This introductory course focuses on the role of language in the development of Mexican-American experiences in the Southwest. In particular, it focuses on the Mexican American language experience in the borderlands of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Some of the topics included in this course are: bilingualism, language attitudes, prestige, pride, and identity as well as other linguistic issues related to Spanish in the Southwest.

This course is an overview of the phonological system of Spanish and some of the analyses proposed by generative phonology. It covers alternative accounts of the same phenomenon with the goal of introducing the student to phonological analysis and to advances made by various theories in trying to account for the facts in various dialects of Spanish. Given the need for a strong foundation and mastery of concepts and tools of phonological theory, a significant part of the course will be devoted to introducing students to them. The second part of the course focuses on the application of those tools and concepts to the phonological system of Spanish on the basis of extant analyses. A sound knowledge of the descriptive facts about the phonology of Spanish is assumed.

The course offers guided instruction in the production of original research in Spanish phonology. The course assumes the possession of a solid knowledge of the current literature, of alternative frameworks, and the ability to read independently, understand and critically read phonological analyses.

This course serves as an introduction to the  main theories and practices in the field of Spanish as a Heritage Language (SHL) education. The course will begin by defining the field and SHL learners and will address issues related to the goals of SHL instruction and methods available for its teaching, sociolinguistics processes common in SHL students¿ Spanish and the sociopolitical position of Spanish in the US.  This course incorporates a practical component of classroom observation and lesson and activity planning to prepare future teachers for effective SHL teaching practices.

This course introduces students to innovations in syntactic theory that have been proposed within the last decade. Students will move beyond the introductory-text level and extend their knowledge of Principles & Parameters approaches to syntax through discussion of the goals of Minimalist Syntax and its hypotheses about design aspects of the human faculty of language. The course explores in detail how postulated minimalist primitives and operations interact to generate the (complex) structures that are characteristic of natural language sentences.

An introduction to the study of the sounds of Spanish from the perspective of experimental, instrumental phonetics. Additionally, this course assumes an “applied” perspective in that it will help students to explore issues pertaining to bilingualism, second language learning, dialectal variation and sound change.

How to acquire the skills necessary to carry out experimental research in language science: hypothesis testing, experimental design, quantitative data collection, quantitative analysis or statistics and, finally, interpretation of the implications of experimental results.

An introduction to the study of Hispanic sociolinguistics from a variationist perspective, whose main focus is to study the role of Spanish in its social context as the basis for understanding issues central to observation, description, and explanation of linguistic variation and change across time.

The main goal of this course is to introduce students to the interdisciplinary field of translation studies, the scholarly discipline that focuses on translation and interpreting research.   A secondary goal is to guide participants in the design of their own research projects in an area of translation studies. The course consists of a survey component that reviews the main areas of translation studies and various issues in translation and applied linguistics, and of a more practical section that applies the concepts reviewed to the design of research projects and/or curriculum.  Although there is a clear focus on those areas of translation studies relevant to applied linguistics and language acquisition, topics in literary and cultural studies will be reviewed (e.g. cultural studies, systems theory etc.).  Introduction to Translation Studies is aimed at students of linguistics, SLAT, literature, cultural studies, and related fields.