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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2024/2025

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures : European Languages and Cultures - Hispanic Studies

Undergraduate Course: Bilingualism and Language Contact in the Spanish-speaking World (ELCH10070)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Literatures, Languages and Cultures CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) AvailabilityAvailable to all students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryDo languages change when in contact with each other? Can they borrow their structure, or just words? How can new languages emerge from language contact situations? The central topic of this course is language contact, bilingualism and language change related to the Spanish-speaking world.
This course engages with a specific field of the study of Hispanic Linguistics, both from a theoretical and an applied perspective. The goal of this course is to provide students with a level of knowledge that enables them to make connections between the history and the structure of Spanish, as well as identify issues arising in bilingual societies and language contact contexts around the geographies of the Hispanic world.
Course description The course will engage with various linguistic concepts and sociolinguistic perspectives in order for students to understand the effects of direct contact between speakers of Spanish and other languages in a variety of historical and contemporary contexts, such as: colonization, slavery, migration, media, social networks, education systems, language policy, etc.
During this course students will be able to analyse and understand the situation of the bilingual societies of the Hispanic countries, bilingual speakers attitudes and ideology, the history of language contact from Latin to Spanglish, and the results of the contacts of Spanish with other languages in the Iberian Peninsula, Latin America and North America.
Students will also be provided with theoretical and applied groundings in topics related to the formation of a bilingual speaker and with an overview of current bilingual regions in the Spanish-speaking societies today. The outcomes of all these contacts are varied and include pidgin and creole formation, bilingualism, sociolects, language death, language attrition, code-switching, and borrowing.
This is a seminar-based course which will include analysis of primary source texts, accompanied by recommended secondary readings. Each week, a presentation will be provided by the tutor, followed by workshop-based discussions of the course readings and group activities for practicing linguistic analysis. Students' learning and understanding will be tested through coursework assignments and a final research essay.
This course will be delivered and assessed in Spanish.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesNone
High Demand Course? Yes
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2024/25, Not available to visiting students (SS1) Quota:  25
Course Start Semester 1
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 200 ( Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 196 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment) Coursework100%:
Assignment 1 (15%)
Assignment 2 (15%)
Corpus Analysis (20%)
Research Report (30%)
Roundtable discussion + course engagement (20%)
Feedback Formative feedback: mid-term individual report: 15 minutes interview with each student during mid semester.
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Understand the fundamental questions that drive modern linguistic research concerning bilingualism, language contact and language evolution in the Spanish language and the Spanish-Speaking World.
  2. Appraise a variety of source materials in the core areas of Spanish sociolinguistic theory, through the comprehension and analysis of Spanish in a wide range of linguistic contexts and discursive modes that are the product of a specific language contact situation.
  3. Produce written/oral assignments which develop arguments both critically and systematically with the use of relevant emphases, subsidiary points, and examples.
  4. Demonstrate communication, presentation and interaction skills across a wide range of media and circumstances, both formal and informal, for lay and specialised audiences.
  5. Consistently exercise autonomy and initiative, taking responsibility for the own and collaborative work and for a range of resources.
Reading List
Essential texts:
Moreno Cabrera, J. C. (2016). Multilingüismo y lenguas en contacto. Madrid: Síntesis.
An online reading list will be provided on Learn via the Library's Resource List service for students.

Recommended texts:
Appel, R. y P. Muysken, (1996). Bilingüismo y contacto de lenguas. Barcelona: Ariel.
Gómez Capuz, J. (2004). Préstamos del español: lengua y sociedad. Madrid: Arco.
Labov, W. (2001). Principles of Linguistic Change. Volume II: Social Factors. Oxford: Blackwell.
Lapesa, R. (1981). Historia de la lengua española. Madrid: Gredos.
Lipski, J. (1996). El español de América. Madrid: Cátedra.
López Morales, H. (1998). La aventura del español en América. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.
Medina López, J. (2004). El anglicismo en el español actual. Madrid: Arco.
Romaine, S. (1996). El lenguaje en la sociedad. Una introducción a la sociolingüística. Barcelona: Ariel.
Sala, M. (1998). Lenguas en contacto. Madrid: Gredos.
Silva-Corvalán, C. (2001). Sociolingüística y pragmática del español, Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.

Further Reading:
Cano, R. (Coord.) (2004). Historia de la lengua española. Barcelona: Ariel.
Chambers, J.K, P. Trudgill y N. Schilling-Estes (Eds.) (2001). The handbook of language variation and change. Malden: Blackwell.
Cotton, E. G. y J. M. Sharp, (1988). Spanish in the Americas. Washington, D. C.: Georgetown University Press.
Frago García, J. A. (1999): Historia del español de América. Textos y contextos. Madrid: Gredos.
López Morales, H. (1989). Sociolingüística. Madrid: Gredos.
López Morales, H. (2006). La globalización del léxico hispánico. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.
Lozano, Irene (2005). Lenguas en guerra. Madrid: Espasa.
Medina López, Javier (1997). Lenguas en contacto. Madrid: Arco.
Moreno Cabrera, J. C. (2014). El nacionalismo lingüístico. Una ideología destructiva. Barcelona: Península.
Moreno Fernández, F. (2005). Principios de sociolingüística y sociología del lenguaje. Barcelona: Ariel.
Moreno Fernández, F. (2014). La lengua española en su geografía. Manual de dialectología hispánica. Madrid: Arco Libros.
Real Academia Española y Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española, (2010). Diccionario de Americanismos. Madrid: Santillana.
Real Academia Española y Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española, (2009). Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa.
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills - Knowledge and understanding
- Practice: applied knowledge and understanding
- Generic cognitive skills
- Communications, ICT and numeracy skills
- Autonomy, accountability and working with others
KeywordsSpanish,Linguistics,Sociolinguistics,Bilingualism,Language Contact
Contacts
Course organiserDr Carlos Soler Montes
Tel: (0131 6)50 8969
Email: csolerm@exseed.ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Hope Hamilton
Tel: (0131 6)50 4167
Email: hope.hamilton@ed.ac.uk
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