El aumento en los cursos especializados de español de lengua heredada (LH) en los Estados Unidos (Beaudrie y Marreo-Rivera, 2024) continúa destacando la necesidad de más estudios empíricos y creación de materiales para satisfacer las necesidades y objetivos de la instrucción de los estudiantes de LH. El presente estudio investiga los efectos de la enseñanza de gramática a través de lecciones deductivas e inductivas del pretérito e imperfecto en español. Se investigan los efectos del tipo de instrucción y la modalidad (en persona o en línea) en la precisión gramatical de los alumnos en actividades controladas. El estudio incluye 3 secciones de clases intactas de español de nivel intermedio para bilingües. Se tomó en cuenta la variedad local y de bilingües para la creación de materiales y corrección de tareas utilizando un corpus del español de Arizona. Los datos de las pre y post pruebas se recolectaron a través de actividades controladas y actividades de producción escrita y oral. Todos los grupos se beneficiaron de las lecciones gramaticales, aunque los resultados no demostraron una ventaja significativa para un método, solo el tratamiento deductivo obtuvo resultados significativos en tareas específicas y retuvo ganancias significativas de pre-prueba a prueba tardía. En general, se observó un uso más balanceado del pretérito y el imperfecto de todos los grupos en la prueba de narración oral que la escrita. Esta tesis provee un modelo sobre las posibilidades de la enseñanza gramatical en la clase de LH no solo metodológicamente (el uso de instrucción gramatical deductiva e inductiva en dos modalidades) sino en la práctica y el uso de materiales auténticos representativos de la variedad dialectal de los estudiantes y sus comunidades. A pesar de la atrición de participantes, las ganancias significativas de pre-prueba a post prueba muestran las oportunidades para la variación de métodos y actividades para la clase de LH.

This study explores derogatory jokes in Venezuelan stand-up comedy sets. This research aims to determine how race is approached and talked about by Venezuelan stand-up comedians, what other types of discriminatory or phobic discourses can be found in stand-up comedy shows, and how audiences respond to race, gender, and sexuality jokes and discourses in stand-up performances. To this end, critical discourse analysis, audience reception theory, multimodal discourse analysis, and multimodal interaction analysis approaches are applied to examine videos of stand-up shows extracted from YouTube and joint interviews. Five themes were identified in the video data: Derision/Shaming, Racial Superiority/inferiority, Heteronormative and binary gender stereotyping, Rejection/appropriation of non-heteronormative, non-conforming identities, and Idealization/Condemnation of the body. Findings show that comedians rely on disparagement humor – whether they belong to the disparaged group or not – and adopt a ‘punching down’ approach, positioning marginalized and stigmatized groups as the targets of the jokes. Additionally, the interview data revealed four themes developed by participants: Knowledge of stand-up comedy and comedians, Topics in stand-up comedy, Venezuelan stand-up comedians, and Venezuelan sense of humor. Participants made use of the discursive strategies outlined by Wodak (2011) and Reisigl & Wodak (2016), with Nomination, Predication, and Perspectivization as the most dominant strategies deployed. Regarding their perception of Venezuelan stand-up shows, participants acknowledge the racist and sexist undertone of the jokes performed by comedians. However, they find these jokes harmless and unproblematic. Stances regarding the content of the jokes performed by comedians varied depending on the speaker’s age, gender, mobility, and location. Finally, speakers with a close relationship with their co-participants showed higher alignment and in-group verification-seeking. The findings of this research contribute to the understanding of Venezuelans’ perspectives of race and sexuality, the role of humor in the perpetuation and reinforcement or challenging of hegemonic ideologies of racial supremacy and heteronormativity, and how derogatory and discriminatory discourses are made acceptable through the lens of a color-blindness ideology and the cultural legacy of colonialism.

The field of Heritage Language has experienced a great deal of advancement in the past few decades. Much research effort has been dedicated to analyzing and understanding different aspects of heritage language speakers, but less work has been done in the topic of pedagogical approaches. The few recent studies on pedagogical approaches have focused on the “how” of instruction of grammatical points in the heritage language classroom but dedicated less research efforts to an overall and comprehensive approach to classroom teaching and learning at the higher education level. Heritage language learners require teaching methodologies that differ from those used with second language students given their unique characteristics and needs. Having a curriculum and class materials that align to the needs of the students is essential in aiding the development and maintenance of the heritage language of the students. This study explores whether the implementation of a Project-Based Learning (PBL) curriculum can result in measurable gains in the development of written and oral skills in intermediate Spanish heritage language students, when compared to a control group that follows a traditional non-project-based methodology. Fluency, complexity, and accuracy in the written and oral samples were analyzed through a variety of indicators. The data collection consisted of a pre, and post writing and oral sample obtained at the beginning and end of the semester. The results showed that the students in the PBL curriculum achieved greater gains in their written skills when compared to the control group but had no effect on oral skills. The PBL group made significant gains in written fluency and complexity, and moderate gains in accuracy. The control group showed moderate gains in written fluency and complexity, and no improvement in accuracy. Neither group achieved statistically significant gains in oral fluency, complexity, or accuracy after one semester of instruction. The results offer implications for the impact that a PBL curriculum can have on heritage language learner’s linguistic development.

This dissertation delves into second language acquisition, sociophonetic variation, and speech perception, investigating how prior linguistic experiences and exposure to regional variations in a second language influence the decoding of dialectal linguistic cues. It aims to enhance the understanding of words pronounced with different phones and their impact on spoken language comprehension. The study involves 108 English-speaking Spanish learners, categorized based on their exposure to Spanish regions with /s/ weakening and /s/ retention. This categorization reflects their level of language exposure and perception of regional variation, considering that around 50% of Spanish varieties exhibit /s/ weakening. The participants' exposure to /s/ weakening varies based on their backgrounds, previous exposure, study abroad experiences, and teacher origins. The study employs various experimental tasks, including a language proficiency test, a listening comprehension activity, an AX discrimination task, and a language background questionnaire. Data analysis involves logistic mixed-effects models and correlation analyses. Results show that participants exposed to conditions where /s/ changed from reduced to retained in isolated word pairs exhibited lower identification accuracy compared to consistent word pronunciations. An important finding is a significant interaction among participants with experience abroad in an /s/ weakening environment when contrasting /s/ weakening with full retention of the sibilant sound. The study also explores how learners' ability to categorize regional phonetic variants affects their listening comprehension. It reveals that accuracy in the AX discrimination task predicts their performance in listening comprehension, demonstrating that strong performance in the former translates to better comprehension. Additionally, the research examines the influence of participants' language attitudes on their task performance. In summary, this dissertation underscores the significant impact of exposure to regional language variations on individuals' identification accuracy and language processing skills, emphasizing the need to recognize linguistic diversity in language education and research.

This study examined and compared language ideologies and attitudes among dual language program (Spanish-English) graduates regarding their use of Spanish and perceptions of their bilingual education experience through surveys and semi-structured interviews. Drawing from the theory of ideology, data was analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Surveys were divided into two sections and contained 30 Likert-style items related to participants’ attitudes regarding Spanish, English, bilingualism and their experiences in the dual language program. Interviews, which were 40-60 minutes in length, were coded in two cycles based on general themes related to dual language graduates’ experiences in the dual language program and language attitudes and ideologies. Patterns among codes were identified, analyzed and compared with quantitative findings to create major themes. Findings reveal that graduates generally consider themselves bilingual and had both positive and negative experiences in the program. Additionally, dual language graduates exhibit conflicting attitudes and ideologies regarding monolingualism, standardization and the value of bilingualism. Finally, results indicate a difference in the experiences of the Latinx and non-Latinx students, which have implications regarding the equity of the dual language program. Findings from this study give insight into the experiences of dual language graduates, an area that has received little attention, and provides insight into the issues regarding educational and attitudinal outcomes in bilingual contexts, specifically in dual language programs. Pedagogical implications are discussed as related to the most salient themes identified in this research.

As critical approaches to Heritage Language (HL) instruction are increasingly more widespread, it is now more pertinent than ever to conduct research on Spanish linguistic variation that reveals systematicity and refutes hegemonic notions of ‘incorrectness’. This variationist study examines the use and distribution of the Preterite and Imperfect past tenses in Spanish. The study analyzes 30 bilingual English Spanish speakers who reside in southern and central Arizona by using sociolinguistic interviews from two Arizona corpora. The data provided by these interviews was analyzed using the Rbrul and Rstudio software. The linguistic factors analyzed were aspectual interpretation, clause type, grammatical person and number, verb lemma and verb frequency. By the same token, the extralinguistic factors analyzed were generation, language dominance, age and sex. The findings in this study reveal distribution of the Preterite and Imperfect in the data revealed that both forms were used at nearly equal rates with the Preterite (53.7%) being used slightly more than the Imperfect (46.3%). The results of the quantitative analysis revealed that in order of magnitude, aspectual function, generation, and frequency of the verb were the predictors that favored the Preterite and the Imperfect. While the majority of Preterite and Imperfect uses adhered to the canonical uses of these forms, an interaction between generation and aspectual function showed significance when the Preterite is used with a habitual aspectual function by both the second and third generation. These results show that the Preterite and Imperfect carry a degree of variation that goes beyond the traditional understandings of these forms. Lastly, the results of this study emphasize the need for additional research that aids in the understanding of the characteristics of US Spanish to dispel misconceptions about the Spanish spoken in the U.S by all, especially HL speakers. It is only by understanding the evolution of the Spanish in the US that researchers and instructors can contribute to a critical language awareness in HL instruction that revindicates their ways of speaking.

This study explores the topic of Discourse Markers from an Interdisciplinary perspective. Applying the frameworks of Speech Act Theory, Syntax, Conversation Analysis, and Discourse Analysis, to empirical data, it answers the following important questions. What specific types of Speech Actions are performed in everyday Utterances? What Syntactic Mood & Clause Type is used to perform the various Speech Actions? What Discourse Markers occur in the Left-Periphery of the Clause? What Meaning-Functions do Discourse Markers perform? What interactions do Discourse Markers have with the various types of Speech Actions and with the Clause Type with which they are expressed? The results of this study contributed valuable insights to each of the aforementioned fields individually, as well as to the study of human language in general. Among these contributions are the following: Searle’s Taxonomy of Speech Acts was refined by dividing Representatives into Informing and Opinionating and Directives were divided into Commanding and Inquiring. The frequencies of the various Speech Acts relative to each other was identified. Furthermore, 79 distinct and specific Speech Actions were identified. The Speech Act type as well as the Clause Types with which they are expressed were identified. Among the many insights with respect to the interactions between the Speech Action Types and the Clause types with which they are expressed were each of the major Clause Types perform many different Speech Actions that are in addition to those normally attributed to them. Many of the particular Speech Acts are performed via various of the different Clause Types. The Indicative Clause type has the ability to perform most, if not all of the Speech Actions performed by all of the other Clause types. The 200 most frequently-occurring Left-Periphery Elements were identified and observations regarding their Word Class and the Meaning-Functions they perform were identified. The Meaning-Functions of the 10 most frequently-occurring Discourse Markers were identified and defined. The interactions between these Discourse Markers and the Speech Actions to which they attach as well as the Clause Types with which they are expressed were identified, thus documenting empirically that Discourse Markers are intricately connected to the Clause.

Subject Pronoun Expression (SPE) has been extensively studied in monolingual and bilingual varieties of Spanish using the variationist framework. The goal of these studies has been to examine the linguistic and extra-linguistic factors that condition the expression and the omission of personal subject pronouns. Nonetheless, to date, there is no study of SPE in the Spanish of Equatorial Guinea, the only African country where it is an official language, and the single country where Spanish is exclusively a second language (L2). This dissertation fills this gap in the literature by accounting for SPE in Equatoguinean Spanish.

The research questions guiding this study concern the rates of Subject Pronoun Expression, its conditioning factors, and universal accounts of L2 acquisition, in particular, the Interface Hypothesis (IH). The study had 30 participants from Malabo, who took part in sociolinguistic interviews. These interviews were transcribed and analyzed using the mixed effects software Rbrul. Along the lines of the literature reviewed, the linguistic factor groups studied were grammatical person and number, reference, reflexivity, verb type, and ambiguity. By the same token, the extra linguistic factors analyzed were age, sex, education, native language (L1), and speaker as a random factor.

The results indicate that the Equatoguinean variety of Spanish has one of the lowest pronoun rates (19.1%), a finding that goes against the predictions of the IH. With regard to the linguistic factor groups that condition Subject Pronoun Expression, Equatoguinean Spanish shows an unorthodox ranking: grammatical person and number, ambiguity, verb class, and reference. Interestingly, the low ranking of reference gives support to the IH, which argues that L2 speakers have problems with constraints like the switch of the reference in subjects because it integrates discourse and pragmatic interfaces. The only significant extra-linguistic factor was education, whereas speakers’ L1 exerted no effect on SPE. Individual speaker was a significant random factor group, indicating that variation is great even in speakers with comparable education.

In sum, this study of a unique speech community provides new information on SPE of L2 Spanish. It also contributes to the fields of language contact, language variation, and second language acquisition.

The present study aims to gain deeper insights into language attitudes in the educational context while contributing to the emerging field of advanced mixed, second language and heritage language (HL) courses. Considering that the majority of heritage language learners (HLLs) and second language learners (L2s) in the United States (US) are enrolled in mixed classrooms (Beaudrie, 2012; Carreira, 2016a, 2016b), the study of language attitudes regarding monolingual varieties, bilingual varieties, and L2 varieties is crucial to inform pedagogical best practices that serve both types of learners. Additionally, by analyzing the language attitudes of both types of students toward these three Spanish language varieties, this study demonstrates the importance of incorporating linguistic variation into the classroom to address the linguistic hierarchies that exist in such a context. Thus, the results are relevant to the fields of sociolinguistics, L2 and HL pedagogy.

The study employs matched-guise tasks at two points during the semester, as well as end-term semi-structured interviews. As different linguistic components of a language trigger different attitudes, the findings show that native-like phonetic and phonological features of Spanish speakers afford positive attitudes, as do a formal lexicon and academic register. However, morphosyntactic features do not have any effect on forming an individual’s language attitudes.

To illustrate, the results of the matched-guise tasks show that native and HL varieties were generally evaluated positively, while L2 varieties were evaluated negatively. Interviews revealed native-like accent and pronunciation as the detrimental cause of negative attitudes toward the L2 variety. In contrast to the phonetic/phonological evaluations made by participants, both HLLs and L2s did agree that L2s speak a “proper” and “professional” Spanish. Furthermore, heritage Spanish was described as the “least formal” and “incorrect” Spanish variety in comparison to the L2 variety due to dominant stereotypes and ideologies and the incorporation of lexical characteristics of US Spanish.

Based on these findings, this study has the potential to make an invaluable contribution to understanding how language attitudes and instructional practices in the classroom context intersect with a social justice movement to improve mixed courses in a social, critical, and conscious way.

Spanish is a pluricentric language spoken within the linguistic continuum with high variation. The understanding of the attitudes towards such variation with regard to its geography (diatopic variation) is key to capacitate its students and speakers as a foreign language to successfully communicate in changing and emerging transnational contexts. The research of linguistic attitudes is a topic that has traditionally been approached in Western contexts, with scholars requiring alternative research environments to provide a richer picture of this construct. China, given its steady growth in the number of Spanish as a foreign language students and its current role in the global, transnational arena, becomes a research environment where the study of linguistic attitudes gain even more relevance. Based on this reality, this study seeks to unveil the attitudes towards diatopic variation and towards the five most widely spoken diatopic varieties of Spanish (i.e., Mexico, Argentina, the United States, Spain, and Colombia) in Chinese students of initial level (n = 95) and their professors (n = 16). In doing so, this study collected data through (1) empirically validated questionnaires on attitudes towards diatopic variation, (2) perceptual dialectology tasks and (3) interviews.

The main findings of this research showed the presence of positive attitudes towards diatopic variation by students and teachers. Such attitudes can be explained in light of their previous sociolinguistic knowledge and their previous experience as learners of a second pluricentric language. Regarding the attitudes toward the most spoken varieties, this study showed that the variety associated with Spain was the best known by the observed students and teachers, and received the categorization of prestige variety by students. Teachers did not show affective or status assessments toward any of the diatopic varieties. Further analysis of these results, based on ethnolinguistic vitality , and the levels of familiarity of students/teachers with each variety, suggests that teaching expansive proposals from initial levels can provide a more inclusive view of the diatopic variation of the Spanish language in class.