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SPAN 7306: Spanish in the United States: Welcome

Presents a sociolinguistic approach to the Spanish spoken in the U.S: the different varieties of Spanish the consequences of interlanguage contact ; relevant historical, social, cultural, and political factors.

Fall 2013

Professor: Dr. Inmaculada Gómez Soler
E-mail: igsoler@memphis.edu
Office: Jones Hall 201G  
Office hours: M-W 3-4 or by appointment

Class: W 4-7Jones Hall 237  

Course Requirements

  • Participation and preparation
  • Exams (3)
  • Group presentation (dialects)
  • Mini-presentation (media)
  • Final group project: Spanish in Memphis (see eCourseware)
    • If you will work with human subjects, see the University of Memphis Institutional Review Board for forms and instructions: http://www.memphis.edu/irb/
  • Final group presentation

Your presentations and project will require research using recent, relevant secondary sources as well as data (your primary source).

General Resources

  • What is Sociolinguistics?
    • From the North Carolina Language and Life Project (there are links to other resources on this page):
      • What is sociolinguistics?
      • Sociolinguistics is the study of language in its social context. The term can encompass a wide range of research questions and pursuits within linguistics. From descriptive studies of dialects, to investigations of language variation and change, to analyses of the roles that language, or even particular linguistic features, play in the construction of individual or group identities, these sorts of studies are all sociolinguistic, although they may involve different theoretical assumptions and methodological practices. Nonetheless, regardless of specific approach, they're all similar in that they all base their research and findings on empirical data, which is obtained through sociolinguistic fieldwork.
    • Revista Virtual de Estudos da Linguagem - ReVEL, number on sociolinguistics 5(9) (2007) (articles primarily in Portuguese, with some in Spanish and English), which contains an interview with William Labov (in Portuguese, English, and Spanish): http://www.revel.inf.br/pt/edicoes/?id=9
    • "Sociolinguistics" / Walt Wolfram, from the Linguistic Society of America: http://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/sociolinguistics
  • Cognate Fields
    • pragmatics
    • linguistic anthropology

Subject Guide

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Joel Roberts
Contact:
(901) 678-4412