Prospectus

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A theoretical research seminar on Language Variation and Language Change in Latin America

Course
2024-2025

Admission requirements

This course is available for students of the MA Latin American Studies program. It is also open as an elective for students from different MA programmes and exchange students with a background in Linguistics/Language Variation and Language Change. Classes are taught in English, but students must have reading profiency in either Spanish or Portuguese to be able to read the course literature.

Description

This course is an introduction to the study of variation in Spanish and Portuguese morphosyntax. Main theoretical and methodological issues will be discussed based on examples drawn from variation studies. Our main focus will be the observation, description, and explanation of morphosyntactic variation and change across time and space in Latin America. Readings, discussions, and practical sessions will center on theoretical issues and methods of data collection (e.g. corpora, elicitation techniques and experimental methodologies).

Course objectives

Students will acquire knowledge of what the principal axes of syntactic variation in Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese are, considering the following points:

a. The contribution of different tools (databases, atlases, questionnaires, corpora, internet, descriptive manuals, etc.) to the study of morphosyntactic variation in Spanish and Portuguese.
b. Different theoretical approaches to the study of linguistic variation.
c. The weight of language contact to establish the boundaries between them and other linguistic variables.
d. The effect of non-linguistic factors (social, cultural, legal, etc.) in the study of language variation.

Timetable

The timetables are available through My Timetable.

Mode of instruction

Seminar

Assessment method

Weekly response papers (25%); final research paper (50%), and oral presentation (25%).
The final mark for the course is established by determining the weighted average

Weighing

The final mark for the course is established by determining the weighted average. To pass the course, the weighted average of the partial grades must be 6.0 or higher.

Resit

If the end grade is insufficient (lower than a 6.0), there is a possibility of retaking the full 50% of the final paper. No resit for the weekly response papers and oral presentation is possible.
Please note that if the Resit Paper grade is lower than 6.0, you will not pass the course, regardless of the weekly response papers and oral presentation grades.

Inspection and feedback

How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.

Reading list

To be announced on Brightspace.

Registration

Enrolment through My Studymap is mandatory.

General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.

Registration À la carte education, Contract teaching and Exchange

Information for those interested in taking this course in context of À la carte education (without taking examinations), eg. about costs, registration and conditions.

Information for those interested in taking this course in context of Contract teaching (with taking examinations), eg. about costs, registration and conditions.

For the registration of exchange student,s contact Humanities International Office.

Contact

Remarks

Students are expected to come to class prepared and ready to participate in class discussion. All readings assigned for the week must be done prior to class. Every student is expected to contribute to class discussion through oral questions and comments every class. In order to facilitate class discussion, students will write a response to the weekly readings.

A mimimum of 80% attendance is mandatory.

A detailed class syllabus will be provided on the first day of class.