish-speaking World is the first book dedicated to languages in the urban space of the Spanish-speaking world filling a gap in the extensive research that highlights the richness and complexity of Spanish Linguistic Landscapes. This book provides scholars with an instrument to access a variety of studies in the field within a monolingual or multilingual setting from a theoretical, sociolinguistic and pragmatic perspective. The works contained in this volume aim to answer questions such as, how the linguistic landscape of certain territories includes new discourses that, ultimately, contribute to a fairer society; how the linguistic landscape of minority or low-income communities can enforce changes on language policy and who determines advertising planning; how these decisions are made and how these decisions affect vendors, customers, and the general public alike. All in all, this collective volume uncovers the voices of minority groups within the communities under study.
