SPAN 313 - Intro to Spanish Linguistics
Intro to Spanish Linguistics: Presents the principal branches of linguistic study, as it pertains to Spanish: the sound system (phonetics and phonology), the structure of words (morphology), and the structure of sentences (syntax). Additionally, attention is paid to bilingualism, especially Spanish in the US, and how Spanish is spoken/written differently by various social groups (sociolinguistics) and in various Spanish-speaking countries (dialectology). Taught in Spanish.
Course Reflective Narratives
I took SPAN 313 my second semester here at CSU Monterey Bay with Dr. Rebecca Pozzi as my professor. This course was my first linguistics class and I continued building upon my understanding of the functions and structures of the Spanish language. This course allowed me to be introduced to certain linguistic elements that were too abstract for me to understand. Understanding different fields of linguistics helped me to organize my knowledge of Spanish in the analysis of its structure. Phonetics and linguistic variation/discrimination were especially interesting to me where the former showed the physical mechanics of producing sound in the language. The latter broadened my mindset to see how much diversity there is in language and how some variations are heavily stigmatized as they do not fit what is considered standard or the variation with prestige. The course was taught in Spanish which required me to compose myself through verbal and written communication such as in my final project El dialecto de Yucatán which fulfilled MLO 1. This was an interesting project where I investigated a variety of Spanish located in the state of Yucatán, México. It was during this class that I began to realize a growing interest in the field of linguistics. Viewing the variation of the Spanish language allowed me to appreciate differences in speech and realize that there is not one perfect form of Spanish. The sociological phenomenon that happens is that one variety can be given prestige while another is stigmatized due to sociopolitical, racial, or class reasons among other things. Vocabulary is something I want to continue developing as linguistics has a lot of terms that need to be learned. Classifications of phonetics or understanding traits of pragmatics among others are complex aspects of linguistics that I hope to understand more through practice and future study.