20063309

Teaching Spanish Dialectology with Digital Audio TechnologyAuthor(s): Lynn PearsonSource: Hispania, Vol. 89, No. 2 (May, 2006), pp. 323-330Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and PortugueseStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20063309 .

Accessed: 23/05/2013 18:02

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserveand extend access to Hispania.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 157.181.151.146 on Thu, 23 May 2013 18:02:59 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aatsp

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20063309?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Rendszergazda

Typewritten text

Teaching Spanish Dialectology with Digital Audio with digital

Media/Computers

Teaching Spanish Dialectology with

Digital Audio Technology Lynn Pearson

Bowling Green State University

Abstract: This article describes course materials and student projects to teach Spanish dialectology, which

employ digital audio technology. The digital audio technology utilized includes: digital audio recorders and a

computer equipped with software for editing audio files and creating audio CDs. By using digital audio

technology, a corpus of dialect samples can be created for use in and outside of class to enhance student learning about dialectal features and linguistic concepts. The samples are the basis of class activities to teach about

various Spanish dialects and prepare students to conduct their own linguistic research. Students interview native

speakers and record and analyze their own samples for class presentations and papers. The benefits and

challenges of using digital audio technology are outlined. The article also suggests other applications for digital audio technology in language and culture courses.

Key Words: dialectology, digital audio, linguistics, pedagogy, Spanish dialects, technology

Introduction

Instructors teaching about Spanish dialects have a number of resources that describe the

linguistic characteristics of different varieties (Barrutia and Schwegler 1994; Cotton and

Sharp 1988; Hammond 200 l;Lipski 1994;Mar-Molinero 1997; Pountain 2001,2003; Stewart

1999; Teschner, 2000). Three of these texts (Cotton and Sharp 1988; Hammond 2001; Teschner

2000) provide recordings to illustrate the features of Spanish dialects to aid students to under

stand key phonological variables. In many smaller university programs, course offerings in

linguistics are limited and information about dialectology is presented as a unit in introductory or

applied linguistics courses. Students in these courses may not have previous knowledge of

phonetics and phonology to help them to understand the notations in the International

Phonetics Alphabet (IPA). Also, the time allotted to learning about Spanish dialects may not

permit instruction for transcribing speech samples in IPA. To respond to these problems, this

article proposes class activities to teach about dialectal variation in Spanish employing digital audio technology?specifically digital audio recorders and software to edit audio files, to create

a small corpus of Spanish dialect samples for use in and outside of class. In addition, the digital audio technology can be utilized by the students to collect their own dialect samples for analysis and comparison with text resources. The addition of the digital audio technology to teach

Spanish dialectology enhances students' learning by making class work more experiential and

learner-centered.

Digital Audio Technology

The digital audio technology employed to compile the corpus includes digital audio

recorders and a Macintosh I-Book computer equipped with software for editing audio files and

creating CD-ROMs. Researchers from linguistics and other fields have recognized the benefits of

using digital recordings because of their ease of storage and distribution (Bunta, Ingram, and

Ingram 2002; Jenkins 2004; Vann, 2003). The digital audio recorders used to record the speech

Pearson, Lynn

"Teaching Spanish Dialectology with Digital Audio Technology"

Hispania 89.2 (2006): 323-330



324 Hispania 89 May 2006

samples are MiniDisc recorders (e.g., Sharp MD-DR77) with an external microphone. MiniDisc recorders store audio data on 64 mm diskettes, which record up to 74 or 80 minutes. The recorders are portable and deliver higher-quality recordings necessary to do phonological analysis. The audio data recorded on the diskettes are transferred from the MiniDisc recorder to a computer

with a USB audio adapter (e.g., Griffin Technology iMic). This adaptor ensures that the audio

signal will be separated in the electronic noise from the rest of the computer. The transfer of the audio data is done in real time; however, the recordings for this project are fairly short. (See

Appendix A for digital audio technology used by the author) The audio input from the MiniDisc recorder is fed into a sound-editing program on a

computer. Various programs for editing sound are available for purchase or as free shareware

downloaded from the Internet (see Appendix B). With the sound-editing program, the audio data

from the diskettes can be edited for length, loudness, etc. The programs create sound files in the WAV or AIF formats, which can be transferred to the Macintosh iTunes software. After loading

the file into iTunes, sound files are easily burned to CD-ROMs for distribution to class

participants.

Corpus of Spanish Dialect Samples

With the digital audio recorders and a sound-editing program, instructors can compile a

small corpus of comparable samples in order to introduce students to dialectal variation in

Spanish. While other sources for authentic speech samples are found in films and television, or

radio broadcasts, it may be difficult to control for content and time to showcase certain dialectal

characteristics. In addition, copyright limitations preclude the use of longer samples. Instead,

using digital audio technology, instructors can create a corpus of speech samples from native

speakers of Spanish responding to questions or situations. Two possible speaking tasks are a

request for directions and a description of the informant's home country. The samples collected

from these tasks contain similar grammatical and lexical items for students to analyze the features

of different dialects. The directions task requires speech directed to a friend and elicits verb forms

of the informal second-person pronoun (t?, vos). Most universities have international students and professors from various regions of the

Spanish-speaking world. To create my corpus, I requested the help of Spanish-speaking students and professors at my university representing five regional varieties of Latin America

(Cotton and Sharp 1988): 1) Mexico, Central America, and Southwestern U.S.; 2) the Caribbean; 3) the Andean region; 4) Chile; and 5) the Rio Plata. One drawback is that some Spanish samples show influence from contact with other dialects or languages. However, most recordings made

for the original corpus reflected the norms for various regional dialects as documented in

aforementioned texts on Spanish dialectology. Below is a sample response to the directions task

from an Argentine speaker:

Question #1 (directions task): Un amigo/a no conoce su ciudad natal y necesita ir a alg?n lugar. D?le direcciones de c?mo se llega a este

lugar. Por ejemplo, su amigo/a le pregunta: "?C?mo se llega a_?" Hable como si estuviera habl?ndole a

su amigo.

Sample answer:

Bueno si necesitas llegar hasta la universidad de Buenos Aires de tu casa, tenes que caminar dos

cuadras hacia la derecha saliendo de aqu? de tu edificio por la calle Uriburu hasta llegar a la Calle Las Aceras

En la calle Las Aceras tienes que doblar a la izquierda y caminar cuatro cuadras hasta la Calle Porred?n y

luego en Porred?n tienes que doblar a la derecha y caminar aproximadamente cinco cuadras vas a ver la

universidad edificio de all? s?lo tienes que cruzar un puente y va a ser muy f?cil de verlo donde vas a estar.

In the sample, we observe the speaker's use of the voseo forms characteristic of the Argen tine dialect in boldface. Because the speaker has spent a number of years in the U.S., he has had



Digital Audio 325 contact with speakers from non-voseo dialects. In the sample, the use of the tuteo forms in italics shows the influence of other dialects of Spanish that do not use vos. However, the speaker's realization of specific phonological variables reflects the features of the Argentinean dialect

(Lipski 1994), such as the pronunciation of I si in final position (e.g., hasta [4ahta], dos [doh]) and the graphemes // and y as [f] (e.g., calle ['ka Je]. Depending on the location, instructors may also have access to Spanish speakers in the community for dialect samples. In addition, recordings can be made during visits to Spanish-speaking countries.

Class Activities with the Spanish Dialect Samples

Once the recordings have been made and edited, the instructor can create an audio CD of

Spanish dialect samples for use in class and at home by the students. The digital audio

recordings are the basis of class activities to teach Spanish dialectal features. The instructor

provides a transcription for each recording in standard Spanish orthography. From course

readings on Spanish dialects, students will be familiar with contexts for dialectal variation in (e.g., syllable and word-final Is/) (see complete list in Appendix C). During class, students listen to the

samples of a particular dialect and observe the realizations of specific sounds by transcribing the

speech of the native speaker. If students have not been trained to use the IP A, they can learn the

symbols of key sounds used to distinguish and classify Spanish dialects (e.g., IKI, /j/, /$/, ///) which can represent // and/or v in various dialects. Besides the phonological variation, the students compare morphological, syntactic and lexical features in the samples. These class activities allow students to analyze spoken Spanish and continually review information in the course texts by listening to the samples of native speakers. Also, the activities prepare students to collect and analyze their own samples for a project described in the next section.

Student Project Using Digital Audio Technology

After working with dialect samples in class, students begin a project for which they conduct their own linguistic research. The components of the project include interviewing a native

speaker of Spanish and analyzing the data sample following the guidelines from class activities. For example, they examine the speech for similarities or differences with information about the

speaker's dialect from course materials and lectures. In addition, the students can identify features in the interviewee's speech that show influence from contacts with other dialects of

Spanish and other languages, stylistic variation, or social characteristics (Cotton and Sharp 1988; Lipski 1994; Scott 2002; Silva-Corval?n 2001). After completing the project, the students share their findings in class presentations and course papers.

The materials needed for the student project include the MiniDisc recorders, minidisks, CD

ROMs, and a dialect questionnaire. Before beginning the project, a training session is necessary to teach the students how to use the recorders. Also, this session is an excellent opportunity to address issues such as research ethics and collecting data from human subjects (Milroy and

Gordon 2003; Silva-Corval?n 2001). Instructors will need to inform students about obtaining consent from their interviewees to be recorded and have their speech used in class. During the

training session, students can practice interviewing each other using the recorders and the dialect questionnaire to familiarize themselves with the equipment and posing questions to their informants.

The interviews with the Spanish native speakers are conducted using a dialect question naire. Cotton and Sharp (1988) provide some examples of questionnaires for eliciting lexical items in Spanish-speaking and bilingual contexts. Instructors can also consult other questionnaires,

which have been used in Hispanic dialectology to create interview questions (e.g., Alvar and

Quilis 1984). The questionnaire used in my class was adapted from Cotton and Sharp (see Appendix D). The topics include the following: 1) background information about the speaker (origin, formal education level, languages spoken, time in the U.S.); 2) lexical questions (e.g.,




vocabulary for home items, food, personal characteristics, clothing, weather phenomena, etc.); 3) use of second-person pronouns (e.g., t?, vos, usted) to address different hearers; and 4) two

speaking tasks (the same tasks used to create the dialect samples corpus: giving directions and

describing their home country). Students are also invited to add their own questions to the lexical

section and the speaking tasks. Many students have encountered lexical differences across

Spanish dialects (e.g., bus > autob?s, cami?n, guagua, colectivo, etc.) in their studies and

experiences in immersion environments. By posing their own questions about certain words,

they can collect additional information about lexical variation in Spanish dialects. The type of

language elicited in the dialect interview consists of mostly short answers and brief elaborations

for the lexical questions. The speaking tasks are open-ended, allowing for a speech sample that is

more spontaneous. The questions about the interviewee's country or childhood may elicit more

natural speech in response.

The students report their analysis of the data in a paper and a class presentation. The sec

tions of the paper include a description of the informant based on the background questions, an

overview of the speaker's dialect from course readings and lectures, and an analysis of the

phonological, morphological, syntactic and lexical features of the informant's speech and tran

scriptions of the informants' answers to the dialect questionnaire (see Appendix E for a sample

outline). For the presentation, the students prepare a handout with a sample transcription and a

summary of the findings from their linguistic analysis. In class, they play a portion of their dialect

sample and discuss the results of their analysis with their classmates. Both assignments allow

students to apply the linguistic concepts and analysis skills to present their research.

Benefits and Challenges of Using Digital Audio Technology

The integration of digital audio technology significantly changes the nature of the

instruction and learning in linguistic courses. Instead of a teacher-centered format with a primary

emphasis on lectures and texts, the addition of digital audio technology allows learning to be

more experiential and learner-centered. Readings about Spanish dialects become less abstract

with analysis of actual speech. Students can make immediate connections to the descriptions of

various Spanish dialects and the linguistic content of samples. The corpus described above

presents easily comparable samples, which are accessible to learners at home and in class with

individual CD-ROMs. In addition, the class activities of sample analysis prepare students to

become linguistic researchers and collect their own data. The project also provides for oppor tunities for learners to teach other learners through the presentations about their research and

analysis. Another by-product of the students' projects is an expanding corpus of dialect samples available for future classes each time the assignment is completed.

Despite these benefits, the use of digital technology also poses some problems. Many students will be apprehensive about working with new technology and doing linguistic analyses. The first class activity to analyze the dialect samples is usually very difficult and students require direction to find and document the features of the speaker's dialect. Another challenge for

students may be locating informants and instructors may have to facilitate connections with

native Spanish speakers on campus and in the community. Surprisingly, some undergraduates in

my courses, who were Spanish majors with good levels of proficiency, revealed that they did not

know any Spanish native speakers except their professors. After the completion of the project, some of these students developed friendships with their informants, who continued to provide access to Spanish outside of formal learning contexts.

Another drawback of using the digital audio technology as described here is the investment

of time and money to create the corpus and provide materials for the student projects. In my case,

my university sponsors grants for technology to create course content and materials, which

funded the purchase of the digital audio recorders, minidiskettes, CD-ROMs and the laptop

computer with software. The compiling of the initial corpus also required a lot of time to interview

native speakers, edit the recordings, and transcribe the samples. The student-project recordings



Digital Audio 327

necessitated editing and burning to CDs, which can be time-consuming for larger classes. The

digital audio files can also be posted on the Internet, using course software such as Blackboard

or WebCT to eliminate the step of making CDs for the students. Although implementing the

digital audio technology presents some challenges, it provides content and activities that

significantly enhance students' learning about Spanish dialects and linguistic concepts.

Other Applications of Digital Audio Technology

Digital audio technology offers many potential uses for language and culture classes at the

high school and college levels. For lower-level classes, instructors can create listening tasks with

recordings of native speakers, who talk about topics that feature vocabulary and grammar taught in the courses. In conversation courses, learners can make digital recordings of various oral tasks

and compile a portfolio of recordings for analysis and charting progress in their speaking competence. Stokes (2004) proposes an interview task with a native speaker as a data sample for

learning sounds and intonation patterns in Spanish phonetics and phonology courses. Similarly, Keim (1998) provides Spanish digital audio samples from various sources for phonetic tran

scriptions. Like the dialect interviews described in this article, the answers from the native

speakers are easily recorded and accessed with digital audio technology. Digital recordings can

also be used for culture and service-learning courses to collect interviews or oral histories from

community members, visiting scholars, fellow students, etc. For methodology courses, teacher

candidates can analyze a corpus of samples from language learners at different levels in order to

better understand the patterns of development in a second language.

Conclusion

This article has detailed how digital audio technology can be implemented in linguistics courses to facilitate learning about Spanish dialectology. By using digital audio technology,

materials and activities can be created to teach about Spanish dialects to students with little or no

background in linguistics. However, the activities can be modified for more advanced students to

require full transcriptions using the IPA of more varied and longer samples. The activities facilitate experiential learning and concepts from resources on Spanish dialectology are rein forced through class activities and student projects. Along with these benefits, instructors who

integrate digital audio technology need to consider various issues such as students' attitudes, time, financial resources, and availability of Spanish native speakers. Digital audio technology also offers possible applications in other types of courses in foreign languages and cultures.

WORKS CITED

Alvar, Manuel, and Antonio Quilis. (1984). Atlas ling??stico de Hispanoam?rica: Cuestionario. Madrid: Instituto de Cooperaci?n Iberoamericana.

Barrutia, Richard and Armin Schwegler. (1994). Fon?tica y fonolog?a espa?olas: Teor?a y pr?ctica. 2nd ed. New York: Wiley.

Bunta, Farenc, Kelly Ingram, and David Ingram. (2003). "Bridging the Digital Divide: Aspects of Computerized Data Collection and Analysis for Language Professionals." Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 17.3: 217? 40.

Cotton, Elenore G., and John M. Sharp. (1988). Spanish in the Americas. Washington, DC: Georgetown UP.

Hammond, Robert. (2001). The Sounds of Spanish: Analysis and Application (with Special Reference to Ameri can English). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla.

Jenkins, Jennifer. (2004). "Research in Teaching Pronunciation and Intonation." Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24.1: 109-25.

Keim, Orlando. (1998). "Transcripts for Phonetic Transcriptions: Spanish." 2 Mar. 2005. <http://www.laits.

utexas.edu/~orkelm/phonetic/transcript.html>

Lipski, John. (1994). Latin American Spanish. London/New York: Longman. Mar-Molinero, Clare. (1997). The Spanish-Speaking World: A Practical Introduction to Sociolinguistic Issues.

London: Routledge.




AppendixA

Digital Audio Technology (sources used by the author)

Minidisc recorders and supplies <http://www.minidisco.com>.

Microphones <http://www.soundprofessionals.com>. USB audio adaptor iMic <http://www.griffintechnology.com/>.

AppendixB Audio Editing Software

Audacity X 1.2.3 (opensource audio editor) <http://audacity.sourceforge.net/>.

Digital Language Research Laboratory -

University of Georgia (lists of audio editors)

<http://www.uga.edu/dlrl/index.html>. Version Tracker (shareware) <http://www.versiontracker.com>.

[see sound editors Amadeus II 3.7.2, Cacophony 1.3.1, Jasmine 1.8.8]

AppendixC

Phonological Features for Spanish Dialects

1. s final: haces ['ases]; aspiraci?n ['aseh]; omisi?n ['ase] 2. llyy:

?Dialecto lle?sta // IKI vs. y l\l ?Dialecto ye?sta 11 =

y /j/ ?Dialecto e?sta o se?sta 11 - y l^l or /J7

3. -n final: son [son]; velarizaci?n [sorj]; omisi?n [so] 4. Alternancia de /r/ y /// en posici?n final de s?laba: puerto [pw?lto] vs. bolsillo /bor'si ?o/ 5. /di en posici?n intervoc?lica: pescado [pesk'a?o]; omisi?n [pesk'ao] 6. rr y r-\ vibrante m?ltiple (varias o muchas vibraciones) /r/; vibrante simple (una sola vibraci?n /?7; otras

pronunciaciones (fricativa (muy relajada), velar o uvular, etc.) 7- ], ge> gi (grados diferentes de fricci?n): jota peninsular /x/ (mucha fricci?n) vs. /xh/ (menos fricci?n) vs.

variante relajada /h/ (como h en ingl?s)

AppendixD Dialect Questionnaire (adapted from Cotton and Sharp (1988))

I. Datos del/de la informante Nombre (seud?nimo): Sexo:

1. Pa?s: ?De d?nde es usted?

2. Ciudad/regi?n: ?De qu? ciudad es usted?

3. Edad: ?Cu?ntos a?os tiene usted?

4. Educaci?n formal: ?Cu?l fue el grado m?s alto de la escuela que usted termin??

Primaria _ Secundaria (y/o preparatoria) _ Universidad _

5. Conocimiento de lenguas: ?Habla usted otra lengua adem?s del espa?ol?

Monolingue _Biling?e _ (la otra lengua _) Sabe varias lenguas _ (ind?quese cu?les son _)

Milroy, Lesley, and Matthew Gordon. (2003). Sociolinguistics: Method and Interpretation. Oxford: Blackwell.

Pountain, Christopher. (2001). A History of the Spanish Language through Texts. London: Routledge. ?. (2003). Exploring the Spanish Language. London: Arnold.

Scott, Janny. (2002). "In Simple Pronouns, Clues to Shifting Latino Identity." New York Times 5 Dec, late ed.:

B4.

Silva-Corval?n, Carmen. (2001). Socioling??stica y pragm?tica del espa?ol. Washington, DC: Georgetown UP.

Stewart, Miranda. (1999). The Spanish Language Today. London: Routledge.

Stokes, Jeffery D. (2004). "Fostering Communicative and Cultural Proficiency in the Spanish Phonetics and

Phonology Course." Hispania 87.3: 533-40.

Teschner, Richard V. (2000). Camino oral: Fon?tica, fonolog?a y pr?ctica de los sonidos del espa?ol. New

York: McGraw-Hill

Vann, Robert E. (2003). "Digitizing and Transcribing Field Recordings of Catalonian Spanish." EMELD

Workshop on Digitizing and Annotating Texts and Field Recordings. 2 Mar. 2005 <http://emeld.org/

workshop/2003/paper-Vann.html>.



Digital Audio 329

?Cu?nto tiempo lleva usted en los Estados Unidos?

II. Cuestionario del l?xico

(Student: Add three or four of your own questions to the lexical categories below).

1. La casa:

a. ?C?mo se llama el cuarto donde se re?ne la familia para platicar, leer, o ver televisi?n?

b. ?C?mo se llama el cuarto donde se duerme?

c. ?C?mo se llama la cosa que se usa para calentar la casa (o, si no la casa entera, un cuarto) durante

el tiempo fr?o?

d. ?C?mo se llama la pieza subterr?nea, entre los cimientos de la casa (cuando ?sta la tiene)? e. ?C?mo se llama una silla grande de brazos, con cojines? f. ?D?nde guarda usted la ropa?

2. La cocina:

a. ?C?mo se le llama a la comida que no se consume durante la comida?

b. ?En qu? se lavan los utensilios de cocina?

c. ?C?mo se llama el aparato donde se guarda la leche, la carne, etc.?

d. Cuando le ha gustado una comida, ?qu? expresi?n usa usted?

e. ?C?mo se llama lo que se come por la ma?ana, al levantarse?

f. ?C?mo se llama la comida que se toma por la noche?

g. ?C?mo se llama la comida ligera que se hace por la tarde antes de la cena?

3. Personas y rasgos personales:

?C?mo se refiere a la persona con quien est? casado/a?

?C?mo se refiere a la persona con quien se va a casar?

?C?mo se le llama a una persona que no es de su pa?s?

?C?mo se le dice a la persona por quien se trabaja?

?C?mo se le llama a una mujer que es todo lo contrario de fea?

?C?mo se le llama a un hombre que es todo lo contrario de feo?

?C?mo se refiere a una persona que es todo lo contrario de amable, que no se lleva bien con la gente?

?Qu? t?rmino(s) de cari?o se usan entre novios (o esposos)?

?C?mo se le llama a un ni?o que tiene menos de dos a?os?

?C?mo se le llama al empleado que sirve la mesa en los restaurantes?

Los tratamientos:

?A cu?l de los siguientes se le dirige de t? (o de vos), a cu?l de usted?

Personas T? /vos Usted

a. El padre a los hijos b. Los hijos al padre c. La madre a los hijos d. Los hijos a la madre

e. Entre hermanos

f. Entre amigos

g. El profesor/a a sus estudiantes

h. Entre los compa?eros de clase . El profesor/a y sus estudiantes

j. Los empleados a su jefe/a k. El jefe/la jefa a un empleado 1. Los ni?os a sus abuelos

m. Entre novios

n. A la persona que sirve la comida en un restaurante

Miscel?nea:

a. ?C?mo se le saluda a un amigo cuando no se refiere a la hora del d?a?

b. Cuando comienza a llover, y el agua es poca, ?c?mo se le dice?

c. ?En qu? se carga un estudiante sus libros y papeles, o un negociante sus papeles? d. ?C?mo se le refiere al empleo u oficio de una persona? e. ?C?mo se describe "mucho ruido"?

f. ?Qu? nombre se le da al acto de discutir precios?



330 Hispania 89 May 2006 III. Petici?n de direcciones

Choose one of the two situations depending on your participant's knowledge of the area.

1. Situaci?n A: Un/a amigo/a acaba de mudarse a (city where informant lives). Quiere ir a (nearby city)

pero no sabe c?mo llegar a la ciudad desde el campus. Su amigo/a le pregunta: ?C?mo se llega a (nearby city)?

2. Situaci?n B: Un amigo/a no conoce su ciudad natal y necesita ir a alg?n lugar. D?le direcciones de

c?mo se llega a este lugar. Su amigo/a le pregunta: ?C?mo se llega a_?

IV. Historias personales (speaking tasks to elicit extended talk): 1. Describa los aspectos de su pa?s que le gusten.

2. ?C?mo era la vida en su pa?s cuando era ni?o/a?

3. Student: Add your own question

Appendix E: Paper Guidelines

1. Introducci?n: Give overview of your project and the sections to follow.

2. Descripci?n del hablante nativo: Present your informant's background and tell about your relationship with him or her (?Es simplemente un conocido, o un buen amigo?) 3. Descripci?n del dialecto: Using the information from your informant (e.g., es de la Argentina), review the

readings and class activities on the varieties of Spanish spoken in that area. Summarize key features of the

phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon.

4. An?lisis fonol?gico: Summarize your findings about the informant's pronunciation. Look at the key contexts mentioned to examine the informant's phonological features and give examples from your

transcriptions of the lexical items, directions, and/or personal stories. Compare your findings with the

information available about the specific dialect (i.e., does the pronunciation of your informant reflect what is

written about Argentine Spanish?) 5. An?lisis morfosint?ctico: Examine your transcriptions of the directions and personal stories. Summarize

the informant's use of second-person pronouns (t? or vos) and the accompanying verbal morphology. Summarize the results from Section 4 of the Lexical Questionnaire with regard to the formal and informal

treatment and mention how it compares to the readings about the speaker's dialect, dialects with which you are

familiar or what you have been taught in your Spanish classes. For speakers who aspirate or elide the /s/, note any

compensatory use of t? (or vos). Record any other findings with regard to morphology or syntax (verb forms, sentence structure, etc.) 6. An?lisis l?xico: Taking 20 examples from Sections 1, 2, 3, and 5 each on the Lexical Questionnaire, briefly

provide your analysis of the informant's lexicon. For each word, you can note similarities or differences with

courses readings, etymology of the word (influence of other languages, archaism, etc.), plus similarities or

differences with other Spanish dialects that you are familiar with.

7. Conclusi?n: Summarize your findings. Indicate how the speech of your informant reflects the information

on his/her dialect from readings and class activities, external influences (e.g., length of time in the US), etc. Note

any difficulties that you had with the recording and analysis. 8. Ap?ndices: Present your transcriptions of the lexical data (Ap?ndice I), the directions task (Ap?ndice II), and the personal stories (Ap?ndice III).



20063309

Documents

digital audio recorders

audio cds

features of spanish

various spanish dialects

information technology

editing audio files

trusted digital archive

jstor terms