Spanish (SPAN)

Audio-lingual orientation.

History, development, and linguistic description of Old Spanish and related Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula.

This course offers foundations of generative syntax. It addresses the advantage of a scientific model to explain human knowledge of language that also makes predictions about its representation in the mind.

This course covers foundations of functional syntax. It addresses the advantages of a scientific approach to explain human knowledge of language that makes predictions about its representation in the mind.

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Analysis of research on the acquisition of syntax, phonology, lexicon, discourse. SPAN 513 Acquisition of Spanish as a Second Language (3) An in-depth analysis of current research carried out on the acquisition of Spanish as a second language. Focus will be on syntax, phonology, lexicon, discourse, and pragmatics. Specific topics covered include the following: null-subjects, clicits; movement and word order, tense and aspect, mood, agreement features, grammaticalization, modality, negation, functional categories, tutored vs. untutored learners, UG vs. non-UG effects, the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy, markedness, cohesive devices, speech acts, metaphors, idioms, the lexicon and culture, the phonological systems, including suprasegmentals.In addition to developing an understanding of the current research on the acquisition of Spanish as a second language, students will learn how to read the research literature from a critical perspective and how to read empirical data presented in published research that might result in alternative interpretations from those espoused by authors of published work. This goal will be achieved in two ways: requiring students to submit via e-mail to the professor and other students in the seminar two- to three-page critiques of assigned readings; and oral presentations in class of readings selected by the student(s). Some of the critical reports and presentations will be carried out jointly, and others will be done individually.Students will also learn how to design and implement empirical research on the acquisition of Spanish as well as how to write up the results of this research in a potentially publishable research report.Finally, they will have the opportunity to present their research findings to the Penn State applied linguistics community, in a mini in-house workshop at the end of the course. In preparation for this, time will be set aside near the end of the seminar for students to present and discuss their research with their colleagues in the course.Most of the readings for the course will be preselected by the professor; however, students will also be expected to carry out independent reading of publications not included in the course syllabus and present and critique what they read in the seminar.

Early fragmentation among the peninsular dialects; their status today, Judeo- Spanish; descriptive analysis of modern Spanish American dialects.

Our primary goal in this course is to explore how to analyze and interpret quantitative data in language science. Part of this goal will be to gain familiarity and proficiency with a range of quantitative techniques common in language science. Reflecting trends in the field, linear and logistic mixed effects regression will be a major focus in addition to more well-known (e.g. ANOVA, multiple regression, chi-square) techniques. We will also spend some time exploring other methods such as multidimensional scaling, generalized additive modeling, and conditional inference trees, as well as more specialized techniques (e.g. drift-diffusion modeling). A more important goal is to learn to think critically about quantitative data and how we can learn from it. This includes a critical view of quantitative research in general, questions of measurement, the many decisions involved in analytic strategy, model structure and interpretation, and the ability to extend students' knowledge to new techniques independently.

Prose and poetry of major authors: works and trends of the late Golden Age and Baroque period.

Major works of Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Calderon, and others.

This seminar will examine the cinematic imagination of Spain's most internationally celebrated filmmaker, Pedro Almodóvar. Topics to be considered will include Almodóvar's lensing of gender politics, sexuality, multiculturalism, and national identity in post-dictatorial Spain; his nimble negotiation of the local and the global; his taste for cinephilic self-referentiality and hybridity of genre; and a distinctive tendency toward thematic idiosyncrasy all of which are signature features of his postmodern 'brand.' Significant attention will be devoted to approaches and trends within the vast corpus of scholarly criticism dealing with the filmmaker's oeuvre, and our engagement with film theory will arise organically out of the references from these texts. Some basic tools, techniques, and language of film analysis will be considered, as will a general understanding of field-specific norms of film studies as practiced in North American and U.K. Hispanism.

Various currents in Spanish poetry from the generation of 1927: Lorca, Aleixandre, Salinas, Guillen, Alonso, Alberti, Hernandez, Otero, and others.

Content varies; selected topics from colonial period, romanticism, and the nineteenth century before modernism.

A foundation in the field and strategies for teaching Latina/o Studies to undergraduates. This course provides a foundation in U.S. Latina/o Studies Literature and its contexts, with two separate but related goals. The first is to get a grasp on the U.S. Latina/o Studies canon that integrates humanities and social science approaches in order to analyze critical historical contexts that have shaped the emergence and evolution of the field of Latina/o Studies in U.S. higher education and academia, such as early colonial enterprises in the South and the Southwest, Spanish and U.S. imperialism, the Chicano and Young Lords movements during the 1960s, immigration patterns from the Caribbean and Latin America, government policies towards Latinos, contemporary rural and urban movements, etc. The second goal is to explore systematically pedagogical theories and practices in Latina/o Studies and critical race scholarship more broadly, in order for students to become conversant in the theoretical debates that underlie the design of curriculum and classroom practice in Latina/o Studies at the undergraduate level. The course will incorporate some of the major lines of research in Latina/o Studies from different disciplines (such as History, Anthropology, Ethnic Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Linguistics) in order to address some of their most relevant discussions, internal critical debates, and major schools of thought. Students will also engage with other forms of cultural production, including visual culture, theater and performance, and music, among others. The seminar will provide graduate students a solid foundation in the development of a very timely and marketable research and teaching minor.

This course provides a broad exploration of translation in the Americas. In particular, it investigates the politics, practices, and theories of translation in Latin America and the United States from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century, which allows for a comparative mode of reading across and between borders of language, nation, and region. The following questions will guide our readings and discussions over the course of the semester: How does translation unfold as a metaphor, a linguistic act, and a cultural experience in the Americas? To what extent do processes of translation inform the exchanges of languages, peoples, and cultures within and between nations in this region? The class examines the role of canonical Latin American writers as translators and scholars in order to underscore the centrality of translation to the production, circulation, and reception of Latin American literature. The course analyzes the contributions of Latin American writers, including José Martí, Brazilian modernists, Jorge Luis Borges, concrete poets Augusto and Haroldo de Campos, Octavio Paz, and Julio Cortázar, to discussions of translation by reading their works on translation as theory and practice alongside key essays in translation studies by, among others, Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida, Gayatri Spivak, Lawrence Venuti, and Emily Apter. It also considers the importance of translators like Gregory Rabassa, Suzanne Jill Levine, and Elizabeth Bishop in disseminating Latin American literature within the United States. Building on these insights, students will consider the recent phenomenon of Latin American literature in translation and re-translation to recognize translation as a linguistic and aesthetic challenge governed by, in part, the political and economic demands of the global, literary market.

Major theories of literary criticism applied to Hispanic literature.

Approaches to the uses and research applications of multimedia and other educational technologies applied to the teaching of foreign languages. (also crosslisted with SPAN 589)

CREATIVE PROJECTS, INCLUDING NONTHESIS RESEARCH, WHICH ARE SUPERVISED ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS AND WHICH FALL OUTSIDE THE SCOPE OF FORMAL COURSES.

Formal courses given on a topical or special interest subject which may be offered infrequently.

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Supervised experience in teaching and orientation to other selected aspects of the profession at The Pennsylvania State University.

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